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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Indiana GOP Rejects Trump's Redistricting Map in Rebuke; Trump Suffers Losses in Court, Including Against Foe; White House on the Defensive Over Economic Anxiety in U.S. White House Defends the Economic Anxiety, Despite Disapproval Numbers from a Recent A.P. Poll; Homeland Security Secretary Confronts Veterans Deportation in a Heated Hearing. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired December 11, 2025 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[22:00:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR (voice over): Tonight, Republican rebuke, Donald Trump's own party rejects his redistricting demands in the face of his threats.
Plus, the President suffers more losses in court on both his revenge and deportation tours.
Also, economic pain all dolled up, the White House on the defense over Trump telling Americans to settle for less.
KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Do you think the people in that room in Pennsylvania who the president was speaking to, don't know the president's a billionaire?
PHILLIP: And Kristi Noem confronted over how many veterans she's deported, including a Purple Heart.
REP. SETH MAGAZINER (D-RI): Earlier this year, you deported him to Korea. This man took two bullets for our country.
Live at the table, Cornel West, Stephen Moore, Justin J. Pearson, Lydia Moynihan, Natasha Sarin, and Elie Honig.
Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here, they do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP (on camera): Good evening. I'm Abby Phillip in New York.
Let's get right to what America's talking about, a Republican rebuke of Donald Trump. After facing bomb threats, swatting attacks, and potential cuts to federal funding and the imminent threat of a Trump- backed primary, tonight, Indiana Republicans rejected the president's demands that they called blackmail. All in all, nearly one in four GOP Indiana State senators received threats after repeatedly rejecting Trump's calls to pass a new Congressional map. And despite holding a supermajority in the state, 21 Republicans joined Democrats to vote down that proposed map that would have net Republicans two additional seats.
Now, last month, Trump posted on social media attacking two state lawmakers. And just a few hours later, one of them was the victim of a swatting attack. Ahead of today's vote, the vice president spoke out against the State Senate leader and Trump suggested that they were RINOs for doing the dirty work of Democrats.
So, here's one of those Republicans explaining why she voted no.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Was there ever a moment where you thought that the pressure was going to work and the intimidation was going to work in the Senate?
STATE. SEN. JEAN LEISING (R-IN): No, not really. Not with Hoosiers. No. I mean, you know, you wouldn't change minds by being mean. And the efforts were mean-spirited from the get-go. You know, if you were wanting to change votes, he would probably try to explain why we should be doing this in a positive way. That never happened.
So, you know, I think they get what they get. I mean, and very, frankly, you know, I wish that President Trump would change his tone.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: That Republican State senator, Jean Leising, was herself the victim of a pipe bomb threat.
Lydia, this seems like a spectacular fail on the part of Trump and his allies. They put an enormous amount of pressure on Republicans. And I've seen several Republicans comment tonight that that pressure had the opposite effect. The bullying, is how they described it, had the opposite effect. Was it a mistake?
LYDIA MOYNIHAN, CORRESPONDENT, NEW YORK POST: Look, I think this is something that Republicans really need to get ahead of. They've sort of been fighting with one hand behind their back because over the last 30 years or so, Democrats have sort of tipped the scales and there are numerous states, almost a dozen, where Republicans aren't represented at all, even though they represent about 40 percent of whom voted for Donald Trump.
And so I think a lot of folks in MAGA wanted to see these sort of scales realigned and make sure that Republicans have a voice. And I think it's interesting, even in the last few days, we've seen now Virginia, which is a state that Kamala Harris won by just five points, there is a push there by that state legislature to redistrict and gerrymander in favor of Democrats.
So, we're seeing Democrats are fighting, and Republicans, at least in the case of Indiana, seem to be fighting with one hand behind their back, even though that's a state that Trump won by about 20 points.
PHILLIP: That's an interesting way to put it, because Virginia wouldn't even be considering this if Texas hadn't started it. California would've done nothing if Texas hadn't started it. It's -- I take your point to some degree about gerrymandering being a general problem in this country.
[22:05:05]
There are a lot of Democratic states that are gerrymandered. There are a lot of Republican states that are gerrymandered. But this mid-decade redistricting fight is happening because Republicans started it. And now it won't go the way, it seems, that Trump wanted ultimately.
STATE REP. JUSTIN PEARSON (D-TN): That's exactly right. And, I mean, we have to be honest, it is only because President Trump pushed Texas to change their maps that we are in this situation. This is supposed to happen every decade. It is happening mid-year because he's worried about Democrats winning back control of the House. What I want to do, and one of the reasons I'm fighting and running for Congress is because we need national redistricting laws that make sure that there's an equitability in the process.
Yes, it's a loss for Donald Trump right now in Indiana, but we have to be realistic. These billionaires are running the government. They are using all of their power. They're influencing their money to determine who's in positions of power. And so, yes, it's a win today. But other people are going to cave to the pressure, just like Governor Abbott did.
