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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
ICE Agent's Phone Captures Fatal Confrontation in Minneapolis; Videos of ICE Shooting Become Rorschach Test for Divided U.S.; Tucker Carlson Blasts MAGA Reactions to Fatal ICE Shooting; "NewsNight" Tackles ICE Shooting a Woman in Minneapolis; Trump Wants to Take Greenland; Trump Calls for One Year Cap on Credit Card Interest Rates. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired January 09, 2026 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[22:00:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST (voice over): Tonight, new angles of ICE's fatal shooting in Minneapolis showcase a Rorschach test for a divided nation.
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: She was so loud and so crazy.
PHILLIP: Plus, Tucker Carlson calls out the right for being hypocritical on their reaction to this tragedy versus Charlie Kirk's death.
Also, the president says he's open to supporting someone to lead Venezuela if she gives him her Nobel Peace Prize, all while threatening a NATO ally with force.
TRUMP: We are going to do something on Greenland, whether they like it or not.
PHILLIP: And Donald Trump breaks protocol to deliver a jobs report --
TRUMP: Yes, it was an amazing report.
PHILLIP: -- showing the worst non-recession year in nearly a quarter century.
Live at the table, Scott Jennings, Tiffany Cross, Hal Lambert and Paul Mecurio.
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. As new video emerges of the ice shooting in Minneapolis, a divided America sees it in the eye of the beholder. This time, the angle is from the cell phone of the agent who shot and killed Renee Good in her car. The White House claims that this video supports the notion that he acted in self- defense.
Now, we want to show you the full clip, but we have to warn you that it is disturbing.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's fine dude. I'm not mad at you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Show your face.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm not mad at you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's okay. We don't change our plates every morning, just so you know. It'll be the same plate when you come talk to us later. That's fine. U.S. citizen, former fucking veteran, (INAUDIBLE). You want to come at us? You want to come at us? I said, go get yourself some lunch, big boy. Go ahead.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get out of the car. Get out of the car. Get out of the fucking car. Get out of the car.
Whoa, fucking bitch.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: DHS says that footage backs up their story that she used her car as a weapon to hurt or kill the agent. The vice president agrees, reposting the video, saying, the reality is that his life was endangered and he fired in self-defense.
But critics of the administration argue the opposite. They say that it is damning to hear her say, I'm not mad at you. And hearing the officer or an officer in the video call her an F-ing bitch after that shooting.
Now, Democratic Senator Ruben Gallego responded to Vance's questioning, why the officer was filming the incident in one hand while wielding a gun in the other? He wrote, no law enforcement ever trains to get in front of a vehicle. And why did he continue to shoot even after she drove away? A U.S. citizen died and the vice president is trying to justify it.
Joining us in our fifth seat is Darrin Porcher, a former NYPD lieutenant. Darrin, I wonder what you think of those questions that Ruben Gallego poses about both what the officer was doing, he was holding the gun in one hand, apparently recording in the other, then fires a shot while also still recording, and then also just where he was positioned? Does that matter?
DARRIN PORCHER, FORMER NYPD LIEUTENANT: It does. This is very significant. I was a lieutenant in the NYPD's Internal Affairs Bureau, so, on many occasions, investigating shootings of this magnitude. And one of the things that we always trained officers to do is step away from the vehicle. And this -- when we look at from a procedural perspective and best practices in policing, this is spot on. You don't want to put yourself in harm's way. You want to step away from the vehicle and simply jot down the license plate number and get the person in another time.
The offense here is somewhat trivial. I don't see a felony that was committed. I don't see an acrimonious act where it created the propensity for an assault against another common citizen. In addition to that, after the vehicle pulled away, after that first shot, you see two more shots on the driver's side. So, the threat had already passed. However, the officer continued to fire additional rounds. Therefore, I think that this is really going to be questionable from the perspective of the 1989 court decision as it relates to Graham versus Connor, which introduces when and how a police officer can use force.
Procedurally, this is not sound, but from a law perspective, it can be somewhat questionable.
PHILLIP: All right. Scott?
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I mean, contrary to what I heard out here the other day, this person was not a random passerby who just happened to be driving through her neighborhood.
[22:05:06]
This person is part of a group of people who form convoys to interfere with federal law enforcement operations. They drive convoys of cars and do active law enforcement situations. They interfere with ongoing law enforcement activity. This is a felony to do that, A. B, this person had been following ICE around all day, apparently, according to witnesses, now according to further reporting. C, they didn't follow lawful commands to stop, get out of the car. D, they accelerated a car into the officer. It clearly hit the officer.
I don't understand how you could watch this video and all the other videos that have come out and not come to the conclusion that this is an unfortunate, tragic situation that was caused by someone, the person driving the vehicle using extraordinarily poor judgment from top to bottom. It doesn't make me happy. I don't like it. I hate this. I don't like it when U.S. citizens or anyone dies in any kind of an engagement with law enforcement like this. But this person exercised extremely poor judgment and put themselves in harm's way, probably committing a felony in the process, and this is the result.
PAUL MERCURIO, HOST, INSIDE OUT WITH PAUL MERCURIO: Can I just ask how you not see this in the gray area? That was gray. That was a gray area.
JENNINGS: Gray area?
