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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Justice Department Told Trump That He's in the Epstein Files; House Oversight Votes to Subpoena DOJ for Epstein Files; Gabbard Baselessly Accuses Obama of Coup Attempt. Columbia University Agrees To Pay Trump Administration $200 Million Settlement; Evidence Found On Sharing Classified Information In Signal Group Chat. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired July 23, 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 ANCHOR (voice over): Tonight, they promised the files, they teased the files, but when they looked, it turns out Donald Trump's apparently in the files. The explosive revelations involving the White House and the secrets of Jeffrey Epstein.
Plus, there will be blood.
SEN. THOM TILLIS (R-NC): It's got to be like those zombies in the Walking Dead. Every time you think you've killed it, another one's just going to come running out.
PHILLIP: A Republican senator warns the Epstein Saga will haunt the midterms.
Also --
PETE HEGSETH, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: No classified information.
PHILLIP: -- despite his loud denials and deflections, a Pentagon watchdog discovers evidence that Pete Hegseth shared classified secrets in a group chat.
And a deal deeper than meets the eye, the Skydance-Paramount surrender to Trump includes a DEI purge and bias police.
Live at the table, Scott Jennings, Ana Navarro, Caroline Downey, Keith Boykin and Jeff Flake.
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. Donald Trump is in the Epstein files and his Justice Department tried to make them go away. That's about as blunt as I can say it after new revelation surfaced about the case tonight. Sources tell CNN that Attorney General Pam Bondi told the president back in May that his name appeared in the documents related to the sex offenders case.
That context is not clear yet, and the sources say the files include several unsubstantiated claims that the DOJ doesn't believe are credible.
Now, last week, Trump was asked straight up about this and he denied it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Specifically, did she tell you at all that your name appeared in the file?
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: No. She's given us just a very quick briefing. And in terms of the credibility of the different things that they've seen. And I would say that, you know, these files were made up by Comey. They were made up by Obama. They were made up by the Biden -- you know, and we went through years of that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: But the picture that is getting clearer is how they handled all of this. Remember that MAGA has demanded these files for years. People like Bondi and the current leadership of the FBI, they rose to prominence in part for pushing conspiracies and claims about Epstein. Bondi even teased a list was on her desk. She hosted a stunt at the White House over the files. And then a month later she told Trump that he is in the files. She tried to close the book after that, no client list, case closed, let's just all move on.
Now, Trump echoed that despite MAGA exploding over this. And since hearing that he is in those files, Trump has thrown a lot of spaghetti at the wall to downplay this entire situation. He called it boring, a hoax, a witch hunt, a waste of time, created -- manmade and orchestrated by his political opponents, Democrats. He attacked his own base for caring about this. He called them stupid and weak. He said he didn't want their support. And it all seems that that is because he knew something was in there that was incriminating to him.
At the end of the day, I mean, if he's in the files, just like a lot of the other people who might be in there because they associated with Epstein at one point, just own up to it, why doesn't he just do that?
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Own up to what The Wall Street Journal calls unverified hearsay, which is a redundant term that an editor should strike. Unverified hearsay, that is how --
PHILLIP: It's actually not redundant.
JENNINGS: What is hearsay?
PHILLIP: Well, hearsay is a legal term.
JENNINGS: What is hearsay? PHILLIP: Hearsay is a legal terms.
JENNINGS: So, it's unverified. So, use it if you want.
PHILLIP: Yes.
JENNINGS: Here's the deal. Why should he go out there and have to own up to anything? He's not ever been credibly accused. The Washington Post ran a fact-check on this the other day and said, we're confident there's nothing about the president. If there were, we would know about it. Unverified hearsay is what he's dealing with and you want him to go out and fight this ghost?
[22:05:01]
It's ridiculous.
PHILLIP: Well, no. I mean, I think the point is mostly that obviously everybody knows that Donald Trump is, in some shape or form, represented in these documents, his name is, because, for so long, he was associated with Epstein. So, that's actually not a secret. That's not that new.
JENNINGS: It is.
PHILLIP: So why not --
JENNINGS: It's old news.
PHILLIP: Why act as if this is like, you know, something that he has to protect himself against, as if, you know, it's the biggest deal in the world.
ANA NAVARRO, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I don't understand why people keep using the term that they were associates. They weren't associates. They were friends. They were close friends for 15 years. They partied together. They flew in each other's planes. Epstein was at his wedding, the second one. I mean, they got into a fight. When they got into a fight, it was over a real estate deal in Palm Beach.
Donald Trump has told us that he knew Epstein liked girls on the younger side, and I, quote, so, yes, it's old news. But, I guess, you know, it's old news, but it's hitting you in the face. The fact that all of these bible-clutching, cross-wearing Christians, MAGA, voted for a man who was close friends for over a decade with the worst sexual predator that we have known in recent history in the United States.
CAROLINE DOWNEY, STAFF WRITER, NATIONAL REVIEW: He also severed ties though after news of the sexual impropriety surfaced. So, it wasn't just nearly --
PHILLIP: No, it was actually before, as far as we know.
