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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip

Supreme Court Makes Trump More Powerful, Changes Presidency; Trump Says He's Terminating Trade Talks With Canada; S&P 500 Hits Record High Despite Unresolved Trade Wars; U.S. to Bomb Iran Again; UVA President Resigns. Aired 10-11p ET

Aired June 27, 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, critics call it a travesty and a step closer to your majesty, how the Supreme's just made Donald Trump more powerful.

Plus, it's been nearly 90 days, but there are hardly 90 deals. And now the president ends the chances of getting one with an ally.

Also, he promised no more wars, but Donald Trump seems open to a never ending one.

REPORTER: Would you consider bombing the country again?

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: Sure, without question, absolutely.

PHILLIP: And a culture war casualty, the University of Virginia president quits after pressure from the administration over diversity.

Live at the table. Scott Jennings, Ashley Allison, Mike Leon, Stacey Schneider and Joel Rubin.

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 for a special edition of NewsNight. This summer, we are taking the show on some field trips, spending our Fridays right here at the Food Network's Kitchen in New York, our sister company. We have a fabulous chef and they're serving food to friends of the show, and she also has a special treat for us at the end of the night.

But first, let's get right to what America is talking about. Donald Trump's big week, he ordered strikes against Iran, a ceasefire between Tehran and Israel is holding, the stock market has rebounded from his liberation day chaos, and the S&P hit a record high. The American presidency also just fundamentally changed in favor of his worldview, one that makes him much more powerful, the Supreme Court limiting the ability of federal judges to stop Trump's executive orders in a huge win for his agenda.

Now, that includes his effort to end birthright citizenship, which the justices left the door open to. Justice Sonia Sotomayor calls their decision a travesty for the rule of law and an emboldened Trump calls it a big victory.

So, President Trump is taking a victory lap here, and he should, because this is exactly what they wanted. Notable, Justice Sotomayor says that the court essentially was asked to address this question in part because the government didn't think that they could get what they wanted in terms of birthright citizenship.

You know, why didn't they ask for complete stays of the injunctions, she asks, the answer is obvious. To get such relief, the government would have to show that the order is likely constitutional and impossible task in light of the Constitution's text history, this court's precedent, federal law and executive branch practice.

If that's what they were trying to do, then they were right. They won.

STACY SCHNEIDER, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR, U.S. NEWS AND WORLD REPORT: Yes, this was a big, big Trump victory in the courts. And what basically it boils down to is the Supreme Court said that the lower federal district courts that were hearing all these lawsuits about getting injunctions against Trump policies that were potentially unconstitutional or illegal, that the courts could no longer issue these stop, you know, like stop work on this whole thing until the court, the lower courts decided if the Trump policy was good or bad.

So, the Supreme Court has now taken it away from the lower courts and they've said to the courts, the only people you can issue an injunction for are the very plaintiffs that are in front of you on their particular issue. You cannot go around anymore and issue nationwide injunctions just because someone is complaining about a Trump policy.

Now, the Supreme Court isn't ruling on whether or not Trump policies are legal or illegal. They're just saying, let's take it out of the hands of the court. But I have to tell you one, the most interesting thing about this entire situation was Justice Sotomayor, who you just read a little piece, she actually read her dissent from the bench out loud for 20 minutes. She was so angry about this majority decision. That does not happen.

PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, this is obviously very controversial partly because, in addition to all of this, it just opens the door to Donald Trump just going crazy in terms of executive orders.

[22:05:00]

He can issue an executive order today and will likely, he said so today, and he knows that the lower courts cannot carte blanche stop him, which hugely increases the power of the executive.

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. Look, this is a great week for him, not just because of this ruling, but earlier in the week, the Supreme Court handed him the ruling on being able to deport illegal immigrants to third party countries essentially. So, he's on a little bit of a winning streak in the courts right now. And, you know what, a lot of Republicans are saying is, nope, we're not tired of winning yet. This happened. The stock market's at a record high. He brokered the ceasefire in the 12-day war. Peace broke out between Rwanda and the Congo. I mean, gas prices are at a four-year low for the summer.

I mean win after win after win, and this particular one, it is the most important because these individual judges had been, I think, unfairly stopping the president from governing. He won the election, they did, and we don't have 600 presidents. We have one president and now he's going to be able to actually govern. And so you could make an argument that this week or the last two weeks, the best week or two weeks of his entire presidency.

ASHLEY ALLISON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It doesn't mean it's good for America, but a couple of things. One, this is why in Trump 1.0, getting those justices on the Supreme Court were so important, your former boss preventing Barack Obama, some might say unfairly, from getting his nomination in contradiction of what he did when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. But this is -- elections have consequences. Today was a victory for Donald Trump.

But here's the thing, if we follow the Constitution, which I don't know if this man will, in three years, he won't be the president anymore. 3.5 years, he won't be the president anymore. And that same ruling could apply to a Democratic judge. And so when DACA comes out or other student loan debt comes out and your side is going to try and put an injunction, I don't want to hear, oh my God, the executive is overreaching.

