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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Trump Remains Defiant After Volatile Day For U.S. Stocks; Trump Threatens China With New Tariffs, Adding Up To 104 Percent Hit; GOP Lawmakers Sound The Alarm About Trump's Tariffs; "NewsNight" Tackles The Dangers Of Mass Deportations In The Second Trump Administration; Health Chief RFK Jr. Gives Weak Support For Measles Vaccine. Aired 10- 11p ET
Aired April 07, 2025 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[22:00:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST (voice over): Tonight, what, me, worry? Instead of backing down, Trump doubles down on his tariff war.
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: If that tariff isn't removed by tomorrow at 12:00, we're putting a 50 percent tariff on above the tariffs that we put on.
PHILLIP: And can you hear me now? More members of the billionaires club waking up and weighing in.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are increasingly hearing from some CEOs.
PHILLIP: But where were those 1 percenters before Trump pulled the rug out from under global markets?
And the Supreme Court gives the green light for the Trump White House to continue rapid deportations under wartime law. What this means for Trump's fight over judicial power.
And RFK Jr. still can't bring himself to say, get the measles vaccine, but he will say this.
ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR., HHS SECRETARY: And also cut liberal ill (ph).
PHILLIP: Now, a second child has died of what was an eradicated disease.
Live at the table, Rachel Lindsay, Scott Jennings, Chuck Rocha, Elizabeth Pipko, and an economic debate.
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 Philip in New York. Let's get right to what America is talking about, economic nuclear war. That is what one billionaire Trump backer, Bill Ackman, is warning a. About as investors assess the damage from yet another day aboard Mr. Trump's wild tariff ride. The day started off with an early selloff that took stocks into bear market territory, and then a rumor of a 90-day pause in Trump's tariff war boosted the down nearly 900 points. But that was short-lived once the rumor was proven false. And investors once again headed for the exits. But by the end of the day, the Dow was down about 1 percent. Meanwhile, in deal or no deal Trump edition, there may be some negotiations happening or maybe not.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BROOKE ROLLINS, AGRICULTURE SECRETARY: We've got 50 countries that are burning the phone lines into the White House up and probably the president's cell phone as well, and probably Howard Lutnick's as well, and I've heard from some as well,
KEVIN HASSETT, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL: I think that the president is going to decide what the president's going to decide.
SCOTT BESSENT, TREASURY SECRETARY: There are more than 50 countries in negotiation with the president that there are 50, 60, maybe almost 70 countries now who have approached us. So, it's going to be a busy April, May, maybe into June.
PETER NAVARRO, SENIOR WHITE HOUSE TRADE ADVISER: Let's take Vietnam. When they come to us and say, we'll go to zero tariffs, that means nothing to us because it's the nontariff cheating that matters.
HOWARD LUTNICK, COMMERCE SECRETARY: The president is not going to back off.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: But one country where there is no sign of negotiation, China.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Against my statement, they put a 34 percent tariff on above what their ridiculous tariffs were already. And I said, if that tariff isn't removed by tomorrow at 12:00, we're putting a 50 percent tariff on above the tariffs that we put on.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: That was Trump threatening another 50 percent tariff on Chinese imports after that country volleyed back with its own 34 percent tariff against the U.S. So, where does this all go?
Now joining us at the table, CNN Global Economic Analyst Rana Foroohar, CNN Business Editor-at-Large Richard Quest and Breitbart Finance and Economics Commentator John Carney.
That is basically a textbook trade war that they just did over there in the last 12 hours. And on top of that, he was sitting in the White House next to Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel. Israel has already said they're going to lower the tariffs to zero. And then Netanyahu said, today, you know, we're going to take down our nontariff trade barriers. We're going to do all the things you ask us to do. And here is what Donald Trump said in response to that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Do you plan to reduce the tariffs that your government put on Israeli goods, 17 percent?
TRUMP: From where?
REPORTER: On Israeli goods, the 17 percent. Do you plan to --
TRUMP: Well, we're talking about a whole new trade. Maybe not, maybe not. Don't forget, we help Israel a lot. You know, we give Israel $4 billion a year. That's a lot.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: All I'm saying, Rana, is listen to the man. He just said it. I don't get why people keep not wanting to hear the words coming out of Donald Trump's mouth. He's saying, maybe not. This is a whole new regime I'm trying to usher in here.
[22:05:01]
RANA FOROOHAR, CNN GLOBAL ECONOMIC ANALYST: Well, you know, it was difficult to follow what he was saying and that's one of the reasons that the markets are so upset. You know, we saw a little bit of a bounce back today. Stock futures are up. It's kind of unclear what's going to happen, but trust has been lost. And that's really what worries me.
I think that investors may, you know, say, okay, things could get finessed in the next couple of weeks, but what about three months from now? What about six months from now? What I hear from investors across the board is folks going to short-term assets, folks going to safety havens.