MERCURIO: Yes. The police officer walks around the front of the car. So, the way it was initially told -- and, by the way, I'm not left or right, so don't think I'm a liberal, and so I'm automatically going to defend. But the way it was initially described by Kristi Noem was that this car was going after him, almost like as a car was going down the street. He winds his way around after six months earlier having been dragged by a car. So, he did put himself in harm's way.
That doesn't mean she was right to do it. But the problem that I have with this conversation, generally, not you personally, is one side wants to see it one way and one side wants to see it the other way, and there ain't no middle ground, and there is. She should have listened to the command. He should not have been where he was. He overreacted. I know it's easy to say, and I think that we have to get in the middle somewhere on this and recognize that two people were wrong.
TIFFANY CROSS, AUTHOR, LOVE, ME: I disagree with that completely. I don't see this as a gray area at all, and I certainly don't see her playing a role in her own death, Scott. I mean, you can see even law enforcement officials have played the video frame by frame earlier. Anderson Cooper had a guest who was playing the video frame by frame. And you see in every frame she's turning her vehicle away from the ICE officer. They are approaching her. She was not going at him. She was trying to get away because they were approaching her vehicle.
You also hear him in this video, referred to her as an F-ing bitch. None of this seems like, someone who should be in a position of filming her on his phone. He is the officer. He is the one with the weapon. He has all the power in this situation. Regardless if she's a protester or not, you were saying those things almost as if it justifies her being shot by him. That's just not true.
Since Trump's second term, there have been 16 shootings involving ICE agents. Four of those has have resulted in death, including Good. Other times, there have been 14 incidents where ICE agents have pulled a weapon. Another 14 episodes where ICE agents have used a weapon that wasn't lethal, like pepper balls and, you know, rubber balls, whether a pepper spray. This is not okay. This is not normal behavior.
And I think if we pretend that there's a middle ground here, we don't have to come to the middle. Actually, we could just use our eyes and ears and look at what we saw. There was nothing confusing about that video.
HAL LAMBERT, FOUNDER AND CEO, POINT BRIDGE CAPITAL: She's not a protester, right? She was there to interfere. She had her car sideways in the middle of the road.
CROSS: So, she deserved to be murdered. That can't seriously be your point.
LAMBERT: No, but you used the term, protester, that we keep using that. She's not a protester, okay? She's there to interfere with law enforcement. She has her car sideways in the road. She's clearly been doing this, as has been reported. She's part of an active group to do this.
CROSS: Regardless of what you want to call her, are you justifying her being shot by an ICE agent?
LAMBERT: No, it's --
JENNINGS: Are you justifying her pulling into the officer?
(CROSSTALKS)
CROSS: I'm disputing the basis of that. That's not factual.
LAMBERT: But this is very --
CROSS: The video shows it's not factual. She was not going at him. The video shows that.
PHILLIP: Go ahead, Darrin.
PORCHER: Do you think officers trained for this scenario? Yes or no?
JENNINGS: I'm sure they do.
PORCHER: All right. Back in the 70s --
JENNINGS: And not only that. This person or officer was dragged --
PORCHER: But you answered my question. You answered my question.
(CROSSTALKS)
PORCHER: Back in the 1970s, there was a study done on how police officers should engage individuals in cars. Whenever you -- and what came out was, whenever you shoot a person that's driving a motor vehicle and you are successful, the centrifugal force of that vehicle will continue to move forward. Therefore, you do not defeat the threat. So, what do you do in a situation like that? You move away from the car. And we found on a national level that police have gained an overwhelming level of success in terms of trying to get away from the vehicle as opposed to putting themselves in harm's way.
[22:10:05]
PHILLIP: Can I ask you another question, Darrin? The exchange -- we're very focused, rightfully so, on what happened with the officer with the gun. But I'm also curious about the interaction with the other officer who approaches her window. And we see in the video, he says, get out of the F-ing car, and grabs the door handle, presumptively to try to pull her out. I have questions about that and about that tactic, and I keep hearing people talking about de-escalation being something that seems absent, not just in this situation, but in a lot of interactions that we have observed with ICE and citizens, whether they're protesters or others.
PORCHER: The de-escalation comes with the verbal commands, and the officer may not have been successful, but at the same token, you had the ability to step away and merely jot down that license plate number and get that person another point. But what's more so significant is that officer that discharged his weapon, put his fellow officer in harm's way. He could have gotten shot. Because when you look at the trajectory of where these bullets came, they were relatively close to the officer that was standing next to that passenger side door. Therefore, we refer to something as firearms control. We want to know where you're shooting before you discharge your weapon.
Remember, after the car passed, you still had an officer that was discharging rounds at the side of the automobile. The threat had already fizzled out. The vehicle is moving forward. And as I mentioned in the earlier part, the centrifugal force of that vehicle is going to continue moving forward even if the operator is shot. And we saw the same thing happen in this video. After the lady was shot, the vehicle continued to move forward and crashed into another order.