DOWNEY: Well, according to Trump, he said that after news of that became apparent, you know? PHILLIP: According to Trump and what's true are not necessarily, the same thing.
DOWNEY: Fair. But, you know, I think we should honor the fact that there are a number of people who are associates of Epstein. And let's be journalists here. Let's actually look at what's being alleged, which is that he was in the files. In what context though? We don't know the context in which his name was mentioned. To your point, we already know that he was already on the flight logs. He was already in pictures with Epstein before. This was a longstanding friendship and relationship. So, we don't know if there's any criminality here. And to imply that I don't think is an egregious --
PHILLIP: Nobody is implying that --
(CROSSTALKS)
JENNINGS: Democrats are alleging that he is somehow part of Epstein's wrongdoing. It's been happening all day long. This is the whole point of this fiasco, is to try to create a narrative and what he calls correctly a hoax, that he is somehow part of this. That's what they did about Russia and they're doing it on Epstein.
NAVARRO: Let me ask if he knew, if he knew that Epstein was preying on underage girls. Is that wrongdoing?
JENNINGS: I don't know what he knew or not. All I know is they were friends and he disowned him.
NAVARRO: He told us that he knew that Epstein liked women on the younger -- girls on the younger side.
JENNINGS: And that comment and what you just said are two different things. So, if you're alleging question criminality, go ahead. Say it directly. Say it so we can all hear it.
NAVARRO: I am asking you a question that you are pivoting on. The question I am asking you is, if Donald Trump knew that Epstein was having sex and preying on underage girls, is that wrongdoing?
JENNINGS: Well, I think if anyone would've known that. But I don't know that he knew that because he disowned it. But you're raising it, if I knew that you ran over someone out on the street, would that be criminal or wrongdoing? You're raising it because you don't know if it's true, but you're saying it out loud because you're trying to create --
NAVARRO: No. I'm saying it out loud because I think that's what a lot of people are wondering because he does -- the man does protest --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: All right. Let me let Ambassador in here.
NAVARRO: A lot of people who are MAGA influencers, I wonder.
PHILLIP: Go ahead, Jeff. I'm sorry.
FMR. SEN. JEFF FLAKE (R-AZ): The fact that there are reports that he's in the files is no surprise at all. I mean, there were associates, friends, whatever you want to call it, anybody who has had that long association is probably going to be named somehow in the files.
The problem becomes, as the MAGA base in particular, and many who are now in office running for office, talked about the Epstein files and who is in it, and they have to be released. Even Elon Musk said a few months ago that Trump is in the Epstein files. And so that kind of -- that -- I mean, when you traffic conspiracy theories, it comes back to bite you.
PHILLIP: Yes.
FLAKE: And it's biting right now.
PHILLIP: To your point, this MAGA influencer, he, on February 26th, said, the Epstein files come tomorrow. Any living people on that list should immediately be jailed. Now, today, he says, being in the Epstein files does not mean you're a pedophile. Epstein was a member of Mar-a-Lago for years until Trump threw him out. Of course, there will be incidental mentions of Trump. Give me a break with this non- story.
To your exact point, I mean, the flip-flopping, I think, is also very bizarre because it's either you want to know what's in the documents or you don't. There is another argument separate from that that maybe they shouldn't be released at all, but that's not what these MAGA people were saying just a few months ago.
KEITH BOYKIN, FORMER CLINTON WHITE HOUSE AIDE: Yes, there's a lot of flip-flopping, a lot of hypocrisy. And they say in politics, the scandal is not as bad as the cover-up. And here, we have a huge cover- up, because, as everybody's admitted, we all know Donald Trump's -- We all knew Donald Trump's name was going to be in the Epstein files anyway.
[22:10:04]
The fact that he's spending so much energy for the past two weeks going out of his way not to talk about it, to throw up every distraction imaginable to avoid the issue is indicative of just how bad this cover-up is.
And it's not Democrats who've been pressing this issue, but Republicans and MAGA supporters and Trump supporters who have been pressing this issue in recent weeks, people like (INAUDIBLE) and podcasters and people like Tom Massie, people like Marjorie Taylor Greene. And the idea is that Democrats have been trying to have some sort of accountability in getting people to talk about this issue, honestly, since Trump claimed that he was --
JENNINGS: Oh, yes. Democrats had a long time worried about this.
BOYKIN: I just want to say one thing a little bit.
PHILLIP: I chuckled a little bit, Scott, when you compared this to -- you called it the Russia hoax. I'm actually going to play this from The Daily Shows Jordan Klepper, because I think, honestly, oh, there's, he comedically laid this out pretty clearly. Why -- I'm not sure why this argument works.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JORDAN KLEPPER, CO-HOST, THE DAILY SHOW: So let me get this straight. According to Trump, all the top Democrats got together and said, let's create some fake files that destroy Trump's political career. They don't ever use them. They let Trump get elected. Don't use them. Let Trump get elected again. Still don't use them. And then once he's the president, hope he releases the files without ever looking at them, frankly.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: I mean, this is the worst conspiracy I've ever heard in my life.
