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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Trump Backs Off Tariff Promises: We Don't Have To Sign Deals; Treasury Chief Says No China Talks Yet, Contradicting Trump; Prime Minister Tells Trump To His Face, Canada Won't Be For Sale, Ever; Trump Makes False Claims During Meeting With Canada; Supreme Court Gives Green Light To Trump To Ban Transgender Troops In The Military. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired May 06, 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, as the clock ticks, proof emerges there's more wheeling than dealing --
SCOTT BESSENT, TREASURY SECRETARY: China, we have not engaged in negotiations with.
PHILLIP: -- in the tariff spin factory.
Plus, Canada nice turns to ice.
MARK CARNEY, CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER: It's not for sale. It won't be for sale ever.
PHILLIP: Neighbors tell each other, you need me.
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: Never say never.
PHILLIP: Also, the Supremes give Donald Trump the green light to ban trans troops.
Live at the table, Scott Jennings, Jemele Hill, Shermichael Singleton, Julie Roginsky and Jim Sciutto.
Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here they do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP (on camera): Good evening. I'm Abby Phillip in New York.
Let's get right to what America's talking about, a gaslighting game of deal or no deal. Last week, Donald Trump told the country that he's made 200 trade deals. There are currently zero deals. And 187 nations tariffed, and depending on who you ask, there are talks with only about 15 or 20 of them, but no deals yet.
It's the president who's getting frustrated when he's asked about the fate of the economy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Everyone says, when, when, when are you going to sign deals? We don't have to sign deals. We can sign 25 deals right now, Howard, if we wanted. We don't have to sign deals. They have to sign deals with us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: That is the exact opposite of what Trump and his administration have been telling America for the last several weeks.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: They want to make a deal.
We're going to have great deals.
I think we're going to make a deal with China.
KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The phones have been ringing off the hook to make deals.
TRUMP: We're going to make a deal with everybody.
Oh, they'll be a trade deal, 100 percent.
LEAVITT: We are moving at Trump speed to ensure these deals are made.
TRUMP: These are tailored, highly tailored deals.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There are multiple deals that are extraordinarily close.
TRUMP: We have a lot of countries coming in that want to make deals.
LEAVITT: He creates his own leverage and negotiates deals better than anyone else.
STEPHEN MILLER, WHITE HOUSE DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF FOR POLICY: Right now, countries from all over the world because of President Trump's leadership are desperate and dying to make trade deals with the United States.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Again, zero deals so far. And now, Trump says the U.S. doesn't need them at all.
And when it comes to China, the biggest trader of them all, despite weeks of Trump saying that the U.S. is already meeting with the Chinese, we apparently got the truth under oath from Trump's secretary of the treasury.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BESSENT: There are 18 very important trading relationships. We are currently negotiating with 17 of those trading partners. China, we have not engaged in negotiations with as of yet.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: And tonight, CNN got word that China and the U..S will finally meet for the first time later this week.
Bottom line, mixed messages here, whiplash and contradictory claims are leaving Americans, companies and the entire economy in limbo.
So, Jim Sciutto, first of all, welcome to the show.
JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Thank you very much.
PHILLIP: Is this chaos or strategic uncertainty? I just want to play real quick what the treasury secretary said on Fox tonight about that very question.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BESSENT: In game theory, it's called strategic uncertainty, what you're talking about, nobody does it better than President Trump.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: It is often the case. It feels like sort of like just explaining Trump's actions after he's done it to try to make everything seem very rational. But what do you think?
SCIUTTO: Well, listen, the fact is both sides have a lot to lose from this trade war and they're paying enormous costs. But regardless of what the Trump administration feels about its strength going in, I've been speaking to U.S. diplomats who've been traveling in Asia, speaking to Chinese officials and speaking to Chinese diplomats and others in the region, and their view is that China, in fact, itself feels well-positioned, in the words of one diplomat in this trade war, for a few reasons. One, they feel they could stand up to U.S. pressure, respond to it and outlast it. They built a playbook to respond to trade wars going back to the first Trump administration.
And, again, I say this with the caveat that China has a lot to lose here, but they believe they could inflict pain on the U.S. in economic terms. And one key piece of leverage from their perspective is rare earths and rare earths in particular.
[22:05:01]
And there's a particular rare earth that goes into magnets that are essential to electric vehicles as well as some products from the defense industry. It's called, and I wrote it down here, so I pronounce it pretty correctly, it's called dysprosium, one of these very rare earths, but this is one that is so essential to these industries. China knows it, and it knows that by putting restrictions on this particular rare earth, that it inflicts pain on U.S. companies.
And I've been told by lobbyists in Washington that U.S. companies that depend on this rare earth are calling the Trump administration and saying, this is sensitive. This could kill our businesses.
PHILLIP: I bet they are. And, you know, the big difference is that we have a pesky thing called elections. And China understands that very well, Shermichael. So, yes, they're going to feel some pain, but they also know that the clock is ticking for Trump and Republicans more than it's ticking for Xi Jinping.
SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. We have elections and we're just not really patient. I mean, Americans like to buy cheaper goods. I understand. Hell, I like to buy things for cheaper, if I can also. But I think, Jim, it makes a case for why we probably shouldn't be so reliant upon China to refine rare earth minerals.
Let's just say we get over this issue with tariffs, which I presume we will at some point, hopefully sooner than later, if we were to ever get into a military conflict with China, whether it's in the South China Sea or over Taiwan, and China decides to just embargo all goods to the United States. Well, what in the world do we do when we're so reliant upon those minerals for our defense and for our energy, and for other infrastructure needs?
