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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Trump Doubles Down On Calls For Republicans To Nationalize Elections; Trump Puts Gabbard In Charge Of Election Security; Trump Says Country Should Move On From Epstein Files After Latest Release; Clintons Agree To Testify On Epstein Case; Schumer Says ICE Should Identify Themselves. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired February 03, 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]
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: And we are all rooting for her. Thanks so much for joining us here tonight on The Source. We really appreciate it. We'll see you back tomorrow night. CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip starts now.
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST: Tonight, as the president tries to nationalize elections based on conspiracies.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: The state is an agent for the federal government.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: He's putting Tulsi Gabbard in charge, who's at the center of a mysterious whistleblower complaint.
Plus.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The real sanctuary city is where money and power protect you from the consequences of sex trafficking.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: The list of names in Jeffrey Epstein's orbit gets longer, but the attention for justice gets shorter.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I think it's time now for the country to maybe get onto something else.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Also, the Senate's top Democrat describes ICE as Donald Trump's secret police, while Minnesota's governor says agents are now targeting children. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. TIM WALZ (D) MINNESOTA: We've got video footage at night of ICE officers walking around schools and following the buses.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: And Dr. Oz floats a prescription for you to solve the national debt. Learn less, work longer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. MEHMET OZ, ADMINISTRATOR, CENTERS FOR MEDICARE & MEDICAID SERVICES: It would generate about $3 trillion to the U.S. economy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Live at the table, Keith Boykin, Batya Ungar-Sargon, Tim Parrish, Herbie Ziskend and Stacy Schneider. Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here they do.
Good evening. I'm Abby Phillip. Let's get right to what America is talking about. We are often told when the president said that he really means this, but when it comes to talking, taking over the nation's elections, Donald Trump has been pretty clear he wants to do it.
After the White House tried to reframe, minimize and ultimately sanitize Trump's unconstitutional call for Republicans to nationalize elections, the president is doubling down tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I want to see elections be honest. And if a state can't run an election, I think the people behind me should do something about it. Because, you know, if you think about it, a state is an agent for the federal government in elections. I don't know why the federal government doesn't do them anyway.
The federal government should get involved. These are agents of the federal government to count the votes. If they can't count the votes legally and honestly, then somebody else should take over.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: And now, after backlash against Trump sending Tulsi Gabbard to an FBI raid at an election center in Georgia, the White House not only defended it, but proclaimed that she is now in charge of election security.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAROLINE LEAVVIT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Tulsi Gabbard has been tapped by the president of the United States to oversee the sanctity and the security of our American elections. She's working directly alongside the FBI Director Kash Patel. This is a coordinated whole of government effort to ensure that our elections again are fair and transparent.
Moving forward, I don't see anything wrong with the president tasking cabinet member to pursue an issue that most people want to see solved.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Gabbard, the nation's top intelligence officer, remains at the center of a mysterious and classified whistleblower complaint.
Let's start with Trump insisting that the elections need to be federalized. He even said in that bite that we played that federal agents need to take over the counting of elections. Stacy Schneider, when you hear that from the president, first of all, should we believe him? And secondly, I don't know, should someone also provide him with a copy of the Constitution?
STACY SCHNEIDER, CRIMINAL DEFENSE TRIAL ATTORNEY: That's a perfect question. First of all, to your first question, should we believe him? Yes. When have we ever seen him not float his idea, get everyone all agitated, continue to float the idea, and then eventually follow through on it so he could try it?
He can't accomplish it legally. The Constitution has an elections clause that mandates that the states govern the time, place and manner of our national elections. So for Trump to do this or accomplish this, the only way he could try to do it is by executive order, but it would be an unconstitutional executive order. So we're going to have all this dialogue floating around for days and backtalk and coming back again. He legally can't do it. Will he try? Probably.
PHILLIP: So, Batya. I mean, a lot of people try to take what Trump says and they put it through the washing machine, launder it, and it comes out as something else. But Trump keeps repeatedly insisting that he wants the federal government to run elections in states that he lost because he thinks that if he lost, it wasn't there.
He's also said he regrets not seizing voting machines in 2020 again when he lost an election. Is this productive? And at what point should Republicans say something about these lies?
[22:05:00]
BATYA UNGAR-SARGON, NEWSNATION HOST, "BATYA": I don't think it's productive, especially because it's impossible. Thank God. Not constitutional and, you know, so not going to happen. I do think that the SAVE Act is a great idea. 83 percent of Americans support it, as I learned on CNN this morning. And that includes, you know, 76 percent of black Americans, 82 percent of Latinos, 85 percent of white Americans.
So to me, that's the move. Push the SAVE Act and force Democrats to admit that they are against what 83 percent of Americans want. I think this is all kind, just a distraction, a bit of nonsense.
HERBIE ZISKEND, FORMER WHITE HOUSE PRINCIPAL DEPUTY COMMS DIRECTOR, BIDEN ADMIN.: Can I say one thing we talk about distraction, something that's not a distraction that doesn't get a lot of attention, is that in Donald Trump's second term, every single one of his judicial nominees, there's been 38, every single one, has said in sworn testimony, has not answered the question sworn testimony, whether Trump lost the 2020 election or what happened on January6.
