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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Trump Orders DOJ to Probe Epstein Ties of Foes; Trump Says, I Know Nothing About Girls in Epstein Email; Trump Pulls Support for Lunatic Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA); Trump Rolls Back Tariffs; Paul Ingrassia Is Named To A New Job In Trump Administration. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired November 14, 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)
KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR (voice over): Tonight, as pressure mounts ahead of the vote to release the Epstein files, Donald Trump orders his Justice Department to turn the spotlight on his foes.
Plus, despite featuring the issue on the campaign trail, the president calls Republicans who care about Epstein stupid.
REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): I'm just being very honest with you, it's something that I don't understand. I think it's a huge miscalculation.
BOLDUAN: Also, he promised they wouldn't hike prices, so why is Trump rolling back his tariffs to lower prices?
And his nomination failed after racist text messages surfaced, including one admitting he has a Nazi streak in him. Now, Trump just gave him another job at the White House.
EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: It speaks to a feeling apparently, that people have in the Trump administration that this is not disqualifying
BOLDUAN: Live at the table, Scott Jennings, Jamal Simmons, Betsy McCaughey, Miles Taylor and Stacy Schneider.
Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here, they do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOLDUAN (on camera): Good evening everyone. I'm Kate Bolduan in for Abby. Let's get right to what America is talking about, a politicized Justice Department in a whole new way. After years of accusing the Department of Justice of selective investigations of him and his supporters, President Trump, again, is very publicly, very candidly ordering his attorney general to go after his political enemies, Democrats. In a Truth Social post, the president asked Pam Bondi to investigate Jeffrey Epstein's relationship with Bill Clinton, Larry Summers, Reid Hoffman, and all of JPMorgan Chase. And minutes later, the attorney general, Pam Bondi, basically obliged. I mean, it was just a few hours later, she announced that the Southern District of New York will take up the lead and take on the case.
It is quite a change considering just three months ago, the Justice Department announced that there was no client list and essentially case closed in disclosing any more files would not be, quote, appropriate or warranted.
Tonight, Trump was asked about his name appearing in the latest batch of Epstein emails. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: What did Jeffrey Epstein mean in his emails when you said you knew about the girls?
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: I know nothing about that. They would've announced that a long time ago.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOLDUAN: And tonight, Reid Hoffman is responding to Trump's call to investigate the LinkedIn founder, posting on X, that he wants the complete release of the Epstein files and that he refuses to, quote, bend the knee of Donald Trump and his slanderous lies. He accused the president's call to -- he accused the president a call to start investigation of being a ploy to avoid releasing any more information.
So, where does that leave us? First and foremost, Stacy, you are someone who knows a courtroom very well, and you know Donald Trump as well, as you are a former Apprentice contestant and a criminal defense attorney. What do you see in this call now from president to attorney general?
STACY SCHNEIDER,OPINION CONTRIBUTOR, U.S. NEWS AND WORLD REPORT : this is not a retribution, a typical Trump retribution. This is a diabolical chess move, brilliant outcome for Trump, I predict. Because what's going to happen is Pam Bondi has just agreed to refer the case to the Southern District of New York U.S. Attorney's Office. Once they receive the case, they're going to declare it a government investigation, and we're done. No one can get that file, not even Congress. They're going to claim that we have to protect the witnesses. We have to protect the integrity of the investigation. We have to protect whatever evidence is in the files. We cannot release this to the public or anybody else. And Donald Trump just got his trump card from doing this, brilliant and scary.
BOLDUAN: Betsy?
FMR. LT. GOV. BETSY MCCAUGHEY (R-NY): I'm for transparency. I think all the files should be released, but let me be clear. I know from personal experience that Donald Trump has never had a taste for inappropriately young girls. In the 1990s when I was lieutenant governor, Donald Trump and I double dated, I was dating my future husband, Wilbur Ross. He was dating his future wife, Marla Maples. We called her Peaches. We would go to the fights in Atlantic City. We would go out to nightclubs, plenty of hot spots, and I never saw Donald Trump behave inappropriately with anybody young like that.
[22:05:07]
So, I think that all of those records should be just released. Everybody wants that. His base wants that.
BOLDUAN: Which leads to --
JAMAL SIMMONS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: (INAUDIBLE) inappropriate with older people.
BOLDUAN: Which leads to the question if there is --
(CROSSTALKS)
SIMMONS: Ask Jean Carroll who feels that way.
BOLDUAN: If there is nothing there, then why not release? So, what you're laying out, Stacy, is really -- this is different than just go at. You come at me. I need to deflect. I'm going to tell you guys to do this. This, you think, is actually quite different and maybe, and twice, so not a 180, a left turn or something.
SIMMONS: Yes. Here's the thing about communications. I've been in this for a long time. If you've got a simple story to tell, you should tell it very quickly. The fact that the Trump administration and Department of Justice has been holding onto this information, not releasing it, not being out there, tells you right there they've got something they don't want people to know. They're going through great extraordinary lengths not to tell people what happened with Jeffrey Epstein and to release this information.
I think it's time for the country to just get the data dump. Let's see what's in there. Then we can all sort it out. If Donald Trump didn't do anything, we'll move on.