There's also, I think, pain in the markets that we haven't seen yet. And let me point out something that is undercovered, which is that people were selling off gold and they were selling off treasuries. They don't generally sell things like that in a panic. That means that they're trying to cover losses and stem blood flow from other problems that we don't see yet in the market.
We are at the very early days of this. And so to take it lightly, to say, oh, you know, everybody's going to come in line and things are going to be fine, very, very naive, not to mention what China's going to do, which we can get --
PHILLIP: Yes, John. I mean, what do you say to that?
JOHN CARNEY, FINANCE AND ECONOMICS EDITOR, BREITBART: So, I think that what we're seeing is countries from all around the globe, except for China, saying, we want to make a deal. We do not want these tariffs. What Trump is saying, and he's learned his lesson from the first time he was in office, where China made a lot of promises and didn't follow through on them.
There was also a lot of behind-the-scenes deals that they tried to do with Europe, and Europe basically said, yes, we will do whatever you want, and then never did anything. So, what I think the message right there to Israel was, you need to actually do it. We're not going to reduce your tariff based on your promise. We're going to do it when we see the trade surplus that you run against us, the United States trade deficit come down, then your tariffs will come down.
PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, I guess a lot of people disagree that trade deficits are inherently bad. It's kind of like not great economics to assume that's the case, but that's not --
RICHARD QUEST, CNN BUSINESS EDITOR-AT-LARGE: Look, a couple of things. First of all, what we saw there with Netanyahu is classic Trump quid pro quo, the transactional president. He immediately conflated the tariff issue with the $4 billion in aid that the U.S. gives. And we've seen that again and again with Europe. We've seen it across the globe. What are you going to do for me? That's always the answer. Never mind longstanding you know, Canada relations, whatever. So, that's the first thing. It's a transactional quid pro quo arrangement.
But Peter Navarro, and it's not often I'd ever agree with Peter Navarro, but he summed it up. You can take your tariff offer right down to zero and it won't make a darn good --
PHILLIP: As several countries have.
QUEST: And it won't make any difference because the real issue is nontariff barriers. If you go down to zero on your nominal, the U.S. exports still can't get in, and the uncertainty means people still won't be investing over here.
FOROOHAR: But when you start to talk about non tariff barriers, you get into the bigger topic of the way the whole global trading system works. And this is my real problem with what's happening right now. I think we had a golden opportunity. I think Trump had a golden opportunity to say -- to come out and say, we're going to build on what I did in my first administration. We are going to really re- jigger things.
China has come into the system. It's run in a completely different way than the countries European and American -- you know, the countries that built the global trading system, we need to change this. Instead, he's thrown the entire chess board up. You can't do it alone. There's horse trading going on, not just between the US and other countries, but China and Europe and all the other countries around the world that are thinking, we can't trust this guy. That's not a way to get to a new system.
PHILLIP: The other thing that's happening is that, you know, some of the people in Trump's corner, the billionaires who they make money for a living, they are starting to freak out, and principle among them is Bill Ackman.
I actually want to play Bill Ackman from a couple months ago, back in December when he was singing a very, very different tune. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILL ACKMAN, CEO, PERSHING SQUARE CAPITAL MANAGEMENT: We're stepping into, I would say, the most pro-growth, pro-business, pro-American administration I've perhaps seen in my adult lifetime.
President Trump will do nothing. That interferes with the success of the country, the success of the economy.
I think he can be very thoughtful about tariffs.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You do?
ACKMAN: I think it's a very powerful tool that can be used to level the playing field.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Okay. So, now here we are today, he says on April 9th, if we launch an economic nuclear war on every country in the world, business investment will grind to a halt, consumers will close their wallets in their pocketbooks, and we will severely damage our reputation with the rest of the world. It will take years to potentially rehabilitate it. He talks about, as Rana was saying, business is a confidence game and that confidence has been shattered.
[22:10:00]
These are people who know what they're talking about and they like Donald Trump. They just think that this is a catastrophic mistake.
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. I like Bill Ackman, by the way and think he's an important voice, but he is not the only voice. And, you know, the president's getting a lot of advice from a lot of different people. But what I tend to just listen to the treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, who was on television late this afternoon talking about now there's 70-plus countries they're calling up wanting to discuss how we're going to deal with them in the future.
And what I really hope that they wind up doing with us 70 plus countries, and it'll probably be more by tomorrow, is this, like, listen, you need to understand we're trying to do something different here. We think we've been taken advantage of and we're responding to the working class of this country. If you will help us, if you will understand that we can have a fairer system here that's fair to the United States, we can align ourselves against the true enemy, which is China. And if you want to get in bed with China and think they're a trustworthy partner, that is a complete, ridiculous, stupid, terrible idea. Stick with us, be fair to us, and stick with us and we'll align ourselves against China because they cannot be trusted. QUEST: Why should anybody want to go down that road when the U.S. has just kicked them in the groin, damaged their own domestic economies in their various countries, and did all this without serious warning? The reason all these billionaires have gone against the administration is because of the extreme nature. None of them expected this massive tariff.