MIKE LEON, PODCAST HOST, CAN WE PLEASE TALK?: You're going to hear it.

ALLISON: Yes. But that's the hypocrisy of it.

LEON: Of course it is. And this is the one thing I would mention here, is like I think there's a little bit of column A and column B here. First off, he hasn't been winning from the communication standpoint. Not if you watch a Pete Hegseth press conference, that is not winning, when you blame anybody that's in the media that's been covering it for 30 years, like Jennifer Griffin. But the secondary part of this is where I think that there is like a little bit of truth in this is that the judicial branch is supposed to weigh in on the law, right? Am I right or wrong?

SCHNEIDER: Right.

LEON: Okay. So, what they did with respect to this was take the power out of the district court judges, and now a plaintiff has to bring something in front of the judge.

SCHNEIDER: Right.

LEON: The problem is, and we all know this, courts move at a glacial pace, and now this is going to take forever to get adjudicated and get eventually to the Supreme Court. Am I right or wrong? Are my criminal justice minor erupting (ph)?

SCHNEIDER: No you're right.

LEON: Okay. I just want to make sure. I'm working on it.

SCHNEIDER: You know what? The Supreme Court did something else here, which is I'm going to call it tacky, for lack of a better word. The Supreme Court said, if you want to pursue these nationwide injunctions, then now you have to bring a class action lawsuit. So, you have to show this huge party of aggrieved people in order for these district courts to get these lawsuits. And that's the most cumbersome type of lawsuit --

(CROSSTALKS)

PHILLIP: They're already trying to do that, like right now.

SCHNEIDER: And I think even the ACLU today filed the class action lawsuit, you know, so on the birth -- you know, on the citizenship issue.

PHILLIP: You mentioned the Justice Sotomayor reading her dissent from the bench. In the actual opinion, the justices were kind of going at it. Amy Coney Barrett wrote the majority opinion and she went after her colleague, Ketanji Brown Jackson's dissent and criticized it explicitly. That has caused some people, like Charlie Kirk, to say Ketanji Brown Jackson is a diversity hire. She's only there because she's a black woman.

ALLISON: Of course, he said that, like it's Charlie Kirk. Like that's not breaking news. Ketanji Brown Jackson is more than qualified to be on the bench. And I would argue I don't like all the justices in their judicial ruling and they all have very qualified judicial records. So, the fact that she is a black woman, the first black woman, there have been many, many before her, and there will be many after. Will they all get the chance to be on the bench? No. But this is what they do. Like they should have just taken the win, but they cannot get out of using race and gender to try and bait people against each other.

I'll just also say the birthright citizenship question is still one that is very much on the table. A lot of people after this court ruling came down are scared, but that wasn't actually decided today. And that will come in the fall. And I still think that the Supreme Court will not rule that birthright citizenship should be overturned.

LEON: Yes, I think that's important. I think that's important to mention to people because I think people are trying to figure this out. We're not all legal beagles like you, unfortunately, so they're trying to figure out how does this actually impact the class action thing. Like you mentioned, that's incredibly burdensome for people to try to get on board with.

[22:10:01]

How many times have you gotten class action lawsuit? It's going to bog down the court system. This is just going to delay certain things. PHILLIP: Go ahead.

JENNINGS: What's interesting, in 2022, Justice Kagan actually gave an interview and said out loud what a lot of conservatives have been saying this year, which is that how can it be that an individual district court judge can issue a nationwide injunction and effectively grind a presidency to a halt and, you know, take years and years for it to go through the process. Now she obviously voted the other way this time around. I wonder what caused her to change her opinion.

PHILLIP: Can I just ask a question though? And, I mean, it's a question to you and to you, because a lot of people are trying to figure out how is it possible that the court could basically say that, oh, it's fine for the time being, for there to be some people who are citizens today, but not tomorrow, some people who are citizens in this state, but not in that state. How is this all supposed to work on this particular question that seems unworkable?

SCHNEIDER: Yes. It's so bizarre because the 14th Amendment says, and it's hard to play around with the interpretation of that amendment, that if you're born on U.S. soil and you're subject to the United States jurisdiction, then you are bestowed citizenship. The Trump executive order, which came out right away when he entered office in January, was saying that if your mother is here illegally and your father is also not a citizen, then you should not as -- these children should not get this automatic right to citizenship.

And I went back and looked at the 14th Amendment again today because I haven't looked at it for a long time. Once we leave law school, we try -- we kind of ignore the Amendment a little bit until our clients get arrested and we have to look at them again. But it says, you know, there's one interesting part if you have to be subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, these children. So, I'm thinking, well, is an argument going to be down the road? I don't want to give the Trump administration their legal arguments, but maybe they're minor children and the parents would be subject to jurisdiction, but the children wouldn't be. I don't know.

PHILLIP: Yes. Well, I mean, the subject to the jurisdiction thereof is the only part of it that they think is -- what gives them an in here. But that is also something that, frankly, has actually been discussed in the courts. And if you are here, you're subject to the jurisdiction of this country. So, we will see how this goes October, later this fall. Very likely this will be up before the Supreme Court.