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: What links did the previous administration go to tell the American people what happened with Jeffrey Epstein?
SIMMONS: Oh, they prosecuted Ghislaine Maxwell. They actually were -- they actually (INAUDIBLE) a court?
JENNINGS: What links did they go to to release the -- you said you want transparency. What links did they go to? Zero.
MILES TAYLOR, FORMER DHS CHIEF OF STAFF UNDER TRUMP ADMINISTRATION: Scott, it's my understanding, as of January, SDNY was still investigating the case and the reports are that they were investigating potential co-conspirators. And then the administration sent 20 people to get the files from SDNY. Then what did they do? They did a control left, looked for Trump's name, and then in July they said, case is over, case closed. Case is closed. But wait, the case is back open tonight. Is that a coincidence or does it have to do with Trump --
MCCAUGHEY: The Democrats want to use this to sabotage Trump's second administration, just like they used Russia, Russia, Russia in the first Trump term.
BOLDUAN: Okay.
(CROSSTALKS)
SCHNEIDER: This is so not a Democratic issue. There are a thousand --
MCCAUGHEY: (INAUDIBLE) Democrats in the House Wednesday.
SCHNEIDER: You got to take it away from Democrats. There are a thousand victims out there who want some kind of justice from a dead man, okay, who didn't get a trial because there's a dead man involved.
MCCAUGHEY: But Trump was not their abuser.
SCHNEIDER: Wait a minute, there's an entire government file with hundreds of thousands of pages of documents. The man is dead. Why can't these women --
MCCAUGHEY: I said I'm for total transparency.
SCHNEIDER: But you're sitting talking about what Trump was doing in the 1980s or 20s or whatever here. It's not relevant. It's not relevant.
MCCAUGHEY: Stacy, what they did Wednesday is very relevant. They tried to get all the headlines Wednesday by taking 3 emails out of 23,000 and leaking them to the press and suggesting that somehow --
(CROSSTALKS)
SCHNEIDER: (INAUDIBLE) that were unflattering for other people, including Larry Summers?
TAYLOR: Okay. So, one thing though I don't want us to overlook tonight is what Kate opened with, which is the thing Stacy said was a chess move, which is, tonight, the president of the United States, by social media post, directed federal investigations into private American citizens.
Now, there's at least three people at this table who've served in presidential administrations, the George W. Bush administration, the Biden administration. I was in the first Trump administration and the Bush administration. Did any of those presidents ever order federal investigations into private American citizens? You don't need to answer the question, because the answer is no. That's never happened in the history of this country in 249 years until April 9th of this year. What happened in April 9th of this year, the president of the United States issued an investigative order into me, the first American citizen ever, to have an E.O. to investigate them for First Amendment protected speech.
Since then, the president has issued those like hamburgers at a McDonald's. That's the thing we can't get accustomed to in this country. I don't want Democrats doing that. I don't want Republicans doing that. But we've just gotten used to the president of the United States ordering investigations by social media post, he's lighting the Constitution on fire.
BOLDUAN: And there are some Republicans who are speaking out and saying that they agree with that exact point just because of the impact that it has. Let me play for you with Don Bacon, the Republican congressman, said about this exact thing today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. DON BACON (R-NE): Well, we should leave the DOJ and make them as independent as we can. When the president gives orders to Pam Bondi and our, you know, law enforcement arms of the federal government, it just -- what it does it undercuts the credibility of our law enforcement.
I don't think it's appropriate for him to do it. I would ask him not to do that because all it does is taint our legal system.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHNEIDER: Yes. And Pam Bondi is acting like the president's lap dog. If you remember in February of this year, she came out with the Epstein binders and they invited influencers to the White House, and they paraded these binders that were full of nothing. And then close to that time, she said, I've got the Epstein file on my desk and I'm going to release it, everyone be patient, we're looking through it, and we've got nothing.
[22:10:04]
Then we've got Donald Trump saying, it's an Epstein hoax. Everybody look away. There's nothing here. Now, he's ordered the Department of Justice, to investigate something that he's called a hoax and doesn't exist.
So, when does this stop? It's like Alice in Wonderland here, and it's going after people, but now it's on steroids because his name is showing up in these emails. It was unsavory the other day. I'm not saying he's guilty of wrongdoing. I'm not saying the email showed he's guilty of wrongdoing, but his connection to Epstein, as shown in those emails, according to Epstein, is unsavory and it's not good.
JENNINGS: Is that new information that he knew Jeffrey Epstein? Is it new information that Trump excommunicated him from Mar-a-Lago? Is it -- the only new information that we got this week off those emails was that somebody from The New York Times was advising Jeffrey Epstein, and we learned tonight from The Washington Post that Jeffrey Epstein was programming Democratic members of Congress.
We didn't learn anything we didn't already know about Donald Trump, which was other than Jeffrey Epstein hated Donald Trump, and now Democrats are aligning themselves with Jeffrey Epstein because orange man bad.
SCHNEIDER: Did you read those three emails? There are really bad- looking.
JENNINGS: They're not.
SCHNEIDER: The optics are terrible.
JENNINGS: They are not.
SCHNEIDER: Okay. They're putting Trump with one of the victims in Jeffrey Epstein's house.