PHILLIP: And they're not reciprocal in any way. These tariffs are, frankly, indiscriminate based on a formula that nobody understands and doesn't --
JENNINGS: Just to answer Richard. There was warning, it was called Donald Trump talking out loud for the last 40 years and in his campaign. That's number one.
PHILLIP: But, Scott --
JENNINGS: Number two --
PHILLIP: But, Scott, he never said that he was going to slap 46 percent tariffs on these countries. He actually campaigned -- let me give this part to you. He campaigned on tariffs, yes. But he campaigned on across the board 20 percent tariffs, which Wall Street at the time thought was kind of extreme, but maybe he won't do it. He didn't campaign on a formula that, I don't know, some intern at the National Economic Council made up and then they said because he's being generous, they're just going to randomly divide it in half and then make that a number.
FOROOHAR: It's an interesting point, what you're saying about we should have taken him at his word. Maybe we should have taken him at his word. I mean, I have long thought that these billionaires were being pretty darn naive thinking that all they were going to get was tax cuts and deregulation, maybe a tweak here and there.
And, you know, Donald Trump is an unpredictable guy. You know, we did not know how this was going to go. There was a good chance it was going to go badly. And probably, if you'd been listening to him for 40 years, you would've surmised that.
PHILLIP: He did promise the tariffs.
CHUCK ROCHA, PODCAST CO-HOST, THE LATINO VOTE: Let's give a voice to not the billionaires, not all the folks, whether in China or whether in another country, but the regular working folks out there. What does this mean to them? And I've sat around today thinking about instability -- market don't like instability. But regular folks, country boys from East Texas, do we like instabilities? Well, my mom would say, why aren't you wearing your cowboy hat tonight? She don't like change, but she also don't like when somebody messes with her 401(k), right?
PHILLIP: Yes.
ROCHA: Right? I mean, I get all of that and I'm being quippy here, but I mean that when I'm -- I don't do financial markets, and you all can tell that with this accent, but I win elections. And regular folks are seeing what does this mean to me? They can take some instability. They don't really understand the market. They understand when they get their statement on their 401(k). And if it's better in six months, they feel better in six months. And this is happening now, and there's not another election here for almost two years, so that's the only thing that's the break for him right now, if I give him any break at all.
But there's a long -- how much is the pain and how is the pain of the regular folks? And do any tariffs actually make anything actually go up? Because that's when you're going to see real people raise a lot of hell (ph).
PHILLIP: This thing can move real fast if things get bad. It really could. And elections are in 18 months, but I don't know that they have that kind of time to figure this out.
FOROOHAR: And the rest of the world would have evolved.
CARNEY: I think that often -- the market often goes down when you adopt the right policy. We saw this in Jackson Hole when we had Jay Powell come out and say, I'm going to be a lot more hawkish. There's going to be pain that we have to inflict to bring down inflation. Now, was that a mistake just because the market went down 6 percent that day? No, it wasn't. And then it kept going down as people realized that the Fed was really serious about crushing inflation.
I think we're seeing a repeat of that right now. People did --
PHILLIP: How many times -- John, how many times have we had days like this or weeks or, you know, these --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: All right. Okay. So --
JENNINGS: In 2022, the S&P was down 23 percent, the NASDAQ was down 33 percent.
PHILLIP: How many times --
JENNINGS: We had a whole year of it.
PHILLIP: This is like a trivia question. How many times have we had three consecutive days of these kinds of losses? When was the last time we had a whole year of a market crash in 2022. You're talking about three.
(CROSSTALKS)
CARNEY: I would bet it was when the TARP was rejected in 2008.
PHILLIP: Okay.
CARNEY: We had a market crash. PHILLIP: All right. So, the times when these things have happened have proceeded major economic downturns. So, what we're experiencing right now is --
[22:15:00]
CARNEY: No. That -- well, can I just -- sorry to interrupt.
PHILLIP: Yes, go ahead.
CARNEY: I don't think it did proceed a major economic downturn. In fact, we were in the midst of a major economic downturn when that happened last time.
PHILLIP: Is that a defense?
CARNEY: Yes, I think it is a defense, because right now, we are not in the midst of a major economic downturn. We are in the midst of a reorienting of the global economy that will be painful to the incumbent companies that have done very well under Biden, and they will not do as well under the new order.
QUEST: Take that sentence and reverse it. So, it becomes, we are in the middle of a major economic -- of a major refine of the global trading system, and we are not in the middle of a major economic downturn yet. Because if this continues --
JENNINGS: You sound so hopeful.
QUEST: No, because if this continues, this is --
JENNINGS: Can I get you some compound (ph)?
QUEST: Can I just tell you something? I'm tired of sitting in debates like this and having everybody say, oh, you know, you elites, you people of this -- at the top, you at this, you at that all day. I've heard this. The reality is, yes, there are maybe a smaller section of the country that is share-owning in their own right, but millions of people have 401(k)s. And even if you don't have a 401(k) or you don't have a retirement account, your company depends on the market.
