Return to Transcripts main page
CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Trump Plans To Send National Guard To Chicago; Trump Says He Fired Fed Gov. Lisa Cook; Trump Threatens Christie And ABC News After Critical Interview; Trump Signs Order Targeting Protesters Who Burn American Flags; Trump's Economic Moves Creating Blurred Lines. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired August 25, 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, coming to a city near you? Trump expands his law enforcement crackdown.
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: Chicago's a killing field.
PHILLIP: And, again, threatens to send the National Guard to the windy city. But Governor Pritzker would like a word.
GOV. J.B. PRITZKER (D-IL): Mr. President, do not come to Chicago.
PHILLIP: Plus, the Trump retribution tour.
TRUMP: They raided Mar-a-Lago. They started that.
PHILLIP: Chris Christie says this about the raid on John Bolton's house.
FMR. GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R-NJ): He sees himself as the person who gets to decide everything.
PHILLIP: And now he might be next.
Also more tariff threats to China.
TRUMP: They have to give us magnets. If they don't give us magnets, then we have to charge them 200 percent tariff.
PHILLIP: Trump forces American companies to play tariff bingo.
And a new executive order making flag burning illegal.
TRUMP: All over the country, they're burning flags.
PHILLIP: The Supreme Court already said it's free speech. So, is this about patriotism or politics?
Live at the table, Jamie Harrison, Brad Todd, Tiffany Cross and Arthur Aidala. 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's military occupation could soon be coming to other cities across the U.S. and he already has his sights set on his next location.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I made the statement that next should be Chicago, because, as you all know, Chicago's a killing field right now. And they don't acknowledge it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Chicago is a city that's seen a significant drop in crime over the last year, including homicides, which are at their lowest levels in nearly a decade. But the facts don't matter to Trump, who today gave himself more power to expand his law enforcement crackdown, by signing an order that creates so-called specialized units within the National Guard that could be trained in police work.
But in a fiery speech, Illinois's Democratic Governor had this message for Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PRITZKER: This is not about fighting crime. This is about Donald Trump searching for any justification to deploy the military in a blue city, in a blue state, to try and intimidate his political rivals.
There is no emergency in Chicago that calls for armed military intervention. Mr. President, do not come to Chicago.
You are neither wanted here nor needed here.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Now, if this sound sounds like Trump is taking a cue from the dictator playbook, he claims you'd be wrong. And yet in the same breath, he says, this is what Americans want.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: And they say, we don't need him, freedom, freedom, he's a dictator, he's a dictator. A lot of people are saying maybe we like a dictator. I don't like a dictator. I'm not a dictator. I'm a man with great common sense and I'm a smart person.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: It's amazing to me that he would even bring that up, but I guess he understands that that's what's on people's minds. You know, we've asked a number of times and I think it really begs the asking again, why is it that Trump and his administration refuse to even look at some of the most dangerous cities in America that are in red states, where maybe they could easily get the governor's approval, like Memphis, Tennessee, for example, Cleveland, Ohio, Kansas City, Missouri? They could get the governors in a heartbeat to say yes to National Guard troops. Why not do that?
BRAD TODD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, Chicago's long been -- and Washington, D.C., have long been the murder capitals of the country. And they --
PHILLIP: But those are all -- all those states that I mentioned are more dangerous and for when it comes to violent crime than Chicago.
TODD: If your relative gets killed, you don't care if it's a blue state or a red state. Chicago's had nearly 600 murders a year. When Rahm Emanuel was mayor quite a while ago, it was maybe 400. I think every one of those families in the 600 who were killed last year would like to maybe the federal government had intervened and helped him back then. Donald Trump also said he wouldn't come in unless the governor asked him, but the governor ought to ask him.
PHILLIP: Why won't he go where the governor will ask him?
TODD: They haven't asked him. They haven't asked him. Does anyone think Chicago is safe? Is Chicago -- but, Abby, is the question --
PHILLIP: So, Illinois hasn't asked him, but he insists that he's going to go anyway.
[22:05:01]
TODD: But Chicago --
PHILLIP: But other states, like Tennessee and maybe Ohio, maybe if he if he said, hey, I'll bring National Guard troops, they're Republicans, maybe they would say yes, but he hasn't --
TODD: But you're avoiding the question. Is Chicago safe enough? Do they need help? Yes, they could need help.
PHILLIP: No city is safe enough. But, I mean, Trump seems to acknowledge, just to be clear, that he can't do this. Because what he signed today basically says to the National Guard you get to train your troops to do -- to intervene in, you know, domestic disturbances, which they already do, he did not actually send the troops to Chicago or to Baltimore or anywhere else. Why do you think that is?
JAIME HARRISON, FORMER DNC CHAIR: Well, you know, bottom line is. This is not about law and order. Donald Trump wants to make it about law and order, but it's about fear and control. He wants to control these places where the governors in these states aren't going to allow him to control that. You heard that from Wes Moore. You heard that from Pritzker. You heard that from Newsom. They're going to stand in that doorway and say, I'm sorry, Mr. President, but this is one of those times in which you don't get to do whatever the hell you want to do when you want to do it.