And so this worries me. I hope we get over this, but in the long-term, we have to do something to figure out a way to refine those minerals here or somewhere else with a partner that's more open to U.S. interest.
JULIE ROGINSKY, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Well, I'll tell you who that partner would be, Canada, Denmark, which controls Greenland. But instead, we're fighting with the very people who we actually could make common cause with to stand up to China. And, look, the problem is this. We are fighting with all the nations of the world except for Russia, North Korea, Belarus, and Cuba.
Everybody else was tariffed. They can do business with each other. We're the ones who are saying, you shouldn't do business with us, or we're not going to do business with you unless you bend the knee. And the reality is they have a lot of other trading partners. We are the ones who need to trade with somebody else.
And from a geopolitical perspective, you're absolutely right. We are overly reliant on China. The problem is that because we're overly reliant on China, we cannot blow off the allies who actually do have access to rare earth minerals, like the Canadians, like the Danish, and yet that's exactly what we're doing.
JEMELE HILL, CONTRIBUTING WRITER, THE ATLANTIC: Yes, and that's kind of my concern too, is that we built our self as a consumption society and, unfortunately, that's not something that we could just correct overnight or correct over a couple weeks, or really even over a couple of years. So, it feels like China had this strategy saved in drafts. They were waiting to press the button. They were waiting to hit send. Like we know one day that you guys are going to try to, quote, cash the check and we're going to be waiting and prepared. And because of the way we've isolated ourselves from other countries, I don't get how they can position this as being strategic.
PHILLIP: Well, let me show you the two headlines that caught my attention. China says it's tearing down walls to expand trade alliances amid U.S. standoff. So, they're making deals with other countries to try to protect themselves, and then also India and the U.K. striking a trade deal. So, everybody's dealing -- wheeling and dealing with each other, trying to protect themselves from an overreliance on the U.S. as a market. And we are doing what?
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, you played Scott Bessent today under oath said we're currently negotiating with 16 of the 17 most important countries, and he'll be meeting with the Chinese this weekend when they all converge in Switzerland. I think dealing with -- I'm sorry, you know, with all due respect to all these other countries making deals, they're small and relatively unimportant.
We are the big player in the field and everybody knows it. And people would rather do business with us than do business with China because of what Jim just said. They have all these strategies to inflict pain upon you if you don't bend to their will or allow them to break the rules.
And so I think when you're dealing with the United States, it's going to take a little bit of time to work out the best deal for us and the best deal for them. But I have a lot of confidence that when push comes to shove and people get right down to it, an alliance, a trading partnership, business dealings with the United States is a heck of a lot better than being reliant on the Chinese because they have seen what they have done to us and everybody else in the world. The decoupling and the isolation of China is a real thing. And it may be a little painful, but it's necessary.
PHILLIP: I want to say this. I mean, I just -- you mentioned the word decoupling. Scott Bessent very clearly said, we're not trying to decouple.
JENNINGS: We're going to have to on some front.
PHILLIP: He said --
JENNINGS: Because of what Shermichael said. This is a national security issue, and we know it (ph).
PHILLIP: He said that today. He said, we are not trying to decouple. We need a deal in order for this work.
SCIUTTO: We can't decouple today. I mean, you can develop rare earths over time, but not tomorrow. It takes many years to do this. Similarly, you can't --
JENNINGS: Why, by the way?
SCIUTTO: Well, because it takes years of investment and specialization.
JENNINGS: And there are -- and here's the thing.
SCIUTTO: (INAUDIBLE) semiconductor as well.
JENNINGS: There are people in the United States who are trying to mine rare earth minerals right now. My understanding is that there's a lot of red tape and bureaucracy you got to go through to do it. I think part of the answer here, you might be right, is that developing this is in our own best interest.
[22:10:05]
But the next step of this could be knocking down all the barriers to moving quickly.
PHILLIP: Why hasn't Trump done that, though? I mean, he's the president.
JENNINGS: In the last 100 days?
PHILLIP: Yes, he's --
JENNINGS: Why hasn't taking a shovel out to the west and he go to mines (ph).
PHILLIP: Well, he's the president. He ran on deregulation.
JENNINGS: I think he should. It's a good idea.
PHILLIP: He ran on getting rid of red tape. The first thing he does is not try to empower the United States' domestic markets, but to impose tariffs. And, I mean, you're raising an important point, which is that if there is a barrier to entry in this market, shouldn't that be the number one thing that Donald Trump tries to do, which is to reduce those barriers?
JENNINGS: I think it's an important priority for the United States to mine everything we can possibly mine, whether it's coal, rare earth minerals or anything else. Because anytime you are reliant on other countries, especially ones that are our enemy, you are in a bad position. We have allowed this reliance to build up over the years. It will not be done overnight, but it has to be done even if it's bumpy in the process. I firmly believe it.
SCIUTTO: Listen, it's a fair point. It does take time. Sad fact is, I mean, if you look for instance at dependence on Taiwan, which is an ally, and there has been an effort, enormous investment to try to bring some of that semiconductor manufacturing of this country, but, again, that takes years and many billions of dollars to do so. And it's quite similar. It's not just environmental regulations that stand in the way of rare earth mining here. It's investment. It's also cost. It's just going to be more expensive.
And there's a reason our iPhones -- I mean, they're fairly expensive, but they would be more expensive if they were made in this country. And that's something that Americans would also have to be comfortable with.