BOLDUAN: Pause it here. We're going to pick this right back up and right after this. Pause it here.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:15:00]
BOLDUAN: All right. So, a lot has happened tonight. Marjorie Taylor Greene is learning what it feels like to be on Trump's bad side. She has been one of the most vocal Republicans calling for the full release of the Justice Department's investigative files on Jeffrey Epstein. And now President Trump tonight is unendorsing, he is withdrawing his endorsement of Marjorie Taylor Greene and writing on Truth Social this, all I see wacky Marjorie do is complain, complain, complain. And then he added that, I can't take a ranting lunatics call every day.
There was a lot there, so you can go and then talk about a lot. Then MTG fired back with screenshots of text messages that she claims Trump's -- where she claims that Trump is lying and that she did not call him, also saying that it is astonishing really how hard he is fighting to stop the Epstein files from coming out. She argued that she has been one of Trump's strongest supporters, but that she doesn't, quote, worship or serve Donald Trump.
On top of unendorsing, he actually said that he would support anyone who would be primarying her in the upcoming election. Who wants to take this one on?
MCCAUGHEY: Well, I can tell you that is not unusual in politics. Political romances are often short-lived. She has been critical of him, not only about the Epstein files, but about his involvement in foreign affairs, and I don't mean with women, I mean in various parts of the world.
SIMMONS: You said it. Not us.
MCCAUGHEY: Just to clear the table on that one. And so it's not surprising that they have had a breakup of sorts. After all, he didn't give her a ring. He just supported her for a little while. SIMMONS: Listen, this fire is spreading, I mean, right? It started off talking about Epstein in the beginning. Then during the shutdown, she was one of the few Republicans that correctly identified Donald Trump's unwillingness to deal with the ACA subsidies and lower healthcare costs for Americans as being one of the reasons why the shutdown occurred.
BOLDUAN: Yes, she was very outspoken about that.
SIMMONS: Now she's talking about foreign policy. This is not going away. Whatever's going on between them seems to only be heating up and I think the rest of us should get the popcorn.
SCHNEIDER: And a war with words -- sorry, Scott. A war with words with Donald Trump is such a risky business that I cannot believe she has the bravery to engage in it. Because even if she was right, she's still going to lose.
BOLDUAN: Is there an example of anyone beating Donald Trump at this game?
SCHNEIDER: Never. This is his game and he's great at it, and she is barking up a tree that she says is going to fall on her really hard.
JENNINGS: You know, it's interesting, he has some people who profess to be strong supporters who do oppose him more often than the people that you might not think are his strongest supporters. She's one of them. Thomas Massie in Kentucky is another one. Rand Paul, my home state senator, he takes on Trump, although they professed to be Trump's supporters in this case. I think he had the order out of order.
I trace all this back to his decision, the righteous decision to strike Iran. She was against it. So were some of the people who occupy that wing of the party. He defied them. And since that time, they all seem to be stridently picking at him on this issue or that. And then of course, everybody knows in Washington, Miles, you know, the fastest way to get in front of a television camera for a Republican is to come out and crap on Donald Trump.
And so that is what she is doing. That is what she is doing because she --
TAYLOR: I trace back further than that, Scott.
JENNINGS: -- is mad over these issues and that's what happened.
TAYLOR: Scott, I trace it further back than that. I trace it back to ten years ago when you said Donald Trump was an authoritarian. And you know what, Scott, I've got to hand it to you, that was a remarkable forecast. Because ten years later, I think you called it. Here's Donald Trump today, the man with the heart and soul of a fascist showing us, he now has the bona fides by tonight ordering investigations into American citizens (INAUDIBLE) members of his party.
(CROSSTALKS)
JENNINGS: Why are you so upset he is running the executive branch?
TAYLOR: For the same reasons you predicted he shouldn't, for the same reasons, Scott, you said he violated his oath and he should never be back in that office.
JENNINGS: I happily voted for him.
TAYLOR: That's why I'm upset for the man being in the Oval Office.
JENNINGS: I happily voted for him three times.
TAYLOR: I know that.
JENNINGS: The alternative was terrible.
TAYLOR: And a lot of your friends were shocked.
[22:20:00]
JENNINGS: Yes. Well, a lot of my friends would've been shocked at you trying to subvert the elected president of the United States, which you did.
TAYLOR: Well, and I proudly did. I proudly said --
(CROSSTALKS)
TAYLOR: Well, Scott, I would've loved to have seen you stand up.
JENNINGS: Good luck.
BOLDUAN: Back to MTG. Is it the sign of a changing tide? Is it the sign or is it a singular one back and forth between one member of -- one Republican who is getting into a fight with Donald Trump, or do you think there is a possibility that it is the beginnings of Republicans seeing past the Donald Trump era?
SIMMONS: The short answer is that we don't know.
BOLDUAN: Because you've got like Thomas Massie saying exactly that, like your vote on this discharge petition is going to outlast Donald Trump's time here. So, you need to consider that when you make your decision.
SIMMONS: But if we keep paying attention to, what we see is that last week, the president has clock cleaned in an election. All the Republicans got their clock cleaned in an election. This week, we see what's happening with the Epstein files.