And so we, as Democrats, we have to hold strong and hold fast to what we believe about democracy and that there needs to be equitable representation.
STEPHEN MOORE, FORMER TRUMP ECONOMIC ADVISER: Democrats had already gerrymandered their states in a disgraceful way. I'm from Illinois. You know, you've got a district that goes all the way from the northern tip of the state to the southern. It's a little snake down the middle.
I hate, hate, hate gerrymandering. I think it's the most atrocious thing. The six of us that sitting that are sitting at this table could probably come up with better match here.
PHILLIP: Are you ready for Congress to get rid of it all together?
MOORE: Yes.
PHILLIP: Because, I mean, that's -- he's proposing that Democrats to propose --
MOORE: I mean, we shouldn't have the politicians choosing their voters. The voters should choose the politicians.
PEARSON: No, I can agree with you more on that. ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: The legal landscape has changed dramatically just in the last few years. The Supreme Court in 2019 came out with a decision where they basically said, we are out of this business. We are out of the business of regulating gerrymandering unless it's racially discriminatory.
Now, the Texas revised map was challenged. The lower federal courts put it on hold. They said this might actually be racially discriminatory and the Supreme Court last week unpaused it and said, no, you can go ahead with it.
And so these are the fights that are going to be happening in state legislatures across the country. I mean, if you get elected to Congress and can pass a law that bars gerrymandering, God bless. I mean, I don't know that there's the political appetite, but, you know, I wish you God speed with that.
PEARSON: Listen, I think if all of us can agree on it, there's some appetite in the country to stop the gerrymandering, but I'm so glad you hate it because in my state is run by Republicans in the House, in the Senate and in the governor's mansion, we haven't had a lot of conservative people who have said they don't like gerrymandering.
In fact, they took Nashville's Congressional representation away and so was split into three different districts to try and reduce the amount of Democratic political power, but it also hurt a lot of immigrant communities. And so you're reaping what you have sown. And the fact that the judiciary, particularly the Supreme Court has sided with Republicans in being able to hurt our democracy, is really abysmal, like what we're seeing in Texas.
PHILLIP: Just to get back to the part about what went wrong here for Republicans, because you would imagine, I mean, Indiana's Republicans have a lot of power. They could do basically whatever they want. But let me just play for you what was just said a moment ago on The Source. This is an Indiana state Senator, Mike . A Mike Bohacek, who talked about why he flipped to a no on this new map. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STATE SEN. MIKE BOHACEK (R-IN): I had released a post about my displeasure over some the slurs that the president used. So, we received a bomb threat that night at about 1:00 in the morning. Of course, I had to wake up my family. We had to have bomb dogs search property around my house. Since then, my family's been staying with friends. I'm down at the State House now until the end of the week, and they're still not staying at home.
So, it's very disruptive. I do have small children as well. So, it's been a tough couple of weeks.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: That slur that he's talking about was the R word that President Trump used against Tim Walz, who has a child with special needs. And, Dr. West., I mean, this seems to me to be an example of people, regardless of their political party, in this case, Republicans, rejecting the nastiness, rejecting the race to the bottom. And that has been -- that is so few and far between these days. It's worth noting, it seems to me.
DR. CORNEL WEST (I), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: No, it really is. And I think the only way we can turn back, not just the gerrymandering, because the gerrymandering for me is a symptom of a system that lacks a certain moral character concerned only about the lowest levels of power. What I love about this brother is he's got a vision, character, integrity, honesty, make a difference, and we're all going to fall short, but at least we aspire to that. I think the reason why you reject gerrymandering is the same way, right? Absolutely.
So, we just have to have examples, not just isolated examples of politicians, have to be self-critical. But we got to get beyond that. This team versus this team, partisanship is the only context of any conversation and dialogue.
[22:10:00]
That's the thing we have to break.
MOORE: Here's my concern, and I think this is something that you mentioned. Every state -- virtually every state is gerrymandered. And Republicans can't unilaterally disarm here. In other words, you've got a kind of an arms race on who can gerrymander their state the most to win the most seats, given the fact that there's only, what, a three or four -- what's the Republican majority in the House, like three or four right now. Every seat matters and that's why you've got this thing going on.
PHILLIP: But, I mean, but don't you acknowledge that in this moment, right, as we sit here now, we wouldn't be having this conversation at all had Trump and his party said, we need to protect ourselves from losses in the 2026 midterm elections, and to do so, we're going to create some new Republican seats? Redistricting happened five years ago.
MOORE: They've already done that in California.
PHILLIP: Hold on. Redistricting happened five years ago. New York tried to gerrymander the state and they were overruled in the courts. So, there is a process that all these states went through. Republicans are short circuiting that process. I mean, don't you acknowledge that is different from the broader issue of whether or not gerrymandering is good or bad, which I think we all agree is bad?