Coming up next, breaking news on the economy, Donald Trump has abruptly terminated trade talks with Canada.

Plus, the president says that he'd absolutely bomb Iran again, as he claims he spared Iran's leader from an assassination. Another special guest is going to join us at the table.

Back in a moment from the Food Network Kitchen,

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:15:00]

PHILLIP: Tonight, no deal. President Trump announces he is ending trade talks with Canada over its plans to levy attacks that disproportionately impacts U.S. big tech companies. Trump on social media calling it, quote, a direct and blatant attack to our country, adding that the administration will inform Canada that the tariff rate that they'll be paying to do business within the next seven days.

But when he was pressed for more details about this decision, the president insisted that the U.S. still maintains the upper hand in these negotiations.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Canada's been a very difficult country to deal with over the years.

Economically, we have such power over Canada. I'd rather not use it, but they did something with our tech companies today trying to copy Europe. You know, they copied Europe. It's not going to work out well for Europe either, and it's not going to work out well for Canada. They were foolish to do it.

REPORTER: Is there anything Canada can change your mind about this situation?

TRUMP: I guess they could remove it. They will, but I don't really -- I mean, it doesn't matter to me. We have all the cards.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Joel Rubin is with us at the table now. Joel, two things, he said Canada has been tough to deal with these last few years. Honestly, I was not aware that Canada -- they were friends to the north. I was not aware that Canada was so big a problem, but apparently they were. They're also our number one purchaser of U.S. exports, which Donald Trump wants. They want Canada to buy more American stuff.

JOEL RUBIN, FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE, OBAMA ADMINISTRATION: Yes, they do. Look what triggered President Trump is the digital sales tax. That's when he decided he was going to exclaim it's time to blow up our trade negotiations. And the digital sales tax interestingly hits the tech sector, people like Jeff Bezos, who apparently can't afford to pay more taxes. They have to spend it on their lavish weddings.

And I think, you know, this just goes to the core point, which is that there is no real governing trade negotiating philosophy here. We have the liberation day in early April. That kind of went south, and it's TACO Trump. He says he's going to get deals now. Scott Bessent, the treasury secretary says, maybe we'll get deals in September, perhaps. I don't think there's any driving force or narrative that we can grab onto about what his trade strategy really is.

JENNINGS: I can educate you if you'd like. RUBIN: Please do. Sure.

JENNINGS: So, number one, we already have a deal with Great Britain. Number two, we're dealing strongly with the Chinese, and those conversations are where they are. Number three, all these other conversations are ongoing, and it's more than just the tariff rates, it's the non-tariff trade barriers that they're trying to get right. A lot of countries do things that make it very difficult for U.S. companies to do business.

So, they have put a lot of balls in the air here and you can't deny the results. And even economists now, who are predicting gloom and doom, are having to admit maybe one guy even said this week, maybe Trump outsmarted us on this. And today, just today, the stock market hit a record high.

[22:20:03]

So, it seems to be working out in the driving forces. We're getting better deals for America, better deals for American workers, and we're not being taken advantage of anymore.

RUBIN: But I haven't heard of the deal yet. We've only got one with the U.K. And it's getting better with the markets because President Trump backed off on his onerous tariffs that he announced in early April.

PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, let me just play -- well, let's play what Trump said about this. Because you got to remember, in a couple of days, we're supposed to be hitting the 90-day mark in which you're supposed to have 90 deals in 90 days. And here's what Trump is saying now about whether that's going to happen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: Which countries, if any, are close to agreements with the administration?

TRUMP: Well, that's an interesting question. We've made a deal with China. We've made a deal with probably four or five different countries, with the U.K., was a great deal for both. And we're in the process of making some others but you know, we have 200 countries, you could say 200 countries-plus. We can't do that.

Where we talk to many of the countries and we're just going to tell them what they have to pay to do business in the United States and it's going to go very quickly.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Surprise, surprise, 200 countries, as everybody said at the beginning of this, you're not going to do deals, individual deals with 200 countries. So, what he's going to do instead is what he threatened at the beginning, which is maybe it eventually in another 90 days, just slap a blanket tariff on them. LEON: In the beginning of the Carney, what he was talking about with Canada, he said the same -- he said two things that contradict themselves in the sentence. He said --

PHILLIP: Surprise?

LEON: -- they'll probably -- yes, they'll probably agree, but I also don't care. Well, those two things are in direct opposition of each other, yes, because this is our largest trade partner, as you just mentioned before, this is $762 billion. This is North America. This is our ecosystem, like we want to play nice with Canada and Mexico. After all, didn't you introduce the USMCA? Am I not making -- Am I mistaken by that, that you're not? Was the greatest trade deal of all time, Scotty Boy? Do you not remember that. Do we not remember?

ALLISON: Donald Trump --

JENNINGS: They more to them than they mean to us. He's right. We have the leverage here.

ALLISON: For Donald Trump, time is a flat circle. And he throws out timelines and deadlines, but they mean nothing to him. And it's not good governing, but he says 2 weeks, he says, 7 days, he says, 90 days.