CARNEY: I don't think we should give the stock market a veto over the public policy of the United States. And so if the stock market doesn't like us doing the right thing, just like Jay Powell didn't do, the Fed doesn't say, oh no, we can't raise interest rates because of --
QUEST: No. The Fed -- whoa.
CARNEY: You might not --
QUEST: The markets knew that the Fed had to do it to get rid of inflation.
CARNEY: The market went down. And why did it go down?
QUEST: Yes, they didn't like it, but they knew that was the orthodox that. And they knew that was the orthodox monetary policy that was falling --
CARNEY: And this is what we're doing today.
QUEST: This is not orthodox.
CARNEY: It's not orthodox, you are absolutely correct, but the market will realize that this is the right thing to do and it's necessary. We had no choice.
PHILLIP: Let's hit pause on this because there's more after the break. Much more to talk about here, including new pushback on the Trump plan from within his own party.
Plus, breaking tonight the Supreme Court weighing in on two fronts in the president's deportation efforts. More special guests are going to join us at the table to discuss.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:20:00]
PHILLIP: Tonight, more Republican lawmakers are sounding the alarm about these tough Trump tariffs.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX): If the outcome from these tariffs is really high tariffs from every country on earth, against American goods and really high tariffs from America against goods from every other country on earth, that is going to be really bad for Texas and really bad for America.
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY (R-LA): I'm not going to bubble wrap it. What I've seen so far in terms of the stock market it's been painful.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Painful is putting it lightly, and Trump has vowed that the tariffs are going to stick around. So, what does happen next? Will Congress actually step in and maybe do something?
Well, right now, there is momentum building behind a bill that would limit the president's tariff power. And it does seem that some Republicans are interested in it more than the ones that are of officially backing it, and there are quite a few. There have been several who have said, I'm not taking that off the table because if this starts to hurt back home, we got to do something about it.
ROCHA: It's insurance. It's all it is because Donald Trump doesn't have to see or seek out a reelection in a midterm in two years, but lots of congressmen and 33 senators do. So, just in case, the wheels fall off, they can say, we try to do this thing to stop your prices from going up as they did, or whatever the market may be in a year. All the debate we just had about this, nobody really knows. We just see different directions or can look at historical data. Politicians only care about two things. It's money and votes. That's my categories. And they want to make sure they're going to be secure no matter what happens.
PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, they would be wise to at least consider it.
FOROOHAR: I totally agree. And, I mean, you know, they have to face the midterms and there's also a battle going on right now, really long-term battle between Republicans and Democrats about who's going to be the party of the working people, you know? And this is exactly what's going to be up for debate in the midterms.
And Republicans are looking at this and they're thinking, working people are going to be hit so hard by this inflation. I mean, 60 percent of their take home pay is food, fuel, gas in the car. You know, it is a bloodbath coming from an electoral perspective, and I think Democrats are probably hoping to make it --
CARNEY: That's assuming that prices rise, which I don't think they're going to rise anywhere near the amount that the fearmongerers say. I think that --
FOROOHAR: The bond market would disagree, but okay.
CARNEY: For the most part, what is going to happen is that the producers are going to lower their prices and the importers are going to eat the tariff rather than raise the prices. Walmart can't raise its prices because Target will beat them on price and steal market share. This is what we saw when we raised the tariffs in China, very little pass through to retail.
FOROOHAR: Oh my gosh. You know, can I just talk about that though? Because I thought that what we did in the first Trump term was the right thing to do. You had highly surgical small tariffs that were appropriate on China. So, yes, in that situation, China took the pain for sure. This is an entirely different universe. This is adversaries and allies alike. This is across the board tariffs. It's become a political issue.
And I can tell you in Beijing, I mean, they have -- they don't have, you know, votership, but they have people that they have to please and caving into Donald Trump when he's, you know, engaging in this kind of debate doesn't play well.
CARNEY: And I don't believe that China will cave. I actually think that the endgame here is going to be that we separate into blocks.
[22:25:02]
China's going to be its own world. This is what Scott was just talking about a moment ago. We will have the free world on one side and the China world on the left.
FOROOHAR: I wish the free world --
(CROSSTALKS) CARNEY: The free world is the group of nations led by the United States.
QUEST: Which would no longer include by the way Canada, the --
CARNEY: Those countries are negotiating with us.
QUEST: No. The --
CARNEY: Look at what the U.K. politicians are doing. They are saying we are not going to overreact to this. Europe is already leaving --
QUEST: Because they've got a 10 percent, slightly different from Ursula von der Leyen.
By the way, I haven't brought my props with me tonight, but you will be pleased to know.
FOROOHAR: Where's your shoe?
QUEST: No. Touch it. I have this one. You will be pleased to know that we are putting together the basket of goods. We've done a study of what are the most things that people buy, and we've put together 15 to 17 baskets of goods and we're going to track it for the next three months.
CARNEY: So, I really am looking forward to this.
