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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Trump Says He's Not Going to Bend on Tariffs as Markets Tank; GOP Lawmaker Confronted Over DOGE Cuts at Town Hall; Internal Democrat Fight Erupts Over Joining GOP to Avert Shutdown. Trump Now Directs Pentagon To Draw Military plans for the Panama Canal; MAGA Accuses Rep. Waters of Fomenting Violence. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired March 13, 2025 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR (voice over): Tonight, as markets fall deeper, so do the president's heels.
[22:00:03]
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: We're not going to bend.
PHILLIP: If you think eggs are expensive, wait until your next toast.
Plus, not so fast.
TRUMP: You're fired.
PHILLIP: A judge orders Trump and his DOGE posse to bring back tens of thousands over sham firings.
Also, this, as anger erupts tonight at another Republican town hall directed at the chaos.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're lying. I'm a veteran and you don't give a (BLEEP) about me.
PHILLIP: And he wants Canada, Greenland, and now Trump is ordering the Pentagon to draw up plans to seize the Panama Canal.
Live at the table, Scott Jennings, Adam Kinzinger, Xochitl Hinojosa, Pete Seat, and Roy Wood Jr.
Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here, they do.
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PHILLIP (on camera): Good evening. I'm Abby Philip in New York.
Let's get right to what America's talking about, nosedive. President Trump's tariff chaos plunging the stock market into correction territory, and he's apparently A okay with it.
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TRUMP: No.
REPORTER: You are not going to change your mind?
TRUMP: No, I'm not. Look, we've been ripped off for years, and we're not going to be ripped off anymore. No, I'm not going to bend at all, aluminum or steel, or cars. We're not going to bend.
We don't need their cars. We don't need their energy. We don't need their lumber. You have to run your own country. And to be honest with you, Canada only works as a state. We don't need anything they have.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: It's not just Canada though. Wall Street also hates his new tariff threat to slap 200 percent tariffs on European alcohol, from wine to champagne. But as much as Trump is shrugging off a tanking Dow, he used to consider that unforgivable for a president.
Here are just some ironic highlights. Quote, the stock market is plunging today. Welcome to Barack Obama's second term. Another quote, amazing Obama speaks, market goes down. But when Trump speaks, it goes up. The stock market is going down so much, Joe Biden may be the next Herbert Hoover. The markets are crashing. There was no reason for this. It's all self-inflicted. Another one, if you want your 401(k)s and stocks to disappear, vote for Joe Biden.
And on top of all of this backlash, more companies are now speaking out. Even Tesla is warning that tariffs could hurt them, this after Trump spent an afternoon practicing his Tesla sales pitch at the White House.
Joining us in our fifth seat at the table is CNN Global Economic Affairs Analyst Rana Foroohar. Rana, where to even begin? I'll put aside the 51st state thing for just one second. It is notable that in this unsigned letter, Tesla says reciprocal tariffs are going to hurt U.S. exporters like us, that if we are in a global market, we want to sell our cars elsewhere in the world, other countries are going to slap tariffs on us. So, the call is coming from within the house, so to speak.
RANA FOROOHAR, CNN GLOBAL ECONOMIC ANALYST: Absolutely. And Tesla's the company that's really been ailing anyway. It's got a lot of competition in China. There's a big Chinese automaker called BYD that's been eating its lunch in that market recently. About two weeks ago, the American Federation of Teachers, which controls about $4 trillion of pension fund money, retirement money for workers said, you know, we're concerned about Tesla's share price. It's going to be falling.
So, I think it's very interesting that Elon Musk is now sounding the alarm about what's going on.
PHILLIP: Sounding the alarm, but not putting his name on it, I should note. Look, the Dow is down pretty significantly, and a lot of it is not really because I think Wall Street thinks that the economy is all that on shaky ground. They just don't have a lot of confidence in what's going to come next.
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I think corrections are not unusual. I mean, during the bull market from 2009 to 2020, I think we even had five corrections during that period. We tend to have them every couple of years. It's not unusual. They tend to be cyclical. There are other signs, I think, in the economy that are helping real people. Wholesale inflation is down. Consumer inflation is down. Gas prices are decreasing. Mortgage rates coming down. Egg prices are $4.89 today. They were $6.55 since on January 21st, we've seen manufacturing jobs in the last jobs report go up, private investment announcements are going up, and a whole bunch of nutty climate regulations have been eviscerated by this administration.
So, the stock market is one measurement. It's not unusual for corrections to occur, but there's a whole bunch of green shoots that I think we could look to and say, maybe there's some optimism to be had.
PHILLIP: But isn't the premise of the Trump economy that businesses will have confidence to invest again and that they're going to feel that the government is trying to help them, not hurt them? I mean, they're literally saying that the opposite is happening right now.
ADAM KINZINGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. I mean, look, if you -- I mean, I talk to many Republican friends that are like, well, I don't like Donald Trump, but he's better for the economy.
[22:05:05]
And always there's a significant amount of Republicans that are saying that.
I actually think the administration's doing the best they can with the numbers that are coming out. I probably would be doing the same thing, kind of downplaying it, see where we actually go on this. But there's no doubt if the economy ends up going into recession territory, not just a stock market, you know, correction, it will be very hurtful to Donald Trump.