LEON: And we chase it.

ALLISON: And we chase it.

LEON: That's the problem.

ALLISON: It's bad policy. So, he puts these timelines on because he is hoping, oh, maybe we forget in 90 days, because some people will. And then he restarts the narrative cycle. It's bad policy. I know that you had a good day in the stock market. I'm not going to deny it, because I believe in truth.

(CROSSTALKS)

ALLISON: With that compared to the past?

PHILLIP: Scott offered one explanation for the highs in the stock market. There are other explanations. Here's one from Jason Furman, an economist. The macro economy is doing decently. He said, especially when it comes to tariffs, the market is now more confident that Trump will back off if necessary. He added in April, I think the fear was that he would just plow ahead no matter what. Now, there is a sense that there are realities that he won't try to blow past.

ALLISON: Exactly.

PHILLIP: It's hard to argue, Scott, that that's not accurate when just this week, today, they're saying, oh, that 90-day deadline, we're just going to push it back out another 90 days. So, the market's basically saying, oh, okay they're just going to push it back.

ALLISON: It's a game.

JENNINGS: Whatever it takes to say Donald Trump is wrong, I guess that's what people will do, even today.

(CROSSTALKS)

PHILLIP: But, genuinely, maybe you could argue that this is a negotiating tactic that is working, fine. But the truth is Trump is, in fact, backing down and the markets have calmed because of that.

JENNINGS: Yes. He's doing what he thinks he needs to do with individual situations. And look also what's happening with individual companies. We had re-shoring announcements this week. General Electric in my home state of Kentucky decided to reshore a bunch of jobs. The CEO of General Electric said the current policy environment is why we're doing it.

So, they're bringing a whole bunch of jobs from overseas back to the United States. You have announcement after announcement after announcement on top of these great gains in the market. Look, maybe sometimes the answer is, hey, maybe it's working, maybe it's working.

ALLISON: But it's not.

JENNINGS: It is.

LEON: But if you tell me you're going to do ten things and you do one of them and you keep claiming victory, and the other nine are just coming down the --

JENNINGS: What about the economy are you unhappy about today?

ALLISON: Go to --

LEON: Personally, because I could easily go into --

(CROSSTALKS)

ALLISON: Wait a minute, the market. Hold on one second. This on the market, this on the market, wait a minute. When the market was plummeting, the market didn't matter. But today the market is good, so now it matters.

LEON: It's Joe Biden's economy.

ALLISON: And this is the double talk we're talking about. It's like we the reason why people are hesitant to be like, yes, this is good Donald Trump because you all don't do it either. You people are not being honest brokers on these things. People who voted for Donald Trump as working class Americans are still struggling today as they were on November 5th. That is a fact.

So, they don't care that those arrows on that paper are green, just like you told me, they didn't care when those arrows were red.

JENNINGS: Look, we have low gas prices right now. We have jobs coming back to the United States.

[22:25:01]

We have inflation rates slowing. We have --

ALLISON: You sound like me on November 4th.

JENNINGS: I mean, we have a lot of positive green --

ALLISON: And that was the day before election and we lost.

JENNINGS: We have a lot of positive green sheets in the economy and you don't seem to want to acknowledge it. It's kind of working.

(CROSSTALKS)

RUBIN: I really don't understand the strategy of creating an enemy out of an ally. I really don't understand why the president is in Canada.

JENNINGS: Yes. Why are they taxing us? Why are they --

RUBIN: Why is the president in Canada a week and a half ago --

JENNINGS: Why did we have to accept these taxes?

RUBIN: -- at the G7 and he doesn't get any deals done? There is no deal making going on. He's just pushing away our best allies.

JENNINGS: Why are they taxing us? Can you explain?

RUBIN: This is a response to our tariffs.

PHILLIP: Scott, that is a great question.

RUBIN: It's a direct response.

PHILLIP: Why are they taxing us?

JENNINGS: Why are they doing this to our --

PHILLIP: No, why are they taxing us? Trump has threatened to annex them. He has slapped tariffs on them. So, what incentive does Canada have to play nice?

JENNINGS: Because we mean more to them than they mean to us. We have a lot of leverage here, just as the president said. They should not be antagonizing tech companies.

PHILLIP: So, Trump can just continue to threaten to take over a sovereign country, tariff them, insult them, and --

JENNINGS: Well, if we were in charge, we won't have tariffs.

PHILLIP: -- they don't get to fight back?

JENNINGS: No. Fight back? I mean, if they want to -- PHILLIP: I'm just saying it seemed like a good strategy to engender friendship. That's all I'm saying.

JENNINGS: There will be consequences of that in the ongoing negotiation. I don't understand. Why they thought this was a good idea. As Trump pointed out, Europe already does this. They shouldn't go that direction.

PHILLIP: Yes. It seems -- look, it seems the relationship is deteriorating and largely because Donald Trump started it.

But coming up next, the president who promised no more war said he'd consider bombing Iran again, and the Senate just paved way for him to do just that unchecked. We'll discuss.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:31:27]

PHILLIP: And welcome back. It's our summer Friday edition of the show. We are at the Food Network Kitchen in New York with friends of the program and a fantastic chef who is cooking a special summer dish for us. That's coming up.