MOORE: Except that if you look at the big blue states, their gerrymandering has been pretty outrageous. If you look at California, if you look at --
PHILLIP: But what about the big red states?
PEARSON: You didn't say Tennessee. MOORE: But not to the extent -- I mean, California, as you said, you know, that 42 percent of the people in California are Republicans and there's virtually, hardly any Republican seats out of their 50 or so. So, it's -- and incidentally on the racial issue, I mean, the racial gerrymandering was started by Democrats who wanted to have, you know, all black districts and all Hispanic districts. And that was -- I thought that was a terrible idea. And, by the way, that hurt Democrats because they put all the Democratic voters in one district. So --
HONIG: I think, to be honest here, we have to acknowledge the current sort of rash of gerrymandering was started by Donald Trump. In fact, when he was in -- when he announced a few weeks ago, we're going to do this in Texas, as the lawyer, I said, you can't do that, you, it's only after the census, we're mid-decade, but you can, it turns out, I learned. And they've opened up this Pandora's Box because the temptation is always there for whoever controls what state, let's gerrymander. You can always squeeze out one more seat.
And I applaud these legislators in Indiana. And, by the way, I wish the California voters would've rejected Gavin Newsom's effort and I wish the Texas powers that would've not gone down that road. But you're right, Steve, I mean, it's a prisoner's dilemma. What's good for one is not factual.
PHILLIP: It's such an important point because, I mean, you made the point, it's a Pandora's Box. There's really nothing stopping either party from doing this whenever they want to and you know what becomes of our democracy when every two years, they're just changing the districts to suit their political needs. It's a pretty brave new world we're in now.
Well, up next for us, if at first you don't succeed, try and try again. Why didn't that work for the DOJ's second attempt to indict Letitia James? That's next.
Plus, if the economy is doing as great as President Trump is claiming, why is he telling parents to only buy 1 or 2 dolls for their kids for Christmas instead of 37? The White House's explanation for that, just ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:15:00]
PHILLIP: Tonight, two major losses for Donald Trump on both his revenge and deportation tours. For the second time in a week, Donald Trump's DOJ has failed to re indict his political foe, Letitia James, and a federal judge has ordered the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia from ICE custody.
Today's losses join a lengthy list of recent disappointments for Trump's DOJ and his DHS in their efforts to execute on the president's agenda. Trump has called James a disaster. He suggested that she is a fraud. And even today, his press secretary maintains that Kilmar Bgo Garcia is an MS-13 gang member.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LEAVITT: Abrego Garcia is present in our country illegally. He is a proven human trafficker. He is a proven gang member. The administration has evidence of that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: What she just said there is, first of all, not true. That has not been proven in court. But let me start on Letitia James, because this is amazing to me. I guess this is the third time that they're trying to indict her, the second time in just a week. How is that even possible?
HONIG: Great question. So, first of all, I have been a critic and I remain a critic of Letitia James. I think the way that she ran for office on a premise of vote for me so I can nail Donald Trump is a problem no matter who's doing it, no matter who's on the receiving end. That said, we need an intervention at the Justice Department. I mean, someone needs to walk Pam Bondi into a room and she needs to have her closest adviser say, enough is enough. This is a doomed effort. The Letitia James, this is the third time this case has been kicked out. A judge dismissed it on constitutional grounds. Two grand juries have now declined to indict. You know how hard that is?
PHILLIP: It's embarrassing.
HONIG: It's embarrassing. It's almost mathematically impossible to get rejected by a grand jury once, never mind times two. They need to give this up.
Are they going to -- I mean, legally, by the way, let me clarify, people may be used to the movies where when you're acquitted, when a jury says, not guilty, that's it. You can go back to the grand jury as many times as you want. They need to knock it off.
I feel the same about the Jim Comey case. Also not a fan of Jim Comey, sharp critic, but this is retribution, it's payback. And, by the way, our system is holding, right? There are guardrails, grand juries, judges, the constitutional rights of a defendant, a trial jury, and good for the system for holding up here.
PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, you know, Lydia, I mean, aren't there other things that they could be doing, better things, more important things?
[22:20:03]
Is this really that important that they're going to go to the grand jury a fourth time to try to get an indictment?
MOYNIHAN: Yes, I don't think the Letitia James case is where Republicans should be focusing their ammo. I think Kilmar Abrego Garcia and deportations are exactly where Republicans should be focusing their efforts. And I think most Republicans, if you remember back in the 2024 convention, they were holding signs that didn't say, selective deportations now. They were holding signs that said mass deportations now. And I think for Republicans, Kilmar Abrego Garcia is a winning issue. Because it doesn't matter that the White House does say they have evidence of the fact that he was human trafficking, that he has been accused of domestically abusing his wife, of being involved with gangs, in fact, that's actually the reason that he couldn't be deported to El Salvador because he said that it was going to be a rival gang that would go after him, but it's the fact that he was in this country illegally. And that's what Republicans should focus on.