QUEST: And it's things like bananas. It's things like coffee. It's --
CARNEY: I'm really looking forward to this basket because I track the basket of things that we tariff when we tariffed China. I tracked everything every month, every report that came out, whether it was PPI, CPI, CPE, everything that came out, I was right on top of it and nothing went up except for bicycles, weirdly. Bicycle prices went up, but nothing else did.
PHILLIP: So, let me just -- this is from the camp of people who are actually making the business decisions. The Wall Street Journal had a piece that said, one auto executive early last week darkly predicted Chernobyl if tariffs broadly hit imported parts, which they are scheduled to do next month. Industry executives and analysts said, what the administration outlined Wednesday was worse than they expected. Car dealership owners are saying very similar things.
I think that the people that this is supposed to help are raising an alarm right now. They are saying this is actually not good for our industry except for, I mean, there maybe a couple of industries, maybe steel, this is great for it, maybe a handful of agricultural industries, this might be good for it, if other tariffs go down, but that is such a small portion of the economy. Almost everybody else is going to be hit in one way or another by this.
JENNINGS: Yes. And we're going to have to see what the administration comes up with these 70-plus countries that have called. We don't know how that's going to turn out yet. And I think people are also just going to have to take the president here and his administration at their word when they talk about reorganizing and reordering the global economic order so that it doesn't unfairly punish the working class of the United States.
And on this issue with China, look, I just -- I don't believe that the rest of the free world is going to wake up and say, you know what? Let's get behind the Chinese Communist Party and let them lead us into the future. That will not happen. That will not happen. That will not happen.
PHILLIP: But isn't that already happening?
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: I'm not being facetious. Like, seriously, like isn't it already the case that China is already using its economic influence to build whole block on the global south?
JENNINGS: I know what they do. But that's coercion. And what you're talking about is people --
QUEST: Oh, what is the United States doing?
JENNINGS: Willingly -- you're talking about willingly following them off the cliff. I don't think it's going to happen.
QUEST: Excuse me. And what is this tariff, not coercion?
CARNEY: Well, the reason why the China will never become what the United States is to the world right now is because they insist on running a trade surplus with the rest of the world. They will not do what the United States does, which is absorb the overproduction of the rest of the world. This is why Europe will be on our side. Europe needs to export to us. China needs to export to us. China will never become the buyer of last resort.
FOROOHAR: Let's bookmark that because this is actually a great point and I think it's a very high stakes point. If I were running China, I would be in Brussels right now cutting a deal and saying, you know what? We really are going to change our system because our trade relationship could be the biggest one on earth. If they don't do that, it will be a major missed opportunity for them. But I'll tell you, if they do do it, watch out, U.S., because then it's their game and we're on the outside.
PHILLIP: So let me just play Dave Portnoy once again. You weren't here Friday, but he was on the show Friday. We were talking about him. He's been talking about what this means for him. He's rich, but what it means for his listeners as well. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAVE PORTNOY, FOUNDER, BARSTOOL SPORTS: I'd kill to be back to losing $7 million. I haven't even looked, if I had to guess them down in these last three days, probably close to 20, I don't know, like 10, 15 percent of my net worth, poof. If the stock market's tanking, you think that only affects rich people? We're probably affected the least. Like, yes, I'm losing $20 million. I've still got plenty of money. But it all shakes down. It all shakes down.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: That working class person who works at the car dealership that is expecting demand to constrict significantly over the next few months, they're freaking out.
[22:30:06]
That's not my words. That's actually from a car dealership owner who said his employees are freaking out, because they know the job cuts will be down the road.
ROCHA: Let's talk about a perspective of -- what you're saying is exactly right. And the way Donald Trump gets away with this is because of guys like me.
I hate to say this in front of Scott -- is that I worked in a factory -- went to factory when 1989. We made radio passenger tires for cars. I worked there with my dad, eight of my uncles and 12 of my cousins. I was a union steward there.
That plant now sits in China because you can import small radio passenger charge pretty cheap because of our failed trade policy and this Democrat's opinion. Donald Trump will use that to say that we need to fight China. We need to bring those jobs back to America, feel a little pain for a little bit, but I'm rejiggering this whole thing to make it work for you.
That's what he's betting on against the pain of what people are really going to feel. And this is what will be determined in 18 months to your point, Abby, is the American people will decide which one of these philosophies actually is true.
JENNINGS: That's -- that's a hundred percent true. I mean --
(CROSSTALK)
UNKNOWN: Yeah, we all agree. We all agree.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Exactly. Let's just hope that --
ROCHA: The Mexican redneck brought everybody together.