MERCURIO: Oh, so don't you think real quick that I keep going back to the behavior of the officer that went up and said, get out of the F- ing car. It was very clear that he felt pretty comfortable in terms of his safety with this car and this woman. He walks up, he reaches in, he can see. So, if I'm his fellow officer coming this way, I see that he's not screaming, gun, gun, he's not freaking out. You know that this is sort of a woman in her car. She's not really a threat. It just felt so ratcheted up for what was happening around him, that gentleman who was taking the photos with his camera. And I felt like he wasn't keying off of what was going on --
(CROSSTALKS)
LAMBERT: We can admit he was hit by the car, correct? The officer said --
MERCURIO: Well, we don't know. We don't know if the camera --
(CROSSTALKS)
LAMBERT: He was hit by the car.
MERCURIO: We don't know if the camera was hit by the car in his hand. We don't know that.
(CROSSTALKS)
LAMBERT: He was hit by the car. He was hit by the car. Okay. And he was hit by the car jumping out of the way. In other words, if he had not jumped out of the way he would've been killed.
PORCHER: I disagree.
LAMBERT: I mean, that's --
PORCHER: I disagree. I'm telling you this as a person that's trained for this. I'm telling you this as a former police academy instructor that trained recruits on how to evade a vehicle that's moving forward. We've done studies on this time and time again and has proved to be an overwhelming success if the officer steps away.
And you mentioned he was hit by the vehicle. It is a problem that he was hit by the vehicle, but was he injured? Do you think? There was a genuine injury.
CROSS: She was turning away. She was not driving her car at him.
JENNINGS: Should he wait to get crushed to death and then fight back or --
CROSS: But even the video shows he was turning away from her, so he was grazed by the car. She was not driving her car at him. I mean, we could just look at our own eyes the video and see.
PHILLIP: I just want to play a little bit of how Trump reacted to questions about this earlier today at the White House.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: There was a woman screaming, shame, shame, shame, shame. She was an agitator, probably a paid agitator, but in my opinion, she was an agitator, a very high level agitator, so professional. She wouldn't stop screaming. I said, this isn't a normal situation. This is a professional troublemaker.
You have agitators, and we will always be protecting ICE, and we're always going to be protecting our Border Patrol and our law enforcement.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: I just wonder, is it not possible for regular Americans to decide that they disagree with ICE's tactics? They want to yell, shame at ICE, that's not a crime. Recording is not a crime. Blowing whistles is not a crime. Why does that make you, A, a professional agitator, or, B, as they said earlier in this week, a domestic terrorist?
JENNINGS: Well, protesting is perfectly fine in this country. That's not what was happening in this case. And as we saw from the reporting in the last 24 hours, there was a group of people who are being trained to use vehicles in convoys to disrupt ICE operations --
PHILLIP: To do what exactly, Scott?
JENNINGS: Disrupt and impede ICE operations.
PHILLIP: Hold on. I mean, I think this is important. What are you --
JENNINGS: Disrupt and impede.
PHILLIP: What are you suggesting that she was --
PORCHER: Do you have (INAUDIBLE) stated statistics to support this conclusion?
[22:15:00]
PHILLIP: Yes.
JENNINGS: I read the article in the New York Post that went chapter and verse through all the trainings --
(CROSSTALKS)
PORCHER: So, everything on the Post is absolutely right. (CROSSTALKS)
JENNINGS: Their training is to impede and obstruct. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.
MERCURIO: But that doesn't justify getting shot. And there's a cause and effect here.
PHILLIP: I can't speak to the crazy pills, but in the video --
JENNINGS: I mean, you're denying things that have been openly reported.
PHILLIP: Scott, listen, I'm not going to treat the New York Post like the Bible, okay? In the video --
JENNINGS: I didn't ask you to. I just asked you to be honest about what we -- no one's disputing this.
PHILLIP: You see the vehicle per perpendicular in the road. You also see seconds before this shooting happens another vehicle drive just past her.
CROSS: The vehicle went through.
PHILLIP: The vehicle is coming just like the other one was, encountered her vehicle, drove right around it. So, maybe there was a attempt to impede, but that attempt to impede was not enough to stop another car from just driving right past her just seconds before this all transpired.
So, I really wonder like, as you are trying to make this sound like some grand conspiracy, first of all, don't you have to prove that she actually was a member of whatever group you say she was a member of? And even if she was, doing what she was doing was probably unwise, but, again --
JENNINGS: I agree on that.
PHILLIP: But, again, not really clear to me that it's a crime that is punishable by arrest or death.
JENNINGS: The crime is driving your car directly at and into a federal law enforcement officer.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: I don't want us jump around here because of -- I'm talking about your accusation that -- or, you know, you're accusing her, like Trump is, perhaps that she's a professional agitator, that she was in some kind of convoy, whatever it is.
I'm just asking you, based on what she was actually doing in that moment, how are you so sure that the ICE vehicle couldn't have just driven right around her? JENNINGS: Look, all I can do is look at the video, listen to what the witnesses have said, and look at the facts. These people in these convoys are following ICE around, actively trying to impede law enforcement activity. That's number one, and, yes, that is a crime.
PHILLIP: Is following ICE around a crime?
JENNINGS: And number two, they are also being trained --
PHILLIP: Is following ICE around a crime, Scott?
JENNINGS: -- to actively impede, to -- for the purpose of impeding them, yes.
PHILLIP: Scott, is following ICE around a crime?