PHILLIP: Shouldn't they just try him?
MOYNIHAN: That's what Republicans want and not -- yes.
PHILLIP: Shouldn't they try him for the things they're accusing him of and find him guilty, then they might have more of a leg to stand on to deport him? I mean, that seems like a pretty simple --
HONIG: let me try to pick this one up. I don't know what Kilmar Abrego Margo Garcia is. I don't know if he's an MS-13. I don't know if he's a human trafficker. I don't really care, right? The fact of the matter is what happened with him is completely backwards. They deported him to the one country where he was legally not allowed to be deported from. They refused to bring him back, even though the Supreme Court said, we need you to facilitate his return. But then they said, let's indict him. That's backwards. You indict, try and then deport. They deported, indicted, and then brought him back.
And now the things that Karoline Leavitt just said are not what he's charged with. He's not charged with being an MS-13. He's not even charged with forcible human trafficking. He's charged with driving someone across the state line. Maybe they can prove it, but enough with the White House secretary declaring someone guilty. Take him to trial. Prove it. Go ahead.
PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, the DOJ, there's been some kind of, you know, it's just a little bush league. It's just a little bit unprofessional what they've been doing on some of these cases in their haste to, you know, send out a tweet or make a political point. And I think this is the consequence of it that, as Elie pointed out, they could have done this the right way. They could have proven, if he's such a terrible person, prove it in court and then deport him back.
MOORE: I don't disagree with anything that you all have said except for this point, that there's nobody who politicized, weaponized the Justice Department more than Joe Biden. And, you know, how many -- there were eight indictments against Donald Trump. They raided his home in Mar-a-Lago. And so it's sort of natural for Trump to want to go back after these people who so unjustly --
(CROSSTALKS)
MOYNIHAN: This is the woman ran on the notion that no one is above the law, and it seems pretty clearly that she actually did commit a crime.
Now, I will say though -- PEARSON: Actually, since it's not clear because it just got tossed out.
PHILLIP: Who?
MOYNIHAN: Letitia James.
PHILLIP: Are you saying it's clear that she did commit a crime?
MOYNIHAN: It looks like she filed that mortgage application.
PHILLIP: If that were the case, it would be easy-peasy to get a grand jury indictment then. And that has not been --
MOYNIHAN: I think a jury in Virginia is not going to necessarily convict her?
PHILLIP: I don't know, Lydia. If it's so clear that she's guilty, don't you think a grand jury would've indicted her?
MOYNIHAN: I would say, I think we should move past all of the laws there and I was surprised to see today Gavin Newsom tweet out a video of cuffing Susan and putting Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth and Stephen Miller in chains. That seems like a --
PHILLIP: Are you offended by that?
MOYNIHAN: No. But I'm saying that that seems like a continuation of the lawfare --
PHILLIP: No, for real, are you --
MOYNIHAN: -- that we're decrying.
PHILLIP: Wait, how is that a -- it's a meme.
MOYNIHAN: But it seems like a suggestion pretty clearly that he wants to continue --
PHILLIP: This is the administration of memes. So, I'm surprised that this is even --
PEARSON: Exactly. Because I thought Pete Hegseth put out a meme of Franklin torpedoing a boat off the coast of Venezuela, right, like this is an unserious administration. But President Biden is a former president of the United States. Donald Trump is the president of the United States, and his misuse and his weaponization of the Department of Justice against people who they should not be using their energy against is wrong, it's immoral and it's bad for democracy.
(CROSSTALKS)
PEARSON: And when it comes to --
MOORE: Would you agree with what Biden did?
PEARSON: I'll finish this point first.
MOORE: Yes, but --
PEARSON: I'll finish this point first, because it was a two part question. What has happened with Mr. Garcia in the order that has allowed for his release is fair, is just because we have due process, we have a rule of law and this nation is built on that. And once we start burning the Constitution because of whoever the president is or whatever party is in power, that is when we lose this democratic constitutional republic experiment, and I think that's wrong.
PHILLIP: All right. Coming up next for us, the White House says affordability is a hoax and prizes are falling. But do Americans see that in their budgets? We will debate next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:25:00]
PHILLIP: Despite growing concern, the White House is insisting that the economy is right where they want it to be.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LEAVITT: President Trump's pro-growth policies are making tremendous progress to make America affordable again.
The economy is back on track and ready to boom over the next three years, Biden's inflation crisis is over. Prices are coming down, wages are rising, the border is fully secure, and America's best days are to come.