So, next week, we're going to see them take a vote. And if we see a bunch of Republicans defect on the Epstein files, I think what we're seeing is the real testing of the waters to find out whether or not you can oppose Donald Trump and still get elected. When we talk about Marjorie Taylor Greene, the one thing we haven't talked about yet is our fundraising prowess. And according to sources, she is the most popular fundraiser in the Republican Party other than Donald Trump.
(CROSSTALKS)
JENNINGS: This prediction about -- no one's going to care about this.
BOLDUAN: I was asking a question. I wasn't predicting it.
JENNINGS: No. You said people were -- somebody said that this was going to outlive --
BOLDUAN: Oh, Tom Massie?
JENNINGS: -- and the prediction that this was going to outlive, I totally disagree with that. I think right now more people are worried about whether they can watch ESPN on YouTube T.V. tomorrow than they care about this. And that's certainly going to be true in one year, five years, or ten years from today.
(CROSSTALKS)
SIMMONS: They do care about the fact the president's sort of breaking everything, right? They see a hole in the White House right now. I was in Detroit last weekend for an event, and it was the number one thing people came up to me, the scholarship did, to ask about. Is it okay for the president to tear down the White House without anybody's permission?
JENNINGS: That was the number one thing?
SIMMONS: That was the number one thing that people brought up unprovoked.
MCCAUGHEY: Totally ridiculous.
BOLDUAN: I keep hearing this over and over again is like no one cares about this because they only care about that. We've talked about --
MCCAUGHEY: You know what they care about? They can't buy a house.
BOLDUAN: That they can't --
MCCAUGHEY: They care about houses that are unaffordable and that food costs too much. But they don't care about the White House. The fact is, a president who cared about the --
(CROSSTALKS)
MCCAUGHEY: That's ridiculous.
SCHNEIDER: Many Americans care about the White House.
MCCAUGHEY: You don't care about the White House. MCCAUGHEY: (INAUDIBLE) can't remodel a room in the White House?
SIMMONS: Remodel, not tore it down.
(CROSSTALKS)
SIMMONS: I couldn't tear down my garage without getting a permit from the city.
(CROSSTALKS)
BOLDUAN: I think this often when people say you're all talking about this, but here's -- the focus should be really be this. People hold multiple thoughts and focuses in their heads at the same time. Like people can care about multiple things. They can care about not being able to buy a new home. They can care about the skyrocketing cost of food, which we will talk about shortly. And they can care about. I don't know, anything else, Stacey Plaksett getting text messages from Jeffrey Epstein, if you want to take it from Scott's side, like you can hold all of these thoughts. I always think it's just someone saying, trying to say to me, I don't want to answer your question by just trying to deflect that way. I find it a deflection when people say, don't focus on this, you need to focus -- everyone only cares about this one issue.
JENNINGS: Well, I mean, if you're analyzing it from the perspective of like political consultant speak, like what do voters care about, how do we get voters to move a certain direction, next year, the way you'll get voters to move would be on cost of living, you know, healthcare, I mean, things that actually motivate their lives. They may have some interest in this. I'm passing interest in it, but motivation to vote, everybody knows what the bread and butter issues are. This won't be one of them, but the ones that will be relevant are quite obvious.
TAYLOR: I disagree with Scott fervently on Donald Trump, and I could not agree with him more on that point. Voters aren't going to care about this next year. For better or for worse, they are going to care about things like affordability. Everyone in politics is going to be running that direction in the lead up to the --
BOLDUAN: And the one that people that do care about it though, and consistently get lost in it, are the victims of Jeffrey Epstein, who then just wrote a letter to members of Congress, saying, think about if this was you and think about if this was your child when you're taking this vote next week. I am saying that because --
JENNINGS: Do you think the victims would agree with Donald Trump asking the Department of Justice to look into people that may have been involved in this and got away with it?
BOLDUAN: 100 percent it would not be perfect. I know they can speak for themselves. I do know that Democrat, even Ro Khanna, said everyone, oh, investigate it.
JENNINGS: Well, there seems to be a lot of anger about Donald Trump saying, well, maybe these people need to be looked into why they weren't involved.
BOLDUAN: I think my anger, the interest is if these people are looked into -- a member of Congress actually said his day, we don't have time to run it, but if these people are looked into, does that mean that Donald Trump can be looked into as well?
[22:25:03]
JENNINGS: Is there a shred of evidence he ever did anything untoward?
SIMMONS: Is there a shred of evidence that --
SCHNEIDER: Is there anybody else --
(CROSSTALKS)
Is there a shred of.
BOLDUAN: Stand by, my friends. Stacy, thank you so much for being with us, Stacy. We really appreciate.
President Trump is making significant changes to his tariff policies. Is that a confession? Is that an admission that his strategy is raising prices instead of lowering them, as promised? We will debate.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:30:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BOLDUAN: Tonight, Donald Trump is quietly waving something of a white flag and finally acknowledging a crisis that has become a political and economic liability for him. Earlier today, with very little fanfare, the President signed an executive order issuing modifications, as the White House described it, to his signature tariff policy, removing tariffs on beef, coffee, and other kind of tropical fruits.