JENNINGS: For the purpose of impeding, yes.
PHILLIP: Well, what do you mean by impeding?
CROSS: No, it is not.
JENNINGS: Getting in their way, interfering with the --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: I get that. I get that. But don't you think that we actually have to demonstrate that she did that, that she was obstructing their ability to actually do their job? Could they have driven around her? That is a very important question.
JENNINGS: They asked her to stop and get out of the car. She wouldn't do it.
CROSS: No. that was --
(CROSSTALKS)
JENNINGS: Her wife told her to, quote, drive, baby, drive, and told her to drive --
PHILLIP: Okay. Listen, I'm not justifying her decision to drive, but I'm saying, watching the video from all the different angles, he says, get out of the F-ing car, and literally within seconds, shots are fired.
CROSS: After she says, I'm not mad --
JENNINGS: In a matter of seconds, the car moved and hit him in the shins.
MERCURIO: So, what would have been the worst thing that happened if she actually got away, right? Like --
CROSS: They had her license plate.
(CROSSTALKS)
JENNINGS: The issue is she thought she was running over him --
MERCURIO: Let's talk about cause and effect. You keep saying they're out there, they're agitating, they're doing these things.
JENNINGS: They are.
MERCURIO: Do you think people are doing this because they're mad? You know why they're doing it, Scott? They're afraid. They don't understand what --
JENNINGS: They don't look too afraid to me.
MERCURIO: Hang on a second. They don't understand what's happening in their communities right now.
JENNINGS: Is that reason to drive your car to a federal law enforcement officer?
CROSS: She did not drive her car into a --
MERCURIO: Most people are fine with cleaning up immigration. I'm fine with it. The border policy is working pretty well. For some people, having guys with masks and no cameras and very aggressive tactics and at times not having a search warrant scares people.
So what are they doing? They feel like they have to police the police, okay?
JENNINGS: Now, hang on one second. I want to answer you because it's --
MERCURIO: One more second. Please acknowledge that there is cause and effect in life, that a plumber in Minnesota isn't going, I got nothing to do tonight, I'm going to go agitate. They're afraid and they're protecting each other. So, if the government, if Trump --
JENNINGS: What is she afraid of?
MERCURIO: She's afraid of a president that's calling her an agitator when she's not, of Kristi Noem calling her a domestic terrorist when she's not. All of that ferments anger and fear, which creates conflict. And that's why we're here.
JENNINGS: My brother, I want to answer your question. If you do not like a federal law, if you do not like the way a federal law is being enforced, what we do in this country is call our congressman, call our legislators and say, let's change the law, let's change the policies. What we do not do is drive our cars into and over the people who are simply there enforcing the laws that are on the books.
[22:20:01]
MERCURIO: What about protests? JENNINGS: You can change laws -- I have no problem with protests. That's not protest. That is impeding federal law enforcement. Again, it's a perfectly legitimate political discussion.
MERCURIO: She wasn't impeding because they could get around.
LAMBERT: That's -- we've only seen 30 seconds of the video. We don't know what was there for the two hours before.
CROSS: So, then you've only seen 30 seconds, then how do you know that she's impeding federal law enforcement? That's literally not what the video shows.
PHILLIP: We're going to hold on this and hit pause for just a moment and continue on the other side of the break, but thank you very much to Darrin Porcher for being here with us.
Next for us, Tucker Carlson calls out the right for being hypocritical over their reaction to the shooting versus their reaction to Charlie Kirk's assassination.
Plus, it is the harshest threat yet. Donald Trump says the United States will own Greenland whether they like it or not.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: Tucker Carlson, of all people, is calling out the right for its response after an ICE agent shot and killed a woman in Minneapolis.
[22:25:04]
In his newsletter, Carlson asked, how come so few conservatives are viewing this story through a human lens? And why when something similar, like the killing of Charlie Kirk happens on the other side, did many on the left celebrate because they thought his political positions were wrong?
You'll remember this is how the Trump administration described what happened almost immediately after the encounter.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KRISTI NOEM, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: She then proceeded to weaponize her vehicle. This appears as an attempt to kill or to cause bodily harm to agents, an act of domestic terrorism.
J.D. VANCE, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: I can believe that her death is a tragedy while also recognizing that it's a tragedy of her own making and a tragedy of the far left, who has marshaled an entire movement, a lunatic fringe, against our law enforcement officers.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: A little bit more from Carlson. He says, did we disagree with her views on immigration? Probably, but that shouldn't matter. Her death is a tragedy regardless of her partisan affiliations, ideological beliefs, or who pulled the trigger. A woman was shot in the face.
And this kind of speaks to what Paul was saying, how -- which is that I actually do kind of think that a lot, maybe even most Americans, are probably in that place where they think, really, this shouldn't have happened and they probably don't like the demonizing of the victim in this case, which is what's being done at the highest levels.
LAMBERT: Well, look, I think everyone can agree, it's very sad that she got shot and she put herself in that position to do that. I don't -- I'm not understanding the comparison to Charlie Kirk at all. I'm not sure where Tucker is with that. I can agree with Tucker that, absolutely, it's tragic. I wish it hadn't happened. I think the officer that did it probably wish it hadn't happened. I think everyone does. Certainly, no one's celebrating. Again, there was celebration when Charlie Kirk got assassinated, but I don't think there's anybody on the right celebrating this. I don't, haven't seen that at all. We're talking about it, you know, factually about what happened and whether or not the officer was in the wrong or not.