HILL: And he also didn't run on that. He didn't run on there's going to be some pain. He ran on, I'm lowering everything from day one. So, how are you going to now package? Well, you guys are just going to have to suck it up to the American people. They don't want to hear that.
PHILLIP: And why all the chaos? I mean, why not have a strategy that addresses all of those things, the things that you talked about and you talked about, and do that on the front end as opposed to trying to back your way into it when you've -- I mean, effectively, this is Trump having put a gun against his own head and is sort of like he is the one who's created this time pressure for himself.
SINGLETON: I mean, one possibility that I think the president could potentially explore as it pertains to a strategy would be similar to what we did with the National Highway System. Maybe start now and say, I won't be president by the time we conclude this, but for the next eight years, I'm going to work with Congress to appropriate the necessary funding to begin the process of building out that manufacturing, to make sure that the investment is there so we can invest in American infrastructure and, again, not being reliant on an adversary.
We've seen what China is doing. They fly their jets close to our fire fighter power jets -- fighter pilot jets. They get their ships close to our ships.
JENNINGS: They send balloons over our country.
SINGLETON: I mean, I don't know, even if we get over this tariff conflict, Abby, if we can really trust the Chinese to be honest in their dealings with us going forward.
And so at some point, if it's not Trump, somebody in this country is going to have to say, we just cannot be reliant on a country that we may be in a military conflict in the next ten years.
ROGINSKY: Shermichael, that's absolutely a great strategy, and if you were a president, I would hope you would initiate it. The problem is that's not the president we have in the Oval Office right now. The president we have in the Oval Office right now is somebody who shoots first and then asks questions later.
And to your point, Scott, I would say I don't think India with its over a billion people is an insignificant country for trading purposes. I don't think the U.K., and especially the E.U, which it's no longer a part of, isn't a significant trading country. Their economy is --
JENNINGS: Do you think they're more significant than the United States?
ROGINSKY: I don't think they're more significant, but I think --
JENNINGS: We're the most significant country. We're the world's superpower.
ROGINSKY: No, Scott, stop the jingoism.
JENNINGS: We're the world's superpower.
ROGINSKY: Let me -- stop with the jingoism.
JENNINGS: Dealing with us is the most important thing anyone can do.
ROGINSKY: Stop. Do you think that China can do just as well with the E.U.? Do you think that China can do just as well with India?
JENNINGS: If I were the E.U., I would not want to be reliant -- and look what's happened to us. They don't want it.
ROGINSKY: It's not a question of reliance. It's a question on the fact that everybody's cutting deals with each other. We're not cutting deals with anybody.
JENNINGS: We have one thing in the news tonight and you guys keep saying everybody is --
ROGINSKY: They're having discussions with each other.
JENNINGS: We're in the middle of talking to 16 countries, according to the treasury secretary.
ROGINSKY: According to the treasury secretary, we've been hearing from them for over a month that we're on the cusp any day now.
JENNINGS: You're saying he's lying?
ROGINSKY: No, I'm saying that --
JENNINGS: He's under oath today.
ROGINSKY: I'm saying that every deal that we heard about is coming any day now, any day now, any day now.
JENNINGS: How quickly would you be able to cut a trade deal?
ROGINSKY: Let me ask you that question. I wouldn't get into this mess in the first place.
JENNINGS: You wouldn't try to improve our trading relations.
(CROSSTALKS)
ROGINSKY: No, Scott, let me tell you something, Kentucky, my friend. You guys import more than any other state in the nation. You want to represent that state and Senate? You go tell the people of Kentucky. Why they have to sit there and listen to this nonsense. Their bourbon's about to be tariff to hell. You guys are about to have no trade with Canada. You're about to lose millions upon tens of millions of dollars just in Ontario province alone with all the stuff that you're not importing there. So, why don't you go tell the people of Kentucky people --
JENNINGS: The people of --
(CROSSTALKS)
JENNINGS: They trust the president.
ROGINSKY: Oh, okay.
JENNINGS: They voted for the president and they're going to let it make the best deals for them.
ROGINSKY: I can't wait. You tell them on Christmas --
PHILLIP: I guess they are. They have no choice but to trust the president that they voted for because this is where we are as a country.
Coming up next, a tense meeting inside the Oval Office, we were just talking about Canada. Canada's new prime Minister tells Trump to his face, we are not for sale.
Plus, breaking news, two nuclear-armed nations are on the brink of war tonight after India launches an attack on Pakistan.
[22:15:03]
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: Face to face, the president and Canada's newly elected prime minister met for the first time and things got a little awkward as Donald Trump repeated his calls for Canada to become part of the union, the United States that is. And Mark Carney pushed back and with a flare of Canadian nice.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I'm a real estate developer at heart. When you get rid of that artificially drawn line, somebody drew that line many years ago with like a ruler, just a straight line right across that top of the country.
[22:20:00]
When you look at that beautiful formation, when it's together, I'm a very artistic person, but when I looked at that, but I said that's the way it was meant to be.
It would really be a wonderful marriage.
CARNEY: As you know, from real estate, there are some places that are never for sale.
Having met with the owners of Canada over the course of the campaign last several months, it's not for sale. It won't be for sale ever. But the opportunity is in the partnership.
TRUMP: Never say never.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Did you catch that? Look at his face? Sometimes silence says everything you need to know.