It was quite an admission and quite a moment, perhaps, that the tariffs were raising the prices of these goods. Asked about the move and the decision behind it tonight, President Trump stood by his policy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNKNOWN: Mr. President, you've said that tariffs do not increase prices for consumers, but now you're lowering tariffs.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I didn't say they don't. I say, they, in some cases, but to a large extent they had been board (ph) by the country.
Oftentimes and to a large extent, the countries themselves pick up the debt -- the companies pick up the debt I find that based on inflation -- virtually no inflation. We'll get some of the prices down a little bit which will bring them down to a new level.
UNKNOWN: How much of the tab will be picked up by Americans?
TRUMP: I think very little. I really think very little. When you add all of the benefits, the single greatest thing we have right now is the use of tariffs and I use them properly.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOLDUAN: It seems quite a first, though. This is, seems, a first admission that I mean, prices went up and he had to make a modification to the one thing Scott Bessent, the Treasury Secretary, said this week he was going to bring prices down immediately. This seems like a real thing, like a really important thing.
BETSY MCCAUGHEY, (R) FORMER NEW YORK LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR: Well, let's be clear. During the Biden administration, for example, in 2022, inflation was over 10 percent. I have the Consumer Price Index right here, including food inflation over 10 percent. It's now three percent. Now, of course, that doesn't mean prices have come down, but they're rising much more slowly than they did under the Biden administration.
It is smart to remove the tariffs on coffee and bananas because we don't even produce those things in this country. There's no competition here and they're staples. Every parent puts a banana in their kid's lunchbox. It's a really cheap, nutritious food. So, it' smart that they did that.
(CROSSTALK)
JAMAL SIMMONS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Just a fact -- just a fact- check. Just a fact-check. Prices -- inflation was down to about three percent in the Biden administration at the end also.
(CROSSTALK)
MCCAUGHEY: I've got a --
(CROSSTALK)
SIMMONS: It started -- you're not -- you're not wrong about that. You're not wrong about where it was when it started after the initial bills, but it got down to about three percent. The question here is Donald Trump then raised prices because he put tariffs on people. And so now he's taking credit for lowering the price on things that he actually raised the price on.
BOLDUAN: You know, he can declare victory then? Is that what you're saying? Like, I pushed him up, but I brought him back down for you.
SIMMONS: It's a classic Donald Trump show game where like he's claiming victory for something, for problem that he is actually responsible for.
MILES TAYLOR, FORMER DHS CHIEF OF STAFF UNDER TRUMP ADMINISTRATION: He's not a conservative. Donald Trump has never been a conservative. I remain vastly more conservative than Donald Trump is. Tariffs are taxes. Donald Trump has been a high tax president. He slapped very high taxes on the American people. He has seen the costs. Now he's trying to lower those taxes.
The blowhards for years who said Donald Trump was a low tax president -- lowered taxes, what I would point out to them is the average American family saved $1600 a year from Donald Trump's tax cuts. Do you know what the average American family has spent because of his increase in prices? About $4000 a year. Whatever tax cuts Donald Trump gave us, he wiped away with price increases. And now he's realizing what conservative economists have known for centuries, tariffs are taxes and he's having to walk it back.
BOLDUAN: Your Senator Rand Paul just put out today, this means that tariffs were taxes all along.
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, he's long opposed. It's interesting, both of my senators, Paul and McConnell have opposed Trump on this and some Republicans have. Some Republicans aren't comfortable with it and whether it's, you know, a violation of conservative orthodoxy or not is really not in question. Of course the party was a no-tariff or, you know, a selectively used-tariff party for a long time.
It's not his view. We'll find out what the Supreme Court wants to do with it soon enough. Those arguments did not appear to go well for him. I would just say this announcement was part of other announcements this week. They cut trade deals with Ecuador. Guatemala, El Salvador, Argentina, and I think, Switzerland. And so, they continue to go out and either cut trade deals or trim the sales on the tariff policy to adjust it as they see fit.
My political analysis is if they're finding ways to lower the cost of things like bananas and coffee and other things that people use on a regular basis, that'll enure to his and the Republican Party's benefit. And I suspect over the next year, they will continue to look for ways to try to drive the cost of living down.
[22:35:00]
They would also pivot to say, we're going to have $2 gas pretty soon. That gas is much lower than it was. It got up to $5 a gallon in the Biden administration. We now have more gas production being opened up. So, I think there's a -- and then the health care debate which you know is a whole another show that we could have. But there's a number of things they're going to have to do to give people the idea that the trajectory of their ability to get their nose above water when it comes to the personal economy of the household is working.
(CROSSTALK)
MCCAUGHEY: And let me --
(CROSSTALK) SIMMONS: -- making it up as he goes along. This is part of the problem. And so, thinking about it with taxes for I mean with tariffs which are taxes and so that's a problem. At the same time is just a shift a little bit because we are talking about bananas, many of which come from the Caribbean. We see the President putting ships into the Caribbean, bombing boats that are coming from Venezuela perhaps without any -- we don't know what's on those boats because we bomb them. And so we have no idea.
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: Bananas? We used to supply bananas --
(CROSSTALK)
SIMMONS: We don't know if there are children or girlfriends or anybody else on those boats because we are blowing up boats without having any real sense about what's happening inside those boats.