These are lifetime federal judgeships. These aren't spokespeople at the Department of Commerce. And, and it's really important as we talk about what's happening in Fulton county, as we talk about Gabbard, that we not lose sight of the fact that the president states is reshaping the judiciary in ways that are deeply concerning. And frankly, this is going to be a problem for the country for decades to come.
PHILLIP: Let me play. This is also Speaker Mike Johnson. And as you listen to this, just remember that Mike Johnson, before he was speaker back in 2020, was one of the lead proponents of trying to invalidate the results of the 2020 election. But here we are in 2026, and here is what he is saying today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-KY) HOUSE SPEAKER: What you're hearing from the president is his frustration about the lack of some of the blue states, frankly, of enforcing these things and making sure that they are free and fair elections.
We had three House Republican candidates who were ahead on Election Day in the last election cycle. And every time a new tranche of ballots came in, they just magically whittled away until their leads were lost. And no series of ballots that were counted after Election Day were our candidates ahead on any of those counts. It just, it looks on its face to be fraudulent. Can I prove that? No.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Proof is important. Have any proof? No. But when you count votes and we lose, it's fraudulent.
TIM PARRISH, CONSERVATIVE STRATEGIST: Look, I think that there is a question, Abby. Lots of Americans have questions about the integrity of their elections. And I don't think that's an unair for -- unfair point. I don't think it's an unfair point for the president or Congress to invest resources, as Batya mentioned via the SAVE Act, to ensure that not only do we have qualified American citizens voting in our elections, but to invest those resources to ensure that we have safe.
PHILLIP: I mean, you've got to. You've got to acknowledge, though, Tim, that when you have elected officials like Mike Johnson making things up and saying nonsense like that. Yes. There's no question that. That some Americans will hear that and think it's legitimate, even though he has no proof, even though there's nothing actually untoward about votes being counted and it not being in his preferred candidate's favor.
So none of that, I think, is justified. That doesn't justify continuing with these lies in this, the year of our Lord 2026, six years after 2020.
PARRISH: And I think that all the more reason why we should invest resources into ensuring we have safe and secure elections so that those --
PHILLIP: How about we just stop lying about the elections.
PARRISH: Well, look, Abby, if people see a --
PHILLIP: That's really simple, elegant solution to this, stop lying.
PARRISH: If people see things on the ground and they raise those concerns, and we can point to those investments that have been made that have made these elections safe and secure, I think that's the way that you go about doing it. But you're never going to stop people from having questions or pointing to irregularities that they've seen.
SCHNEIDER: But there shouldn't be questions anymore. This was lawsuited all over the federal courts back then, and every single judge, whether Trump appointed or not, found that there was no election fraud. That's what evidence is all about.
So Mike Johnson's talk about what magically happened doesn't really count in the United States. It's based on evidence. And to continue to spend taxpayer dollars to send in troops of FBI agents to raid the Fulton County Elections office, even though they had a warrant to do so, a judge signed off on it. I'm not saying that they did anything improper. They followed the warrant.
But the very idea of them going after and seeking a warrant to accomplish this six years later, when it's been disproven over and over again, and then to send that the -- Tulsi Gabbard there, when it is not her job to be on the ground conducting law enforcement.
She is head of National Intelligence. She is supposed to be monitoring the collection of foreign and national intelligence. She's not a law enforcement officer. She was sent there for the optics of it. She was sent there to legitimize Trump's investigation and I do call it Trump's investigation, because I don't think any of these agencies or departments would be doing this on their own based on what we know today.
KEITH BOYKIN, FORMER CLINTON WHITE HOUSE AIDE: And that's really the issue to Stacy, because it used to be a time in our country where the president was supposed to uphold the integrity of our election system, uphold the integrity of our democracy, not to question those things.
[22:10:00]
Yes, there have been Democrats, Republicans, Independents, who've questioned elections for centuries. But the president of the United States, the person who holds the highest office, has always had that responsibility to keep the country together, to keep the country -- to have the faith in their electoral system. This guy doesn't care. He didn't even show up to the inauguration of his successor, and he's still challenging the results six years later. I tell you one thing about this, though, why Republicans should be
trying to push him, and that's because it doesn't help Republicans in the 2026 midterms or the 2028 election, because the elections are about the future, not about the past. Nobody, nobody wants to go and relitigate the 2020 election, except for a small group of Trump fans.
Everybody else has moved on, like Trump wants us to do about Epstein. Everybody else has moved on from 2020. Let's focus on the present.
PARRISH: I think there is. If there's a criminal complaint and a judge issues a warrant, our federal law enforcement resources and agencies do have an obligation to go investigate those. And I would say that, Keith, that I agree with you. I wish that every politician that loses an election would move on. But we saw Hillary Clinton do the same thing with the stolen. They stole the election. We saw Chuck Schumer push a stolen election. Every politician.
BOYKIN: Every president. Every president.
PARRISH: I said someone stole the election. There were irregularities. And we have an obligation to the American people to investigate those irregularities.