Everything I'm telling you is the truth backed by real factual data.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[22:30:00]
PHILLIP: And that comes after a new A.P. poll finds that 31 percent of Americans disapprove of Trump's handling of the economy. That was the lowest point so far in his second term. But still, Trump is claiming that there is no inflation and asked when he'll get credit for the quote "greatest economy in the history of the country."
Natasha Sarin is here with us at the table. And Natasha, I'll get to you in a second. But I really do want to ask my friend Steve Moore over here.
I get every White House, they want their economy to be great. But is that really what she should be telling Americans right at this moment, that everything is great, and that it's all in their head?
STEPHEN MOORE, FORMER TRUMP ECONOMIC ADVISER, AND HOST OF "MOORE MONEY WITH STEPHEN MOORE": You know, I'm really flummoxed by these numbers. And I've seen these polls, and they're all very consistent that people don't like the way Trump is handling the economy. And yet, what the press secretary said is absolutely true, almost every single indicator on the economy is really strong.
I mean, we have -- we've had 4 percent economic growth, the average family after inflation after taxes is $1,200 richer than they were at the start of the year. We used to measure inflation at, you know, the one barometer we always use was the gas price, that's by about 30 percent, the lowest in five years.
We have all this capital coming the United States; the economy, in my opinion, as an economist, is really set up for a booming year in 2026. And yet, you know, you're the public doesn't, they don't -- they're not seeing the love.
And I don't know why--
DR. CORNEL WEST (I), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE, PHILOSOPHER, AND AUTHOR OF "TRUTH MATTERS": -- the part of the problem idea is that the indicators that you talk about really don't talk about the lived experience of the folk. If you've got 20 percent of your precious children living in poverty, that 70 percent of those living paycheck to paycheck, and wealth inequality is escalating, and only in the end, in the indicators say, things are magnificent.
Democrats have said the same thing, lying; Republicans have said the same thing, quit lying. Both have been lying in that regard. And part of the problem is the profession of economics itself.
They don't really look at the economy from the vantage point of the least of these.
MOORE: Even if you look at the bottom 25 percent in the economy, yes, their wages and incomes are up this year. So it wage inequality is --
PHILLIP: Natasha.
NATASHA SARIN, FORMER TREASURY DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL DURING THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION, AND PRESIDENT, THE BUDGET LAB AT YALE: I have to respectfully like disagree deeply with what you're saying about what we've seen in the economy over the course of the last 11 months.
To give the President credit where credit is due. He won an election in response to Americans feeling the pinch of inflation after the pandemic.
MOORE: For sure.
SARIN: And what he promised was we are going to see prices go down on day one.
MOORE: Right.
SARIN: Every action that this administration has taken since getting into office has made the problems of inflation and affordability worse, not better that has to do with immigration and restricting the labor supply, which makes it more expensive to hire people and makes it such that goods are more expensive. But importantly, it has to do with tariffs and the fact that you've
seen an effective tariff rate increase from 2 percent to about 16.5 percent. That results in estimates from my colleagues at the Budget Lab at Yale, but they're consistent across the board. So that average household prices have gone up about $2,000 as a result of those tariffs themselves.
And that is what people are feeling. And you can't tell them to feel differently because they go to the grocery store, they're buying Christmas presents for their kids, and they're seeing these higher prices.
MOORE: That's all true. But the inflation rate over the last 12 months is 2.7 percent. That's one of the lowest inflation rates we've had.
Now, Trump did make a big mistake. He said prices are going to fall.
PHILLIP: You're talking about the, let me just be clear, this was an issue in the press briefing. You're saying the average inflation rate averaging--
MOORE: -- over the last 12 months is 2.7 percent.
PHILLIP: So year over year, in September, the inflation rate was 3 percent. So typically, we use the year over year measure more than taking an average of whatever extended period that you take.
Yes, but he wasn't President for the last 12 months. He was only president for the last 10 months. So that's why I'm just making sure that we're clear on that.
But when you look at the trend of inflation, month to month, it's ticking up.
MOORE: It's actually ticked up.
PHILLIP: It's ticked up.
SARIN: And it's ticked up precisely. I just want to think it's really important. When President Trump took office, inflation, which had been high, was actually on its way down, and the Fed was kind of fighting the last mile towards this 2 percent inflation target.
MOORE: The average inflation rate under Biden's president was 5.2 percent -- was 2.1.
SARIN: What's happened? No one is talking about-- Stephen, I just want to be-
MOORE: 87 percent increase in inflation prices that people are complaining about.
PHILLIP: Nobody is disputing that inflation was high under Biden. I don't think we should fight--
LYDIA MOYNIHAN, CORRESPONDENT, "NEW YORK POST":-- prices went up about 25 percent over the last four years. And so unless we have deflation, which would not be good for the economy, we don't.
Prices are not going to go back to pre-pandemic levels.
MOORE: That's true.