JENNINGS: That is the most dangerous description I've ever heard in my life.
PHILLIP: How on earth Democrats have been trying to take down Trump with documents that they never used to take down Trump?
JENNINGS: I'm sorry, they crippled almost his entire first term by convincing one half of the country that Russia stole the 26 --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Where is the Democrat conspiracy on this issue?
JENNINGS: So, here's the deal. There's no conspiracy and there's no story tonight, and I'll give you an example of why I believe that. Tonight, Fox News did a poll --
BOYKIN: Speaking of accurate sources.
JENNINGS: Are you calling into question the Fox News polling? Because it's generally considered to be -- all right. Here's the deal. They had his job approval. He's a little underwater. Of all the people who said they approve or disapprove of Donald Trump, only 1 percent mentioned Epstein is the reason. And the whole 1 percent was either Democrats or independents. This fantasy that Republicans or MAGA, nobody in the Republican Party is worried about this. Most of America is not worried about this.
BOYKIN: CNN's polling shows that he's 37 points underwater on the Epstein issue. But the larger point is this started in -- Epstein died in 2019. Donald Trump was the president in 2019. Barack Obama had left office by that time, and he still thinks that somehow Barack Obama created a conspiracy to frame Donald Trump about something that happened with Epstein -- (CROSSTALKS)
NAVARRO: I think it's pretty telling that some of these latest re revelations that have really gotten under Trump's skin are coming out in The Wall Street Journal, the same people that own Fox News, Rupert Murdoch, despite the fact that Donald Trump called on the phone and told them not to publish this, despite the fact that Donald Trump has threatened and pursued legal action, and they are still publishing this, which tells you that they are not afraid and that they have some great --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: They're doing their jobs.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Hang on a second. Hang on a second, my friends. Hang on a second, my friends. We were just talking about whether or not MAGA cares, right? So, a judge decided today that they were not going to be allowed to release these grand jury transcripts, which Trump wanted, said he wanted released. This is a limited amount of information. They could release the files that they have in DOJ possession.
All of a sudden now, Charlie Kirk says, President Trump's DOJ moved to release the valuable Epstein information and a federal judge is blocking their pursuit of transparency. Are you paying attention? The judge is a 2014 Obama appointee. So, now, I mean, which one is it? Do they -- is this an Obama conspiracy or does Trump have the power, if he wanted to, to actually release many, many documents, many more valuable documents in these transcripts.
DOWNEY: Charlie Kirk is still in the media class. This to the media class is our soap opera. This is palace intrigue. This is the scandal that we are wining and dining on. But outside of the beltway and the media industry, to Scott's earlier point, this is not a salient issue to the middle of the country that needs to be persuaded, headed into the midterms, and I would even argue, it's not a ranking in the top five for MAGA voters.
PHILLIP: Then why does Trump keep talking about it?
JENNINGS: He's not.
DOWNEY: I think it's because he's responding about to the attacks.
PHILLIP: No, wait, hold up.
JENNINGS: Why do Democrats keep talking about it?
PHILLIP: He's not?
JENNINGS: Why are we talking about it?
PHILLIP: He's not? Trump is --
DOWNEY: He doesn't want to --
PHILLIP: Hold on a second.
[22:15:00]
If Trump wanted to move on, whenever a reporter asked him a question about this, he would say, I'm not going to talk about this issue. I'm going to talk about the economy. He has not done that a single time in the last week-and-a-half that this has been a story.
FLAKE: I think if MAGA didn't care about this, it wouldn't be an issue right now, but they did care. When Pam Bondi came out and said, this is done, it's finished, they screamed. If the Democrats had screamed, and they did, that wouldn't have mattered. But because part of the base screamed that it mattered and it will matter in the midterms.
And I wouldn't want to go home to a recess, and I've done that before, when you have troublesome political news to go to an August recess, I wouldn't want to with this hanging over.
PHILLIP: That's a perfect segue because we have much more on that ahead.
Coming up next, in an extraordinary effort to distract from Epstein, Tulsi Gabbard makes a baseless claim about Barack Obama from behind the White House podium.
Plus, we have much more breaking news tonight, another organization surrenders to Donald Trump's threats. This time, it's Columbia University and a $200 million payout.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:20:00]
PHILLIP: Tonight, a haunt prediction. Thom Tillis thinks that if Republicans shy away from their base's Epstein concerns, the midterm elections may be the night of the living dead for the party.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What does the Trump administration need to do to handle this this Epstein saga?
TILLIS: Release the damn files. Look, it makes no sense to me.
If anybody thinks that this is going to go away because the House left a day earlier or something, it's got to be like those zombies in the Walking Dead. Every time you think you've killed it, another one's just going to come running out of the closet after you. This is going to be an issue all the way through next year's election.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: A part of the problem here ambassador Flake, is that when you rally the base around taking on the deep state and then suddenly you start acting like the deep state, it becomes a narrative problem.
FLAKE: Yes, it does. And it's not -- I mean, even if the base doesn't care about it that much, but the media does, the media plays it up. You go home to the -- you know, the recess, and that's all one of people want to talk about. You go to a town hall. It only takes one heckler to bring it in and then that's what the media talks about.