SCHNEIDER: I want to correct something you said. There's a nuance to what you said that isn't really right. There is no criminal complaint here. There is Donald Trump's complaint.
So when the U.S. Attorney's Office went to a magistrate judge to get a warrant to go into this election office in Georgia, all they had to do was present probable cause. That is a very low bar. Was there, is there cause to begin an investigation and to look for evidence? That doesn't mean there's proof. That doesn't mean it's proof beyond a reasonable doubt. It means there's cause.
It's very little that goes into an arrest warrant. It's one witness can swear --
BOYKIN: In this case it was special with Agent Hugh Robert Evans.
SCHNEIDER Right. One agent.
BOYKIN: One person to testify there was probable cause --
SCHNEIDER: Correct.
BOYKIN: -- there might be some sort of criminal activity.
PARRISH: So do you disagree with the judge issuing the warrant?
SCHNEIDER: I can't disagree. The judge makes that decision. That's within their discretion.
PARRISH: Right.
SCHNEIDER: So I'm not saying that it was wrong that they followed through on the warrant they obtained. What I am saying is the motives for obtaining a warrant in the first place are suspicious because I don't think anyone in the government was planning on investigating the 2020 election until Donald Trump started getting on the track again that it was fraudulent and it needs to be investigated. I want the people prosecuted who did this, did what. We don't have proof of that.
PHILLIP: I mean, I have an honest question, Batya. I mean, isn't it legitimate for people to be suspicious or skeptical of what the Trump administration is doing around elections? When Trump seems so enamored with things that are demonstratively false about his loss in 2020 and has already said multiple times that he is upset with relitigating that particular issue.
Shouldn't people actually be worried that Trump is trying to undo a legitimate, free and fair election to rig it in his favor? Because that's what he would have done in 2020 if he had been given a chance.
UNGAR-SARGON: You mean a past election or a future election?
PHILLIP: I'm saying that he is -- he is convinced that any election that isn't in his favor is not fair, and that's based on complete imaginary things in his own head. So if he's meddling with elections now, shouldn't people be worried about that?
UNGAR-SARGON: Well, you can't really meddle in a past election.
PHILLIP: I'm talking about future elections.
UNGAR-SARGON: I mean --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: And also, by the way, he's trying to meddle in past elections.
UNGAR-SARGON: Sort of like, OK..
PHILLIP: Anyway, I mean, he is meddling. He is both meddling in past elections, and he's talking about future.
UNGAR-SARGON: If the judge heard information that caused them to issue a warrant, I would like to know what that information --
BOYKIN: Right.
UNGAR-SARGON: -- was to see if I consider it to be compelling or not. But, I mean --
PHILLIP: The president's motivations for what he is doing. His motivation is that I lost. So therefore it is invalid. And that's not true. So then he's going and he's meddling in past election results and future election.
UNGAR-SARGON: But that's not true.
(CROSSTALK) PHILLIP: Wouldn't a reasonable -- wouldn't a reasonable person look at that and say, that doesn't make any sense? Why is he doing that? Is he trying to make it so that in the future, if he ever loses, it looks like he wins?
UNGAR-SARGON: Well, first of all, if -- If he won, which I believe he won --
BOYKIN: Then what do you want the 2020 election?
UNGAR-SARGON: No, I mean I think he lost.
BOYKIN: OK.
UNGAR-SARGON: If he lost the election, what is the problem with looking at the evidence? All the evidence will suggest that. Right? All of the evidence will be there to back up that.
SCHNEIDER: We've already litigated that.
UNGAR-SARGON: And second of all, as Tim pointed out earlier, there are millions and millions of Americans who feel that our elections are not safe. Now, if I was in charge, this is not the way I would go about reassuring them that our elections are free and fair. I would focus on the SAVE Act. I would focus on citizenship. I would focus on voter right, voter photo ID, which is something that the vast majority of Americans support. So this is not the avenue I would choose.
[22:15:03]
But he is representing millions and millions of Americans who have a lot of doubts about how things play.
BOYKIN: But the --
UNGAR-SARGON: Now, I think the problem is that exactly what Keith said. Americans are over this. They are looking forward, not backwards. But by the same token, that the president is talking about something no one cares about. So are we, you know, like, why are we talking about this?
PHILLIP: Because he's talking about it. That's why --
UNGAR-SARGON: So what? We don't have to talk about everything he's talking about.
PHILLIP: But not only is he talking about it, he's actually acting on it.
UNGAR-SARGON: It's not just a warrant from a judge.
PHILLIP: Hold on. It's not acting. He's acting on it. He has now appointed Tulsi Gabbard to do what, exactly? I mean, they haven't even said what the scope of her job is. All we know is that Trump falsely claims that elections that were not rigged were rigged.
So, if he now has put someone in charge of unrigging elections that were never rigged in the first place, what does he do?
UNGAR-SARGON: Abby, if you think they're not rigged. What is the problem with people doing investigations?
BOYKIN: Because we've already investigated this.
SCHNEIDER: A better use for our government resources.
UNGAR-SARGON: I literally just said, I do. Yes, but I'm saying, like, there's nothing like, legitimate about it. They have an evidence. They brought it to a judge, the judge signed off on.