We all know she was in the wrong for what she did. It's a question of what his, you know, response was in that incident. But nobody's saying this isn't tragic or sad.
CROSS: Well, I think people are not necessarily celebrating it, but justifying her getting shot and inventing a narrative that we can clearly see on the video is not supported.
Basically, in 2020, you all may remember, Donald Trump, according to then-Sec Def Mark Esper, asked, well, why can't you just shoot protesters, shoot them in the leg or something. He raised, this according to Esper to General Mark Milley at the time. During his confirmation hearing, current Sec Def Hegseth was asked about this by Senator Mazie Hirono at the time, would you carry out a lawful or an unlawful order like this? He suggested that he would do exactly what the president said.
So, when we see something like this happen and we see Donald Trump from the Oval Office in front of cameras, we see J.D. Vance from the press room suggests that, yes, this kind of thing is going to happen and basically give ICE the excuse that you can just shoot people with immunity, you'll be fine, shoot people with impunity and it's okay, that is a scary thought.
And if you've never been on the receiving end, because there is this question around law enforcement of who are they protecting and who are they protecting you from, and there are communities where you don't feel protected by law enforcement, you feel like they are trying to protect certain people from you. Of the people, of the hundreds of thousands of people in ICE custody right now, less than 5 percent are -- have committed a violent crime. They are snatching innocent people. We are normalizing masked men.
And the fact that we're debating it inflates this, it makes it seem like there is a right side to this. It makes it seem like there's something okay about this man shooting this woman. And we can all see what happened. The audience can see what happened on the video.
And if Ashli Babbitt wasn't a person who caused her own death, then it sounds really hypocritical to suggest that this woman caused her own death.
MERCURIO: This is where you lose the American people. You tell them that they're watching a video and they're not seeing what they're seeing. It's telling me --
JENNINGS: I agree. You guys should stop doing that.
MERCURIO: Right. Okay. I mean, hang on a second. What should have happened is to say, we don't know, we're investigating. Instead of saying she's a domestic terrorist, it's clear, we're done --
JENNINGS: Can I ask you question?
MERCURIO: Second point is -- yes, go ahead.
JENNINGS: Do you think it's right for the governor, the mayor, other Democratic officials, within minutes of this happening to say that man is a murderer?
MERCURIO: No, that was wrong too. And that's the problem. And this gets to the Tucker point, and I give him a lot of credit for saying what he's saying. We need to drill down as to why we're desensitized on both sides. Why are people so afraid that they're killing each other over politics?
CROSS: They're not killing each other.
MERCURIO: Hang on one second.
CROSS: This is not a both sides issue. We're not killing each other.
MERCURIO: Some people are --
CROSS: And I saw the video, that the man is a murder.
MERCURIO: There's violence. There's threats of violence.
CROSS: We saw him shoot somebody point blank.
MERCURIO: There's threats of violence.
[22:30:00]
So, I think it's a great conversation to start to have in the country. It would be healthy for us to explore that more as to what is causing people left and right to be so angry that they threaten violence or see through with violence. And I think that's one of the biggest issues that we have to deal with in the country.
UNKNOWN: What Democratic lawmaker is threatening violence or making --
(CROSSTALK) HAL LAMBERT, TRUMP DONOR AND FUNDRAISER, FORMER DESANTIS DONOR: Well, they've called ICE agents Nazis for the last six months.
(CROSSTALK)
TIFFANY CROSS, AUTHOR, "LOVE ME": They do appear to mimic the Gestapo.
(CROSSTALK)
CROSS: My language is causing people to get shot in the face? I doubt it. I doubt it.
(CROSSTALK)
CROSS: Your President suggested shooting people -- protesters in the leg. That is what causes violence.
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: There is a radicalized group of people in this country who believe they have been deputized by Democrats to impede --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Do you really not think that her intention in that moment was to run that officer over?
JENNINGS: I mean, I think her intention was to move the car forward with a law enforcement officer standing in front of it.
PHILLIP: But do you think she meant to try to kill him?
JENNINGS: I mean, I don't know, Abby, and I wouldn't have any way of knowing. All I know --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: I mean, don't you think that that is extremely --
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: All I know is, is that when --
PHILLIP: But I mean, Scott, don't you think that is extremely important as we try to understand what was going on here? I think if you're going to --
JENNINGS: Actually, no, I don't.
PHILLIP: --if you're going to -- but if you're going to -- if you're going to say she was trying to kill him, you're basically saying she intended to kill him. And you're -- I asked you just point blank and you wouldn't say that. So, was she trying to kill him or not?
JENNINGS: Well, I think if you're behind the wheel of a 4500-pound automobile and you've (inaudible) it towards another human being --
(CROSSTALK)
UNKNOWN: She didn't (inaudible) it. She turned the wheels to the right --
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: I know you -- she hit the guy in the leg.
UNKNOWN: It's not a normal behavior of a woman. How many --
PHILLIP: no, hold on, hold on. Do you think that it is possible that she was trying to escape the interaction?