So, this isn't something you want to go home and talk about in the recess. And that will go through with the midterms, you know, just a year-and-a-half away. It's something -- I think Thom Tillis is right. It's going to haunt.
NAVARRO: I'm kind of loving this unfiltered Thom Tillis since he announced that he's not running.
PHILLIP: It is. It is interesting.
NAVARRO: Yes.
PHILLIP: No kidding. I mean, Speaker Mike Johnson tried to argue that what's happening is not that the House is trying to avoid taking a vote on this. Listen to what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): Congress is doing its work. No one is adjourning early.
No one in Congress is blocking Epstein documents. No one in Congress is doing that. What we are doing here, Republicans, are preventing Democrats from making a mockery of the Rules Committee process because we refuse to engage in their political charade.
Every single one of us are for maximum transparency, and we'll use every power that we have to ensure that that's done.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: I don't know. All available evidence is that they are essentially altering the House schedule to avoid taking this vote. And it's not just Democrats. Nearly a dozen Republicans are also in the number of wanting to get this vote on the table. So, they're just not going to do anything, no business at all.
FLAKE: Pretty much.
DOWNEY: I do think though it does have to do with that Rules Committee thing. That's a technicality. I know we don't want to get into the weeds on that. It does have to do with that partially. But it looks like Chip Roy's proposal actually could gain some traction, you know, after the recess.
There is a political risk, I'm not going to lie about that, to passing the buck on this issue. But I just think we need to zoom out here and say, do we really think this is going to loom the largest in the midterms rather than it being a referendum on cost of living and inflation? Inflation is improving. Those numbers are tempering, and that is so far a Trump's success. The economy is also booming and it's prompt -- it's predicted to have a greater boom.
BOYKIN: The prices are higher right now. And inflation is still --
JENNINGS: Here we go, the cherry-picking.
DOWNEY: And prices are down.
BOYKIN: Inflation is higher now than it was during the Biden administration, some parts. But that's not really the issue here. And the fact is, if that were the issue, Donald Trump would be talking about it. And Donald Trump isn't talking about it. Donald Trump is talking about everything else.
Today, we had a vote in the House Oversight Committee. A subcommittee voted 8-2 to subpoena the documents from the Justice Department. So, it shows there are cracks in the armor. Even Republicans are realizing that they have to come clean on this issue because their base has been fed this fantasy for, I don't know how many years, that there was all this -- all these revelations to come out of this and Trump has failed to produce.
PHILLIP: Well when all else fails, it seems like what everything comes back to in Trump world is Obama. Tulsi Gabbard released these files claiming that there was a conspiracy led by Obama to pursue, as Scott said, the Russian hoax, even though even the Senate Republicans have said that Russia did interfere in the election.
Let me just play what she had to say at the White House today at the podium.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TULSI GABBARD, DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: There is irrefutable evidence that detail how President Obama and his national security team directed the creation of an intelligence community assessment that they knew was false. They knew it would promote this contrived narrative that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to help President Trump win, selling it to the American people as though it were true.
[22:25:00]
It wasn't.
The evidence that we have found and that we have released directly point to President Obama leading the manufacturing of this intelligence assessment.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NAVARRO: A lot of people see Tulsi Gabbard up there saying these things and, you know, and could reach the conclusion that she's in a pretty intensive CYA operation. Because it wasn't just -- it was, what, a few weeks ago when Donald Trump was saying she was flat out wrong with her Iran assessments and the things that she had testified to in front of Congress.
PHILLIP: And, Ambassador, like you were in Congress when all this was happening, and defended the need for an actual investigation into Russian interference. Is she telling the truth that Russia did not interfere in the 2016 election?
FLAKE: Of course, they interfered. They didn't turn any votes. It was just as so many of the intelligence agencies and the Senate Committee and everybody found. Of course, they wanted to. Russians are always meddling in elections. Were they successful? Not really, but they meddled.
NAVARRO: Were you serving with Marco Rubio at the time? Were you in the Senate or in the House?
FLAKE: Yes, I was. I was in the Senate.
NAVARRO: Because it's significant that Marco Rubio's --
(CROSSTALKS)
NAVARRO: (INAUDIBLE) the conclusions of this investigation.
JENNINGS: Here's the scandal.
PHILLIP: Oh, do tell.
JENNINGS: No votes, you just said, and I think you're right. Maybe they tried. It had no impact on the election. The scandal is this, that high ranking Democrats abuse their intelligence positions to try to convince half the American people and one entire political party that Russia stole the 2016 election and they succeeded today. It is an article of faith among Democrats --
PHILLIP: How did they -- I think, Scott, you have to actually back that up. How did they do that in your opinion? I mean, you're alleging that there was a conspiracy led by Obama to say that Russia changed the votes, which they did not say. So, what are you talking about exactly?
JENNINGS: No. I'm telling you that the program was this. They were shocked that Donald Trump won the election. They couldn't believe it. And so these people, I don't know who is responsible for it ultimately, but it deserves investigation.