SCHNEIDER: And no one's saying it's an illegitimate action. The motivation behind the action appears to be quite illegitimate. We're litigating now, something. Trump is looking to have people prosecuted for election fraud. So now they've got to start backward, go through the records and try to find somebody who committed an illegal act. This has been put before more than once.
UNGAR-SARGON: Someone to be prosecuted if they committed election fraud. Right. You agree with that?
SCHNEIDER: And you know what I would do, right? If somebody was guilty of a crime, I would send -- even the Attorney general, Pam Bondi, who is mysteriously absent from this entire process. She's in charge of the DOJ, and she's in charge of the FBI. So why is Tulsi Gabbard in Georgia? She has nothing to do with this. She's not part of law enforcement. This is a show. And you have to recognize this is a bit of a political stunt to appease Donald Trump. It seems hard to look at any of that.
UNGAR-SARGON: To find that same token the fact that --
PHILLIP: Leave it.
UNGAR-SARGON: OK.
PHILLIP: OK, we're going to leave it there. All right, next for us, when asked about Jeffrey Epstein's victims, Donald Trump says it is time to move on this, as the Clintons have now agreed to testify. But Republicans say it's not necessary for Trump to do the same.
Plus, the Senate's top Democrat demands that ICE agents identify themselves and calls them Trump's secret police. We'll debate.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:21:51]
PHILLIP: Tonight, public demands for more information and accountability regarding the Epstein files are only growing. But President Trump thinks it's time for America to simply move on.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: A lot of women who are survivors of Epstein's are unhappy with those redactions that came out. Some of them entire witness interviews are totally blacked out. Do you think that they should be more transparent?
TRUMP: They thought they released too much. You know, I heard that. And you tell me something else. I think it's really time for the country to get onto something else, really. Now that nothing came out about me other than it was a conspiracy against me literally by Epstein and other people. But I think it's time now for the country to maybe get onto something else.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Shocking, Keith, but not surprising that a question about the victims would have answer about Donald Trump.
BOYKIN: No, it's not surprising. It's sad. He makes it all about himself. Donald Trump has mentioned more than 38,000 times in the latest batch of Epstein files released by the FBI, according to the New York Times analysis. 38,000 times. He's the current president. He was the President United States at the time when Epstein mysteriously died in prison.
And now he wants to pretend like this is not an issue after he made it an issue for an entire year during the campaign and his first few months in office. This is looking beyond difficult to believe. And the worst part about it is they're trying to turn the attention to Bill and Hillary Clinton, who I think go ahead and investigate them all you want, but Bill Clinton left office in 2001. That was 25 years ago. Hillary Clinton left office in 2013. That was 13 years ago.
Why are we digging him up instead of going after the guy who was the president States, who has a relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, who knew him, who went to parties with him, was on a birthday notream (ph) and said he had a lot of fun hanging out with him. Well, he's the one we should be investigating.
PHILLIP: OK. Our own Manu Raju, he asked that very question of James Comer and here's the answer that he got.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: President Trump's name is mentioned more than a thousand times in these documents. Why not try to get more information from him, try to get him to testify?
REP. JAMES COMER (R-KY) OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE CHAIR: Well, I've note. Well, I've noticed that every time you all do a gaggle like this with President Trump, somebody asked him about Epstein. So he's been answering questions about Epstein.
RAJU: Not an oath.
COMER: Well, has Bill Clinton ever answered any questions on Epstein or Hillary Clinton? So this is going to be a new opportunity and we'll go from there.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: You know, unsatisfying to say the least, but yes.
SCHNEIDER: And also, you know, there are more than a thousand survivors. How do you think again, they feel? Trump already said several weeks back before. I'm sorry, a couple of months back, before the Epstein Transparency Act where they're ordered to release the files. Why is everyone paying attention to this? Let's move on. There are a thousand survivors waiting for some kind of vindication, justice, prosecution of unprocessed --
PHILLIP: Or even a phone call from the Justice Department asking them what they know.
SCHNEIDER: Yes. An interview from law enforcement to help with an investigation of additional perpetrators. And they're getting hearing from the President of the United States. Let's move on.
[22:25:03]
It has nothing to do with me. Nothing going, I mean, how do they take that? And I've met some of them here at CNN and just frustration they are having with the way the government is treating to them and to have to watch television and listen to something like that. Being a survivor of those type of horrible acts, I can only imagine how their battle continues.
UNGAR-SARGON: And have you seen any evidence of new crimes in the millions of documents that have been released? Like any criminal activity?
SCHNEIDER: I have not reviewed 6 million pages that the government. Yes.
UNGAR-SARGON: Have you seen any crime?
SCHNEIDER: So there have been reports from senators who have read reports that we haven't seen that there are perhaps 20 individuals who may be potential co-conspirators who may be perpetrators of crimes and they are asking for those people to be investigated.
We're being told there's nothing there. We are told that over and over again. In July of 2025, the FBI and the DOJ issued a report, a memo to the public saying back then we looked at every file that exists, not telling us there were 6 million pages. We looked in drawers, we looked in file cabinets, we looked at all our Epstein documents and there's no reason to perpetrate anybody else.