MOYNIHAN: That's the reality. And so that's the discrepancy.
But the economy is doing well under Trump. And I would say I'm actually much more optimistic about Republican policies. Democrats are proposing things like government-run grocery stores and free buses.
[22:35:04]
What Republicans are doing is deregulating, cutting taxes. And I think in the coming months when people pay their taxes this year, they're going to be pleasantly surprised to have more money in their pocket. They're prioritizing innovation, artificial intelligence, things that will ultimately, over the next year, help people feel like they're living a better quality of life.
JUSTIN J. PEARSON (D-TX), STATE REPRESENTATIVE: No, I'm so sorry. I think I'm the only person here who actually represents constituents and is beholden to them, and they're struggling. I can tell you right now we need 55,000 units of affordable housing for people who make $17,000 a year.
Our minimum wage is $7.25, and we have not seen an increase for decades. People are struggling. My great aunt is deciding whether or not she's going to pay for medicine or pay for groceries.
You cannot say that the economy is doing well when it is doing well for billionaires. But the consequences of the action are coming home to roost.
Because you know what? Farmers have retaliated against this administration's actions. And you know what this administration has said it's trying to do?
Give billions of dollars to them. If things were going great for people, they wouldn't have to take those actions. And what Republicans have done is give more money to the rich, the most powerful, and the billionaires, and they've left working-class people.
SARIN: But Lydia, and also I just want to be precise. I agree that we don't want to see deflation. We do not want to see prices come down because that would mean that we're in a recession, we're in a downturn.
But what we don't want to see is prices go up. And that is what has happened as a result of tariff rates that are higher than we've seen at any moment in the last century. And it's tariffs on literally everything that consumers buy.
And you don't have to believe the estimates that come from my colleagues and I.
PHILLIP: But just to be clear, gas prices are like six cents on the dollar less than they were a year ago. So what you're --
MOORE: We have the lowest gas prices.
PHILLIP: Yes.
MOORE: And they were as high as four dollars.
PHILLIP: Numerically you're correct. But when Americans are paying like $3.01, and then a year ago they were paying $2.94, they're not coming home and saying, gosh, that is a huge amount.
It feels basically the same when other things are going up. Gas prices are not going to be the panacea here.
WEST: But at the center of it, it's really--
PHILLIP: It's not enough.
WEST: People don't have enough wages.
MOYNIHAN: Real wages actually have grown.
SARIN: And 20 million Americans are going to see their health care premiums more than double.
MOORE: I wonder why that happened. That was Obamacare, right?
PHILLIP: Let me play real quick. Marjorie Taylor Greene is talking about what Trump is trying to do, what Karoline Leavitt is trying to do, which is convince Americans from where they stand that everything is all right. Listen to what she said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): I think the President needs to be aware that he's a billionaire, President of the United States, and you can't gaslight people and tell them that their bills are affordable. And you can't tell them that the economy is an A-plus.
You just can't do that. And I think it's insulting to people's intelligence.
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WEST: I think she's right there. But see, part of the problem is that Brother Trump just needs to get off of the symbolic crack pipe. He's out of touch to use a wonderful song by Hall & Oates, who was Vanilla Rhythm and Blues Brothers.
He's not sensitive to the plight of everyday people. But when you say he's a billionaire, you see, I don't think that money and class position determines the moral judgment of a person. You can be a billionaire and still be somebody concerned about poor people.
The problem is if you're a billionaire and you're out of touch, then you're going to hear this kind of language. And it means then just working people and other folk, we need to come together.
MOORE: The best thing you can do to help those poor people is to provide them a job. We have 7 million job openings, 7 million.
WEST: A job with a living wage. With a living wage. With a living wage.
With the increased minimum wage that my mother was talking about.
PHILLIP: Just real quick, a last word on this.
I mean, I do think that the uncertainty of tariffs has not really been discussed tonight at this table, because Americans understand that when businesses can't plan about what their input costs are going to be, whether they're even going to be able to sell the products that they used to because of tariffs. But that's a negative hit on them. Many of those Americans are themselves small business owners.
So what is the impact of that kind of uncertainty?
SARIN: The small business uncertainty index is at record levels. And the reason is exactly as Abby is describing. You have seen the effective tariff rate change in this administration on more than 80 days.
And we are on the verge of likely seeing a Supreme Court decision that draws into question some 75 percent of the tariffs that have already been implemented. And you're already seeing conversations about other ways we're going to try to effectuate these same tariff levels.
It makes it impossible for businesses to plan. Think about what types of new lines they want to acquire.
MOORE: But it's also true that Trump has used these threats of tariffs to get incredible trade deals with these companies. Japan said they're going to give hundreds of billions of dollars to the United States. We're going to see as much as $2 trillion of investment capital but because he's used tariffs as leverage.