He -- we've seen so many of these Oval Office meetings. It's become almost like a meme at this point. But this one, he just got elected basically on the premise that he was going to stand up to Trump and he sat in the Oval Office and did exactly that. And that's the opposite of what Trump said was going to happen when he became president. He said everyone was going to respect us again. Everybody was going to stop laughing at us. And now, I don't know.
ROGINSKY: Look, I don't even know why Trump would agree to this meeting, because Carney has a mandate. If there's one mandate that Carney has from the Canadian people it is to stick it to Donald Trump. I mean, that is literally the only reason his party won. It was not going to win until Trump came along.
And so, you know, Carney went down there and Carney did what he had to do for his people, which is effectively to say we're never ever getting back together or whatever the Taylor Swift lyric is. No matter how much you keep asking me the prom, I'm not going with you.
I know we really want to, but we're not hanging out. And the reality is that Trump had to sit there and kind of say that what I want from you is friendship, which is, A, thirsty, and, B, kind of the same reaction that I think you would have if you were trying to double back on everything that you've said before. So, he's talking a really tough game and then all of a sudden sitting next to Carney, he's like, well, would I really want to be his friends with you?
That's not exactly what Trump promised us he was going to do. He promised us he was going to, you know, go in tough. And, in fact, I think Carney in his own kind of nice Canadian way, owned him a little bit today.
SCIUTTO: The thing is, from a strategic perspective, it makes no sense to antagonize Canada. It doesn't. You have an ally too, if China is your main adversary, which we believe it is, who wants to do the same, and you've antagonized them. If you believe the Arctic is the primary strategic playing field, Canada has the longest border with the Arctic, say, Russia. You want them on your side. You don't want them on the opposite side.
And just another note that in our wars, not just going back to D-Day when Canadian soldiers stormed the beaches along with American soldiers, but back to the Afghanistan war, Canadians did hard duty on the frontlines alongside U.S. forces. They didn't lay back like some of our allies did, and they paid for it in blood.
When I was in Afghanistan, in Southern Afghanistan, the tip of the spear, Helmand Province, I saw, and this is a mark of where the Canadians are, they would build inline ice hockey rinks, because Canadians play hockey wherever they go. So, you knew the Canadian soldiers were there because they had an inline ice hockey and they paid for it.
PHILLIP: And that doesn't get mentioned, I think, nearly enough, especially considering the tone of the division (ph), yes.
SCIUTTO: And this kind of sense that Canada is not, listen, the U.S. defense budget is bigger than Canada. There's no question, much as our defense budget is bigger than European allies, which are finally slowly and belatedly catching up. But in terms of commitment, Canada has shown that commitment.
PHILLIP: Yes. And, you know, Carney, he also did another thing that we've seen some other world leaders do. He fact-checked Donald Trump in the Oval Office on the issue of just how much of a partner is the United States when it comes to trade?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Well, we don't do much business with Canada from our standpoint. They do a lot of business with us. We're at like 4 percent.
CANADA: So, we are the largest client in the United States.
In the totality of all the goods, so we are the largest.
50 percent of a car that comes from Canada, is American. That's not like anywhere else in the world.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: He's right about that. And on top -- and just to, you know, put the cherry on top, Canada is the top purchaser, number one, of U.S. goods that is exported. For someone who really cares about the trade deficit, Trump should be saying, yes, buy more from us, because can Canadians buy a lot, the most out of everybody else on the planet.
HILL: I'm from Detroit, so I grew up just minutes from Canada, because Windsor Canada, right across the tunnel is 10 minutes from downtown Detroit. And the sense that you get from Canadian is they feel betrayed. Like that whole performance in the White House, that was just rude. Like this is a country that has been there through us 9/11, so many different points in our history that you have pointed out.
And it feels like what we have done to them is so unbecoming and we're showing the rest of the world we cannot be a good ally. That is not a good thing to show the rest of the world, particularly when we're trying to gain more leverage against China, as we pointed out in the last segment.
And so I just felt Mark Carney, when he said afterwards a reporter asked him, what were you thinking in that moment? And he said, oh, you don't want to know what I was thinking in that moment. And that's just not a good look for our country at all. We should not have leadership that does this to another country that's been as good to us as Canada has.
[22:25:00]
PHILLIP: Scott?
JENNINGS: I'm actually pretty hopeful about this relationship between a new leader and Donald Trump. There was no chance he was obviously going to get along with Trudeau. And, you know, I think anytime a country has a new president and they come to the White House and they begin this kind of dance, obviously, there's some political posturing for the people back home, Trump does some posturing for his people, but I actually am kind of optimistic about what could be here in comparison to what we had before with Trudeau, who was a complete utter disaster.
So, I'm thinking -- I mean, you know, Canada, look, 90 percent of the Canadian people live within 150 miles of the U.S. border. They do a lot of business with us across the lines. We got a new president over there. He seems like he wants to be a dealer. Trump's a dealer. I'm not taking a glass half full approach.
PHILLIP: I think it's a very important question. Does Trump want a deal? I mean, he was asked what can Canada do, pray tell, to get rid of the tariffs that he has placed on them? And this was his answer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Is there anything he could say to you in the course of your meetings with him today that could get you to lift tariffs on Canada?
TRUMP: No.
REPORTER: Why not?
TRUMP: Just the way it is.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: I mean, I keep asking, does Trump want to make a deal or are his advisers just saying that because that calms markets? Because every time he is asked, he does not sound like a man who wants to make a deal, even with the Canadians who we do so much business with, who we have a great trading relationship that Americans benefit from.