And, in essence, he thinks he can intimidate these folks. And it seems like all of the things that we have in common, these cities that he keeps saying are cities in blue states, not in -- and you pointed out these cities in red states, when you go to Louisiana, when you go to Ohio, when you go to Tennessee, when you go to some of these other places where crime is very high, it is quiet as a bunch of church mites. He's not even talking about it.
PHILLIP: Arthur, the legalities of this are not really in Trump's favor.
ARTHUR AIDALA, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: And that's why -- that's the answer to your own question, like why he hasn't done it.
PHILLIP: He is like saying that he wants to do it, but it seems that at least on some level, they understand they would need to figure out an actual legal framework to do this because --
AIDALA: And they may -- look, and they may be doing so.
PHILLIP: Yes.
AIDALA: Right. But let's just talk about the logistics for a second. Number one, I don't think it's accurate, that in your open, you referred to it as Trump's military occupation. When Governor Hochul here in New York put the National Guard in the subways and in some crime-ridden areas, I don't think we referred to it as military occupation. Why? I ride the subways? I loved when they were there. I mean, law abiding citizens love that. Are you kidding me? I wish there were more police officers than have one in every single car in the subway, at every platform. We can't. That's why Governor Hochul said, we're going to put them out and around.
Law abiding citizens, I don't see them objecting or looking to it as like it's a takeover by the military. I'm walking down the street, I walk out of my law firm at 1:00 in the morning in midtown Manhattan, and I see a military guy there, you think I'm upset about that or am I thrilled about that?
PHILLIP: In Washington, D.C., he has attempted to take over the police department, A, and, B --
TODD: With the police department union support.
PHILLIP: And, B -- I didn't ask whether they supported it or not. I mean, I'm just answering the question about whether or not there's a takeover. I mean, that was the intention, was to essentially take control over law enforcement in the city, which he can do because it's a federal city. That's what Trump wants to do. So, I don't know --
AIDALA: That's what he has done.
PHILLIP: -- Why you're quibbling with that part.
TIFFANY CROSS, AUTHOR, SAY IT LOUDER!: It's a takeover. Yes. You are absolutely right and accurate in your opening, Abby. I think the reason why you may feel that way, Arthur, is because you maneuver in society with a certain privilege. The question is, who are these --
AIDALA: Well, hold on. What privilege? When I get on the subway, just tell me the privilege. When I'm dressed like this on the subway, I am a target. That is not a privilege. I'm a target. There's the guy who probably has a wallet and a watch.
CROSS: Arthur, I want you to be open.
AIDALA: That's not privilege.
CROSS: I want you to have a little bit of intellectual curiosity and be open and let me finish my point.
AIDALA: I'm very curious.
CROSS: Thank you. I think when you ask the question, who is the militarized law enforcement there to protect and who are they there to protect from? And so often in this country, particularly that is how law enforcement swallowed (ph) their ranks. There was so much violence against people of color, black people in particular in this country, that they said, it's okay to beat a black person to murder a black person, but you got to be wearing a badge when you do it.
AIDALA: But who are the victims?
CROSS: Do you want to listen or do you -- you can't talk and listen at the same time?
AIDALA: No, I'm multitasking.
CROSS: Well, it doesn't sound like it. My point to you is I am telling you on the frontlines what is happening. And there are militarized police force going and harassing longtime law abiding citizens of Washington, D.C. And so when we, who are probably a little more familiar with American history perhaps than you, look at the military turning the police force on its own people. We remember the examples like Tulsa, when law enforcement dropped bombs on its own community. We know what it is like to have people --
AIDALA: We're far from that, though. We're very, very far --
CROSS: We are not so far from that.
AIDALA: We're dropping bombs?
CROSS: We are actually not so far from that.
TODD: We need to bring some numbers into this. Washington, D.C., has a net loss of 500 police officers since 2020.
[22:10:01]
They are undermanned. The D.C. Police Union supports what Donald Trump's doing. They think it's working. We've gone 13 days without a murder in Washington, D.C. in August, the heat of the summer. That never happens. This is going to be the lowest number of murders in August on record.
CROSS: That actually is not true.
PHILLIP: Now, we're changing the goalpost.
CROSS: And that's a lie.
PHILLIP: The lowest number of murder murders in August, but just earlier this year, in February, 16 days without any murders.
TODD: Oh, it has happened before. It doesn't tend to happen in August. It doesn't tend to happen this summer.
Well, I mean, I think that's a completely arbitrary.
TODD: No, it's not. Everyone knows some of the --
PHILLIP: Hold on a second time. I just think it, it is pretty arbitrary to just say, well, in August.
TODD: CNN's own report. Let's go. Okay, let's go to more stats.
PHILLIP: It's happened earlier this year.
TODD: CNN's own reporting says crime is down 19 percent in the weeks before.
PHILLIP: I didn't say that it wasn't down.
TODD: So, is it working? Is it helping?
PHILLIP: No. I mean, I didn't say it wasn't down.