JENNINGS: Escape?
UNKNOWN: Escape what?
CROSS: Escape the interaction. There are men coming from the car.
PHILLIP: I'm speaking English. Do you think it's possible that she was trying to escape the interaction?
JENNINGS: Escape what interaction?
PHILLIP: The interaction with the officer who was --
JENNINGS: What do you mean escape? Was she in danger?
CROSS: Well, two armed men were approaching her car, telling her get out of her car.
PHILLIP: I'm not confused. What part of escape is -- we not understand?
JENNINGS: Escape like as though she were being pursued.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: She was being -- hold on.
JENNINGS: She was asked to get out.
PHILLIP: She was being surrounded by law enforcement cars.
JENNINGS: Yes.
PHILLIP: Do you think it is possible that she was trying to flee?
JENNINGS: Flee? Yes. And I heard her wife say, drive, baby, drive.
PHILLIP: Right.
JENNINGS: And then she hit the accelerator.
PHILLIP: All right, great. So, look.
JENNINGS: And she was looking dead ahead.
PHILLIP: Okay, now, okay. Now, I feel like we're all in agreement that it is possible that she was not trying to kill the officer, that she was trying to flee, which may be wrong. But the intent does matter here.
JENNINGS: It doesn't.
PHILLIP: Because you are making it sound like she showed up there with the intent to kill that officer.
JENNINGS: No, I have never said that.
PHILLIP: There's no evidence of that.
JENNINGS: I have never said that, Abby. Here's what I believe. She showed up there with the intent to impede active federal law enforcement activities. She put herself in a position with a car in which she made a bad decision that caused the officer to believe his life was in imminent danger that is not in dispute. Whether she intended to do that or not when she woke up in the morning is irrelevant. What did she do?
PHILLIP: Well, listen.
JENNINGS: Drive her car into the --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: I think it does matter for the purpose of, I think where really, the -- as Paul said, the gray area in this is that the officer made decisions that, you know, we just had Darren here pointing out he may have made some poor decisions, too. She may have made some poor decisions. The problem though is that only one person is dead at the end of this interaction. And that is, I think, what's so troubling to so many.
MECURIO: And the comments and the actions of people on both sides immediately after we showed how anything is politicized now. Like it was immediate, it was within minutes that she was a domestic terrorist, she's bad, she's --
(CROSSTALK)
MECURIO: No, no, hang on second. And then on the other side, the left went a little crazy, too. And the problem is that no one's taking a breath and going what really happened here? I don't think she got up in the morning and decided to run over a cop.
(CROSSTALK)
CROSS: They were crazy enough to look at the video and draw a conclusion.
PHILLIP: We got to go. Next for us, when it comes to Donald Trump's threat to use force against Greenland. If you didn't believe him the first time, then you'll believe him now. Why, he says the U.S. may take it over, quote, "the hard way".
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:38:56]
PHILLIP: Tonight, Donald Trump is ramping up his threats against Greenland, suggesting that if the United States doesn't take over, its adversaries will.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: We are going to do something on Greenland, whether they like it or not, because if we don't do it, Russia or China will take over Greenland. And we're not going to have Russia or China as a neighbor, okay? I would like to make a deal, you know, the easy way. But if we don't do it, the easy way, we're going to do it the hard way.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Top diplomats for Greenland and Denmark met with the White House on Thursday as Greenland continues to insist that it is not for sale. One fascinating piece of information in the CNN reporting on this is that despite Trump proclaiming he wants to purchase Greenland since 2019, neither he nor anyone else in the administration has ever privately broached the idea with the Danish or Greenlandic officials. That's according to diplomats familiar with the issue.
[22:40:02]
So, what is this all about? The just want to make a bunch of noises about it even though they're not offering a price? Or do they really want to threaten Greenland at gunpoint?
JENNINGS: We're not threatening Greenland at gunpoint. They do want to make a deal. The correct answer here is he's negotiating. And his impulse on this, strategic impulse is not only correct, but it is rooted in over 150 years of American strategic thinking. No less than William Seward wanted it.
MECURIO: What's the strategy?
PHILLIP: But if it's not a gun point then why did he say the hard way? What's the hard way?
JENNINGS: He's negotiating.
PHILLIP: What's hard way?
(CROSSTALK)
CROSS: That's not a negotiation.
PHILLIP: The hard way is not a negotiation.
JENNINGS: We're going to buy it. My prediction is we're going to buy it and we'll all be happy about it when we do. Denmark should talk to the President about this because A, they don't have the capacity to defend it from the Russians or the Chinese.
(CROSSTALK)
CROSS: That is why they are in NATO.
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: And B, they don't do a good job of it anyway. So, why don't --
PHILLIP: Hey, guess what, Scott. They are NATO allies.
CROSS: Right.
PHILLIP: So, if they don't have the capacity, that's what we're here for.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Yeas, that's what we're here for. We are obligated to defend Greenland.
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: I know we are. But if we're obligated to defend it, and we can do a better job with it, why isn't the President in his right to say maybe we should just own it?
CROSS: But that is the whole point of NATO and if --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: The people who live there, they have --
(CROSSTALK)
CROSS: Fifty-six thousand people.