But first, President Trump supporters have been praising his peace through strength when it comes to Iran. And to his credit, the ceasefire with Israel is holding. But despite calling for Iran to come to the negotiating table, Trump says he isn't afraid to flex the military's muscle if Iran gets out of hand.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNKNOWN: If the intelligence reports conclude that Iran can enrich uranium to a level that concerns you, would you consider bombing the country --

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Sure.

UNKNOWN: -- again?

TRUMP: Without question. Absolutely.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: So, we're just going to keep bombing?

JENNINGS: Well, of course. Why would he say he would take any option off the table, and of course, if they try to reconstitute their nuclear weapons program, I assume at that point it would be some breach of whatever agreement we reach with them, so you always, as the American president, have to maintain all of your options. And in this case, not allowing these butchers and these fanatics to have a nuclear weapon is our prime mission.

Now, we have severely damaged their ability to do that right now, but if sometime in the future they want to try again, they need to know they'll face the wrath of the United States.

PHILLIP: If you were to do a deal with Iran that gave them $30 billion to build a non-military nuclear program, would you be okay with that? That's the reporting that they were considering now.

JENNINGS: I know. I've seen the reporting and I want to see what they end up doing with them. I just, my personal view is they will never, as long as the people who are in charge now are still in charge, they will never stop trying to bring about the end of the world by getting nuclear weapons and eradicating Israel and eradicating the United States. I just don't trust them at all.

PHILLIP: Can I play as Scott Jennings advocate for a second, Joel? We were just talking about --

(CROSSTALK)

ALLISON: Where are we going?

PHILLIP: We were just talking about Canada. He's playing to -- Trump is playing tough with Canada. Right?

JENNINGS: Yes.

PHILLIP: He's playing tough with Iran. He says to the Ayatollah, I knew exactly where he was sheltered and would not let Israel or the U.S. Armed Forces by far the greatest and most powerful in the world, terminate his life. I saved him from a very ugly, ignominious death, and he does not have to say thank you, President Trump. Okay. So, hardball with Iran too.

RUBIN: No kidding. Yes.

PHILLIP: Could it work?

RUBIN: Well, you know, first of all, I have to say I did support the strikes, and I called it courageous. I think that it was the right move by the president.

What I want to see him do now is lock it in and lock in a deal. Remember, we dropped a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima, and then we cut an armistice deal with Japan. We can do this, and we should do this. So I do think we should actually see this question about civil nuclear. Engage. See if it's possible.

But with the Ayatollah there, as Scott points out, it's not something I'm optimistic about. But I --

PHILLIP: But is threatening him the right strategy?

RUBIN: Right. It is --

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: Like, actually saying, I'm going to kill you. RUBIN: Because what it does is it undermines the prospects for Marco

Rubio and his team and Steve Witkoff. God bless. They're going to have to go talk to the Iranians. I don't think Iranians are going to be very welcoming right now. Whereas if you change the temperature.

Look, I don't know why the president has to gloat. This is the thing that's bothering me about this. The strikes were effective. They were necessary. Don't gloat about it. Pull back. Let your team get in there and lock in the win, and that's where he's failing to see the opportunity.

LEON: And that's something I've heard from people that that have worked at the Pentagon before. It's that same type of message. Right? Like, these strikes, I know the grade keeps changing. First it was obliterated, now it was completely gone.

[22:34:59]

I don't know what it's going to be next week, we'll figure it out, but, and when the assessment reports come out. But it's like, none of us are military personnel, not a single one of us. We don't know what those strikes did, we can only base it off of the assessments and the reports.

Let those people that are in charge of that, you can write this down for them, Scott, but next time you see them, you can tell the president, let those people communicate and stop doing what he just said, which is going on Truth Social, and he's not going to do it. But I'm just saying. These are the things, like, you want a victory, let the victory happen. Let them articulate.

JENNINGS: You don't like the military report to the American people what happened?

LEON: No. I don't.

ALLISON: We don't need him to --

(CROSSTALK)

LEON: We need him to communicate. I don't need him to communicate.

ALLISON: Truthfully.

LEON: When he's not a military expert.

JENNINGS: He's the commander in chief.

(CROSSTALK)

LEON: Stop.

ALLISON: I don't mind him -- I don't mind him --

LEON: Let the military experts handle that. ALLISON: I don't mind him communicating. I want him to communicate accurate and truthful and complete information. And that is been the biggest issue with a lot folks with what he has been doing this week.

I think that to your point, agitating someone you're trying to cut a deal with, it doesn't seem like the most effective way to do it. I also I don't -- I've been torn on those strikes. Right?

JENNINGS: Yes.

ALLISON: I don't think I did not want Iran to have a nuclear weapon. I think that is fair to say and most of the people including Democrats that I've talked to have agreed with that. I also do not want American troops to have to go to war at any time.