Yet, Donald Trump came forth a few months ago and ordered the DOJ and Pam Bondi to investigate well known Democrats including Bill Clinton. And she initiated that very day and said thank you Mr. President, I'm on it. I'm appointing a U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York to investigate these Democrats who you named to the Epstein.
UNGAR-SARGON: So that's a no You haven't seen evidence.
PHILLIP: But to her point about the willingness to prosecute Bill Clinton or whoever else on the Democratic side, Todd Blanche.
UNGAR-SARGON: Prosecute or investigate?
PHILLIP: Investigate presumptively to prosecute, I don't know. But I presume they're investigating to prosecute. Todd Blanche seems to want to insist that it's okay to just dismiss the people who are showing up in the files because it's not criminal to party with jeopardy efficiency. Nobody said that.
But I think the question that the victims are asking is why then is just the Justice Department not following through on the signals that might be there and doing deeper investigation. And that I think is the thing that people don't understand about how they're going about this.
SCHNEIDER: Can I just answer your question actually?
UNGAR-SARGON: Yes. Sure.
SCHNEIDER: How can anybody, a defense attorney, a prosecutor, anyone know if there's indicia of criminal acts in those pages when they're redacted? And we're trusting the government who didn't want to give those pages out to do the redacting so no one can answer your question.
PHILLIP: And obviously the victims, they are the keepers of a lot of this information. A lot of them want to be interviewed. They want a true investigation, and they don't feel like that's happening.
UNGAR-SARGON: I'm just -- OK. I just -- I really agree with the president. I think that most Americans just do not care about this. This has been an obsession of elites on the right and now elites on the left. Elites on the right were obsessed with it when they thought they could use it to hurt leftists, and now the left is obsessed with it because they think they can use it to hurt the right.
Everything we're seeing in this document dump is evidence of people who exhibited horrific judgment. I have no problem with these people being kind of chased out of public life for continuing to associate with this person.
But there is just no evidence, and there has never been any evidence that the criminal aspect, the underage girls, the pedophilia, the child pornography, that any of that went further than Epstein and Maxwell.
PARRISH: We know that until we have the evidence.
SCHNEIDER: The survivors wouldn't agree with you.
UNGAR-SARGON: I'm saying, so far, there has been no evidence of that. I'm looking through all of the documents, and so far, there is still no evidence. I'm open to me. I just feel like it's like the obsession. I mean, bringing the Clintons in, it's ridiculous.
BOYKIN: You just said you agree with Donald Trump. You just said you agree with Donald Trump. UNGAR-SARGON: I'm saying it on CNN.
BOYKIN: You just said you agree with Donald Trump.
UNGAR-SARGON: It's time to move on.
ZISKEND: And I think -- I think it's interesting you want to move on from this, but not from ballots in Fulton County from six years ago. And I will say that --
UNGAR-SARGON: I also literally said, I am not interested in that story at all.
ZISKEND: OK, well, we're not interested in either one.
UNGAR-SARGON: Yes.
ZISKEND: There was a poll a couple of weeks ago that showed that 6 percent of Americans, 6 said that they feel satisfied with what's been released from the Epstein files. This has been not only nefarious, it's been incompetent. Millions of pages are redacted that shouldn't be. There are victims' names that have been released that should not have been. There's files that aren't -- there's pages that aren't there that should be there. It's completely incompetent.
And on top of it, the President States is saying, let's just move on. When it was the President who's trying to block this from happening in the first place. It started in his base. I have to say morally and politically this is a growing problem for him. He can wish it away. He can try to divert and talk about Fulton County.
UNGAR-SARGON: I just want to cite the wonderful Harry Enten, who had an amazing segment on this six months ago where he -- CNN asked pollsters what percentage of Americans this is a top voting issue for them. And you know what the answer was? A big, fat zero. Like, this is just not -
(CROSSTALK)
[22:30:14]
PHILLIP: Yes, I don't know that it needs to be a top voting issue for Americans for it to not be important to them, how it's being handled. But I also just want to note, I mean, you alluded to the potential problems for Trump.
This Clinton deposition, Trump actually had some nice things to say about Clinton when he was asked about it and it could very well be because he recognized that there's a precedent being set here, that they're going to haul a former president in and a family member into Congress to testify about Epstein. And you better believe that when Democrats have the opportunity to do the same, they will do the same for Donald Trump. As that is a -- that is a political problem for him.
(CROSSTALK)
UNGAR-SARGON: Abby, can't you just give him credit for saying something kind about --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: No, I'm not --
(CROSSTALK)
UNGAR-SARGON: Very nice thing.
(CROSSTALK)
UNGAR-SARGON: I literally just said two negative things about --
(CROSSTALK)
BOYKIN: Oh my gosh.
PHILLIP: There's no credit -- I'm not crediting him.
UNGAR-SARGON: He said a very nice thing about Bill Clinton. He was against --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: I'm not giving him demerits.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: It doesn't matter what the motivation is. It doesn't really matter what the motivations, whether it's nice or not. I don' really care. The issue is, is Trump now at risk of being hauled before Congress -- to testify on the Epstein files if Democrats retake control?