BOYKIN: Wait a minute. Just a minute ago, but you were saying The Wall Street Journal --
JENNINGS: Why don't you let me finish? These people wanted it. These people want it, the American people who believe that it was an illegitimate president. That was the point.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: So, what about the --
JENNINGS: Abby, I sat here night after night on panel after panel.
PHILLIP: Let's all calm down. Let's simmer down now. Okay. Listen, is Marco Rubio in the Obama deep state?
DOWNEY: No, but this is --
PHILLIP: Is Marco Rubio in the Obama deep state?
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Let me just -- let's just bring it back to the facts here. Is Marco Rubio in the Obama deep state?
DOWNEY: Did he author the Steele dossier?
JENNINGS: Yes.
PHILLIP: Okay. Senator, Ambassador, let me go to you on this because there was a joint -- there was a bipartisan committee that looked into this. That bipartisan committee was led in part by Marco Rubio. And they concluded what? What did they conclude? Was it that Russia interfered in the election or that Russia did not?
FLAKE: Well, that Russia interfered. They used to.
PHILLIP: So, is Marco Rubio --
FLAKE: It didn't change a vote.
JENNINGS: It didn't. But what do people believe? What do people believe?
PHILLIP: So, hold on a second. Is this about what the intelligence community concluded or is it about what you think the public believes? Are those two things (INAUDIBLE) are they different?
JENNINGS: Because they believe it. Abby, why would they believe it they weren't told that by their government?
PHILLIP: I do think that if you're accusing people --
JENNINGS: They were told that by the White House.
PHILLIP: If you are accusing people of crimes, okay --
JENNINGS: I don't know if it's criminal, but it deserves investigation.
PHILLIP: -- you might want to have your facts in order. Because you --
JENNINGS: The facts are these --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Hold on a second, Scott. JENNINGS: That's what they told you.
PHILLIP: Scott, you cannot criminalize, you cannot target people with the law by saying that they authored an assessment that says in plain text what Russia -- hold on a second. It says in plain text what Russia did in the election. And then you want to punish them for what people believe?
JENNINGS: Yes, I want to punish them and investigate them --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: That is absolutely --
JENNINGS: -- for leading the United States down this ridiculous black hole.
BOYKIN: Two points, one in response to Scott and one about the whole conversation.
First of all, in the last segment, Scott was complaining because The Wall Street Journal was reporting factually based sourced arguments, sourced information.
JENNINGS: No, unverified hearsay was the term.
BOYKIN: Factually based sourced information. And now he comes on making wild accusations with no factual basis. So, there's a hypocrisy there.
JENNINGS: What --
BOYKIN: Wait.
(CROSSTALKS)
BOYKIN: You just spent the last half hour, Scott, you spent that last half hour monopolizing and just --
PHILLIP: Ana, just give me second. Let me let Keith finish his point and we can continue. Go on, Keith.
JENNINGS: First of all, I wouldn't take the Lord's name in vain on Sunday.
BOYKIN: We didn't have.
PHILLIP: Scott, just give us a moment. Go ahead.
[22:30:00]
BOYKIN: Secondly, and this is the point that I think is the larger issue, this conversation is exactly the conversation Donald Trump wants us to be having. He doesn't want us to talk about the Epstein scandal. So, he threw up Tulsi Gabbard to bring out this old, unsubstantiated charge against Barack Obama, who was three presidents ago, to get Scott Jennings on national television to get his base talking about that issue.
It's all part of Donald Trump's plan, and Scott's playing right into it. We should be talking about how the Epstein scandal is preventing Congress from doing its job, preventing them from talking about jobs and healthcare and education and affordable housing, preventing them from doing the American people's work. But Scott is working with Donald Trump to get you talking about Barack Obama, who's not even the president.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Caroline, a quick last word. Go ahead.
(CROSSTALK)
CAROLINE DOWNEY, "NATIONAL REVIEW" STAFF WRITER: Well, actually, I would actually argue that Democrats are really -- I would actually argue that Democrats are really having a heyday with the Epstein scandal instead of focusing on the things that matter like inflation and even the Medicaid reform if they really want to go there. But I think we're getting a little confused about what this Russia bombshell actually is.
UNKNOWN: It's not a bombshell.
DOWNEY: It's saying -- well, actually, it is.
UNKNOWN: Oh, gosh.
DOWNEY: It's showing that Obama was indeed the architect of the Russian collusion hoax --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Of what?
DOWNEY: -- because he fed fake intelligence to the media --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Wait a second.
DOWNEY: -- which served as a basis for multiple smear campaigns against the sitting president --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: What -- well, hold on. What exactly was he the architect of?
DOWNEY: He's -- he's the one who gave the -- his -- his officials gave the assessment to the media that was derived from the discredited Steele dossier.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: What did the assessment -- what did the assessment say? DOWNEY: The Steele dossier?
PHILLIP: What did the assessment say? The I.C. assessment. What did it say?
DOWNEY: The assessment was derived from the Steele dossier which said that Trump was accused--
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: No. What did it actually say? Not what is it derived from. What did it actually say? What was the conclusion of the I.C. assessment?