JENNINGS: You think there's bananas, children and girlfriends on the boats?
(CROSSTALK)
SIMMONS: The point is we have no idea who's on the boats.
JENNINGS: Okay.
(CROSSTALK)
SIMMONS: And you know who else is upset about it?
(CROSSTALK)
SIMMONS: The British -- you know who else is upset about it? The British intelligence agencies. The British intelligence agencies upset about it and they're not going to share information with us about drug-running in that part of the world because they are concerned about our policy.
The Admiral who was in charge of Southern Command resigned. In fact, we believe because he was upset about that policy. The President can't just make these things up. There are rules to this game. He's got to play by --
(CROSSTALK)
BOLDUAN: But he won because people loved that he broke the rules and he broke he broke mold.
SIMMONS: But now they don't and now we see his poll numbers are taking into our lives.
JENNINGS: What rules are you talking about? And these are Narco terrorists. These are terrorist organizations of -- Al-Qaeda had a boat full of chemical weapons. (CROSSTALK)
TAYLOR: The only one at this table -- I know very first see very important to go take out drug boats like. Do know how you take them out?
(CROSSTALK)
TAYLOR: We didn't launch a missile into Jeffrey Epstein's house when we thought he was suspected of pedophilia. We went and arrested him.
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: Okay. How's it working out? How's it working out with the American people? How's it working out for the hundreds of thousands of people who have died from fentanyl and whatever --
(CROSSTALK)
TAYLOR: How about I finish my sentence --
(CROSSTALK)
TAYLOR: -- to see these people rot in prison. And you know what I want? I want intel from them to take down their networks. You want to support a guy that wants to blow stuff up because it's fun. That's not how you do law enforcement. That's not how you take down these networks. That's not what you do.
(CROSSTALK)
TAYLOR: This is not warfare.
JENNINGS: But if you want to report the Narco terrorists, go ahead.
TAYLOR: Okay, well --
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: I can see why you got washed out. You're not in the line with the President's views.
(CROSSTALK)
TAYLOR: And if you are, then you can join the people who are going to have to probably have to be on trial for committing illegal actions on --
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: Trial? Who? Who's going put them on trial?
TAYLOR: What principle of the laws of war allow you to strike unarmed people who don't represent an imminent threat?
(CROSSTALK) JENNINGS: Well, explain this.
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: What principles of national security allow you --to explain the need people to believe that you can just let international terrorists with effectively chemical weapons into our country add nauseam.
(CROSSTALK)
TAYLOR: Tell me about the principle of --
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: Tell me about the principle of deterrence because I'll guarantee you they're not banana boats. They're not girlfriend boats. They're not whatever you said they are.
(CROSSTALK)
SIMMONS: I'm not making the argument -- I'm not making the argument there are drugs on the boat. I'm making the argument that the President cannot unilaterally decide to change the rules of how we engage in war. And that we are all going to end up having to pay for that. The British, our allies, we are -- who we have been friends with since the 1800s have decided they're no longer going to share intelligence with us because of the way we're conducting these missions.
The President decides he wants to tell the DOJ how to -- who to prosecute and what to do. That is a complete change of the way this country has operated for decades, if not longer, than hundreds of years.
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: Jamal's completely right. It's changing the rules and we've got to figure out how long we're going to let that go.
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: I love you guys like, Donald Trump's not following the rules. Guys, we have been dealing with a President that has not been willing to be hemmed in by whatever hold around rules.
SIMMONS: As if there were.
(CROSSTALK)
TAYLOR: They're the rules of law. They're the rules of law. Scott, they're the rules of law.
(CROSSTALK)
BOLDUAN: The only thing -- the only thing about this is that when it comes to -- I guess, we'll just end -- we'll end on Venezuelan boats. So, that's where we're going to end on this one. But when you have British intelligence saying they don't want to share anymore because they are concerned that it is illegal, what is being done, that is a problem.
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: You think I give a rip what some country in Europe thinks about us policing our own backyard?
(CROSSTALK)
SIMMONS: You care about the military police? Admiral of the leftist --
(CROSSTALK)
BOLDUAN: The former commander of Southern Command was on with me this week.
JENNNINGS: Okay good.
BOLDUAN: I'm sorry. You want to make fun of James Stavridis?
JENNINGS: No, no, I'm telling you that we have a commander in chief who promised the American people he was going to police our backyard of these Narco terrorists and that's what he's doing.
[22:40:00]
(CROSSTALK)
SIMMONS: Then police it. Don't blow them up.
(CROSSTALK)
BOLDUAN: I get it but --
(CROSSTALK)
TAYLOR: Scott, who are you talking to with this stuff?
(CROSSTALK)
BOLDUAN: -- British intelligence --
(CROSSTALK)
BOLDUAN: -- is even greater than what is lost in this one thing -- he said this is quite a problem. You can make fun of it all you want.
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: I'm not making fun of it but the policy --
(CROSSTALK) JENNINGS: The policy choices are made by the elected commander in chief not by bureaucrats, not by formers. It's made by the elected representative of the people and --
(CROSSTALK)
SIMMONS: -- doesn't get to make up the rules of his own.