My generation is the generation of the Iraq War. I do -- I lost people in that war. I do not want us to be at war and I want the president to be thinking about that, thinking about I know that you say he supports our troops, but the impact of war is generational. And I want him to be thinking about how that when he's making those comments, and he just can't help himself sometimes, and that is not the behavior of the country.

JENNINGS: But how many troops we got in Iran right now?

ALLISON: I'm saying I don't want to go to war.

JENNINGS: How many shots did they even get off of our B-2 Bombers? Zero.

ALLISON: That is the --

(CROSSTALK)

JENNINGS: He did this in the safest possible way.

ALLISON: I'm not aware of that, but what happens in one moment doesn't determine what the next moment is and this does what I'm saying. When you do the strikes, we all were like, well, what is going to happen? You can't tell me when those strikes happen. The majority of Americans weren't sitting on the edge of their chair thinking, oh, God, especially people who have service members, we are going to have to go to war.

RUBIN: Ashley is right. I mean, I served in the State's Department when we invaded Iraq. And the fallout, the repercussions of that, of the lies that sent us to war are still with us today. And I think for the president and his team, they have a win. What they need to do is establish credibility across the board.

So, if we do have to go back in, if we do have to bomb again, then there's going to be credibility behind it because this point now, the debate has become very toxic and doubting whether or not the assessments are accurate. And I'm concerned about the doubt of the assessments. I do think we need to give it time to get the true assessment. PHILLIP: I think it's, again, I think it's not so much what any one

assessment says. It's a question of whether if an assessment says something that Donald Trump wants doesn't want it to say.

RUBIN: Right.

PHILLIP: Whether the American people would ever find out. And I think that is what has been raised by the whole freak out frankly over a preliminary assessment.

LEON: When you do crisis communication, you put the people in charge that are in that specific area to communicate to the public. Because like he said, you make his job harder because he has to deal with the counterparts on the other side. Scott, he is the commander in chief.

JENNINGS: Yes.

LEON: But there are military experts, there are people in his cabinet that he trusts, or else we wouldn't have a cabinet. He puts them in charge.

JENNINGS: Wait. With all due respect. If the commander in chief --

LEON: Yes.

JENNINGS: -- sends B-2 Bombers half way around the world to eradicate the nuclear program of another country to --

(CROSSTALK)

LEON: So now to eradicate?

JENNINGS: You expect the commander in chief to give a report to the American people. That's number one. Number two, --

LEON: Which he did. He did that.

JENNINGS: -- on the issue, global issue, macro issue in the Middle East, look what's happening. The ceasefire is holding. Apparently, Israel and Syria are on the brink of a peace treaty. Apparently, we're on the brink of expanding the Abraham Accords.

I think what you see happening right now is that you've weakened the head of the terror octopus to the point where the rest of the region is finally looking at a future where maybe there will be peace in the Middle East and maybe Israel is not facing terrorism on its borders every single day. This is a good thing.

PHILLIP: So, Joel, I'll ask you again as I did at the beginning. Okay? If Trump's strategy is as someone has put it escalate to deescalate. Is that actually working here? Because it sounds like you think that it is.

RUBIN: I think it has the potential to work. I think that it is working in the case of Iran right now if we lock it in diplomatically and take the moves that we need to. Let Secretary Rubio go out there, do his business. Let Secretary Hegseth work with the militaries around, get behind the scenes. When the president gets out there, he loses the threat.

And I'll tell you, this is a bipartisan situation. It's funny reading the literature on this. We saw the bomb developed by President Obama. The actual plans to bomb Fordow were initiated by President Obama who said we need to get plans on that site just in case. There's a lot of bipartisan support for this end state that we're in, and I think that he can get there if he keeps the focus on the goal of diplomatic achievements.

[22:40:07]

PHILLIP: All right. Breaking tonight, the head of another university stepping down under pressure from the White House, a significant turn in the president's war against universities. We'll discuss that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:45:00]

PHILLIP: New to us tonight in the president's culture wars. The head of the University of Virginia is resigning after the Trump administration demanded that he step aside as a condition to settle a civil rights investigation that focused on the school's diversity practices.

In a letter to the UVA community, Jim Ryan writes, I cannot make a unilateral decision to fight the federal government in order to save my own job. To do so would not only be quixotic but appear selfish and self-centered to the hundreds of employees who would lose their jobs, the researchers who would lose their funding, and the hundreds of students who could lose financial aid and or have their visas withheld.

The DOJ told CNN on Friday that it welcomes quote, "leadership changes in higher education that signal institutional commitments to our nation's venerable federal civil rights laws.

This is just another frontier in something that is happening all over the country, but the point that the UVA president made in that letter that so many people are just collateral damage in a crusade against three letters, DEI. That's the reality that we're living in.

JENNINGS: Well, look, there's more to the story. One is that the university voted to get rid of the DEI programming, and apparently, this guy like just renamed it and gave it other names and other acronyms and other euphemisms and so he tried to get it to identify as something else.

But it was still DEI, so he kind of went around I think what the school was wanting to do. And you know, I don't really shed any tears for this. I think the country doesn't want this. I think it's bad for higher education. I think it's bad for corporations.