[22:40:00]
PHILLIP: But when Americans start to feel that, I think that's when you'll see them. When Americans start to feel that, you might see them factoring it in. But for now, it doesn't seem like they are doing that.
Natasha Sarin, thank you very much for being here.
Next for us, does the Department of Homeland Security know who they are deporting? Secretary Kristi Noem was in the hot seat today, facing some tough questions about ICE and about its accuracy.
But that didn't last long. We'll discuss that next.
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[22:45:07]
PHILLIP: Tonight, does the Trump administration know exactly who they're deporting? House Democrats grilled Kristi Noem over ICE operations and deportations in a hearing today. Listen to this exchange.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. SETH MAGAZINER (D-RI): How many United States military veterans have you deported?
KRISTI NOEM, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: Sir, we have not deported U.S. citizens or military veterans.
MAGAZINER: Madam Secretary, we are joined on Zoom by a gentleman named Sejoon Park. He is a United States Army combat veteran who was shot twice while serving our country in Panama in 1989.
Like many veterans, he struggled with PTSD and substance abuse after his service. He was arrested in the 1990s for some minor drug offenses, nothing serious. He never hurt anyone besides himself, and he's been clean and sober for 14 years.
He is a combat veteran, a Purple Heart recipient. He has sacrificed more for this country than most people ever have.
Earlier this year, you deported him to Korea, a country he hasn't lived in since he was seven years old. Will you join me in thanking Mr. Park for his service to our country?
NOEM: Sir, I'm grateful for every single person that has served our country and follows our laws, but I want you to remember that our programs need to have humanity as well.
MAGAZINER: Madam Secretary, the man behind you, please stand up--
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: He was not an illegal immigrant. He was a green card holder. Whether that matters to you or not, it was interesting to me that in the haste to deport as many people as possible, even this situation, first of all, she wasn't aware of it.
And secondly, she just seemed to shrug it off that somebody who fought for this country would have their green card taken away and basically be asked to deport themselves back to their home country.
PEARSON: The way that this administration is dealing with immigration and deportation is absolutely immoral and in many ways unconscionable. Our city and Memphis and my district is underneath federal occupation right now, and ICE has deported over 300 people.
And again, we have to remember this is not a crime in the way that we have typically thought about. It's usually something that happens civilly or it's an administrative error or a problem that can be solved. We have to create pathways for authorization and for people to be in
the United States of America. Immigrants have contributed and do contribute in so many ways to our society. And what we are seeing by this administration is dangerous, it's harmful, and it is wrong.
We have the most veterans in Shelby County in District 9. Our veterans are missing hundreds of millions of dollars in benefits from the federal government. That's something that we need to be focused on and prioritizing. That's another reason that I'm running for Congress, because we're not serving our veterans and to see them being deported by this administration so callously and this administration being so ignorant of the consequences of what they're doing is destructive.
ELIE HONIG, CNN SR. LEGAL ANALYST: So the federal government absolutely has the right and the power to deport people who are here illegally. I think the valid criticism of this administration is the way in which they've gone about it.
Look, anytime you're in a prosecutorial role, an immigration enforcement role, it's about allocation of resources. You can't charge everyone. You can't deport everyone.
And had the Trump administration gone about this, look, it was the number one issue he ran on. He got elected on it. He had a mandate on it.
But had they made good on the vow to go after the most dangerous people, I mean, I would ask this, would you rather deport one person who's here illegally who had committed a serious crime or 10 people who are here illegally who committed zero crimes?
I'm in the first camp. That takes some effort, that takes some focus, and that takes some concentration of resources. But instead, it's been hazard.
MOYNIHAN: I have to jump in here, because this is why people hate congressional hearings. And this is why people don't trust the media is because the reality is Mr. Park, while he was here, never chose to pursue citizenship. He was here on a green card under Obama.
That green card was revoked because of drug possession. And ultimately, he made the decision that he wanted to self-deport. That is a decision he made.
It was not like ICE raided his home, took him from his family, and deposited him in a foreign land. He made the choice to self-deport.
PHILLIP: But just some context on that.
MOYNIHAN: And again, it was Obama who revoked his green card.
PHILLIP: Just some context on that. ICE has been pushing a lot of people in its detention to self-deport. Some people are choosing to do that because they decide to do that rather than be indefinitely detained. But I think the idea that this is not under duress is being called
into question all the time by people who have been on the receiving end of those pushes to self-deport. So I think that's important context.
MOORE: I agree with you. I mean, Trump did win the election in no small part because people are angry about the loss of control of the border.
And I've always supported the idea of worst first. The criminals, the drug runners, the gang members, and so on.
[22:50:01]
And that's what Trump did pretty effectively with his immigration service in the first, say, six months. The deportations that are going on right now, they make me feel uncomfortable. Especially if somebody is in the country working and they haven't committed any crimes.