And, honestly, he has a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of tariffs. He really believes that the United States is going to get very rich from tariffs, and this is going to close the budget deficit. That's not the reality. Tariffs should be used if you're fighting real unfair trade practices but not against your friends, and not because you think you can raise money with it.
PHILLIP: Or because you want to annex a whole other country.
FOROOHAR: Yes, you think you're William McKinley. You know, not a good reason. I totally agree with that. You know, I have long thought that this was a great moment, could be still a great moment if Trump would get his act together and really articulate a coherent tariff strategy. Say, we're going to do X, Y, Z to China because it's been 20 years of mercantilist practices and we do need critical industries in the U.S. We need resiliency. We need to build ships. We need to build ships, lots of things like that. But to slap it on allies and adversaries at the same time, to not tell countries like Canada or Mexico clearly why you're doing this and fentanyl, frankly, that's not the reason this is happening.
PHILLIP: It is not the reason.
KINZINGER: It is not the reason.
(CROSSTALKS)
FOROOHAR: You don't understand what success looks like.
PHILLIP: Because he actually said it. He said it. He said it. He said it's actually because he thinks that Canada is better off as a part of the United States.
XOCHITL HINOJOSA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: There's a very small amount of fentanyl coming over the Canadian border. But what I will say just to build off of that because --
JENNINGS: How much is too much?
HINOJOSA: It's very, very, very small. What he should be doing is working with Mexico to try to get some of the cartel members and extradite them over to the United States instead of going after our allies all the time, which he constantly does.
Building off of what you said on having a clear strategy, he doesn't have a clear strategy, and the polling shows it. CNN has a poll that just came out this week. 39 percent approve of tariffs. 55 percent of the majority actually disapproves of his handling of the economy.
So, I think that what we're seeing right now, because he doesn't have a clear strategy, because he isn't telling the American people what a win looks like, because they're not feeling it, the American people disapprove of his current policy.
PHILLIP: 72 percent say that the economy is poor. That's a poll out today. And about half say the economy will be good in one year. The other half say it'll be bad. So, people are pretty evenly split about the trajectory of this economy.
PETE SEAT, FORMER WHITE HOUSE SPOKESMAN FOR PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Yes. Well, it's the paradox of Donald J. Trump and his presidencies. And a lot of presidents face this, but I think it is particularly acute with this president because of his orchestrated chaos that he likes to operate under.
Look at polling from his first term. He was -- his approval ratings were in the mid to high 30s, the low 40s consistently. Then what happened four years later? Americans look back fondly at his administration. It takes a little bit of time for things to bake for Americans to feel the positive effects of his policies. They're not necessarily going to feel them today or tomorrow. And I think that will happen yet again. So, four years later, they look back in fondness and they asked him to return to the White House.
So, in the moment, there might be a little chaos. There might be a little fear. There might be some anxiety. But we have to go through a transition period to, as the treasury secretary said, detox ourselves, purge ourselves from the harmful economic policies of the past administration.
PHILLIP: Since when is Trump saying that the stock market doesn't matter?
HINOJOSA: Yes.
PHILLIP: I mean, just, really --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Okay. I read the quotes, but like let's listen to him actually say it with his own mouth.
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TRUMP: If he gets in, you have the greatest depression in the history of this country. Your stocks will go to hell. Everyone thinks stocks, oh, it's rich people. Everybody owns stocks, your 401(k)s. Who has a 401(k) here? That's a lot of people.
If Harris wins this election, the result will be a Kamala economic crash.
When I win the election, we will immediately begin a brand new Trump economic boom. It'll be a boom. We're going to turn this country around so fast.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FOROOHAR: Oh, boy.
PHILLIP: Okay. So, I mean, which one is it? I mean, it cannot be both things.
FOROOHAR: Let's actually pull back and just look at history. Typically, just talking about the markets, typically, a big story in the markets doesn't usually last more than a decade, certainly not more than two decades. The big story of the last two decades has been U.S. stocks and U.S. tech stocks.
[22:10:00]
And I would be worried -- frankly, no matter who was in the White House, I would be worried that we were probably going to get a correction or at least a transition to other parts of the world having their day in the sun. That's kind of natural. But the fact that you've got Trump really toying with the tariffs, with the global system, you know, without that really hard and fast, this is the strategy, I'm articulating it, I'm in it for the long haul, I'm very worried. Business leaders are very worried.
I mean, it's interesting to me how in the last few days, even business leaders have begun to speak. Oh, it's turned --
PHILLIP: Very dramatically. Scott, you were going to say?
JENNINGS: Well, look, I think he is articulating some parts of the strategy, and it all revolves around more manufacturing in the United States. He believes strongly in the tariffs as a stimulant to American manufacturing. By the way, he is building ships. I heard you mentioned that they've got a shipbuilding strategy too. But they strongly believe that they're going to encourage people to bring back investment. And they've had a number of huge investment announcements of manufacturing in a number of different sectors. That's their view.
Now, does it all happen overnight? No. And I don't think anyone should be hysterical over the stock market on one day or six weeks. Corrections occur and then the markets, you know, move around. But this idea of trying to stimulate more manufacturing in the United States, that's the plan.
FOROOHAR: I'm all for that.