(CROSSTALKS)
CROSS: First of all, let me just tell you a lot people do not care what the police think or what the police union think. They themselves are quite problematic. And if you want to talk about CNN's own reporting, we should report -- look to Daniel Dale, who did an amazing job, an amazing job of real-time fact-checking, the parade of lies Donald Trump purported in his press conference.
PHILLIP: Can I play a little bit more? This is from Stephen Miller. He's describing what apparently he thinks has been happening in D.C. recently in the last couple of days.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHEN MILLER, WHITE HOUSE DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF: For the first time in their lives, they can use the parks, they can walk on the streets. You have people who can walk freely at night without having to worry about being robbed or mugged. They're wearing their watches again. They're wearing jewelry again. They're carrying purses again.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CROSS: He is wrong.
AIDALA: He is right.
(CROSSTALKS)
AIDALA: I bet you took a car service here. I bet you get chauffeured around. When was the last time you were on a subway? When was the last time you went Brownsville --
(CROSSTALKS)
CROSS: Let me tell you about my life. You have no idea about my life.
AIDALA: Okay. So, when was the last time you were on the New York City Subway? Tell us last.
PHILLIP: Arthur, hang on. Hang on just one second, Arthur.
AIDALA: Did you feel safe?
CROSS: I did. But can I just say really quickly, Abby, because anytime that we play something from Stephen Miller, it would be journalistic integrity to point out that he is a white supremacist and he is the brainchild behind this policy. That's not my opinion. That's actual facts. And for him to purport lies from the Oval Office as a white supremacist, it should be pointed out.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Hold on a second. I want to address what he's claiming. He says that for the first time in their lives, people can use parks in Washington, D.C. They can go out to dinner in Washington, D.C. Brad, I don't know if you live in D.C. or in the nearby surroundings, but that is factually untrue. That is not true.
TODD: You could use parks before and you could go out to dinner. Now --
PHILLIP: You could wear jewelry. You could wear your watches. People do that.
TODD: But you're deflecting though, Abby. But the question here is this. Is D.C. safer this week than it was three weeks ago? Yes it is. Yes it is.
(CROSSTALKS)
TODD: I want to go back to what Tiffany said. Tiffany said people --
PHILLIP: I'm not deflecting. You are deflecting. I mean, the point is --
TODD: I'm not deflecting it.
PHILLIP: Nobody is saying -- listen, I, unlike Donald Trump, believe the statistics The numbers are in fact down. I don't think it's --
TODD: So, it's helping, so it's a good thing.
PHILLIP: Of course.
TODD: Good.
PHILLIP: For a temporary -- hold on, for a temporary basis. But this is a city where people are going to be living there when Donald Trump has moved on to the next thing. And the question is, what is going to be the trajectory of crime? And is this a sustainable move. Maybe it has helped a lot --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: What's next for D.C.? I think that's the question a lot of us ask.
HARRISON: Because if we're going to talk about policing as well, let's talk about the fact that Donald Trump cut the budget for community policing when he was the first president in his first administration. And he has also proposed cutting community policing grants in this second administration. So, you can't tell me you are for law and order and you're for community policing when you cut the budget for policing in cities across this country.
TODD: Well, wait a second. Policing is a function of local government budgeting. And I want to go back to what Tiffany said.
HARRISON: No.
PHILLIP: By the way, Brad, I mean, as we've discussed, Congress arbitrarily cut D.C.'s budget this year, and that included money for everything, for police, for schools, for all of that. They could restore that money, which they, again, arbitrarily cut, but they haven't done that despite all of the concern about crime.
TODD: D.C. has plenty of waste in other areas of government. But let's go backwards. Let's go back to what Tiffany said.
PHILLIP: You just pointed out that there's a cop shortage, right? You pointed out that there's a cop shortage. So, how do you propose fixing that cop shortage, if not too high or more costs.
TODD: Here's why there's a cop shortage in D.C. Number one, Democrats have denigrated police for the last five years. Tiffany just did it here earlier, said people don't care what police think.
[22:15:02]
Number two --
HARRISON: I guess Republicans have denigrated --
TODD: Wait a minute. Wait a minute. The D.C. --
PHILLIP: She's talking about the police --
TODD: The D.C. City Council has tied the hands of the D.C police force. That's what the union's complaint is. Yes. They can't pursue people who they are (INAUDIBLE) are committing a crime.
PHILLIP: I think you're right about that. And the mayor has also disagreed with the city council on that very issue. But, again, you know, where's the money going to come from to hire more police? Congress has it within their power to restore that money.
TODD: There's plenty of waste in D.C. government to cut.
PHILLIP: All right.
CROSS: And more police --
PHILLIP: We got to move on. Breaking news for us tonight, President Trump says that he's firing the Fed governor, Lisa Cook, which he may or may not be able to do. The latest in his battle against the Fed, a special guest is going to be with us at the table to explain what's happening there.
Plus, President Trump is highlighting yet another person that he'd like to see investigated and what appears to be his longstanding retribution tour. We're going to discuss that.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:20:00]
PHILLIP: Breaking tonight, President Trump has posted a letter saying that he's fired Fed Governor Lisa Cook, an unprecedented action that escalates his war with the Federal Reserve.