And I think it's time for us to move past trying to divide ourselves up the way they have done on these university campuses and embrace everybody and equal opportunity for everybody.

ALLISON: It's hard to embrace everyone when you want to erase people's histories, when you want to make it easier, when you want to make it easier for folks to be discriminated against, when you want to make it harder for people to be admitted to schools.

All -- the reason why the school would not have voted to remove DEI if Donald Trump didn't have the backlash on DEI. So, there it's not like the school wanted to. There are some cause and effect here. I think that the president is taking one for the team, and I think that he is actually being the leader by saying I don't want people to lose their jobs, unlike what this administration did by cutting workforce in the federal government.

I think that people don't really understand what DEI is, and I think that is the problem. But DEI has made this country great and it will continue to make it great and there will be backlash from this. Like the pendulum continues to swing.

PHILLIP: Right.

ALLISON: And I think this is an overreach and going into higher education institutions is not going to stop there. It's going to go into school districts and we just saw Supreme Court case today on LGBTQ.

PHILLIP: There is a future world in which a democratic president uses the power of the presidency to threaten private institutions, public institutions who don't do what they want them to do.

JENNINGS: Wait. What do you mean? That was the past.

PHILLIP: Okay.

JENNINGS: The Biden administration already did that.

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: Okay. Future, future, past. You didn't like it when it happened then.

RUBIN: You know, I was all -- it was bad for business and bad for education.

PHILLIP: So, --

RUBIN: you know, I've been I was thinking about this, like, UVA was founded by Thomas Jefferson.

LEON: Yes.

RUBIN: Right? The man who helped to lead our country away from tyranny. A man who believed in states' rights, who did not want a king to tell us how to live. And now here we have this this bizarre irony of the American president acting like a king, telling a state level institution who should and should not be leading it and what they should be teaching in it.

This is sort of the modern-day form of tyranny against our educational institutions. And I just I think that we need to really protect our educational institutions as well. I'm very concerned. As a Jewish American, I'm also very concerned about arguments like DEI or anti- Semitism being used not to oppose those issues that they're concerned about, but to use it to blow up higher education and schools that really educate all of our country and make our society more whole. And this is just one more example.

You know, Thomas Jefferson, again, I'll say it, must really be rolling around in his grave.

LEON: You can't be for equality and all of us coming together when E in a in is about T in DEI. I'm laughing here because --

JENNINGS: It's two different words. Equality and equity.

LEON: You guys, no, it's equity. I know it's equity and equality, but they mean similar things in terms of choosing from diverse pools, including people, and how to get (inaudible).

PHILLIP: What's, Scott, in your mind, what's the difference between equality and equity and what is better for you?

JENNINGS: Equality. Great question. Equality to me is equal opportunity. Equity is trying to guarantee outcomes. Those are two are quite different.

(CROSSTALK)

LEON: But that's a (inaudible) conversations and you guys don't want to ask. Hold on.

PHILLIP: Well, I also think that that is your personal definition of it.

ALLISON: Yes.

PHILLIP: That is not what I ask --

(CROSSTALK)

JENNINGS: You asked me my opinion.

PHILLIP: I know, but I'm saying. My point is that that to people who support DEI, equity means exactly what you just described as equality. And in fact, they don't use the word equality because not everybody is exactly the same.

ALLISON: Right.

[22:50:00]

PHILLIP: So how are you going to make two individuals who are actually different equal? You just want them to have equitable opportunities. So, in a way, it feels like you have the definitions kind of reversed.

JENNINGS: Well, I think also the DEI regimes have been used to discriminate against other kinds of people. I mean, Asian students, for instance, were discriminated against broadly, in this (inaudible).

PHILLIP: I think you're inflating affirmative passion with DEI.

(CROSSTALK)

ALLISON: Yes. We also know that once they're not pre court ruled that Asian student admissions have actually gone down in Ivy League schools.

But I will say to bring up Thomas Jefferson, there's also an interesting part to his story as well. Thomas Jefferson also had children by with the slaves, Sally Hemings. And so in the world where we want to erase DEI and we want to erase people's history, what is the story that UVA can actually be taught?

Can Sally Hemings be taught? Is that book removed? The family of Sally Hemings, we didn't even know about Sally Hemings until I was alive. And we're on the overshow it came out on. Right?

So, the Sally Hemings family and the Jefferson family had two different lifestyles. Right? And we would say that in a world with equity that should there be some reciprocity for the mistress of Thomas Jefferson who most likely probably was not a slave by choice? I mean, these are the con -- the nuanced conversations that when we just want to do a blanket wipe out, those things get erased.

LEON: There's a difference. Again, DEI is a nuanced conversation you guys don't want to have because it's not about look at the NFL for example with the Rooney Rule. It's not about forcing people to interview those candidates. It's that those candidates didn't have an opportunity to be seen to get that interview.

That's what it's about, but you guys love to shorten things, M-A-G-A, DEI, you put it on hats and t shirts, everyone feeds into it and they think it's this great boogeyman, you guys done a phenomenal job with it, I got to be honest with you, but that's not what it's about.