JENNINGS: And he thinks it will work.
FOROOHAR: I have been for that for decades, actually.
The ship story is very interesting, because you're right, you know, Biden, frankly, cut a deal with the Finns and the Canadians, interestingly, to build ships in the U.S. That was actually Donald Trump's idea. I think it's great that they're pushing forward that maritime agency. Here's what I'm worried about. We don't have the workers. We have to train workers. This isn't about tariffs or even, you know, 301 protections on trade against China. This is really about fundamentally doing the things inside the country, not outside, that need to be done. And that's not what he's articulating.
PHILLIP: I mean, what you're saying makes sense in theory but what he's doing in practice is just saying, tariffs on everything. Okay, tariffs on specific industries that he wants to reshore make sense, but tariffs on everything seems like you just want an economy that is William McKinley's economy, not 2025.
KINZINGER: You literally -- he just -- I mean, and he said it. He thinks we're going to be rich from this. And I think he looks at this and says, look, we have a massive deficit and a massive debt. We all agree here on that. The answer isn't to tariff it.
And I think, again, the difference is manufacturing, when it comes to things like protecting supply chains, we learned that during COVID, how much our supply chain was vulnerable to China. One of the best strategies would be, we need to near shore it or onshore. So, Canada and Mexico, honestly, would be a better alternative than China. And what he's doing is not that. He's fighting Canada and Mexico.
FOROOHAR: In fact, it's interesting because during Trump won, the fact that he put tariffs on China actually worked to move nearshoring into Mexico and Canada. So, in a funny way, he's dismantling at the moment, or at least tugging at the strings of something that Trump won actually did that, you know, you could argue was a pretty good thing.
PHILLIP: All right. Rana Foroohar, thank you very much for joining us, as always. Everyone else, stick around for us.
Coming up next, Roy Wood Jr. will join the table as the anger over the economy is palpable now across the country. A Republican congressman at yet another town hall tonight getting an earful over Trump, Elon Musk, and all the chaos in Washington.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're lying. I'm a veteran, you don't give a (BLEEP) about me.
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[22:15:00]
PHILLIP: Breaking news tonight, more anger and outrage at another Republican town hall over the president's firings and his chaotic doge cuts. Congressman Chuck Edwards getting an earful tonight by way of yelling boos and rebukes at his event in Asheville, North Carolina. Much of the crowd protested Elon Musk and his pink slips.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why are people losing their jobs at record numbers?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're lying. I'm a veteran, and you don't give a (BLEEP) about me. Shut the (BLEEP).
You don't take away our rights. You don't (INAUDIBLE).
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Roy Wood Jr., the host of CNN's Have I Got News for You, is joining us at the table.
I'm not sure I expected that.
ROY WOOD JR., CNN HOST: I'm not laughing at those people's pain. Let me just make that clear.
PHILLIP: What are you laughing at?
WOOD: No, because they showed the chaos and you cut to me grinning. I don't want you to think that that's the way I was -- it's just -- there's no way that Republicans were prepared for this level of response to these cuts. Like the fact that people are there and that fervent, we're only six weeks into Trump right now, like that part of it. I think they were very much shocked and I was laughing because I've done comedy shows that have been that rowdy.
JENNINGS: You don't think Republicans were prepared for unhinged liberal mobs? We've been dealing with this since Donald Trump won in 2016.
WOOD: Those weren't liberal.
JENNINGS: I watched a little bit. I looked at the questions. Why is he shredding the Constitution? Putin this, Putin that. One guy had to be escorted out, he was so unhandy.
PHILLIP: That was that guy, the veteran.
HINOJOSA: Scott, if they --
JENNINGS: It's a mob. It's a literal mob.
HINOJOSA: Scott, this is what you're saying about veterans. If Republicans weren't so worried, then why did you have the Republican Party go out and say, stop doing town halls, stop talking to real people?
JENNINGS: It's a stupid idea.
HINOJOSA: Because they don't want to talk to people. They don't want to talk to voters. This is why you guys are polling so poorly.
JENNINGS: We're not. Wait a minute, we're polling poorly? Can we just revisit the Democrat Congressional Approval rating?
[22:20:01]
HINOJOSA: Congress is polling for it. Donald Trump is also polling for it.
WOOD: He's a little angry.
JENNINGS: Twice as much as Democrats in Congress.
HINOJOSA: 40 percent of the American people, according to a CNN poll, says that 40 percent say that they care about him. And then you have a veteran out there saying, I'm a veteran, and you don't give an F about me. That is in line with how people feel about Donald Trump. And if you want to go off, and if you want to say that it's --
JENNINGS: If you want to tell yourself a story about these paid mobs --
HINOJOSA: If you want to say that it's (INAUDIBLE) going, and they're being paid, then you guys are going to lose the midterms. And you know what -- wonderful.
WOOD: So, you're telling me everybody that's showing up to these town halls to boo these Republicans on these crazy policies that they're supporting right now, these are all paid? We're going back to -- you're playing the hits from 2020. JENNINGS: It's unrepresentative of that congressional district where this guy got like 56 percent of the vote --
WOOD: So was unemployment --
JENNINGS: and of the state, which Donald Trump won. These are unrepresentative, unhinged mobs. I don't know what else to tell you. That's what they are.