SINGLETON: I wonder, Abby, if that was just a knee-jerk reaction and if maybe the conversation behind closed doors was a bit different. I mean, the prime minister --
PHILLIP: How? I mean, why?
SINGLETON: The prime minister --
JENNINGS: I think it's the opposite.
SINGLETON: The prime minister stated Canada is not for sale. The president said, he said something, they aren't for sale. PHILLIP: You think it's the opposite?
SINGLETON: The president acknowledged that. He said, yes, that's true. The president also said, hey if something were to happen to Canada, the U.S. will be there to defend Canada. So this is a lot. This is a greater relationship than it was with Trudeau.
PHILLIP: But let me understand what you're saying, a knee-jerk, what is the knee-jerk reaction? The knee-jerk reaction is that when Trump is asked, do you want a deal, he says, no, automatically?
SINGLETON: I think the president is actually --
PHILLIP: I thought he was a deal maker.
SINGLETON: I think the president is open to trying to figure out a deal with the Canadians. And I would imagine -- I don't know the details, but I would imagine behind closed doors, they're getting into that specificity of that nuance.
PHILLIP: Why not say that publicly?
SINGLETON: We'll see what that ultimately looks like.
JENNINGS: Look, the Trump is not going to negotiate against himself or against a member of the press in the Oval Office with another world leader sitting there. I think behind closed doors, conversations are taking place. But he obviously believes in tariffs. He believes there needs to be some sort of tariff relationship.
The Canadians, by the way, do put tariffs on things. We don't talk about that much, but they have done it to us. But I don't think we could ever expect Donald Trump can negotiate --
PHILLIP: We have a trade deal. I think that that's one of the things that we should -- when we talk about the relationship between the United States, Canada, and Mexico, we have a trade deal that Donald Trump negotiated.
And when Trump talks about the tariffs, for example, on dairy that Canada puts on us, what he neglects is to mention is that only hits at a certain level that we don't really get to. So, he paints the picture of Canada, sort of, you know, capriciously putting tariffs on us on everything. We have a trade arrangement that he negotiated. If he had a problem with that, he could have negotiated that away.
SCIUTTO: We should note too that Canada has a vote, and I've spoken to Canadian officials right up to the foreign minister and Mark Carney himself has said this, that the relationship with the U.S. has fundamentally changed, that trust is lost. And countries have their limits and it's not just political limits. And Canada has talked quite openly about expanding its trade with other partners, not just in Europe, but even with China, when it makes sense for them. And that means that will mean lost business for us exporters. There will be a price. PHILLIP: Yes, there was a good story about how the Canadians have basically found other trading partners to make up some of what has been lost and trade with the United States.
ROGINSKY: But here's the problem. When he publicly goes out there, Scott, and he talks, and Shermichael, for that matter, when he goes out there and publicly says what he says, it doesn't matter what he says behind closed doors, because, A, we don't know what's going to happen there, but, B, you have Canadians who are literally taking bourbon out of liquor stores there and throwing it in the garbage. There are people who are no longer buying American, which impacts people today. It impacts bourbon producers.
PHILLIP: And they're not coming here. That's the other thing that has happened.
ROGINSKY: They're not coming here. And, by the way, the problem here is going to continue to be that Canada is putting reciprocal tariffs, one of the few countries that has, when Trump decided to do what he did on liberation day. And what that means is that, again, go to, go back to bourbon's a good example, they're not buying that stuff. But also the fact is that it's costing your home state of Kentucky millions upon millions of dollars already. I mean, this is not good for the United States now.
I don't know what Trump is talking about negotiating, but as we sit here today, there are people, I don't mean to single you out, but there are people all across this country.
JENNINGS: You don't?
ROGINSKY: Actually, I don't. It just so happens, Scott. It just so happens.
JENNINGS: I never feel that way here.
PHILLIP: That's a fair fact check, yes.
[22:30:00]
ROGINSKY: But in reality, it just so happens that they decided very strategically to go after certain states because they know that certain states like your state --
PHILLIP: That's true. Yeah.
ROGINSKY: -- is a state that Donald Trump cares about. So, the reality is that they're not buying these products that you care about. They're hurting people.
(CROSSTALK)
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: -- in a matter of weeks. There's time to work these things out.
(CROSSTALK) PHILLIP: Canadians are nice.
ROGINSKY: Whether you think --
PHILLIP: Canadians are nice but partly because they haven't been forced to be anything else. And Trump is kind of pushing the limits. And so, that's what we will find out, how far they are willing to go to fend themselves in this moment. Jim Sciutto, thank you very much for joining us on all of that.
Everyone else, stay with us. Coming up next, the Supreme Court gives the green light to Donald Trump to ban transgender troops in the military. But is this discrimination? A trans navy veteran joins us at the table. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:35:25]
PHILLIP: Breaking tonight, the Supreme Court says that the Trump administration can immediately start banning transgender troops from serving in the military. The ban had been previously blocked by lower courts, but the court gave no reasoning other than allowing it while those other cases are being challenged.
Now, it's worth noting that the court's liberal justices dissented here. Under the new ban, service members with the current diagnosis history of or exhibiting symptoms consistent with gender dysphoria will be processed for separation from military service.
Joining us now in our fifth seat is Alaina Kupec, a U.S. or navy veteran and a former naval intelligence officer. She's the founder and president of the Gender Research Advisory Council in Education, a non- profit organization that's focused on transgender visibility.