Now, Trump wants lower interest rates and so he's accused Cook, a Biden-appointee, of mortgage fraud. The Justice Department says that it plans to investigate those allegations but haven't charged her with anything yet. So far, the dollar is dropping in reaction to that news, and in a statement, Elizabeth Warren, the senator from Massachusetts and the ranking member on the Senate Banking Committee, said that the move was illegal. She called it the latest example of a desperate president searching for a scapegoat to cover for his own failure to lower cost for Americans.
She went on to say that the move must be overturned in court and it will likely go all the way to the Supreme Court if it is challenged.
Now, this is all coming as President Trump has suggested another political foe of his, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, could face an in investigation over the 2013 bridge gate scandal. Now, the timing of all of this seems linked to something else.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRISTIE: Donald Trump sees himself as the person who gets to decide everything. And he doesn't care about any separation. In fact, he absolutely rejects the idea that there should be separation between criminal investigations and the politically-elected leader of the United States.
TRUMP: When I listened to Chris speak his hate, I say, oh, what about the George Washington Bridge, you know? Tell me about the George Washington Bridge. He blamed other people, but he knew all about it.
I always thought he got away with murder.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Joining us now in our fifth seat is Sheelah Kolhatkar. She is a staff writer at The New Yorker. Sheila, what do you think the markets are going to say about all of this tomorrow? Because at the end of the day, this is Trump doing what everybody thought that he might be disincentivized from doing, which is putting his hand right in the heart of the Federal Reserve Board.
SHEELAH KOLHATKAR, STAFF WRITER, THE NEW YORKER: Well, so anyone who has any kind of stake in our economy, if you have a job, if you have money saved, if you have children, you know, any kind of commitment to this country doing well in the future, this should be of concern. He has now replaced the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics with someone who will produce statistics that he wants. And he's now interfering with the levers of our economy, or trying to at a very basic level, and this undermines what has made this country economically really strong, which is the fact that it has rule of law, that the economic system is not completely politicized. People from all over the world want to invest here, build their companies here.
And President Trump is now acting more like the CCP, to be perfectly honest, meddling to such an extent that it's going to undermine a lot of what made us economically great.
PHILLIP: Brad, the president has made it clear he wants her gone because he wants interest rates lowered, but so has the Federal Housing Finance Agency head, who is a Trump appointee who lodged these allegations. They're all singing from the same songbook. They're saying here, we're going to tweet about some allegations, but you can stop all of this if you just resign. How does that sit with you?
TODD: Well, I think first off, they're unlikely to be able to remove her. The court, Supreme Court, just three months ago in the case, Trump v. Wilcox, said that the president had pretty broad authority to remove people from the federal government, the executive branch, but they went out of their way to single out the Fed as an agency where he probably couldn't remove someone without cause. They say, because it's uniquely structured and it's a quasi-private entity.
I think that matters. And so I think they're unlikely to be able to remove her if it gets to the Supreme Court, unless they can prove -- the DOJ can prove she committed mortgage fraud. But to me, the thing that's most notable here is, you know, she got three mortgages between 2.5 and 3.25 percent. Nobody in America can get that right now. That's a 6.5 percent -- because she and Jay Powell are holding the economy hostage by not cutting rates. HARRISON: You know, you're talking about Donald Trump, right?
TODD: Yes.
HARRISON: The guy who got so many sweetheart deals in terms of mortgages and loans --
TODD: I'm not saying her deal is sweetheart. I don't say --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: I mean, those are the prevailing mortgage rates --
TODD: At the time. Yes, I didn't say it was sweetheart but she's keeping you from getting the rate you deserve as an American consumer while she's trying to punish Donald Trump --
PHILLIP: I mean, I have to quibble with that, because I understand that's a talking point, but it's actually --
TODD: What's the talking point?
PHILLIP: The idea that by simply the Fed lowering interest rates that mortgage rates are automatically going to come down, not necessarily true. So, I know Trump is fixated on that particular aspect of it, but it's more complicated than that, how mortgage rates are set.
[22:25:06]
I also just think that's not the most important part of this, because at the end of the day, in this moment, mortgage rates are what they are, the Fed rate is what they are. But what Donald Trump is doing is he's kind of undermining the whole system that the economy is sitting on top of. And the question is, what happens then?
AIDALA: Abby, if you want to look at the biggest change in the Trump administration going back to maybe FDR is -- definitely going back to JFK with his brother, is he is intimately involved with the Department of Justice. When in his first term, when he wanted to call Preet Bharara, he was the U.S. attorney in New York to tell him, I'm letting you go, Preet wouldn't even take his call because there's protocol. The president's not supposed to call a U.S. attorney.
So, Trump just said there is no rule. That's just a policy. He's not breaking any law. But he has decided, whether it's Chris Christie, whether it's John Bolton, whether it's the governor, he is going to make the decisions alongside the attorney general of the United States of America, and he's the president, he's elected.
And, look, the evidence has to be there that, in fact, she did commit some sort of fraud, because I agree, if it's not there, I don't -- I think the Supreme Court has ruled in her favor that he does not have the power to remove her.
CROSS: He is targeting his political enemies.