JENNINGS: And if they voted to join the United States, that would be amazing.
CROSS: But they didn't. They're not voting to join the United States.
JENNINGS: They have action shift.
CROSS: But they have said that -- there was an extensive report on "60 Minutes" where they were clear. They had --
JENNINGS: Oh, "60 Minutes" said it? Oh boy.
CROSS: Well, your favorite girlfriend, Bari Weiss (inaudible). So I thought that "60 Minutes" was good with you guys. But the point is --
(CROSSTALK) JENNINGS: Look, I'm for talking to these people. We love --
(CROSSTALK)
CROSS: But they're not trying to talk to them. The point is, if we go in and we're saying we're going to take Greenland the hard way, they are a member of NATO. That means our European allies are obligated to protect Greenland. And we basically -- since Donald Trump has come in office, he's threatened to annex Canada, the Panama Canal, and now Greenland. His global ambitions are starting to mirror that of Putin except we are Russia --
(CROSSTALK)
LAMBERT: Well, you're arguing that the hard way is militarily. I don't think that that's necessarily what he means.
(CROSSTALK)
CROSS: That's what he's done.
(CROSSTALK)
LAMBERT: The hard way could be you need to go deal with the vote in Greenland and get them all to vote.
(CROSSTALK)
CROSS: It would be so great to the audience to not piss in our face and tell us it's raining. He is not talking about having any kind of negotiations. We have seen his negotiations in Nigeria. We have seen his negotiations on the global stage with a lot of other places. It's ridiculous to suggest that. He is talking about, when he says the hard way, we are very clear on what he means. This isolates us even further on the global stage with our European allies. And they've been an amazing ally to us. They showed up during the Afghanistan war.
(CROSSTALK)
MECURIO: Can someone tell me what the information is? Can you tell me where this intelligence is that says a threat is imminent from China and Russia? This is why the American people sit at home and go, I can't believe these people are running the country. You really want people to think that China and Russia are going, I got to have Greenland. I don't care. I'm going. You know what Trump is doing? He's treating Greenland like it's a condo with bad curb repeal, and he's going to come in and clean it up.
JENNINGS: You seem to be --
MECURIO: So, here's the thing. There's also another country between us and Greenland. What is it? Oh, Canada. So Canada, who's an ally, is never going to come to our defense if there is an attack in the area of Greenland. This is just a power play. And Venezuela was just the appetizer. PHILLIP: Let me play what Trump said to "The New York Times". Let me
play what -- this might answer your question. Trump said to "The New York Times" about whether he would sacrifice NATO for Greenland.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
KATIE ROGERS, JOURNALIST: If you had to choose between obtaining Greenland and preserving NATO, what's your higher priority?
TRUMP: Well, I don't want to say that you, but it may be a choice.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
PHILLIP: I don't know if the threat here is that he's going to threaten to dissolve NATO and try to force the hand of the Danes to somehow give him, sell him Greenland. But that seems like a pretty risky bargain to strike here.
JENNINGS: That's a silly question. These are not either or propositions.
PHILLIP: Then why did he say it may be --
JENNINGS: Because he's non-committal about everything.
PHILLIP: I just love how you're like, that's a ridiculous question. Meanwhile, Trump is like, yes, you're right. It might be a choice.
JENNINGS: He's non-committal about everything. We are --
PHILLIP: I mean, do you believe that Trump says what he means? Do you believe that he's smart enough to answer a question if he thinks --
UNKNOWN: Isn't it really --
JENNNINGS: Are you guys --
MECURIO: Are you going to sleep better at night knowing that we own Greenland?
UNKNOWN: Yes.
UNKNOWN: Yes, absolutely.
MECURIO: Are you losing sleep?
JENNINGS: I mean, you only seem to be but moderately familiar with the shape of the earth and the globe.
MECURIO: No, I hear it's round. Is that right?
JENNINGS: It is sitting right between us and Russia. You do have Russia circling around. You do have china circling around.
[22:45:00]
It has critical earth minerals. We already have military bases there.
CROSS: Precisely. We already have military bases there. But you're talking about --
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: And Denmark hasn't done a great job with this. We could do well with this.
(CROSSTALK)
CROSS: But we can do well with lot of things, Scott. How does that justify going in and colonizing a country?
(CROSSTALK)
CROSS: You cannot just go into somebody's homeland and say it's mine, I want to take it.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: I continue to ask the question, if Trump is serious about buying Greenland, why hasn't he made an offer?
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Why hasn't he actually raised this issue privately --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Hey, the reporting I just read to you is that they have never since 2019 when he first brought this up, they have never raised this issue privately to the Danes or to the Greenlanders. Why? If he's so serious about it, why hasn't it ever come up privately?
LAMBERT: I don't know that it hasn't come up privately. I don't care that was reported that way. President Trump's been clear on this. And by the way again, there's no military action that's going to happen here. The hard way does not mean we're going to send troops in because you don't even need to do that. There's 30,000 people there.
(CROSSTALK)
MECURIO: -- doesn't even know that Denmark legally OWNED THE PLACE.
LAMBERT: The whole point of this is that every -- every question is to try to get some way that Trump wouldn't go after Greenland, meaning like the NATO thing. Would you dissolve NATO or give up Greenland? That's an idiotic question for a reporter to ask.