SEAT: And do you think Republicans who support the cuts and what this president is doing would even get a fair hearing? They would get shouted down immediately. The congressman was getting shouted down within seconds of starting his opening remarks. He didn't even get the respect from that crowd to make his case for what he is doing and what he supports. I mean, you've gone through these --
KINZINGER: As the one guy that's actually done this, okay, let me just say, as a congressman, you hate doing town halls. I mean, that's just a reality. Now, why did I hate doing town halls? I did a bunch, but, truly, because you're facing people that are upset with you. And that's okay. People have a right to be upset with you. And, by the way, if the Republicans are happy with their congressman, they have every right to show up and compliment him.
The questions that Scott went over, you know, they asked these, I've been asked the same things from Tea Party meetings, too, by the way. Why are you shredding the Constitution? Why is Obama shredding the Constitution? The reality is this. This is scaring Republicans, and it should, because this mimics what happened in 2010 when you saw the Tea Party rise up. And that started in August. I mean, maybe you're right.
JENNINGS: No one here knows.
KINZINGER: You keep stomping on me, let me finish.
PHILLIP: In the sense that the Tea Party, the Tea Party engineer, like they pioneered this. And people, Democrats were saying at the time, that they were paid. But there was anger there, real anger that manifested into something very real, which is probably the reason that you all are all sitting here today.
JENNINGS: I'm not arguing they're not angry. I'm just telling you, mobs like this are not representative of overall congressional districts.
PHILLIP: Are you really calling them mobs or --
JENNINGS: Did you see the video?
PHILLIP: No.
JENNINGS: It was like a mob to me.
PHILLIP: Okay, all right. Are you going to call them mobs for doing their democratic duty, showing up at a town hall, and yelling at their elected official? (CROSSTALKS)
WOOD: How dare these voters have emotions?
JENNINGS: I don't care if they have emotions, but no one here at this table can tell me what the voter registration breakdown in that room was, and I'm telling you, it's not representative of the district.
SEAT: But it's also counterproductive.
WOOD: People can show up. If they want to show up, show up.
SEAT: But I've heard from plenty of elected officials who say acting like that is counterproductive. In that moment, you're just as the congressman or woman who's up there, you're just trying to diffuse the situation so it doesn't escalate and get out of control. Not necessarily trying to listen to the arguments that are being made.
But I do want to say, I want to give kudos to the congressman for doing this. I want to make sure that's not lost. He didn't have to do this and he stood there for 80 minutes and he took it every minute.
PHILLIP: He did -- exactly. I think it is true that he stood there. He took the questions, he took the boos.
I just want to play a little bit more. This was a man pressing him on foreign affairs on the issue of what Trump has been saying about Greenland and about Canada, et cetera. Listen,
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes or no, do you support Trump on anything, Canada or Greenland? And do you like the way he treats the premier or the president of Canada calling him governor?
Is that the way the United States should act to our closest neighbors?
Do you enjoy the way he's tried to extort minerals from the Ukraine? Do you like bullying people that need your help?
REP. CHUCK EDWARDS (R-NC): Do I support annexing Greenland and Canada? The short answer to that is no.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Hey, he got results.
WOOD: He got an answer. That's a straight question, straight answer.
PHILLIP: I mean, honestly, if he, if that congressman probably had been on Fox News or something and had been asked, does he support annexing Greenland and Canada, he would have danced all over that question. They are getting answers to a degree.
JENNINGS: Well, he's wrong. We should get Greenland. Canada, I'm 50- 50 on. But Greenland is still a great idea. It's been a great idea for -- it's been a great idea since the 1860s.
KINZINGER: Listen.
JENNINGS: It's an amazing idea.
KINZINGER: I think the pressure on these town halls is going to grow. And I would say if your congressman isn't doing a town hall, I demand one because can they get out of control?
[22:25:02]
Sure. You can have your friends show up too. And the reality is we are so insulated in Congress from the passions and the questions of our citizens.
WOOD: What does a fair and equal town hall look like then, where there's a fair exchange of opinions and information from elected officials to the constituents?
JENNINGS: Actually, I have an answer for that. There is a better way to do this.
KINZINGER: Not telephone.
JENNINGS: Absolutely, it's better.
KINZINGER: Oh dude, you can control a telephone. You can control a telephone.
JENNINGS: I'll explain why, because that 375 people, blue and on. A teletown hall meeting, you could put thousands upon thousands of people on a telephone, more access, more questions, more representation.
KINZINGER: That is exactly the argument I made when I didn't want to do town halls either. I literally said, I'm for teletown halls.
JENNINGS: Well, I can't help it if you shut up and talk on the phone, Adam, as a congressman.
HINOJOSA: You can scream the questions.
WOOD: You can scream more, I think.
JENNINGS: See, you all only want these congressmen to get yelled at by Democrats, not talking about people.
WOOD: I want them to get yelled at by their voters or we could go the corporate route where you put your question in a little computer and it appears up like a text on the screen.
PHILLIP: Right, and then nobody wants to ask anything spicy because it's not going to get asked and answered.
WOOD: I just think there's something to people physically being present and all of these lawmakers in Washington knowing that there are faces attached to the consequences of the decisions that they're making on the Hill.