PARRISH: Well, first of all, Abby, I would say this. You're talking about a president who is quite used to the left hauling him into court to testify, to do sorts of things.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: He's never been hauled into the halls of Congress to testify.
PARRISH: I would say this. I've never personally had a conversation with the President or anyone close to him about this issue. I have a sneaking suspicion that if he was to ask to come testify, I think he would. I don't think that the -- I mean, you guys can laugh.
BOYKIN: Donald Trump? Donald Trump?
(CROSSTALK)
PARRISH: You guys can laugh, but she raises a valid point.
(CROSSTALK)
BOYKIN: He wouldn't even testify as in court hearing. PARRISH: This is why I talked about the fact that -- actually on this
show -- that we should not politicize this issue, that the full weight of the government should be behind bringing justice to these victims. And everybody should be ashamed of themselves for saying Republican, Democrat, Donald Trump, this isn't a political issue. This is about people that were victimized and we should be investigating --
(CROSSTALK)
PARRISH: Can I finish my point? We should be leaving no stone unturned on this issue. So, I don't think that this is like a Republican jab. You're absolutely right. The right used it when they thought it was going to hurt the left. The left used it when they thought they were going to hurt the right.
(CROSSTALK)
BOYKIN: Donald Trump is the one Trump is the one who is --
(CROSSTALK)
PARRISH: -- should be doing an investigation that brings justice to the victims.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: All right. It's also -- hold on.
(CROSSTALK)
PARRISH: You just said, Sir, that you think that we should not investigate the Clintons because they left office 20 years ago. That's not right. We should investigate everybody.
(CROSSTALK)
BOYKIN: No, I said, by all means, go ahead and investigate them. But they left office 13 years ago or 25 years ago.
(CROSSTALK)
PARRISH: Wait, there is no but. There is no but. I don't care if they (inaudible) office when Jesus Christ was here. They should be investigated.
(CROSSTALK)
BOYKIN: Yes, there is a but. You don't investigate one side and not investigate the other. Instead, you're actually conducting a fair and partial investigation.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: All right.
(CROSSTALK) STACEY SCHNEIDER, CRIMINAL DEFENSE TRIAL ATTORNEY: This last quick point, this wasn't political until the government who said when Trump came into office, we're releasing the Epstein files. It's on my desk, Pam Bondi. It's coming out, we're telling it to all of you, and then all of sudden, no, we're not giving you anything. Then it became political. So, don't blame that on anyone but the government.
(CROSSTALK)
PARRISH: No stone unturned, investigate everybody and bring justice to the victims.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Next for us, a top Democrat says that he has had enough of Donald Trump's secret police and is demanding ICE agents now identify themselves.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:38:04]
PHILLIP: Two weeks -- that is how long the Department of Homeland Security is now funded for a part of today's deal to avoid a government shutdown. That window gave Democrats an opportunity to propose changes to ISIS policies and their tactics, including the Department's policy on masks.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D) MINORITY LEADER: Defending ICE agents wearing masks and giving them special treatment, especially when they're so brutal and thuggy, is totally against the views of most Americans who want basic accountability. Why are some Republicans speaking so loudly trying to defend masked secret police?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: This comes as multiple reports found federal agents using facial recognition technology to not only track undocumented immigrants but also protesters, as well. Tim, is it out of bounds for Democrats to insist on no masks? You can also respond to Chuck Schumer describing them as a secret police for that reason.
PARRISH: Absolutely. Yes, Abby, I think that the mask issue -- look, I want law enforcement that's accountable. When I was a police officer, I wore my name on my outer vest and I gave people my card and badge number and cat ID if they asked for those things so they could identify me. I'm completely okay with law enforcement officers identifying themselves.
However, the number that we've seen of attacks, assaults, 4500 agents this year had their home addresses where their personal -- their families live, their children, their spouses live in these homes. They were docks and they were released. That is no way that we want our law enforcement officers to be treated. And I totally -- I've said it a hundred times. I want people to be
able to go protest. I also want law enforcement officers to treat people with dignity and respect their constitutional rights. I also want them to go home at the end of the night. I don't want their families attacked at home, their vehicles attacked. I don't want them to be in danger when they're just trying to do their job.
[22:40:00]
I thought the Senator's speech was actually quite disgusting, calling law enforcement officers thuggy. And I found it ironic that he's been in Congress for 45 years, yet he sat in his ivory tower on the Senate floor and lectured all of us about something that he's had 45 years to correct with a broken immigration system in this country.
(CROSSTALK)
PARRISH: And so --- and so, but the greater issue is our broken immigration system, which has led us to this point. He said 45 years to correct that.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: But I would say, look, I mean, immigration is certainly an issue, but the conduct of ICE is both new and it's clearly a political and a practical issue. Now, let me just play a little bit from what these U.S. citizens said on Capitol Hill today about how they were treated by ICE.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MARIMAR MARTINEZ, U.S. CITIZEN SHOT FIVE TIMES BY CBP AGENT IN CHICAGO: The mental scars will always be there as a reminder of the time my own government attempted to execute me. And when they fell, they chose to vilify me.