HARRISON: Yes.
CROSS: That is what we see. And the fact that we're sitting here pretending like that that is not happening is so dangerous.
Number one, Chris Christie was the head of his inaugural committee in 2016, and this bromance did not end until January 6th, as if he wasn't just as horrible on January 5th and decades before that. Same with John Bolton, he is targeting him because he did not like a book that he published in 2020, and so now he is going after him. And Lisa Cook, unfortunately, is the latest casualty, who, unfortunately, joins over 300,000 other black women who he has led to the unemployment lines. He targeted federal agencies where black women were the highest employed. The DPJ, where they represent 0.1 percent, he did not target. So, this is the --
AIDALA: So, you want to talk about history though?
PHILLIP: Hold on.
AIDALA: President Biden did put in a special prosecutor just to go after Donald Trump.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: On the Christie of it all, Trump -- you know, just to underscore that, Trump's threats against Christie, which are probably empty, by the way, are entirely made up in this moment. In 2020, when he was fine with Chris Christie, he called the bridge gate scandal and Obama DOJ scam, and he congratulated Christie on beating said scam.
So, Trump is not -- I think the thing about this is that he's not really dodging the allegations here that this is about retribution. He is actually leaning into it. He is fine with everybody understanding that if you are on his enemies list, he will put the government up against you.
TODD: I didn't take that press conference to mean anything serious. That was just him throwing an elbow back at Chris Christie. He didn't like what he said, threw an elbow.
HARRISON: This guy is the president of the United States, the most powerful person that walks the face of this planet. And for him to utter that, you don't take that seriously?
TODD: No, I didn't take it seriously at all. Well, hell, then maybe you should tell him to resign because we don't take his presidency seriously. This man is a threat to democracy. You know, he admires dictators. He actually envies their power and he is trying like hell to copy every single thing. It wouldn't surprise me if he asked Putin, well, how would you handle Chris Christie's situation, to get advice from his buddy that he, you know, plays footsy with? I mean, come on. Have you ever seen this before?
PHILLIP: I don't want to skirt over the Lisa Cook of it all because I think this is a really important story. It's very --
HARRISON: First time in 100-plus years.
PHILLIP: It's it very serious. And I think that there are some real concerns about what happens next. I mean, do you think she's going to challenge this? And then what?
KOLHATKAR: Well, she certainly sounds like she's not going to just go along with this and there's going to be a legal challenge. I think we need to all just sort of look at this and ask ourselves, what -- who is this helping? Is this helping middle class families? Is --
TODD: If we get a rate cut --
KOLHATKAR: No, it is -- no, it is not.
(CROSSTALKS)
KOLHATKAR: A rate cut brings a mixture of effects. Some of them may be undesirable, such as prices shooting up. I mean, mortgage rates will go down, but housing costs will go way up. So, it is not a 100 percent benefit.
TODD: New building starts are way down. The housing market is in neutral. Every other western economy has cut rates. But Jay Powell and Lisa Cook and the Fed are refusing to do it because they're trying to dictate Donald Trump's trade policy.
PHILLIP: It's a way, Brad, to undermine confidence in the United States economy --
HARRISON: Exactly right.
PHILLIP: -- by saying to the entire world that this process is now infected in politics, it is not driven by data.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: I mean, that's the risk --
TODD: Joe Biden - Joe Biden pushed Jay Powell to cut rates last year.
PHILLIP: Did he fire a federal court?
TODD: He's threatened -- he pushed him to cut rates. He worked the ref.
PHILLIP: Did he fire?
UNKNOWN: Joe Biden if not president.
(CROSSTALK)
TODD: This president has a different way of working the ref.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Okay. TODD: I don't think -- I don't think he'll --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: I know, but I didn't make the false equivalency between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. You made it. So, what's the equivalency?
(CROSSTALK)
TODD: I don't think he'll succeed in getting the fire -- I've said that off the top.
(CROSSTALK)
ARTHUR AIDALA, "ARTHUR AIDALA POWER HOUR" HOST: Unless, Abby, and I think I'm the only criminal defense attorney at the table, unless Miss Cook goes and meets with a lawyer and says, before we fight this, just in your own mind, do we have anything to worry about? If there is a deep dive, is there an issue here? Because if there is, maybe we should just walk away. And if there isn't, that's fine. But don't lie to your doctor. Don't lie to your lawyer.
PHILLIP: Although, I do -- I think you're right. Well, look. I think the allegations we -- A, we don't know enough about it. But B, the question is, are tweeted allegations alone --
AIDALA: No.
PHILLIP: -- enough to say that you have cause to fire someone? That's the first part. And then the second part is about conduct that that occurred before they were even on the Fed board. So, like, there are layers of this that I think will have to be adjudicated in the courts whether or not there is any truth to the allegations or not. Because the idea that you can just tweet claims about somebody and then fire --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Wild.
AIDALA: Abby, how many people got fired during the meeting based on a tweet?
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Okay.
(CROSSTALK)
TIFFANY CROSS, "NATIVE LAND POD" CO-HOST: That is not the government.
(CROSSTALK)
AIDALA: Oh --
(CROSSTALK) CROSS: That is not the government.