PHILLIP: Okay, I just wanted to save one second for our friends over on the Democratic side of the Senate who tonight have angered their constituents quite a lot. So, Chuck Schumer says they are going to --
WOOD: He better not ever have a town hall.
PHILLIP: He is going to vote. He is going to vote to fund the government. The base is really mad, many of them urging AOC to primary him. Right decision? Wrong decision?
HINOJOSA: Well, I don't think that he's been effective. I think it is -- he's put in an impossible situation. I do think that the way that he messaged this and the way to message it would have been that Republicans control everything. They control the House, they control the Senate, they control the presidency, and they want to shut down the government. Democrats did not do that. Democrats are put in a position where it was the Democratic Party that doesn't control anything is to be blamed on a shutdown.
And so Chuck Schumer didn't do a good job on messaging this. Now, he doesn't want to get blamed. So, what is he doing? Yes, he's voting for it.
PHILLIP: They're going to lose one way or another on this one, right? This is a no win situation for Democrats. But I almost wonder if this is a necessary moment for Democrats to their base, their voters are going to start to say something if they are truly pissed off about it.
KINZINGER: I think they're upset and they have a right to be. When the first Democrat said I'm not going to vote to shut down the government, the Democrats became co-owners of the shutdown. It is so easy to say Republicans have every branch of government. I get it. There's a -- every branch of legislative, I get it. There's a filibuster in the Senate, but that's there for a reason to force compromise. If I was the Democrats, I'd be like, we're happy to help you, but we got to have a little something in this.
But the second you started getting senators and congressmen saying, well, we don't vote to shut down the government, the Democrats go home.
PHILLIP: Yes. Here's a big signal. John Ossoff, who's a very vulnerable senator in Georgia, is voting no on the funding bill. So, take that with what you will, but I think it tells you a lot about where he thinks the wind is blowing on this.
Coming up next for us, though, it is no secret that Donald Trump wants to take over the Panama Canal and now the Pentagon is getting ready to prepare military plans to do just that. We'll discuss it next.
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[22:30:00]
PHILLIP: Donald Trump wants Canada, Greenland, and now he's directing the Pentagon to draw military plans for the Panama Canal. The formal request uses the language of credible military options to ensure fair and unfettered American access to the canal.
But since December, Trump has repeatedly insisted that the canal needs to be reclaimed by the U.S., something that Panama has flat out rejected. Now, this memo from the defense secretary Pete Hegseth marks a major shift in U.S. policy.
Here we go again. I don't even know what to say. I mean, I guess we are going to invade Panama. I don't know.
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: No. No.
PHILLIP: What are we going to invade?
XOCHITL HINOJOSA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, that's what it's like.
JENNINGS: Listen. Yeah.
PHILLIP: Trump keeps saying he wants to do these things and then you keep telling me he doesn't want it.
JENNINGS: This is very simple. The southern command asked for a range of options from closer coordination with Panamanian security forces all the way to what if we have to take it by force. It is good for the United States to be prepared.
And the entire project is about what do we have to do to counter Chinese influence on the Panama Canal, which is a real thing, which everyone acknowledges. We do need to get it back under control. They are violating their treaty obligations. We cannot let China run rough shot over this account.
PHILLIP: But didn't U.S. firm just, basically bring the ports that Trump's concerned about back under U.S. control?
JENNINGS: But we may need to already have --
PHILLIP: I mean, this this it sounds like bluster.
ROY WOOD, JR.,COMEDIAN: No, but for just for a second, Scott, as quick as you can. Just as a layman, what is China doing at the canal that the U.S. has such a big issue with?
JENNINGS: They control the ins and outs, and they're also controlling the prices of the things going through there. Not Panama, not us. I mean, they've had mass I mean, you know, a massive amount of influence over the commerce that goes through that and that is a vital artery to get ships back and forth. And it's in our hemisphere.
[22:35:00]
And I don't think Donald Trump nor should any American president want China having that much control over that much commerce and trade. PETE SEAT, FORMER WH SPOKESMAN FOR PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Let me
just elaborate on that. So, so, the two major ports on either end of the Panama Canal have been controlled and run by a Hong Kong based conglomerate since 1997.
WOOD JR.: Who the Panamanians allowed to take over.
SEAT: And you know, most people may say, oh, well, Hong Kong, what does that have to do with China? They're autonomous. Well, in 2020, Beijing, the con -- the Chinese Communist Party superseded the Hong Kong assembly to take over national security and whatever they deemed to be national security.
And Scott mentioned the Southern Command. The head of the Southern Command testified in front of the House Armed Services Committee and said that this is critical to Chinese interests. The Panama Canal is part of their long term plan.
PHILLIP: Perspective other than the threat of military force, what is Trump doing about it?
SEAT: Well, I mean, to -- to Scott's point, we have entire files of contingency plans at the Pentagon.
PHILLIP: Okay, no, no, I'm saying, other than -- other than the invasion of Panama, what is Trump doing about this?
JENNINGS: What is it about countering Chinese influence?
PHILLIP: In the Panama Canal, specifically.
JENNINGS: Yeah. We're saying out loud, we are prepared to take any action necessary to make Panama live within the treaty obligation and keep China. That's policy in The United States.