(CROSSTALK)
BOLDUAN: Okay. Coming up next, a racist texting scandal ended his nomination for a role at the White House but Paul Ingrassia was just named to a new job in the administration. How will Republicans react to him this time around joining the team? We're going to debate that.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:45:24]
BOLDUAN: A Trump loyalist at the center of a racist texting controversy that cost him his previous job within the administration, just landed a new gig in the President's administration. An official now tells CNN that Paul Ingrassia is now serving as deputy general counsel at the General Services Administration.
Trump originally had tapped him to lead the office of special counsel, but Ingrassia ended up withdrawing his nomination after a slew of messages surfaced that were so bad that Republican senators very clearly were going to refuse to support his confirmation.
"Politico" reported last month that Ingrassia had said, just to remind you, in a group chat that, among other things, Martin Luther King Jr. Day should be tossed into the seventh circle of hell, and also that he admitted in the group chat then to having a Nazi streak from time to time. Ingrassia's attorney told the publication, if the texts are real, they were meant sarcastically.
There's a leaning on sarcasm when you're trying to defend yourself on that one. Questionable at best. Why do you think the President wants him in the administration so badly? I mean, Republicans were very clear. They saw this and they were like, we are out when they saw these messages come out with him the first job.
SIMMONS: I think that's a great question for the Republicans on the panel because it's one of the things that baffles me a lot. Why would you extend yourself to somebody who keeps putting his foot in his mouth in this way that's really horrible? You've got Jewish groups coming out for it.
You got the President of the United States who's leaning on colleges and universities on anti-Semitism and trying to enforce an anti- Semitism program in the administration, but then hiring people who identify with Nazis.
MCCAUGHEY: Well, don't say people. I mean, this one person, I can't imagine why the President or anybody wants him in the administration. He just graduated from law school in 2022. How much can he even know? He's just a kid.
(CROSSTALK)
BOLDUAN: There's a lot of criticism he was facing.
(CROSSTALK)
MCCAUGHEY: Why is he being hired?
JENNINGS: Look, I mean, I think it was right that they pulled him down. He clearly wasn't going to pass, number one. Number two, I mean, he was White House liaison at DHS.
BOLDUAN: Yes, exactly right.
JENNINGS: It's actually a pretty powerful position.
BOLDUAN: I was going to say that's a pretty --
MCCAUGHEY: How did he get it?
JENNINGS: Now he's deputy general counsel at the GSA, seems like a demotion to me. Look, my personal view is, you in all these personnel matters, you have to decide how much water you want to take on or carry for people.
MCCAUGHEY: Yes.
JENNINGS: And, you know, he said some pretty reprehensible things, which is why the Senate Republicans weren't going to confirm it. So, you know, I guess, I guess if you had to make an argument for it's like, look, he was young, he said stupid things, everybody deserves a second chance. But some of the things he said were beyond the pale.
MCCAUGHEY: That's right. And both parties should just simply divorce themselves from anybody who sounds like an anti-Semite, even if they just do it a few times. Just get rid of this.
SIMMONS: Like Nick Fuentes going on Tucker Carlson, that kind of thing?
(CROSSTALK)
MCCAUGHEY: That's right. And like all the people on the Columbia campus --
(CROSSTALK)
BOLDUAN: There is this population and there are lot of examples -- there are more and more examples of recent. And I was actually reminding my -- I actually looked back at -- Ted Cruz just last month, actually spoke out very, very specifically about this, saying that there's a growing cancer and poison of anti-Semitism on the right. And he said it at an event in San Antonio. "I'm here to tell you in the last six months, I have seen anti-Semitism rising on the right in a way I have never seen it in my entire life." That's -- JENNINGS: He's right, by the way, and he has been courageous on this. And we can't offer any quarter or harbor for this. And you know, I hear people say, well, you know, free speech, we have to let everybody out. This has nothing to do with free speech. This has everything to do with what sort of speech you want your movement to be associated with. It's not conservative to espouse these anti-Semitic views or even play around with it.
And I think many of these people aren't conservatives. They're not Trump supporters, and they're here to divide the conservative movement and potentially destroy it from the inside out. We're under no obligation whatsoever to absorb or accept this in the name of free speech. We could just say, you know what? You're free to do whatever you want, you're not going to do it here.
TAYLOR: Well, I will say, I think Donald Trump has destroyed the conservative movement from the inside out. That's a separate conversation because I do agree with the first part of what Scott said, which is that folks like this need to be held accountable. And I will say, I think the reason the Trump administration probably didn't instinctively fire someone like this is look, they have been pushing back against people just getting crowd-sourced fired all over the place.
That part of the political spectrum has gone overboard where people say one wrong thing, they're fired from their jobs, they lose their lives. I get that. We need to overcorrect -- we need to not over- correct for that by keeping people that say things like they have a Nazi streak. But there's a balance to be struck there.
[22:50:00]
And I think Scott's right. This is an obvious place where someone like this probably doesn't deserve to be in a role in the federal government being paid by U.S. tax payers.
MCCAUGHEY: I agree with that, but let's also keep in mind that we shouldn't just label the right as having an anti-Semitism problem because the left has a very big anti-Semitism problem.