DOWNEY: I'm not going to like, you're --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Because -- okay. All right. I've said it a thousand times at this table.
(CROSSTALK)
ANA NAVARRO, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: The conclusion was that the Russians tried to meddle in the elections --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Yes.
NAVARRO: --that they had done all sorts of things.
PHILLIP: Exactly.
NAVARRO: But there was no evidence that they had changed the results.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: It does not say that they changed the votes. That is not what it said.
(CROSSTALK)
UNKNOWN: And if you don't know that, then you shouldn't be on --
NAVARRO: But also -- also --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: In any case -- in any case --
NAVARRO: Also listen, this -- this, though.
PHILLIP: Yes.
NAVARRO: Okay. So, we are here saying, or some of us -- some of you are saying that, you know, high level Democrats were trying to get the country -- have the country to believe that Donald Trump had not legitimately won the election. What I saw was Barack Obama greet then President-elect Trump in 2016 at the White House.
I saw him properly transition with the Trump team. I saw him be at the swearing in of Donald Trump. I did not see him trying to lead an insurrection and fan the flames or stop the -- the way that the House was going to certify the election. What did Donald Trump do when Joe Biden won? None of those things. None of those things.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Listen, I -- I-- Scott.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Scott, I do --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Scott, I'm sorry. I'm sorry but --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Hold on a second, guys.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: We really have to go to break.
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: President Donald Trump --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: We do have to go to break.
NAVARRO: --- did not treat Joe Biden in the same way.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: We do have to go to break. But there is only one political party where the sitting president right at this moment still believes that he won an election that he lost.
UNKNOWN: Thank you.
PHILLIP: Okay? That's -- the only one guy --
(CROSSTALK)
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: -- political party that Russia stole the 2016 election. The believe it.
(CROSSTALK) PHILLIP: Up next for us, we've got more breaking news. $200 million. That is how much Columbia University is paying to the Trump administration. We'll tell you why. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:38:02]
PHILLIP: More breaking news tonight. The capitulation tour continues. Columbia University reaching a settlement with the Trump administration for more than $200 million after threats to its funding over anti-Semitism and DEI. And it comes just a day after the school disciplined more than 70 students for campus protests.
But it's not just colleges. We're learning tonight that there is more to the Paramount deal. In addition to millions of dollars being paid out, Skydance has agreed to eliminate DEI programs and hire someone to police alleged bias. So, as Trump says, he has gotten more and more entities to bend the knee. Whatever he's doing is working. I guess my question is, where does this all end? Does it end?
BOYKIN: It doesn't end unless we stand up against it. I'm really ashamed at Columbia University. I taught at Columbia University for several years. This is an embarrassment to the school. It weakens the integrity of institution not to be independent. And I don't think it, you know, Harvard is fighting back and a few other schools are fighting back.
But we saw when the law firms capitulated that the ones who didn't capitulate can fall back. They won those cases and people should stand up against fascism. We don't -- we have an opportunity here to use the power of the law to stand up for what is right, not just to defend what Donald Trump wants to -- wants this country to be.
One other -- one other point. The reason why they gave for this Columbia -- Columbia penalty is because they were anti-Semitic. Donald Trump has dined with Nazi -- Nazi sympathizers. He referred to bankers just a few weeks ago as Shylocks.
JENNINGS: Were they or not? Did they discriminate against Jewish kids or not?
BOYKIN: Let me just finish. You talk about people --
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: Just say yes or no. You talk.
(CROSSTALK)
BOYKIN: You talk about people and interrupted me.
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: You don't want to say it. They systematically discriminated against the Jews. Just go ahead and say it. BOYKIN: No, No. My point is, is that Donald Trump has a history of engaging in anti-Semitic behavior -- of repeating anti-Semitic memes, of -- of talking, of hiring people who are anti-Semitic, including people like Elon Musk, who was doing Nazi salutes just a few -- a few months ago.
[22:40:06]
(CROSSTALK)
BOYKIN: He was doing that.
(CROSSTALK)
BOYKIN: And after all that, well, you talk about -- Columbia University is the one place we're going to draw the line. If you're going to be consistent, let's be consistent. Anti-Semitism is wrong. Let's stand up for it everywhere, including in the Trump administration.
JENNINGS: You don't pay $200 million to just quote, 'make something go away". You pay $200 million because you know you got caught red- handed systematically discriminating against Jewish students. That's why you pay. That's why you change your policies. If elections have consequences, if Trump had not won, they would still be doing it today. Thank God he pushed back on them.
NAVARRO: No, I think the reason that they're paying the $200 million is because they don't want to lose billions in grants because they don't want to lose the money that comes in from international students like what Trump has done with Harvard, threatened to take away the visas of all of the international students coming to Harvard. I think they don't want to fight the way that Harvard is fighting back.
So, you say, you know, the things that Trump has done to get them to bend the knee. In the case of CBS and Paramount, they need government approval for the sale and merger. In the case of the law firms, he threatened not to allow any of the lawyers into federal buildings. In the case of the universities, he's taken away billions of grant money to the point where there are scientists from American universities that are being recruited and leaving the country and now setting up shop in places like Europe and Asia and other places.