PHILLIP: Okay, so, so, in other words, you are saying that Trump is making a threat that he has no intention of carrying out.
JENNINGS: I don't know what he's going to do.
PHILLIP: But there's no policy behind that? There's no, you know, diplomacy behind it? There's no carrot behind it at all?
UNKNOWN: Here's -- here's --
JENNINGS: You want to give carrots to China for China to encourage that in our hemisphere?
PHILLIP: No, no, to Panama because China is giving carrots to Panama.
JENNINGS: Well, they are negotiating.
ADAM KINZINGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Here's the issue. Like, I agree with the in state of what needs to happen in the Panama Canal. We do need to make sure that China doesn't control the ins and outs there. The difference is you -- you don't do this by threatening an invasion.
And this is where my issue is with, like, you know, Greenland and Canada, totally separate things, of course. But with that is, like, pretending like you might invade, obviously leaking that you've created invasion plans, I don't see the point in that.
Again, I actually agree with the in state of what we need to do in Panama. I don't think we should take back over the Panama Canal. But it's like you're threatening Panama, you're threatening Canada, LOL, we're going to make you the fifty-first state. Greenland --
HINOJOSA: There's a problem though.
PHILLIP: Can I just play -- because you brought up Greenland? I think it's worth a discussion, too, because this literally happened in the Oval Office today. Trump sitting next to the NATO chief, and he says this about Greenland.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNKNOWN: What is your vision for the potential annexation of Greenland and getting them potentially to --
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Well, I think it'll happen. But, you know, Mark, we need that for international security, not just security, international. We have a lot of our favorite players, you know, cruising around the coast, and we have to be careful.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: I mean, I as people pointed out, the NATO chief didn't say anything. He was just kind of sitting there while Trump was basically, essentially threatening to illegally invade, a territory of a NATO ally?
HINOJOSA: Yeah. Trump looks silly in all of this. I'm sorry. He is attempting to forcefully take away a friendly nation, you know, and their territory. And I think that a question that I continue to ask in this presidency is why does he continue to try to do this to our allies?
This is whether it's Canada, whether it's Great -- it's -- the list goes on. And I just think that how it's very hard to take Trump seriously when he makes these jokes all of the time, and it's -- it's something that --
JENNINGS: It's not a joke. It's not a joke.
PHILLIP: He could be like a boy who cries wolf kind of situation. He continues to threaten the military in places where he has no intention of actually doing it. His word is being diluted by these empty threats.
JENNINGS: What if we woke up in the morning and China had said, you know what, screw this, we're going to send some military over towards the Panama Canal. Or we're going to say no to this idea that we shouldn't control the Panama Canal.
Would you rather or rather not have the United States government prepared for any possible contingency with China?
UNKNOWN: I don't think that's --
PHILLIP: Scott, I expect that the United States government is prepared for every contingency. They just --
JENNINGS: We are now. We are now.
PHILLIP: They just don't talk about it.
KINZINGER: And I don't think that scenario is planning for what if the Chinese military comes over, then what do we do? My guess is that scenario plans for how do we fight the Panamanian defense forces to take this.
And again, it's like -- it's -- it's, here's the reason, by the way, that Donald Trump threatens our allies and not people that really deserve threats is because he's small, he's scared, he's a coward. And you can threaten your friends because you know you're not going to start a war over it and it makes you look really tough.
If you tweet in all caps and then you threaten Panama, it makes you look like you're ready to go to war and tough. But you don't say any -- he doesn't say much about Iran. He's pretty quiet on that, certainly Russia. And China -- he's been quiet on lately.
JENNINGS: Well, we weren't --
KINZINGER: -- because there's a reality with that.
JENNINGS: We weren't so quiet on Iran when we killed the head there.
KINZINGER: Well, he's quiet on China. That was six years ago I'm talking about today.
JENNINGS: I mean, he's pretty tough on Iran.
KINZINGER: He's quiet on China because about a week ago, the Chinese embassy said, quote, "If it's war the U.S. wants to be a tariff, trade, or any other type of war, we're ready to fight till the end."
[22:40:07]
JENNINGS: Isn't that a reason, by the way, to be prepared for the Chinese if they're going to rattle sabers? If they're willing to say that, what should we do?
WOOD JR.: I think the Chinese will probably be say that because if you're posturing violence first, then what do you expect China to then reply to?
JENNINGS: We're not. We're not posturing violence. We're posturing -- we want to push back on them with tariffs. We want to push back on them economically. But this Panama Canal business has been an issue for years, and it festered under several administrations. He's saying no more.
PHILLIP: Look, I don't I don't think anybody is disputing the nature of the problem. I think the question is what is the actual solution. Trump keeps talking about the one solution that everybody agrees, including you, that he has no intention of carrying on.
WOOD JR.: It's our troops are down there over a shortcut for boats, that is not the type of war we need to be at.
PHILLIP: I think MAGA voters would have something to say about that. Coming up -- coming up next for us, as Democrats struggle with his messaging -- with their messaging in the second Trump era, some are saying things like this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MAXINE WATERS (D) CALIFORNIA: I'm worried that Trump is on the edge of creating a civil war.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[22:45:45]
PHILLIP: Tonight, Congresswoman Maxine Waters is urging Democrats to hit the streets and fight back against Trump, but her arcs have MAGA accusing her of fomenting violence. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WATERS: I'm worried that Trump is on the edge of creating a civil war. He alluded to it more than once.