The -- the main argument, Elena, that the Trump administration is making here is that -- that allowing transgender troops to serve hurts lethality and it hurts readiness. What do you say to that?
ALAINA KUPEC, FORMER U.S. NAVY LIEUTENANT: Well, there's no evidence of that. I think that, you know, if that was the case, we've seen transgender people serving honorably for the last several years and why -- what has changed between now and then? They've just woken up to a new administration who has a different outlook on their ability to serve.
So, I think that, you know, if you talk to people who are serving on active duty alongside transgender troops, they're not making these complaints. The leaders in the military are not making these complaints. These are political complaints about military service.
So, I think that all of the courts that have looked at this issue and looked at it, you know, and said there's nothing in fact to back up what the government is claiming here. In fact, the judges challenged them to produce evidence, and they couldn't produce any evidence. So, I think it's -- it's a really dark day for our country where, basically, we're allowed to discriminate against a class of people.
PHILLIP: Scott, if they can't produce evidence that this actually does, in fact, have an impact on readiness I mean, how is this not then just discrimination?
JENNINGS: Well, it's the opinion of the commander in chief who, according to our constitution is the head of the military. I mean, regardless of anyone's opinion or, you know, anybody's -- whatever side you're on, whether you're for it or against it, at some juncture, the President is a Commander in Chief of the military and he has and should have broad latitude to determine how the Armed Forces should be operated.
And so, I think that's what he's doing here. I think that's ultimately what the court said today was that the President is the commander in chief and we got to -- we got to respect that on our consent.
PHILLIP: But I mean to -- to her point, if there's not a downside and it's been going on for years now and, I mean, I'm, just presenting your argument to them.
SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yeah.
PHILLIP: What is the argument other than Trump -- Hegseth just doesn't want trans people in the military?
SINGLETON: Well, I mean, I think that the President -- we'll ultimately see, I think that's why the court is allowing the President to move forward with this until it works itself through the court system, maybe the Supreme Court will be the final arbiter here to say, yeah or nay, you can do this.
But ultimately, I think the court is showcasing deference to the executive saying that, look, you're the President, you're over the military, you do for the most part get to sort of dictate the standards of our military. And I don't really see how you can push back against that. Again, we'll see what happens in the court.
ROGINSKY: I can.
(CROSSTALK)
ROGINSKY: Yeah, I'm sorry. I can. What if the President wakes up tomorrow and says, I don't want any black people in the military? Do we have could we give deference to him? I'm not well, no, no.
SINGLETON: Okay. Julie, Julie.
(CROSSTALK)
UNKNOWN: Ridiculous.
ROGINSKY: No, wait a second. It's not ridiculous. It's not ridiculous because you're discriminating against a group of people in a very similar way.
SINGLETON: Julie --
JENNINGS: I knew you were going to say that.
(CROSSTALK)
ROGINSKY: Excuse me. Well, I'm glad you said that.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: I'm curious, why is it -- why is it ridiculous? I mean, you just said the President should be the one who just decides.
UNKNOWN: Right.
PHILLIP: So, if he decides, he wakes up tomorrow and says, I think it's bad for morale, it's bad for cohesiveness, for there to be, black people in the military, Latino people in the military. Just in her hypothetical scenario, what's the difference between that and what we're seeing here?
JENNINGS: I mean, are you really going to go down this ridiculous?
PHILLIP: I'm just --
ROGINSKY: I'm sorry. She's asking --
PHILLIP: I'm asking based--
JENNINGS: Ridiculous. This is a ridiculous argument.
PHILLIP: Well, okay.
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: The President -- the President and the Secretary of Defense have an argument here. They believe that readiness and unit cohesion and overall operations of the military are impacted by this. That is their opinion, and that is the opinion of the Commander in Chief who the Constitution gives broad latitude to run the Armed Forces.
So, that's her opinion. You're allowed to have one. You're allowed to have one. You're also allowed to run for president and become commander in chief yourself, but until you do -- until you do, he's the commander in chief.
[22:40:00]
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: I have to just say I -- I didn't hear an answer to the hypothetical, right? I just didn't hear it.
(CROSSTALK)
SINGLETON: That's not hypothetical though. That's ridiculous. PHILLIP: Okay, the definition of discrimination according to the
American Psychological Association - discrimination is the unfair or prejudicial treatment of people or groups based on characteristics such as race, gender, age or sexual orientation. What is the difference between, you know, prohibiting certain groups like transgender people from serving versus, you know, people based on their race or even their gender, frankly?
SINGLETON: I -- I personally think there's a difference, and I'm just going to leave it at that.
JEMELE HILL, "THE ATLANTIC" CONTRIBUTING WRITER: Well, I -- I will say --
JENNINGS: Do you believe that race and are -- are you saying that the quality of race and the quality of transgender are the same?
PHILLIP: I'm just asking the question because I think you're making there's -- there's a distinction but you're not explaining why.
JENNINGS: I'm asking, you -- you guys brought up hypothetical. Are you arguing that someone's race is the same as someone choosing to become transgender?
PHILLIP: Alaina?
KUPEC: But -- but your argument -- you -- you've made the argument twice that the commander of chief's opinion is all that matters. You've said that twice now.
JENNINGS: Well, so does the constitution, yes.
KUPEC: So, if he wakes up tomorrow and says, it's not okay to be gay or lesbian in service, because that's his opinion, there's nothing to back that up. They meet the physical standards, they meet the intellectual standards, they have voluntarily decided to serve their country, to give their life for this country, so many of us don't have to, that it's the opinion without any basis in fact that that's what matters more than the constitution of equal rights and equal protection.