And so, that's what he's doing. He's using a very big stick and hitting people over the head with it and there are people who are allowing themselves to be beat, and others who are standing up on principle taking the risk.
JENNINGS: What principle?
NAVARRO: The principle that they're not --
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: What principle is -- they're -- they're not anti-Semitic?
(CROSSTALK)
BOYKIN: You interrupt every time we say --
(CROSSTALK)
BOYKIN: Do you have to part of everybody's conversation?
JENNINGS: You're such a whiny --
BOYKIN: Whiny what? Say it, Scott.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Go ahead, Caroline. Go ahead.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Hang on a second. Let me let Caroline speak, please.
DOWNEY: You whispered -- I heard you say extortion under your breath and it made me think. Do you know what extortion is? It's when student activists take a building on campus hostage and then they blackmail the administration and say, if you do not divest from Israel, we will lay siege to another building. That's extortion and by the way it's beyond anti-Semitism.
(CROSSTALK)
BOYIN: Yeah, but you're saying that student activists have the same amount of power as the President of the United States?
DOWNEY: I'm saying that College campuses used to be respected --
(CROSSTALK)
BOYKIN: Student activists?
DOWNEY: -- as a model of self-governance and they let discipline go out the window and they let not only --
(CROSSTALK)
BOYKIN: So, so, you're going to -- so, if Joe Biden decided --
DOWNEY: -- anti-Semitism fester on their canto, but they also allowed disruption to take classes --
(CROSSTALK)
BOYKIN: So, if Joe Biden decided he was going to punish schools that he didn't like, you'd be okay with him doing that?
(CROSSTALK)
DOWNEY: You're masquerading as an activist organization.
PHILLIP: Hold on.
DOWNEY: If you're masquerading as an activist organization you can do so without half a billion dollars of taxpayer money.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: There's -- the CBS of it -- the CBS of it all is the other piece of this puzzle because there is a seeming almost quid pro quo here happening. They need a deal done. In order to get the deal done, they have to go through the very MAGA head of the FCC, Brandon Carr, who told Oliver Darcy that he thinks it's just sad about the Colbert firing. "Colbert doesn't have it anymore, if he ever did. I don't know if it's from Trump Derangement Syndrome, TDS, or something else."
I've never heard an FCC chairman, a regulatory person, speak in that way, but this is the MAGA world and companies have to go through that and then they have to pay 16 million to the presidential library and maybe give 20 million in ads and then they have to allow the President of the United States to dictate how they run their companies by getting rid of DEI. That's what's also happening here.
JEFF FLAKE (R) FORMER U.S. SENATOR, ARIZONA: Well, Scott is right, in that these universities needed to change. Obviously, there was anti- Semitism going on in a big way. They needed to change. I think a lot of those changes have been made gratefully. But I think all of us should be concerned at where this goes. I wouldn't want Donald Trump, I wouldn't want Joe Biden, I wouldn't want anybody, any president to be the arbiter of what is truth and what is not. And what universities have to do to be able to attract foreign students or whatnot.
This has gone too far in many areas, particularly with the law firms, basically telling them they've got to pay up or pony up, or they're going to be investigated or left aside.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Probably one of the reasons why it's not happening anymore. Yeah.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Because they've lost.
NAVARRO: The removal of - of grants. Look, you know, there's essential cancer research. Alzheimer's research, Parkinson's research. Things that do nothing to combat anti-Semitism and they are going to hurt us and the people that we love for years to come because essential research is being done away with in one fell swoop.
PHILLIP: All right, just got to say, Elon Musk obviously denies that that gesture that he made was a Nazi salute, but -- up next for us, more breaking news. A Pentagon watchdog now has evidence that Pete Hegseth shared classified information in a group chat, something that he denied over and over again.
[22:45:05] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: Pete Hegseth's Signal group chat headache just got a lot worse because sources are telling CNN the Pentagon's inspector general has evidence that when the defense secretary shared military plans through the messaging app earlier this year, it was in fact classified information, even though Hegseth repeatedly insisted that it wasn't.
[22:50:01]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PETE HEGSETH, SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: There's no units, no locations, no routes, no flight paths, no sources, no methods, no classified information. Now, however you characterize it, was informal, unclassified. No classified information.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: You'll remember the only reason we even know about all of this is because a journalist was mistakenly added to that group chat, which included several cabinet members and even the sitting vice president. And we also know what was in that, which was specific times for when certain parts of that strike were going to occur. That, even for a person on the street, they would know that something like that is classified. So, what is the consequence? What should the consequence be for something like this?
FLAKE: I don't think there are going to be any consequences going ahead. But I can tell you, having spent a lot of the last three years in a SCIF, spent a lot of time there, if this wasn't classified, it should have been. And I think everyone knows that it was classified information.
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: Tell people what SCIF is.
FLAKE: Well, it's Secure Compartmented Information Facility, and every embassy has them, and you're so careful about information.