He alluded to the fact that if he did not get reelected, that there could be a civil war. Now, this president is putting us in a position where hungry people are going to be on the street. Where non- profits who were waiting for their checks are not going to get them.
When that happens, what does Trump expect? Oh, I believe he expects violence. I believe he expects confrontation. I believe he's working toward a civil war. We're not going to get goaded. We're not going to get tricked into that. We're going to continue to do our work.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So, that has, some on the MAGA wing of, the country pretty upset. But I don't know. It seems to be pretty clear at the end there, she said, we're not going to go into that territory.
JENNINGS: Why bring it up? I mean, she's hardly the first Democrat to bring it up. Hakeem Jeffries said earlier this year, we're going to fight in the streets. Anna Presley, Jasmine Crockett, other members of the Democratic Conference have continuously alluded to violence because they're so angry about the Trump administration? PHILLIP: Well, I don't think it's unfair to say that they're alluding to violence. When -- when Jeffries was saying that, he was talking about going to the streets in protest --
JENNINGS: He said fight in the streets.
PHILLIP: -- which is --
UNKNOWN: It's a political fight.
PHILLIP: I think that's not what -- that's clearly not the concept.
JENNINGS: You can defend it.
SEAT: But if Trump uses the word fight, everyone loses the word.
PHILLIP: I want to remind you both, well, only that only when there's actual fighting that occurs, because it's actually that's what happened.
HINOJOSA: I want to remind you both that it was Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol on January 6th. When January 6th happened this year, what happened? It wasn't Democrats storming the Capitol. Actually, guess what? No one stormed the Capitol this January 6. And so, it was --
JENNINGS: You look at the video in New York City today, the people who took over Trump Tower, the people screaming at folks on the streets, who are those folks?
HINOJOSA: People were protesting. People were protesting.
JENNINGS: In Trump Tower?
HINOJOSA: They were not storming. They were not storming Trump Tower. They were not storming.
PHILLIP: The lobby of Trump tower is --
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: Yes, they did. They were inside of it.
HINOJOSA: They were not storming --
PHILLIP: The lobby of Trump Tower is --
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: You're going to defend that mob?
HINOJOSA: There are thousands of people who were prosecuted for January 6th. You may have forgotten, but you know what? You should go read your old op ed talking about how the resident caused an insurrection.
JENNINGS: You know what? I have. I have.
HINOJOSA: Because that's what he did on January 6th, and that's what MAGA supporters actually did.
JENNINGS: You could scream at me all you want, but I have every single day condemned the events of January the 6th.
PHILLIP: Scott, Scott.
JENNINGS: Then, now, and I will continue to --
HINOJOSA: But let me --
(CROSSTALK)
HINOJOSA: -- the violence.
PHILLIP: Let me just say one thing. There's -- there was no screaming happening at this table, okay? Someone talking to you is not screaming. But I do want to play the rest of what Maxine Waters said just for clarity purposes. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WATERS: It places the responsibilities on us to live and do like doctor Martin Luther King told us to do. He taught us to organize and to protest, but he taught us non-violence. He taught us non-violence.
That was the center, that was the core of his message. And we live with that all the time. No matter how upset we can get, no matter how angry we can get, we live with what we have been taught.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KINZINGER: Can I just -- can I -- I want to walk the middle on this because I-- I have talked about, like, I have concerns that someday this country ends up in a civil war. It's one thing to express concerns about that. I mean, read Barbara Walters' book, "How Civil Wars Start". It's very eye opening.
But you can express concern. I think where Maxine went over the top was to say, Donald Trump is fomenting and kind of make it look like I mean, when I heard her talking, it sounded like she was trying to say, in essence, he's doing this intentionally. That's when you cross the line.
To have a legitimate conversation about violence or civil war, honestly, I think we should be having that conversation.
WOOD JR.: Yes.
KINZINGER: But when you start accusing people like it sounded like she did, that's where I think it goes over the top.
WOOD JR.: Yeah, because we know, I don't think that Trump would, for one second, think about the consequences of a lot of the stuff in the policies that he's doing. But I do have a legitimate concern. When we're talking about making thousands of Americans unemployed.
[22:50:01]
And then putting them in situations where they cannot pay mounting medical bills. And putting them in situations where their kids are starving in the schools. At some point, they're going to look for someone to blame.
And then those tensions, we will then turn on each other and not the politicians. And God forbid, we show up at the town hall and be angry about it and be told that we shouldn't be behaving that way either. So, I think that it's definitely a legitimate concern that people are going to be doing bad and there are going to be repercussions.
If you're cutting people from the V.A. who help our veterans, you don't know what type of instability that potentially causes in people who deserve help and assistance. So, I think that her concern is very valid about the ripple effects of it. I don't think our president was exactly going, yeah. If I do that --
PHILLIP: She's not exactly the first person to bring up a prospect of a civil war. Ohio state senator George Lang at one point said, I'm afraid if we lose this one, it's going to take a civil war to save this country and it will be saved.