MARTIN DANIEL RASCON, U.S. CITIZEN SHOT AT BY CBP AGENT IN CALIFORNIA: I will never forget the fear and having to quickly duck my head as the shots were fired at the car. Any one of those bullets could have killed me or two people that I love.
ALIYAH RAHMAN, U.S. CITIZEN DRAGGED FROM CAR BY ICE AGENTS IN MN: I yelled, "I'm disabled at the hands grabbing at me." And an agent said, "too late". I now cannot lift my arms normally. I was never asked for ID, never told I was under arrest, never read my rights, and never charged with a crime.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So, Batya, some of -- many incidents in which people are alleging ICE has gone way too far, they violated people's constitutional rights, and the masks are just one part of the bigger issue.
UNGAR-SARGON: Definitely, anybody who violated an American's civil rights should be held accountable. Let's all remember the circumstances in which ICE is operating. Today, I saw a video of a white protester calling an ICE agent by the N-word repeatedly. Utterly disgusting. We have seen ICE agents plowed into with cars. We have seen them getting sprayed. We have seen them -- the whistles. We have seen them being attacked physically.
So, you know, the situation is complicated. It is violent. The protesters have been horrible, And as a result, I will tell you, Abby, there was a new Harvard Harris poll that came out January 28th to 29th. And it found that Donald Trump's approval is down overall. There's only one issue that he's above 50 percent on, and it's responding to anti-ICE protests in Minneapolis where he has 51 percent approval.
Seventy-three percent still support deporting illegal aliens who committed a crime. And as I've been saying on the show for a year now, 52 percent support deporting all illegal migrants. There was a Signal poll that found that 61 percent support deporting all illegal migrants. Now, it is true that Americans want ICE to be a little bit friendlier and a little bit less aggressive.
PHILLIP: I think what they're asking is for them to respect constitutional rights.
UNGAR-SARGON: The problem is, is that deporting violent criminals often gets messy especially when you have such an organized operation including violent terrorism against these ICE agents.
(CROSSTALK)
SCHNEIDER: Can I respond to your position for a moment?
UNGAR-SARGON: Sure.
SCHNEIDER: No one is in favor of anyone in this country attacking a law enforcement officer. But what you're seeing now, what we're seeing --
ZISKEND: Well, some of those people were pardoned on the President's first day in office by the President.
SCHNEIDER: Okay. That's another subject. What you're seeing now, based on my experience being around ICE as a defense lawyer, this is ICE 2.0. I have never seen ICE behave this way. I was used to seeing ICE 10 or 15 years ago in the courthouses in New York City. They were known. They were accepted. They patrolled around the courthouses. If somebody was here illegally and they were convicted of a crime, ICE would pick them up. That's ground.
UNGAR-SARGON: Because they got cooperation from the local law enforcement.
SCHNEIDER: Correct, but the point now is the behavior. Let me ask you -- let me ask finish my point, because you made yours. The behavior now that we're seeing from ICE in Minnesota and likely elsewhere is not how ICE typically behaved. And you can say while people are protesting and people are spraying -- UNGAR-SARGON: Violently.
SCHNEIDER: Violence is not acceptable, but protesting is acceptable is acceptable.
UNGAR-SARGON: It is. I agree. I agree.
SCHNEIDER: The First Amendment -- you are allowed to gather on the sidewalk and you can scream any dirty name you want on the wall.
UNGAR-SARGON: But you're saying ICE has never behaved this way. Has it ever faced this kind of violent opposition?
SCHNEIDER: Wait, I'm not finished. I'm not finished. You can scream any dirty name you want at a law enforcement officer. You have not committed a crime. You have exercised your First Amendment rights, no matter how unpleasant you think it is. The way ICE is behaving now is not what anyone should expect from their law enforcement. And it's up to the government to straighten it out.
PHILLIP: So, Batya, I'm going to let you respond to this as soon as we come back. We're going to take a quick break and be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:49:27]
PHILLIP: Batya, before we came to break, Stacey was saying that this is not typically how ICE has behaved. I think that's really the crux of the matter here.
UNGAR-SARGON: Right. And obviously, again, I just want to reiterate, if there were civil rights violations, I do think people should be held accountable. It's extremely important. But I don't think ICE has ever faced this level of objection, obstruction, violent resistance.
And I think to take that out of the equation when judging how they're behaving, of course we should hold law enforcement to a higher standard. If you hold a weapon, and you are licensed by the government to use that weapon, that is a huge responsibility.
[22:50:05]
And we want them to operate in every moment at the highest standard. But to take away the situation in which they are operating, which is a first, I think is kind of, it's not fair and it's not an objective analysis of what they're facing.
PHILLIP: It's kind of a chicken or an egg kind of situation, right?
BOYKIN: Exactly. There's -- another contextual part here is, ICE is now operating in a context where the President has politicized them. That's never happened before. Ten years ago, I said a $6-billion budget --
UNGAR-SARGON: The Democrats politicized them by calling them the Gestapo and calling them Nazis day in and day out.