We can have the nuanced conversation about what diversity and equity inclusion is supposed to accomplish, whether it be in the workforce, hiring practices, but we're not having that because we can't have it.

PHILLIP: We do have to leave it here.

JENNINGS: People just are tired of being divided by race and they just want people to be divided by race. And they just want people to be (inaudible) --

(CROSSTALK)

LEON: We're not trying to divide by race.

JENNINGS: -- by their own talent and their own artwork. LEON: We're trying to get people in inclusion, the I in including.

JENNINGS: Is it possible that most Americans would rather be judged on their hard work, talent, and their own character, and their own achievement --

(CROSSTALK)

ALLISON: It's actually true we would. We would.

JENNINGS: -- as opposed to identity politics?

ALLISON: We would.

PHILLIP: All right.

JENNINGS: That's what people have to do.

ALLISON: We would. How about you let us?

LEON: Great.

JENNINGS: I think you guys could continue to run the Democratic Party and the left purely on identity politics. It is working swimming.

LEON: I'm not for you.

PHILLIP: There's a lot of identity politics happening on the right. I -- we got to acknowledge that.

All right, guys. Up next for us, the panel is going to give us their nightcaps inspired by a big wedding. And our friends at the Food Network and chef Liza is coming over with some real night caps for us. Don't go anywhere. Hi, chef.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:55:00]

PHILLIP: We're back and we're here with chef Liza Zeneski, the supervising culinary producer at the Food Network and the Cooking Channel. So, chef, tell us about these plates that we've got here.

LIZA ZENESKI, PRODUCER, FOOD NETWORK AND THE COOKING CHANNEL: So we for you, we made today barbecue chicken sandwiches, with some red cabbage slaw. And then we also have summer corn salad because I feel like it's summer. So, it's corn season.

PHILLIP: Yes. It's been 100 degrees in New York this season.

ZENESKI: Yes.

PHILLIP: So, it's definitely summer. This looks amazing.

ZENESKI: Thank you. PHILLIP: And incredibly summery, and you can scan the QR code on your

screen for that pulled chicken recipe. It's delicious. I cannot wait to dig in. And for our nightcap tonight, in honor of Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez's lavish wedding in Venice today, what wedding food feature would you have?

So, chef, we're going to start with you because you are, we heard, getting married this weekend. Cheers to you.

(APPLAUSE)

ZENESKI: On Sunday.

PHILLIP: What would your wedding feature be?

ZENESKI: Thank you so much. Yes. I think I would have to go with wine. I would have to go with Brunello wine from Italy. It's my favorite wine and if money was not something that we're concerned about.

RUBIN: I know.

ZENESKI: I would just get cases of Brunello wine shipped from Italy. It's made from Sangiovese grapes from Tuscany region of Italy. It's one of the most well-known and probably the most expensive wine of Italy. It's absolutely delicious, my favorite, so I think that would be it.

PHILLIP: Well, we wish you many years of happiness and Brunello wine.

ZENESKI: Thank you.

PHILLIP: Cheers to you. So, Joel. take it away.

RUBIN: What's that?

PHILLIP: Take it away. What's going to be your food feature.

RUBIN: So, the best wedding I ever went it was in Guadalajara, Mexico. So, I would say, like a tequila fountain would be nice. And Mariachi is in the background, Scott. Scott, you've been to one of those.

PHILLIP: That sounds dangerous.

RUBIN: Yes. And a lot and always fun to be around Mexicans for --

PHILLIP: All right, Mike. Your turn.

LEON: Well, my wife is going to know this answer because I'm a chicken and rice guy. I'm very simple, but I'm a hibachi guy. So, I would have hibachi stations everywhere, steak and shrimp being thrown at me. I was going to say it in my mouth, but then I was going to say pause. But, like, that's all of that, steak and shrimp, hibachi, that's what I need on demand.

PHILLIP: That's actually a good idea. Ashley?

ALLISON: Okay. I would have the national dish of every country in the world. So, Scott, give me a country.

JENNINGS: Costa Rica.

ALLISON: Siri, what's Costa Rica's national dish?

UNKNOWN: Costa Rica's national dish is Gallo pinto.

ALLISON: Gallo pinto, which is black beans and rice. So I would have the national dish of every country in the world and people could do take a tour around the world.

[23:00:01]

PHILLIP: Scott, take it home.

JENNINGS: So, I couldn't think of, like, a specific dish I wanted, but I was thinking if money and logistics were no object, I would hire, like, a celebrity chef from the Food Network.

PHILLIP: Yes.

JENNINGS: So, Giada, if you're listening, if this ever happens to me, you're on call.

LEON: So, am I still here?

JENNINGS: I don't know if I don't know if her office is in the building here. I may slip a note under the door. But, anyway, Giada, I would bring and I would say, you cook whatever you think is best, and everybody here will love it.

PHILLIP: All right, everybody. Thank you very much, and thank you for watching Newsnight.

You can catch me anytime on your favorite social media, X, Instagram, and TikTok. Laura Coates live starting right now.