NAVARRO: You were ambassador to Turkey, which is a very sensitive post. This -- this email was labeled "Secret, slash, NOFOR -- N-O-F-O- R.
FLAKE: Yes. Yes. No foreigners.
NAVARRO: Right. If you see something like that, what does that mean?
FLAKE: That's information that doesn't sit on your desk overnight. You don't take it home. This is classified. And -- and so, this is -- this is a serious thing. And I hope that if nothing else, moving forward, we treat information better.
PHILLIP: Let me play with -- this is an exchange with Representative Seth Moulton and Pete Hegseth about this issue a few months ago. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. SETH MOULTON (D-MA): Okay, so if it comes back that it is classified, will you take accountability or not?
HEGSETH: I -- I didn't confirm any classification or --
MOULTON: Okay, so if it is confirmed --
HEGSETH: What I know is that --
MOULTON: Will you take accountability?
HEGSETH: -- everything I share, everything I talk about --
(CROSSTALK)
MOULTON: Mr. Secretary, does accountability apply to you or not?
(CROSSTALK)
HEGSETH: -- is classified whether I talk or not?
MOULTON: Does it apply to you or not?
HEGSETH: Does what apply to me?
MOULTON: Accountability.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Accountability? Why isn't there any in this case?
JENNINGS: Well, I have a few thoughts. One, I said at the time, and I still believe it today. I have no trouble with there being an investigation of this. I think it's warranted. And so, we'll see what comes out. Number two, we don't have the official report yet. I'm curious to know what Secretary Hegseth has given as his side of the story to the I.G. We'll see, I guess, when the report comes out.
Number three -- and this is just some speculation based on what, you know, the scuttlebutt is. there is some viewpoint that the Secretary of Defense because he has declassification authorization when he puts information into a whatever he can be classified at that moment and we'll see if that argument becomes --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: This is -- well, that is -- that is an absolutely wild argument to make about an on-going --
(CROSSTALK)
UNKNOWN: That is an argument he won't make.
PHILLIP: He will not make an argument about it an on-going military operation?
JENNINGS: Why? If -- if he removed key details and he believes he has the authority to declassify information, I mean, they might make -- I don't know what they're going to do.
UNKNOWN: Yeah.
JENNINGS: I'm just saying they might make that argument. I don't know.
NAVARRO: Why do you think he won't make that argument?
FLAKE: No, that's just on its face. It's ridiculous.
NAVARRO: I mean --
(CROSSTALK)
DOWNEY: -- the time that the optics of this whole thing was not exactly politically prudent, I thought that they should take the L on this. However, zooming out, we have to ask the question, what were the implications on the national security stage? Did that original leak compromise the strike against the Houthis? That was pretty successful. And now, we have an Iranian regime that is very neutered because of the Trump administration's foreign policy that is also led by the military with Pete Hegseth.
PHILLIP: I mean, look. I think if every -- if every argument about releasing classified information was, well, what's the harm that it did in this particular case? Then there are a lot of people who would want their convictions overturned for --
(CROSSTALK)
UNKNOWN: Absolutely.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: - this very type of offense. I think that's part of the problem. But the other part that I think is interesting is -- not politically prudent. I'm not even sure that this is even a political question. It's actually a question of whether the rules apply to the Trump administration or whether they do not.
FLAKE: I think Caroline said, going forward, they just need a change, and -- and maybe they have, how they classify or how they deal with this.
(CROSSTALK)
DOWNEY: The communication --
(CROSSTALK)
FLAKE: But yeah, I think you're exactly right.
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: It was classified --
(CROSSTALK)
FLAKE: Take -- take the loss. Take the loss. Admit it and say we were wrong.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Well, Pete -- Pete Hegseth never acknowledged wrongdoing. I think that's part of the problem here. He has never acknowledged that he did anything wrong.
BOYKIN: It would be great if for once the Trump administration on any scandal would just say, you know what, we screwed up. They never do that. They never admit when they made a mistake. This was clearly a mistake. They sent classified information or top secret information or secret information to a reporter in the middle of a campaign -- of a war campaign.
[22:55:01]
And that's inappropriate. Everybody knows that. But instead of admitting that and trying to move on and having an investigation, they tried to dodge and deflect and have a cover up. That's always the problem. It goes back to the Epstein story that cover-up is always worse than a scam.
(CROSSTALK)
DOWNEY: But you know what, though? Careful with the word cover-up.
JENNINGS: Trump said they made a mistake. I mean, he -- he said out loud this was a mistake they learned from.
(CROSSTALK)
BOYKIN: And Trump was the one who was always saying that Biden didn't fire anybody. Why didn't he fire Hegseth?
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: All right. We absolutely have to go now. Everyone, thank you. Ana, we've got to go now. Ana.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Thank you very much for being here. Coming up, the families of the victims in the Idaho student murders confront their killer in court. A special edition of "Laura Coates Live" is coming up next.
[23:00:18]
PHILLIP: Before we go, a special programming note. Most summer Fridays, we will be broadcasting our roundtable debate from the Food Network Kitchen. We'll have food and some lively conversation. You don't want to miss it. And thank you very much for watching "NewsNight". "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