AIDALA: But lives were ruined. Lives were ruined
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: We have a lot more to discuss here when it comes to the economy. Up next for us, there are new threats of 200 percent tariffs on some Chinese products if they don't come to a deal with the United States. That's what's happening as an American company plays tariff bingo to try to figure out how to navigate this unprecedented moment in American history. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:36:25]
PHILLIP: Tonight, president or corporate CEO of the United States? Donald Trump's economic moves are creating blurred lines. Today, unleashing new threats against China to give the U.S. magnets or face a 200 percent tariff. Now, this comes as the president and his administration has doubled down on the U.S. government taking a 10 percent stake in the tech giant Intel. And he warns that U.S. business leaders, you might be next.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANDREW ROSS, CNBC HOST: Okay. So, we should expect the U.S. government to be taking more equity stakes in businesses around the country.
KEVIN HASSET, DIRECTOR OF THE NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL: It's possible. Yeah. That's absolutely right. I'm sure that at some point there'll be more transactions, if not in this industry, in other industries.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: The case of Intel was interesting, but I hope I'm going to have many more cases like it. There will be other cases. If I have that opportunity again, I would do that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Music to Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders' ears, quite literally, because they proposed this when the Chips in Science Act was passed to take stakes in companies and it didn't go through, probably because Republicans would not have agreed to it, but here we are. Sheila?
SHEELAH KOLHATKAR, "THE NEW YORKER" STAFF WRITER: I'm finding this -- this moment a little amusing, actually, watching Republicans and conservatives completely abandon their commitment to the free market, which has been the basis of all of their policy proposals for the last fifty years. They have been advocating to gut regulations, to gut, federal government programs that help people, let the market determine everything. And now suddenly, they have decided that they're fine with state
capitalism that we might have seen in Soviet Russia or in China where the government, yeah, has some kind of murky holding in every company.
PHILLIP: And the largest shareholder in Intel, perhaps putting pressure on other businesses to do business with Intel, create creating winners and losers, basically deciding to prop up a company. Actually, let's play, you -- you might know this guy, Kevin O'Leary, he's often at this table. Here's how he put it earlier today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KEVIN O'LEARY, CHAIRMAN, O'LEARY VENTURES: I abhor this idea. I really do. What has made America so great for 200 years is the government stays in its lane, and the private sector does what it does so successfully. We let dead old companies die in our version of capital markets.
Intel should have been sold for car parts three years ago, and I have no interest in taking my tax dollars and giving it to a company that has performed so miserably. Why would anybody want to own this thing? Take it behind the barn and shoot it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Capitalism, Brad --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: I mean, he -- he's -- he makes -- he makes a point.
TODD: I'm a conservative. I'm not crazy about the government owning pieces of any company. But I do think there's a sit argument to be made here that this is Donald Trump making lemonade out of Joe Biden's lemons. Biden with the Chips and Science Act gave away until $11 billlion, was just going to give it to him free and clear.
That's not what Barack Obama did with General Motors. When he gave General Motors $30 billion, he took a 60 percent ownership of the company for the -- for the federal government. I didn't love that, either. But Donald Trump basically said we're on the hook for the $11 billion. We're going to get equity from it. He also, I think --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Do you like it or do you not like it? I'm confused.
TODD: No, I --
PHILLIP: Because it sounds like you're defending it, but you're saying that you --
TODD: I'm giving you the argument for -- to do it. I will also say there's a through line between these there's really three transactions, U.S. Steel, the precious metals company, the rare metals company, and this. In all three cases, he sees them as a strategic good that competes with one of our adversaries that state subsidized in that exact industry.
[22:40:00]
PHILLIP: So, he's going to subsidize -- he -- he's going to make the United States --
(CROSSTALK)
TODD: He's trying to make the United States competitive.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: So, essentially, he's mirroring the state subsidies of other countries in the United States.
TODD: Well, I would -- I think his argument --
(CROSSTALK)
UNKNOWN: No. Just China.
TODD: No.
(CROSSTALK)
TODD: His argument is he's trying to prevent U.S. companies from falling prey to subsidies from --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: So, mirroring state subsidies in the United States. So, now we are China.
(CROSSTALK)
UNKNOWN: Yeah. State capital.
HARRISON: Every accusation is a confession from Donald Trump. Every time he accuses somebody else of something, you're a socialist, you're a communist, you're whatever. You know what? That's a reflection of who he is and what he wants to do. He is, in essence, nationalizing Intel. He is nationalizing Intel and now threatening to nationalize other businesses in America.
TODD: We didn't play the part of Kevin Hassett's bike there where he said that the government would have no say in how the company is run.
HARRISON: Regardless. It's absurd.
UNKNOWN: That's absurd.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: That's what --
UNKNOWN: Everybody knows -- TODD: Their non-voting shares. Their non-voting shares.
(CROSSTALK)
HARRISON: They're now the biggest shareholder.
PHILLIP: They're the largest shareholder.
HARRISON: They're the largest shareholder.
TODD: Of the non-voting shares.
HARRISON: But they're the largest shareholder.