SCHNEIDER: You know sometimes behavior warrants a label. Sometimes behavior --
UNGAR-SARGON: Not that label. You think -- you think --
SCHNEIDER: Whatever word you want to call it, it's damn awful. It is horrific.
(CROSSTALK)
UNGAR-SARGON: I'm sorry --
(CROSSTALK)
UNGAR-SARGON: For us to sit here and say that they are like the Nazis who murdered Jewish citizens --
SCHNEIDER: Whatever the word is.
BOYKIN: Stop monopolizing conversations for a second.
UNGAR-SARGON: And they're trying to deport non-citizen criminals.
(CROSSTALK)
BOYKIN: Batya, Batya --
SCHNEIDER: It's not the point of the word, and should we call them Nazis or thugs
BOYKIN: I give up.
(CROSSTALK)
SCHNEIDER: -- or this and that. The behavior of ICE is abhorrent. Go ahead.
(CROSSTALK)
UNGAR-SARGON: --politicize it. That is why they --
(CROSSTALK)
BOYKIN: In the entire segment, I didn't say a word. I just want to say something here. Ten years ago, I just had a $6 - billion budget. Today, they have an $85-billion budget --
(CROSSTALK)
UNGAR-SARGON: Because there's 20 million more illegals in the country.
BOYKIN: Batya, do you ever let anyone speak? Do you have to say something all the time?
PHILLIP: Go ahead, Keith. BOYKIN: Thank you. They had a $6-billion budget ten years ago. Now, they have an $85-billion budget. And they have a President who's politicizing their presence, sending them in purposely, sending out tweets and emails, tweets and notices saying he's going to send them from one city or another for his political purposes, which has never happened before.
And when you give that kind of power and money to a law enforcement agency, which is now the largest and most well-funded law enforcement agency in the history of our country, you give that kind of money and power to them, you create the infrastructure for systemic abuse.
That's what's happening right now with ICE. And this is why it's so problematic because we do need immigration laws that are routinely and fairly enforced. But you can't do that when you have a President who's politicized immigration.
PHILLIP: One of the early things that the Trump administration did that also roused people up is that they stopped doing the long- standing practice of avoiding immigration enforcement around schools and around churches. That's just one example of the changes, the actual policy changes that preceded the protests that have led to this moment.
PARRISH: And Abby, I actually agree with Stacey and I agree with several of the points that have been made. Certainly, the one that we should always respect the civil rights of people and if that's been violated, we should investigate and hold people accountable. And ICE has been given sort of a increased mission that may be beyond the scope of their law enforcement focus.
And we've also seen the administration this week and last week send Tom Homan there on the ground, pull back on some of those things. We saw the announcement where the administration said that they're going to have body-worn cameras. And they're going to do targeted enforcement where they're going to target violent criminals. They're going to go after violent criminals.
I think when you start to see the effect of some of that new tactics that the administration is putting forward, you will see a reduction in going after people at schools and churches and those things. Now, we'll say, if the criminals are in those places, the violent criminals that they're targeting, then of course law enforcement is going to go there. But I think with this new sort of plan that the administration is putting together, you may see a reduction in that.
PHILLIP: All right guys, thank you very much. Next, the panel is going to give us their nightcaps, "To Find the Odds" edition. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:58:14]
PHILLIP: Lindsey Vonn, one of the world's most successful female ski racers, says that she will compete at the Olympics despite tearing her ACL. So, for tonight's news nightcap, what is something that is a setback that would not stop you from doing that thing? Keith, you're up.
BOYKIN: If I had injury or any setback, nothing would stop me from going to see Bad Bunny in the Super Bowl -- if I had tickets, which I don't have. So, if somebody's got tickets, hook a brother up.
PHILLIP: The PSA -- for anybody who wants to help him out. Go ahead.
SCHNEIDER: If I was injured and I was having trouble with my mobility, nothing would stop me from getting a burrito with extra guacamole at Chipotle.
ZISKEND: When I was in high school, I broke my collarbone playing football, and I wanted to get back out there and prove that I could be captain. So, I went back out with a broken collarbone and I promptly re-broke it. Nothing holds me back.
PHILLIP: Okay.
PARRISH: I mean, this one reminded me when I was a kid and I tried to get out of church because I was sick and my dad would say, no, come on down to the altar. It's the best place to be for your sickness. But nothing would stop me from smoking a hand-rolled premium cigar. If I was on a gurney and you would just push me into the cigar lounge so could smoke a cigar.
PHILLIP: Wow, that cigar is going to put you on a gurney.
(CROSSTALK)
PARRISH: Another debate.
PHILLIP: That's terrifying. Okay. All right, go ahead, Batya.
UNGAR-SARGON: One of my closest friends, his name is Alex Elegudin. He's a quadriplegic and he lives the most rich, wonderful life. He spends his whole life advocating for Americans with disabilities. His organization is called Play It Forward. And Alex, you're such an inspiration to me and to everybody who knows you. God bless.
PHILLIP: That sounds amazing. Alex sounds amazing. Great. Thanks for sharing that story -- guys. Everyone, thank you very much. Thank you for watching "NewsNight". "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