I wouldn't give them a path to citizenship. But how about something where they could pay a fine or something like pay a state or something like that? How about that?
WEST: You want to feel more than uncomfortable. You are morally appalled by some of the treatment of ICE when it comes to our fellow human beings and fellow citizens. Is that right?
MOORE: Yes, but I'm also appalled by some of the things that--
WEST: No, but there's a lot of things to be appalled to, but we're just talking about that particular moment of appall. Because I mean, what's fascinating is that, you know, we wouldn't even be having this debate about our precious immigrants if it had not been for the Black Freedom Movement in 1965.
That pushed back the white supremacist immigration that only allowed for Europeans from the North and the West, not the East, not the Poles, not the Jews from the ghettos and so forth, right? So in '65, you get this struggle against white supremacy that spills over onto the international stage.
Thank God to get all of these wonderful folk who come. But everybody who's part of the debate other than precious indigenous peoples and Black peoples here on barbaric slave ships are themselves descendants of immigrants.
So Trump himself, descendant of an immigrant, his precious mother from Scotland. I'm sure people use language against her that was appalling and if I would have heard that language, I would say it's appalling. I hear his language about other immigrants, that's appalling too.
So the context becomes very important here.
PHILLIP: And Elie, the DHS is also under how they're treating American citizens. The Senate released a report that said that they regularly reject legitimate proof of citizenship. They've held multiple U.S. citizens in detention for days, far longer than the short duration envisioned by Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh and when seeking to defend unlawful citizen detentions, they make spurious claims of assault or obstruction that fall apart on minimal security.
One of those cases is a man named George Retis, who was pepper sprayed and detained for days, wasn't given access to a lawyer before he was eventually released and DHS is still claiming, despite video evidence to the contrary, that he assaulted ICE officers.
HONIG: So when you're a prosecutor or an immigration enforcement official, you have a unique power in this government to deprive a human being of their liberty, right?
And it is drilled into your head from day one that you are not to abuse that responsibility, and you don't get to screw up. This administration, it's probably a very tiny percentage of the total cases, a handful of cases, but they have locked up at times U.S. citizens.
And this is why even the U.S. Supreme Court, in ruling for Donald Trump a couple months ago on one of the Alien Enemies Act case said, yes, but even in the immigration context, you get basic, minimal due process to argue, maybe I'm not the right guy. Maybe I'm here legally.
If you're here illegally, you will and should get deported, but you are entitled to due process. And if you screw that up, it undermines the whole system and it really harms people in a fundamental way.
PHILLIP: And I think this really calls into question why they're not allowing people who are claiming that they are here legally to even have access to attorneys, things like that, that give them the basic ability to cure possible problems with their detention.
Next for us, the panel is going to give us their nightcaps. Ask Alexa edition. So, hey, Alexa, can you take us to break?
ALEXA, AMAZON VIRTUAL ASSISTANT: We'll be right back after this break.
I should mention my commercial breaks are just me contemplating the mysteries of the digital universe for about 0.3 seconds.
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[22:55:00]
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PHILLIP: Today, Amazon released the most commonly asked Alexa questions of 2025. Cristiano Ronaldo, Taylor Swift, Elon Musk, and poached eggs all made the list. But ironically, it was artificial intelligence that came out on top.
So for tonight's news nightcap, what question are you dying for Alexa to answer for you? Justin, you're up.
PEARSON: Yes. My question is, how do we make sure that wealth doesn't get concentrated at the top and goes to working class people?
PHILLIP: All right.
MOORE: That's a lot.
MOYNIHAN: My question is, who is smarter? Meta, Alexa, or Siri? Because now we have so many options and I really need to drill down and figure out which one is the most efficient, which one makes the most sense to use.
PHILLIP: Elie?
HONIG: Hey, Alexa, are you spying on us? Because I think you are, right? Haven't we all had that experience?
PHILLIP: I mean, she totally is.
HONIG: I mean, we've all had this. Just the other day, I was talking about my son's going skiing. I've never skied in my life.
I never Googled anything about skiing. Next thing I know, I'm getting articles, oh, skiing.
They're listening. We know you're listening, Alexa.
PHILLIP: Yes.
PEARSON: We can answer that one.
WEST: We've got the best of Camden and Harvard Law. No, I would raise a biblical question, Alexa.
I want to say, what does a person profit if they gain the whole world and lose their soul? What does a nation and empire profit if it conquers the globe and loses its sense of morality and spirituality?
[23:00:01]
PHILLIP: I'm going to ask her that when I get home.
MOORE: Hey, Alexa, is there a Santa Claus? Everybody in Washington seems to think there is.
PHILLIP: Hopefully all the kids are asleep right now, Stephen. Okay, go to bed, kids.
Everyone, thank you so much. Thank you for watching "NewsNight." "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