PHILLIP: They are the largest shareholders.
TODD: Of non-voting shares.
UNKNOWN: So, they have a huge say.
PHILLIP: They have a huge say, A, and also, there -- there's some new reporting, there are other parts of this deal that help constrain Intel's decision-making going forward in terms of whether they can sell parts of their company or not. But I -- but I want to go back to the Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren of it all because in the there is an interesting part of this where there are some liberals who did want to see something like this happen, Tiffany, who say, yeah.
To Brad's point, don't give the 10 billion away and -- in grants, and just say, here you go, taxpayer dollars. Taxpayers should get something back from it. So, is Trump kind of playing in a pool where he knows that there might be people who are totally okay with this?
CROSS: Oh, no, I don't think. I mean, I think he is doing something that somehow at some point is going to come out that enriches himself, that he is investing in. His family has made billions of dollars since he's been in the White House. So, no, I don't buy it for any second. Then he's like, oh, let me make an appeal to a liberal audience at all.
Even when you think about the tariffs, for example. I was reading about this earlier trying to figure this out because there's been 18 different story lines about why the tariffs came out and what do they mean. And he keeps saying it's to bring back manufacturing jobs.
Well, right now, there are over 400,000 manufacturing jobs that are not filled. They cannot find people here to fill them. When you look at what it's doing to the economy, our food sources, they're saying, hey. We don't produce enough here. We need to have these trade deals or the tariffs are going to impact our food production.
PHILLIP: Well, in to your point, in "The Wall Street Journal" on Sunday, they had a very interesting story about John Deere, a beloved --
(CROSSTALK) UNKNOWN: Yes.
PHILLIP: -- American company, saying the company reported a 26 percent drop in net income, nine percent decline in sales, owning -- owing to lower commodity prices and higher tariffs. Tariff costs in the -- for in the quarter were approximately $200 million, which brings us to roughly $300million in tariff expenses year to date. That's according to an investor relations official. So --
(CROSSTALK)
CROSS: They're going to have to lay off -- pass off --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: John Deere is going to lay off people.
CROSS: Yeah.
PHILLIP: They are taking a massive financial hit as a result of these tariffs. They're not the only ones. These companies are just trying to figure out how to navigate tomorrow. This entire regime of Trump's where he gets to decide its central control over The United States economy from the presidents from the Oval Office is, I don't know. I just don't -- I don't recall conservatives being okay with that kind of thing.
AIDALA: Well, it's what's interesting to me is that Tiffany is upset that Trump is doing something that Senators Warren and Bernie Sanders --
(CROSSTALK)
CROSS: I am not a spokesperson for the Democratic Party, and I'm not a Democrat.
AIDALA: Okay.
CROSS: So, I don't know what the obsession with what I feel and the connection with me and Elizabeth Warren --
(CROSSTALK)
AIDALA: Well, I mean
(CROSSTALK)
CROSS: -- on actual intellectual issue.
(CROSSTALK)
AIDALA: Okay, Tiffany. You know how I feel? I feel if Donald Trump came here and cured cancer, you'd be rooting for cancer. Like, anything the guy does you're already against. So, Abby makes the point that what he just did was something that the most left leaning people in the senate said would be a good idea. (CROSSTALK)
AIDALA: So, he does it.
(CROSSTALK)
AIDALA: Okay. So, he so -- so he --
(CROSSTALK)
CROSS: But our conservatives --
KOLHATKAR: How do you feel as a capitalist about this? We're not asking --
(CROSSTALK)
AIDALA: I don't know how many --
(CROSSTALK)
KOLHATKAR: -- or someone else here.
(CROSSTALK)
AIDALA: I don't know many jobs he saved at Intel. I don't I know that President Obama and George W. Bush disagreed with Kevin that the company shouldn't just die -- G.M. shouldn't have just died.
(CROSSTALK)
AIDALA: Ford shouldn't have died. Chrysler shouldn't have died.
KOLHATKAR: It doesn't know the -- but Obama is not the question. Did Obama --
(CROSSTALK)
AIDALA: But we've done it before?
KOLHATKAR: No. You are a capitalist, correct?
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Guys, guys --
KOLHATKAR: Yeah.
PHILLIP: TARP was passed under George W. Bush.
AIDALA: Right.
PHILLIP: It's just --
AIDALA: But yeah.
(CROSSTALK)
AIDALA: Yes.
PHILLIP: Obama was actually not responsible for that.
AIDALA: Correct.
PHILLIP: He was a Republican.
(CROSSTALK)
HARRISON: Those guys are twisting themselves like pretzel I have never seen. Good Lord.
(CROSSTALK)
TODD: I started out by telling you I wasn't comfortable with the government --
(CROSSTALK)
TODD: I don't -- I mean --
PHILLIP: Well, well, the -- you better get comfortable because Trump says he's going to do it more. Sheelah Kolhatkar, thank you very much for joining us. Next, President Trump has signed an executive order that contradicts decades of Supreme Court precedent suggesting that he's made flag burning into a crime. Is this about patriotism or just culture wars? We'll debate.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[22:49:53]
PHILLIP: Tonight, President Trump follows through on a years-long threat and signs an order targeting protesters who burn American flags.