TAYLOR: That's right.
MCCAUGHEY: And those of us who live in New York are terrified at the moment that the left has elected a very strongly anti-Semitic, anti- Zionist mayor.
SIMMONS: I don't know that we know that about him, but we do --
MCCAUGHEY: Yes, we do know that about him.
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: We know more about that than we do about the banana boat.
MCCAUGHEY: Yes, we do.
BOULDAN: Stop bringing up the banana boat for God sake.
(CROSSTALK)
SIMMON: But what we do know though is that there are people who are interested in dividing us against each other and we want to have an America where everybody gets to participate, everybody gets to have their say. I mean we're sitting here having this conversation.
But the problem is sometimes it feels like the perspective of people on the left is that everybody does have a say, but people on the right don't really have space for everyone else to be in America and to do that. I think that is the problem.
MCCAUGHEY: I disagree with that.
SIMMONS: Because we're watching Donald Trump who is going after these people who he says are immigrants. Some of them are American citizens. They're being grabbed up by people on the street.
TAYLOR: False.
JENNINGS: We are not grabbing up American citizens. That is a smear and is not true.
SIMMONS: Oh, have we not --
JENNINGS: We are not deporting American citizens.
SIMMONS: I didn't say they were deported. I said they've been grabbed up off the street by people with masks, even though they say they're citizens, even though they say they have papers, and they're still arrested until we can find out what --
BOLDUAN: I don't want to say when there's -- the clarity from Ted Cruz to Betsy, to Scott on this one, it is --
SIMMONS: It's refreshing.
BOLDUAN: It is also easy within -- I have seen -- there is -- the Vice President sometimes seems to tiptoe around how he takes this on or doesn't when it comes to Tucker or the group of young Republicans and that -- discussing things that came out of text message. He was asked about it and downplayed the disgusting things that came out of that group chat just last month. Let me play this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF TH UNITED STATES OF AAMERICA: The reality is that kids do stupid things, especially young boys. They tell edgy, offensive jokes like that's what kids do. And I really don't want us to grow up in a country where a kid telling a stupid joke, telling a very offensive stupid joke is cause to ruin their lives.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOLDUAN: What do you think -- what is the Vice President trying to do?
JENNINGS: Well --
BOLDUAN: It's not hard to say what he said.
JENNINGS: No, of course. But what he is saying is not incorrect. Young people do say and do stupid things. And you do have to take into account the fact that --
BOLDUAN: Some of these guys are like 40 years old. Like no one's calling me a young -- a young --
JENNINGS: I know, but his statement there --
(CROSSTALK)
BOLDUAN: Some of the people on the group chat, they were not young, young Republicans, They were like 40, 30. I mean, like, come on, guys.
JENNINGS: But his statement was, I think, basically true. You take young people, they do stupid things, you're to the rest of their life over it. To me, that's a separate conversation though.
BOLDUAN: Then what?
JENNINGS: When someone reveals themselves to be anti-Semitic, to harbor hate for people like that, to say, oh, I think Hitler was good, or I think Stalin was good --
BOLDUAN: Yes.
JENNIGS: -- but that is not conservative. It's not useful. It's not helpful to Donald Trump. It's not helpful to J.D. Vance. It's not helpful to the Republican Party. And sometimes you got to take out the trash. And that's my view. And look, but I think his point about young people doing stupid things is broadly not incorrect.
BOLDUAN: I'm going to leave it at that. I'm going to leave it right there. Everyone, thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate it. Thanks for having me. Next, is there a difference between how women govern versus men? A candid reaction from a group of female trailblazers. That's ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:58:20]
BOLDUAN: The new CNN film Prime Minister takes an intimate look into the extraordinary political career and life of New Zealand's former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. Ahead of the film, Abby Phillips sat down for a candid discussion with four influential women about the new generation of politicians. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNKNOWN: In general, when people get a hold of power, they don't let go. And the American Congress is a great example of that. That people would prefer to die in office than cede power. And she had her reasons for leaving. And I commend her for really sticking to that and deciding, you know what, I'm going to call it quits. I don't have enough left in the tank to properly lead this country. It's one of the more admirable things she did, and she did a lot.
UNKNOWN: And I think she said it as well, where she said she couldn't lead with who she truly was, which was being kind. I think she was getting to the point where she was getting angry and upset at the people that were coming at her. And so I think that's another reason why she's like, I'm not, this is not for me anymore.
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, she talked a lot about people who govern to polls. It means that you move with the wind rather than focused on your destination. That's one of the things that she said, which frankly, most politicians are in that realm at some point or another. She didn't want to do that.
SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Yes. What worries me the most, I think, and this you could sort of see it happening in this film, is how mean we have gotten since COVID. Do you all remember people banging on pots and clapping for people here in New York as they were going to the hospitals, the nurses, the doctors, the EMTs, the people that were taking care of us?
[23:00:03]
And over time, it turned into this real meanness. And we're seeing it in our politics and the people that we put into power. We put them into power, right? So we have some responsibility for that as well, where there is a certain amount of cruelty and meanness that has been kind of meted out in a way that I don't -- we haven't seen in a really long time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOLDUAN: All right, thank you so much for watching "NewsNight". "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