PHILLIP: Let's hope that the economy is still standing by then because 18 months is a very, very long time, in this kind of era of five and seven percent drops every single day in the stock market. Rana Foroohar, John Carney, Richard Quest -- the mighty three. Thank you all very much for joining us. Everyone else, hang tight. Breaking news tonight. The Supreme Court is
letting the President use a centuries-old law to speed up some deportations for now. Just another special guest is going to join us at the table to break down what happened there.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:36:21]
PHILLIP: Breaking news. The Supreme Court gives the green light for Trump to use the Alien Enemies Act to speed up deportations at least for now. Now, this law is from 1798, but there is a catch. Deportees may now be notified and allowed to challenge their removal. Rachel Lindsay and Elizabeth Pipko are here at -- at the table with us. Also joining us in our fifth seat is civil and criminal attorney Donte Mills. He's a professor at Temple University's Beasley School of Law.
So, Donte, this decision is being heralded as a carte blanche for the administration to continue just shipping people to El Salvador. Not quite what the court said here today, but explain to us the significance of them, actually, even allowing this to go forward while this litigation is --
(CROSSTALK)
DONTE MILLS, NATIONAL TRIAL ATTORNEY: It's not at all what the court said today. And I'll just say Stephen Miller -- Stephen Miller is just making it up. One thing this administration is good at is controlling the narrative. So, they're trying to claim a win, but it's not a win. What the court said -- the court didn't address whether or not the Enemies Aliens Act that can be used, but they said it was an improper venue.
So, they said the claim or the -- the contest had to come from the state where the person was being housed. In this case, that's Texas. Unfortunately, the -- the case was brought in Washington D.C. and the district court judge put a stop to the deportations.
So, it seems as if the Supreme Court is allowing the deportations to continue because they lifted that stay, but they only lifted that stay because the case wasn't supposed to be brought in D.C. It was supposed to be brought in Texas, but they included in their decision that these people have the right to challenge their deportation. It just has to come in a different venue.
PHILLIP: Yeah. And we've talked a lot on this show about this question of what are the rights of immigrants and whether they are accused of being a member of a gang or not. Justice Kavanaugh, noted liberal -- excuse me -- no. I mean, conservative Trump appointee says, the court's disagreement with the dissenter is not over whether the detainees receive judicial review of their transfers.
All nine members of the court agree that judicial review is available. The only question, to Donte's point, is where that judicial review should occur. So, at some point, and -- and the administration's been claiming the courts have no jurisdiction over this. The Supreme Court said, no -- no. That's not the case. The courts absolutely do, and the detainees have a right to a day in court before they are sent away.
JENNINGS: Yeah, fine. I mean, look, it sounds to me like they're going to be able to use this law as long as these people get their day in court. The administration shows their cards on why they were picked up and deported, or, you know, prepared for deportation in the first place.
So, it feels to me like everybody got something, which is that the Trump administration feels like they got some legal vindication on the use of the law, and a lot of people were crapping on them over it. And the people who want, you know, these, immigrants to get some kind of a due process are going to get that, as well.
PHILLIP: But I don't think --
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: -- they have been vindicated.
PHILLIP: Just I -- I'll let you in, Rachel, but just I mean, Donte's shaking his head. I'm shaking my head because they did not rule on the use of the law. They just said wrong court, go get a different court.
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: But there's they're going to keep using it, right?
PHILLIP: Until it is -- until the next challenge.
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: So, like, when we wake up in the morning, they're going to keep using it. Yes?
MILLS: No.
RACHEL LINDSAY, PODCAST CO-HOST, "HIGHER LEARNING": No, because now they have due process --
JENNINGS: But -- but the administration will continue to use the law as a justification for deporting people.
LINDSAY: But nobody goes anywhere, right?
UNKNOWN: Yes, absolutely.
LINDSAY: Because now, the detainees have the -- the option to get noticed and --
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: Okay. So, let me just ask one more time. When we wake up in the morning, they will use the law as a justification.
(CROSSTALK)
LINDSAY: They're not using the law. They --
(CROSSTALK)
MILLS: They can just kick you out of the country but that's not what the court said. And in fact, the court said these people are entitled. They're entitled to their day in court.
(CROSSTALK)
[22:40:00]
PHILLIP: So, do you need them to say no?
JENNINGS: I just -- I just want to know --
PHILLIP: Because I think that's what he's saying is true.
LINDSAY: The court hasn't ruled out on using the law yet.
JENNINGS: -- if the administration can use the law, the answer is clearly yes.
PHILLIP: Look, they can attempt to use the law, but I -- I think what we could expect is that it'll be challenged.
LINDSAY: Right. The law exists still, but it doesn't mean that they're using the law to actually be able to deport it. Now, they get to actually challenge the law. The detainees get to challenge the law in court. It just still exists. They haven't said that it doesn't, which when they go back, they have to start all over again. Am I right, Donte?
MILLS: And if they do --
LINDSAY: And now they get to answer the legal question, which they haven't done at all yet. They haven't --
(CROSSTALK)
MILLS: And if they do use the law in that way, I don't think it's anything we should be proud of because that means --
JENNINGS: Why?
MILLS: -- they're trying to get around the court system. The court, in fact, said, it's -- Justice Sotomayor said it's not proper for the way they're trying to use this law and tell these detainees they don't have the right to challenge it, and they're shipping them on planes before they can get in court. So, the Supreme Court says stop doing that. And they said give these people the opportunity to contest it.