JENNINGS: My -- go ahead.
HILL: No, I was going to say the other thing, or there's a few things that bothered me about this, and mostly it was the language of the policy, right? When you're -- look when looking -- reading at some of these words, transgender people as in as inherently untruthful, undisciplined, dishonorable.
That's like a very weighty thing to say about people who are courageously deciding to protect this country. The other problem, Scott, is that it's never enough. It's bathrooms today. It's sports today. It's sports tomorrow. It's the military today.
JENNINGS: No, it's also sports today, by the way.
HILL: Yeah. It is sports today.
JENNINGS: Eighty percent of Americans agree about it.
HILL: Yeah. Oh, that's fine. And 80 percent -- guess what? The majority sometimes is wrong. That also happens, right? Because the majority used to believe that doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. was --
JENNINGS: Okay.
HILL: -- somebody who was a threat and somebody who was not a good American. The majority of people used to be against civil rights. Were they right? No, they weren't. And so, the whole point is when you target one group and inevitably that line moves to everybody else.
And I'm not saying he's coming for black people tomorrow, but considering that this is a military or this is a -- a leadership that is already using DEI as code word for black people already when it comes to the military, suddenly, when you don't protect the most vulnerable, you wind up making it worse for everybody else that's in the marriage of the marginalized --
JENINGS: What do you think about what?
HILL: You don't think trans people are vulnerable in this country?
JENNINGS: So, are -- is it your position that the commander in chief should recruit people who you're describing as vulnerable into the --
HILL: No. He should -- he should he should recruit people who want to serve and protect this country. And it's really kind of ironic considering he dodged the draft that he's trying to -- he suddenly has an opinion about --
Or else we'll be suddenly getting a point of elections. And, Elena, you -- you pointed this out. This is going through the court system.
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: He has an opinion because he won the election.
(CROSSTALK)
SINGLETON: And Alaina, you pointed this out. This is going through the courses. The other side has the opportunity to present evidence.
KUPEC: Except for tomorrow, there should be thousands of people who wake up and get processed out. The harm will be done.
SINGLETON: And I certainly understand that, but again, there's still an opportunity for it to continue through the proper process.
KUPEC: But they -- they wake up tomorrow without a job, being removed from their commands. Operational readiness will be impacted, and so there's commands that are going to be left without leaders. There's going to be real-life implications for leaders around the world where our military is protecting this country, and for what end? SINGLETON: So, I guess, Alaina, I guess my point is if a strong enough
evidence is presented throughout the court process all the way up to SCOTUS and it's ultimately believed okay, hey, the other side has enough evidence where we can't rule in favor of the executive, then the executive, I believe, would respect that -- that decision. But we have to allow this thing to move forward and see --
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: What was your experience in the military like? Did you serve while you had, after you had transitioned?
KUPEC: No, I served before my transition.
JENNINGS: So, you weren't in during your --
KUPEC: No.
JENNINGS: Okay.
KUPEC: I came to know that I was transgender while I was serving with a top secret and above clearance, and I knew that I couldn't pass my polygraph test, and so I had to make a tough decision. Do I stay true to my character, my values, my integrity, or do I choose to leave this role and live a private life?
And so I think that the challenge is that the injunction was to allow people to continue to serve while the courts played out, right? So there would be no harm done to these folks, giving the courts an opportunity to work through these issues. So, people wouldn't lose their jobs. Now, they're going to wake up tomorrow without jobs. They can't just come back in for serving 22 years, waiting for this court case to work its way through for six, nine months, two years.
JENNINGS: So, you hadn't trans-- so was there a prohibition on you transitioning while you were in the military?
[22:45:01]
KUPEC: Back in that time, there was a ban against serving if you were -- the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy.
PHILLIP: Yeah. This was in the mid-'90s.
KUPEC: This was in the mid- '90s.
PHILLIP: Yeah.
PHILLIP: So, but let me -- can I ask you a question because I think this is relevant. You know, Alaina was serving, left because of this policy. How many people is it okay to lose who are competent, who are doing their jobs because for -- for those -- for reasons like that? I mean, at the time, she could have been a gay or lesbian and it probably would have been the same result, as well. I mean, I think that's why ultimately they ended "Don't Ask, Don't Tell".
JENNINGS: I mean, I -- I think --
KUPEC: Discrimination.
PHILLIP: Yeah.
JENNINGS: I mean, I think ultimately, the Commander in Chief and the Secretary of Defense have to decide comprehensively about troop levels, troop readiness and unit cohesion.
KUPEC: But that is --
JENNINGS: And overall recruitment. They're actually quite happy with recruitment right now.
KUPEC: But that has never -- there have never been a military standard that transgender people have not met. So, the military standards have not been lowered for people who are transgender. And I think that's -- that's the issue here.
And the courts that have looked at this issue in-depth have said this is pure animus. That there is no evidence of this. So, if you actually take the rhetoric out of it and look at the issue at its heart, all the courts say the same thing. So, I think that's the travesty here.
JENNINGS: I believe the President has the constitutional right to do this, and I also think you have the constitutional right to make your case on it, and everybody's going to be in court about it. And I think you should continue to make --
(CROSSTALK)
ROGINSKY: But you also -- sorry, but you also talked about unit cohesion, and that's exactly the same kind of argument that they made against integrating the military when Harry Truman did it. I'm sorry. It's the same argument.
SINGLETON: Okay.