He had to apologize for it, but people on both-- both sides frankly, have been throwing around the civil war thing. And I guess the challenge is that, it's all hyperbole until suddenly it's not. And at what point, I don't know. I mean, at what point does that change?
SEAT: Well, I think Democrats have wanted to hit Maxine Waters' mute button for years. She tends to have these comments pop up every now and then. But as I listen to her and her -- her apocalyptic premonitions.
And then I see some of her colleagues in the House of Representatives in the Senate drop more F-bombs than there are in the Big Lebowski, I think maybe they finally hit their stride. Say crazy stuff and become your own worst enemy. And if that's their strategy to get back in power, then give them all the cut off pieces of power.
PHILLIP: I don't --I don't think that's exactly -- I'm not exactly anybody -- I'm not sure that anybody really has, the high road on, you know, their demeanor, you know, in -- in Washington. I mean, we have people's women in -- on the Republican side, congresswomen screaming at each other, calling each other names. I mean, this is -- is -- it's -- it's not It is the --
(CROSSTALK)
UNKNOWN: It is the House. I mean --
HINOJOSA: Well, one thing I will point out --
PHILLIP: And frankly, you know, Maxine Waters, I -- the reason I wanted to play her whole thing is that she -- she said she's worried about a civil war. Fine. Republicans have said the same thing too, but she made it very clear. She -- she did not think that the response to anything should be violence.
HINOJOSA: Well, what I'll also say when I was at the Justice Department, we saw a rise in threats to all sorts of elected officials and to election workers, to members of Congress, both sides of the aisle. I'm sure Maxine Waters sometimes hears from people --
PHILLIP: I'm sure she has.
HINOJOSA: Around this table and reporters, etcetera, and we saw an increase in prosecutions towards, you know, for people who would threaten these elected officials. So, I do think that the rhetoric has led us to a place where people's lives are at risk, and this is -- has real world consequences, and I only see it going up from here.
PHILLIP: Yeah, partly because, not a lot of people are condemning this kind of thing, to be honest with you.
WOOD JR.: If there is a civil war in this country, it's going to be a short one because we out of shape.
PHILLIP: That's a -- that's for another day. That's a conversation for another day, Roy. Coming up next for us, the panel gives us their night caps. What trend do they regret participating in? We'll just explain what that's all about next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:57:48]
PHILLIP: We are back, and it's time for the "NewsNight" cap trend edition. Well, former Kanye fans in Los Angeles are being invited to throw away their merch. So, now you each have 30 seconds to tell us what trend or fad do you regret. Pete?
SEAT: Well, this might come as a shock to everyone at this table, but I'm not the trendiest of guys. Nevertheless, about when I was 13 years old, I believed that along with Beanie Babies and Wheaties boxes, that a Tickle Me Elmo was my ticket to retirement security. So, my dad crossed the border from Northwest Indiana over to Illinois to get one at a mall, and it didn't exactly turn out that way. But I'll say tonight, thank you, dad. I'm sorry.
PHILLIP: Wow. Tickle Me Elmo.
HINOJOSA: I love it.
PHILLIP: I miss that one.
HINOJOSA: Loved that one. Mine is as an '80s baby, I grew up in the low rise jeans era --
UNKNOWN: That's awesome.
HINOJOSA: -- where you had not only your belly hanging out the front, but your butt crack showing in the back. So, hanging out the front, but your butt crack showing in the back. So, let's hope my sister doesn't find any photos and put --put them on social media when I was in, high school, but that should never come back.
PHILLIP: Burn them all. Burn them all. Go ahead.
WOOD JR.: In the early aughts, there were these shoes that I could only describe as, casual but formal sneakers.
PHILLIP: Wait. Aren't those back?
WOOD JR.: No. Yeah. They're back, and they should go back to wherever they came from in 2000s -- those were the shoes you wore to the club when they wouldn't let you wear sneakers in the club.
PHILLIP: Oh, that's true.
WOOD JR.: Yeah. And they were atrocious.
KINZINGER: You know, I mean, for me, there was once a time in my life when I used to shave my face, and, I just regret that. I regret it. Now that I'm a beard guy, I feel like I belong in beard land. Actually, to be honest with you, in college I got my ear pierced and, lasted two whole weeks. Nothing wrong with people getting their ear pierced.
PHILLIP: Oh.
KINZINGER: All great. Not me though. It looked pretty bad.
PHILLIP: I would not catch you for an ear piercing guy. Okay. Learn something new every day, Scott.
KINZINGER: Don't be jealous. Don't be jealous.
JENNINGS: I don't, I try to resist fads and trends. I didn't even like it when people were trying to guilt everyone into pouring buckets of ice on their heads.
[23:00:00]
I'm sure it was for a good cause, but I just I've literally lost 20 friends over this. However, there was a time in my life when tracksuits and billowy parachute pants were all the rage. I'm sorry to say that there are more than a few photos of me in there.
PHILLIP: I'll pay you a hundred bucks if you can provide one of those photos of Scott. You -- I'm serious. Okay. Everyone, thank you very much. Don't forget to catch Roy's new episode of "Have I Got News For You" this Saturday night at 9 P.M. right here on CNN. Thank you so much for watching "NewsNight". "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