[22:50:01]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: You burn a flag, you get one year in jail. You don't get ten years, you don't get one month. You get one year in jail, and it goes on your record. And you will see flag-burning stopping immediately.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Lots of problems with that, but here's one. Trump's administration actually cannot prosecute flag burners since doing so is not illegal. Instead, it -- it's prosecuted protected speech under the first amendment, not to mention this idea of him deciding that it's one year in prison is not a thing.
AIDALA: Look, if there's anything to think about tonight that's political, I think this may be the one. Not only was it decided by the Supreme Court in Texas v. Johnson, then Congress tried to pass a law, to override that, and they did pass a law. And the second time the Supreme Court ruled that if it's your flag and it is protected speech and if you're burning the flag -- your own flag to protest something, it is not a crime.
The only little wiggle room I can see in the President's executive order here is if you're burning the flag for another reason. If you're burning the flag because you need to start a little bonfire, that would be a crime.
UNKNOWN: What?
AIDSALA: But if you're burning it to -- for freedom of expression --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: You're going to prosecute people for burning flags as a bonfire. I mean, but this is also, it seems to me, just what he's trying to do is just create this conversation.
CROSS: It's performative.
PHILLIP: It's just like to arise out of people. They know they can't do this. They know that it's not constitutional. They just want to claim that they're doing it so that they can get people talking about it.
CROSS: That it is performative nonsense. It is meant to be red meat to dangle before armchair Fox News viewers who shake their fist at young people and change, but they were fine with people defecating on The United States Capitol. But all of a sudden, burning the flag is terrible. It is a hypocritical policy and it's not new. This is something that he tweeted out in 2016. He talked about doing this in 2020.
So, for all the never-Trumpers and all the people who are mad at him this time, who are thinking, oh, how could he say this? He's been saying this for a very long time. I know we're saying the constitution protects us under the first amendment right, but we are living in a time right now where these systems are being tested and destroyed. So, this is before we understood that he looks at the constitution is little more than pixie dust at this point because he's already broken a lot of those norms.
TODD: Look, I work at political campaigns and maybe every other election cycle, it becomes an issue that maybe you shouldn't be able to burn the flag.
(CROSSTALK)
TODD: It's because, well, because, no, because a lot of people think it's a bad idea.
PHILLIP: But it's not like it's like some kind of a --
TODD: A lot of people think it's a bad idea. If you read -- if you go-- if you go read the executive order, the administration says that it's going to comply with Texas v. Johnson. It says that -- that the only cases were that it would like to test is the limits of whether you're causing a serious disturbance of the piece, which the case in Texas v. Johnson allowed that that might be a reason where state could have a compelling interest.
PHILLIP: Okay.
TODD: So, if you -- this is -- this is an attempt to get Democrats to defend flag burning, and it's working.
PHILLIP: I think you are -- I think you're right that it is an attempt to get Democrats to defend flag burning because the public, you know, when you ask the American public, hell, when you ask Antonin Scalia, who agrees with the Supreme Court precedent, they would say, we don't like it. But at the same time, they understand that the cases of people causing a massive disturbance with flag burning are, I mean, virtually not probably --
(CROSSTALK)
HARRISON: Abby, I -- just by this is a lesson for the President. Mr. President, if you love the flag, then defend the freedom that it represents. Defend the freedom of speech. Defend the media. Defend all of the things that the flag is supposed to represent in this country. And this president is actually attacking those freedoms every single day. Every single utterance that comes from his mouth, every single action that he takes is going after the fundamental freedoms that make America what it is.
AIDALA: I mean, I think that's a pretty broad statement that you just made. Just getting back to the flag and since you brought up Justice Scalia, he told me the story that the -- his wife -- the only case she ever voiced an opinion about was the morning after that decision came down, when he came down for breakfast, she was humming the tune, "you're a grand old flag, you're a high flying flag".
And Justice Kennedy wrote in his concurrence, we know this is an unpopular decision that people aren't going to like to hear, but under the constitution, it's the right decision. And "Time" magazine said it was one of the greatest decisions by The United States.
PHILLIP: As he said, flag burning is the main kind of speech that tyrants would seek to suppress. I think he's right about that one, everyone. Thank you very much. Next for us, a federal judge says that Kilmar Abrego Garcia can't be deported after he was taken into custody today. We'll explain what they said next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:59:30]
PHILLIP: A federal judge says the chill order officials to keep Kilmar Abrego Garcia in The United States during new legal deportation proceedings. And tonight, DHS is showing new video of Abrego Garcia in custody. He was detained by immigration officials after turning himself in, and officials say that they want to deport him to Uganda as soon as the end of the week. He's challenging that deportation, and the judge says that she needs some more time to decide whether officials are violating Abrego Garcia's rights.
[23:00:00]
Now, Abrego Garcia was mistakenly deported to El Salvador earlier this year and was returned to The U.S. in June. He was released from custody in Tennessee on Friday. He faces charges of criminal human smuggling, and his trial is set to be in January.
And thank you very much for watching "NewsNight". "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