ROGINSKY: It's the same --
PHILLIP: I mean, is she wrong about that, though? I mean, she is right about that from the --
(CROSSTALK)
ROGINSKY: There were people who did not want to serve white as white --
SINGLETON: I'm -- I'm aware. I'm aware.
ROGINSKY: White people didn't listen to black people because of unit cohesions. And now you're saying gay can --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: We only have a couple of seconds? Shermichael, I -- see that you're -- you're frustrated that she made that argument. But is she wrong that unit cohesion was used as an excuse to keep the military segregated for a long time?
SINGLETON: I think we should --
PHILLIP: And also "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" when it comes to --
(CROSSTALK)
SINGLETON: -- focus on --
PHILLIP: -- discriminating against gay and lesbian people.
SINGLETON: We should focus on the issue at hand. That's what I think.
ROGINSKY: Same like, same argument.
SINGLETON: But I - I --
PHILLIP: So, no. Just no answer.
SINGLETON: No, we should focus on this issue at hand. I don't know why we keep going to bringing up race. Let's just focus on this issue right here.
PHILLIP: Well, look, race, sexual orientation. We've seen this twice, right, in two major junctures for the military. I'm just wondering, if she is drawing parallels here between the arguments that are being made to maintain this policy.
SINGLETON: I reject those parallels. That's -- that's my answer. I reject the parallel. I mean, it's a ludicrous parallel.
ROGINSKY: I have some question. Do you feel like you had a choice in your life as to what you were going to do?
KUPEC: No.
ROGINSKY: No, of course not.
KUPEC: No.
ROGINSKY: The same way that I didn't have a choice to be born who I was. The same way you didn't have a choice to be born who you were. So, why do we get exclusions and she doesn't?
SINGLETON: I didn't say that, Alaina --
ROGINSKY: Well, not Alaina.
SINGLETON: -- that she'll be excluded.
ROGINSKY: Okay. Why under this -- under this president's policy?
SINGLETON: My opinion here is let it work itself through the court system. KUPEC: And -- and I have no problem with that.
SINGLETON: That's just --
KUPEC: Don't fire people while it's working through the courts. That's what these injunctions were doing was letting it work through the courts. And the Supreme Court, I think, really just delegitimized itself even further today.
And I think that's a challenge for all of this country when we don't have the checks and balances of the courts, you know, checking their executive power and Congress checking the executive power and all of those things.
Because at the end of the day right now in the military, you can be a white supremacist, a known white supremacist, and serve in this military, but you cannot be transgender and serve in this military. That's a fact.
PHILLIP: All right. Alaina Kupec, thank you very much for joining us. Everyone else, stay with us. We are just hours away from Catholic cardinals holding their first vote to elect the next pope. More on the papal conclave. That's coming up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:53:25]
PHILLIP: We're back, and it's time for the "NewsNight" cap, the papal conclave -- the papal conclave edition. In a few hours, the cardinals from around the world will begin the process of picking a new pope, and they will be kept in the Vatican until he is chosen. Lodging and food will be provided, but cell phones, the Internet and newspapers are not.
So, you each have 30 seconds to tell us what is the thing that you would bring to your conclave-like situation? Shermichael.
SINGLETON: I'm a bottle of whiskey because I don't like sitting in super long meetings listening to people ramble on about random things that I don't care about. So a bottle of whiskey to take me through 24 hours, I'll be okay.
ROGINSKY: I'm going to borrow the bottle of whiskey. Mine is even more lame. Mine is, I've been trying to get through Ulysses by James Joyce for the last 25 years, and I can never get through it because it's so, God awful boring. I'm sorry. And this would be my excuse. I finally --
(CROSSTALK)
SINGLETON: I'll pour you a glass.
ROGINSKY: Pour me a glass. If you get drunk together, I'll reach you out loud for me, Lizzie's because I've been trying to get through it for 25 years. HILL: Well, I guess because I'm a creative, I chose something more on
the creative end. So I chose a coloring book and crayons. And I will sit there and just color in inside the lines. As we all think about what, a papal or a papal conclave can --
PHILLIP: I know, one day I will learn to say that word.
HILL: By the way, I didn't even know what a conclave was literally until before the show. I was like, oh,
ROGINSKY: You never watched the movie?
HILL: No. I never watched the movie. So --
SINGLETON: Jemele, we'll have a glass for you, too.
(CROSSTALK)
HILL: I will join in. Yeah.
SINGLETON: There you go.
HILL: We'll do shots.
SINGLETON: All right. Scott is on here.
UNKNOWN: Scott.
JENNINGS: I'm bringing my dog. Elvis J. Bulldoggington.
PHILLIP: This is the good dog.
JENNINGS: Yeah. There he is. And I think -- I think if you had a conclave, everybody should like, a one conclave dog, like a mascot for the conclave would be great.
[22:55:04]
So, I'm going to bring Elvis. He's excellent at picking up also any table scraps that hit the floor. And, he does lots of licking on people and, I think would be beloved by all the cardinals and anyone else who was in this.
ROGINSKY: I would get Elvis.
JENNINGS: Welcome to the Conclave, buddy.
PHILLIP: You know what? I would have my -- it would be a tie between earplugs and an eye mask because I'm going to take a nap. No. I'm taking a nap. Sorry, guys. All right, everyone. Thank you very much. Coming up, India and Pakistan, two nuclear armed countries. They are on the brink of war. CNN has live coverage from India. "Laura Coates Live" starts right after this.