JENNINGS: Yeah.
MILLS: And if you're right, you're right, but don't get around the law. ROCHA: There's real -- there's real implications here around the board on all sides of this thing. Like, here's some most issues even earlier today. Like, as somebody who's here who runs a firm, we've talked about this. Most of my business partners are immigrants. Most of them came here as small little kids, and one of them are in -- are in fear right now.
As an immigration activist, if you've come to this country and you've done a heinous crime, you should be sent back. And I'm saying this is a Democrat. But I think the stories that we see coming out of this and what worries me every single day, even for my family and my own friends, is that it's just too broad.
And again, I hear Ruben Gallego talk about this and other folks and I grimace because, you know, I try not to say what's really on my heart, which is I'm angry, but I also am a realist. That's what gets me in trouble sometimes with my own party. But you can't have both of these things. And what we need to do is figure out the right way to get this done so that innocent people have more stories that we see coming out don't happen.
PHILLIP: Let me play -- this is the attorney for Andry Hernandez Romero. He is the gay Venezuelan makeup artist who was deported to El Salvador apparently because he had tattoos on his arms that said mom and dad. Here's what his attorney says about what happened there.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LINDSAY TOCZYLOWSKI, ATTORMEY FOR ANDRY HERNANDEZ ROMERO: He has denied from the moment he arrived here that he is a gang member, and to think that without due process, without a hearing, without the notice that the Supreme Court tonight said is due to every single person, we are gravely concerned for his safety in the SECOT. We know the conditions there. We know that there are reports of torture.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So, he is one of those people who, now, I guess, maybe it's too late for him. He's been deported and on -- it seems, according to his attorney, baseless claims that he was in a gang.
LINDSAY: Yeah. Think about how scary this is. All they have to do is allege it, and then it could happen, and you're okay with that.
JENNINGS: I'm okay with this administration doing anything and everything --
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: -- within its power to protect the American people --
LINDSAY: From what?
JENNINGS: -- from the invasion that occurred over the last four years.
ELIZABETH PIPKO, FORMER RNC SPOKESPERSON: That is why it's not affecting him right now. I will say when people are in our country that are here illegally but also committing heinous crimes, it actually does affect all of us. So, I do think we're impacted by it. I think that's fair to say. I understand the concern. I'm also uncomfortable with the use of the term immigrant.
For example, I'm a daughter of two immigrants. There's immigrant and there's those that came here illegally and commit atrocious crimes and didn't deserve to be here to begin with. So, I think we should separate the two.
MILLS: And nobody's arguing that they should be here. Nobody.
PIPKO: Well, we're -- we're sitting here debating whether Donald Trump and his administration should be deporting people --
MILLS: No, we're sitting here saying they can grab somebody like Abrego Garcia who was not supposed to be deported -- deport him to a prison --
PIPKO: Do we know that he was not supposed to be deported?
MILLS: And when they admit that they did it by accident, they say, oh, it's too late. We have no jurisdiction now. We can't do anything about it. That's not fair. And it can happen to anybody. So -- and if we don't stop it now, the scope will get bigger, and then it will happen to you, and then you'll have a problem with it.
JENNINGS: I -- I think also you're conflating legal American citizens with people who came here illegally. We do this all the time in these debates, and I think what the administration is trying to do is be as aggressive as possible at deporting different kinds of populations.
One, people who've committed heinous violent crimes. Number two, people that were violent before they came here. Number three, anyone who came here illegally. I mean, look, I'm sorry, but if you came here illegally, no matter how well intentioned you were, there's probably a decent chance you're going to be sent back. And that's what the administration clearly communicated to the American people in the election. They overwhelmingly voted for it, and it's not particularly a controversial matter.
PHILLIP: Let me just, before we go, I want to -- because we were talking about American citizens and the dividing line here. Here's Trump talking about, I guess, the prospect of sending American citizens to El Salvador, too.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNKNOWN: What about El Salvador? The president there said he would be willing to take American citizens in the federal prison population. Is that one of the ideas you're going to be more discussing?
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Well, I love that. If we could take some of our 20-time prize guys and push people into subways and then hit people over the back of the head and then purposely run people over in cars, if you would take them, I'd be honored to give -- if they can house these horrible criminals for a lot less money than it costs us, I'm all for it.
[22:45:04]
But I'd -- I'd only do according to the law.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Well, I wonder --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Hey, hey, I wonder who gets to determine what the law is because this administration seems to think the courts don't - like he does.
JENNINGS: Well, it sounds like if somebody got convicted of a violent crime that he just described --
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: --could be sent to prison.
PHILLIP: So, you're saying what's -- what's wrong with sending Americans to a prison in El Salvador?
JENNINGS: I'm saying --
PHILLIP: Is that what you're saying?
JENNINGS: I'm saying what's wrong with sending people who are convicted of violent crimes to prison, period?
PHILLIP: No, no. That's what he said. He said he's going to send them to a prison.