(CROSSTALK)
CROSS: It's not. How would --
(CROSSTALK)
MECURIO: Aren't you concerned about the message to the world if this happens?
JENNINGS: He's been strenghtening NATO in every term.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: If it's an idiotic question, if it's really off the table, the White House could take it off the table at any moment. They could say we are not, any circumstances, considering invading a NATO ally. They could take that off the table. That would not be an unreasonable thing to do. They are the ones not doing that. On top of that, then you have Stephen Miller saying it's about force and it's about power and we can do whatever we want. Greenland belongs to us. That's what he said.
So look, I -- my question actually, think buying it might be the only way because invading Greenland would be catastrophic. But I'm so wondering, what's the price? What's the price that Trump's willing to pay? What's the price the American people are willing to pay?
LAMBERT: We have 30,000 people there. Here's an easier answer.
PHILLIP: It's 57,000.
LAMBERT: Well, whatever you pay, a certain number of those people, there's a certain amount of money they're going to vote a certain way.
PHILLIP: Unfortunately, that is not how purchasing entire countries works.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: But next for us, the President takes a policy page from the one and only Bernie Sanders involving credit cards. We'll debate that next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:53:04]
PHILLIP: Tonight, Donald Trump channeling his inner Bernie Sanders. The President has called affordability a left-wing hoax the last few months, but now he has a new policy proposal that would address the so-called hoax, one that has been long supported by the Vermont senator. On Truth Social, Trump wrote, "We will no longer let the American public be ripped off by credit card companies." He added that he's calling for a one-year cap on credit card interest rates at 10 percent which he says will become effective on January 20th.
Now, Sanders and Republicans Senator Josh Hawley introduced a bill last February that would do just that, but it never gained any traction. I should also note Trump did campaign on this in the last election, but first of all, I'm not sure how you cap credit card interest rates by Truth Social post, but he's clearly recognizing that he's got a pivot to the populist stuff that he's been neglecting for the last year. CROSS: You know who oversees this? The CFPB -- the very agency that
they're trying to get rid of, the one that they're trying to slash vote just ask for more funding for the agency and he also rejected an eight dollar cap from the Biden administration era. So, this all seems very political. It seems like a distraction. I'm not really sure how he would enforce it. Like literally, I don't know how he would enforce the credit card agencies, doing this again on social media. I have no clue. But I do, I do think the average credit card rate is 22.3 percent?
PHILLIP: I think it's higher. I think it's more like 28 percent.
CROSS: Yes, something ridiculous.
(CROSSTALK)
LAMBERT: And we had those under the CFPB. The CFPB did not reduce credit card interest rates.
(CROSSTALK)
CROSS: But it's their department that regulates this kind of issue.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: I do wonder what you think. I do wonder what you think about that.
(CROSSTALK)
LAMBERT: You took it away and therefore that's the problem.
CROSS: I'm saying it's ridiculous that he wants to do this while he's also trying to slash the agency that is supposed to regulate this issue.
PHILLIP: Well, one the reasons that CFPB wasn't able to do this is because it probably requires an act of Congress. Now, Trump is the leader of his party that controls both houses of Congress. He could push his party to do this, but he's not, I mean, and by the way, a lot of Conservatives don't think this is a good idea, or at least they didn't when Bernie Sanders said he wanted to do it.
LAMBERT: Well, look, I think at the end of the day, you know, if this were to be implemented by Congress, you would have a lot less people getting credit. And let me tell you, I'm not a fan of 22 percent interest rates. I don't do that with credit cards. I know people have to and it's unfortunate. They shouldn't do that. It's terrible for people. It's terrible that credit cards companies do it. But they do it. There's a huge market for it.
If they could charge less and still make money they would do it. They're basing it on the risk of the creditor that they're loaning to. If you take away and say look it's going to be 10 percent, you're going to have far less people having credit cards. They're just going to go out of business. They're going to cancel those credit cards. That's the way that'll play out.
MECURIO: I don't think it's a coincidence that this comes out after the Jobs Report. The Jobs Report hasn't been great for him. It was maybe one slight positive that the unemployment rate dipped a little bit.
[22:55:03]
This is what he does. I'm going to dangle some candy in front of the American public. Personally -- is this my camera? President Trump, do it. Please. I would love a 10 percent credit card. I'm going to go buy a Rolex after the show. I mean, it's not ever going to happen. The industry is never going to allow that.
PHILLIP: It was the weakest Jobs Report since 2003 for the year 2025.
JENNINGS: Well, there's some other economic data from this week that looks pretty good actually. I mean on the credit card thing, again, I think you're correct, it would take an act of Congress to do this. That is something they've been debating for quite some time. I also agree that, you know, having the government arbitrarily set prices effectively for private services is not something conservatives have traditionally supported in the past. So, will this get traction? I have my doubts, but it's probably interesting politics for him to throw it out.
PHILLIP: All right, everybody. Thank you very much. We'll be back in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[23:00:20]
PHILLIP: And a programming note before we go, don't miss our Saturday conversation show, "Table for Five" tomorrow morning, 10 A.M. Eastern. In the meantime, "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