JENNINGS: Yeah. So?
PHILLIP: The vice president called it a gulag in El Salvador. Is that okay with you?
JENNINGS: If you -- if you are convicted of a violent crime in this country and a court finds you guilty of whatever, those things he just listed, and it's -- and it's okay by the law, which he said at the end of his answer, I mean --
PHILLIP: How is it okay by the law to extradite Americans to a foreign country for crimes they committed here?
JENNINGS: Well, I mean, I think what he's saying is it's okay I mean, I think what he's saying is if it's okay by the law to put someone in prison, then they're going to do it. But --
PHILLIP: Okay, but -- I know, Scott. But --
JENNINGS: But he said if it's okay by the law, I don't know if it is or not, but that's what he's saying. LINDSAY: But you don't know. You just said it.
PHILLIP: All right. Well --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: All right, everybody. Listen.
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: I know -- I know you want all the illegals --
UNKNOWN: I'm just going to --
JENNINGS: -- all the violence out of jail. I know that.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Listen, I'm just going to -- I'm just going to leave that right there because the idea that you can just take an American, even if they're in jail, and just send them to a foreign country and say bye bye is not a thing that has happened in this country.
Donte Mills, thank you very much for joining us. Everyone else, hold on. Coming up next, a second child, sadly, has died in a deadly outbreak in Texas, and now RFK Jr. is stating the obvious, that the vaccine is the best way to prevent measles. But is it too late for all of that? We're going to discuss next.
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[22:51:35]
PHILLIP: Tonight, the nation's health chief is giving weak support for the number one way to prevent measles' death. RFK Jr. attended the funeral of a second unvaccinated child who died of measles related illness in Texas. And afterwards, he took to social media on Sunday to state the obvious. "The most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine."
Joining us at the table is Dr. Chris Pernell. She is the director of the NAACP Center for Health Equity. Dr. Pernell, in addition to that being so late and perhaps too little, RFK Jr. has been saying a lot of other things. Let -- let me just play real quick, some of the other remedies that he has been suggesting to people that they should do in order to treat measles.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR., HHS SECRETARY: Right now, we have -- we're -- we're delivering Vitamin A. We are providing assistance if people need ambulance rides, they're getting very, very good results. They report from, budesonide, which is a steroid, it's a 30-year old steroid and there -- and clarithromycin and also cod liver oil which has high -- high concentrations of Vitamin A and Vitamin D.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: While some patients are showing up at the hospitals with Vitamin A toxicity now.
CHRIS T. PERNELL, DIRECTOR NAACP CENTER FOR HEALTH EQUITY: Too little too late and not good enough. Yes, it's good that he at least finally acknowledged that the vaccine is the way to prevent the disease, but we already have two dead children in Texas and another dead adult in New Mexico, and we never should have mixed with public health such misinformation and disinformation because it kills.
We've said this time and time again in public health and once again, that edict has been proven -- proven true. We're all concerned that a person like RFK is even the secretary of HHS. He had to be -- let's say, strong-armed into releasing this statement, and it needs to be clear and compelling and consistent communication that vaccines work.
And in the case of measles, which we have pretty much eradicated unless people were exposed on travel, we're now having a full blown outbreak across multiple states. The likelihood that the numbers that we are -- that are being reported or undercounted is very high.
PHILLIP: I don't even understand, Elizabeth, why RFK Jr. is even giving that kind of alleged medical advice. I mean, the -- the public health advice is pretty straightforward, get vaccinated. Why is he talking about all of these other things that you can do once you've already gotten the measles?
PIPKO: Look, this is what I want to say. I was on the campaign trail with Donald Trump, with our team, with members of the President's family. I have never seen people this excited for someone apart from Donald Trump. So, he has tapped into something that the American people were looking for. I think that's important, right?
There's a reason he was that popular. People obviously like this kind of advice. They want to know that there are other options out there and that they are trusted as American citizens to make their own choices. At the same time, obviously, any dead child in America is one too many, especially for measles in 2025.
The fact that people said that he was an anti-vaxxer, he's obviously not, you know? So, I think you should take a grain of salt with this. I don't know if he was strong-armed into putting out that statement.
[22:55:01]
The fact is, any child that dies should not happen in America. That is a horrible day in this country, but we're also allowed to get any advice that we want out to people who --
PERNELL: But -- can we mention --
PHILLIP: He is an anti-vaxxer.
UNKNOWN: Yeah, absolutely.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: He had said there is no such thing as a safe and effective vaccine.
PERNLL: Yes and he was on record weeks ago continuing to spread misinformation about the MMR vaccine. For him to even in that same statement where he, capitulated, if you will, and spoke the truth, he also said things as was just mentioned around Vitamin A. There is no treatment for measles. None.
PHILLIP: All right. We got to leave it there. Everyone, thank you very much for joining us and thanks for watching "NewsNight". You can catch me anytime on social media -- X, Instagram, TikTok. "Laura Coates Live" starts right after a quick break.
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