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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Chaos, Bondi and Democrats Trade Insults During Explosive Hearing; Bondi Deflects Questions on Epstein Files During Fiery Hearing; DOJ Fails to Indict Democrats for Illegal Orders Video. Jobs Report Says 130,000 Jobs Added in January 2026; Trump Posts Old Photos With Black Celebrity Friends. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired February 11, 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 ANCHOR (voice over): Tonight, chaos.
PAM BONDI, ATTORNEY GENERAL: Your theatrics are ridiculous.
REP. JERRY NADLER (D-NY): Are you going to answer the question the way I ask it.
BONDI: I'm not going to get in the gutter with these people. That's a political show.
PHILLIP: Insults.
BONDI: You don't tell me.
REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): Yes. Oh, I did tell you, because we saw what you did in the Senate.
PHILLIP: And deflection.
BONDI: She posted nothing on her X account during the Biden year.
PHILLIP: Did Pam Bondi deliver a MAGA fever dream to avoid reality?
Plus --
SEN. ELISSA SLOTKIN (D-MI): 20 anonymous Americans who made up that grand jury told us more about the values of America than Jeanine Pirro or Pam Bondi, or certainly this president.
PHILLIP: -- the DOJ fails to indict the six Democrats who told troops to ignore illegal orders.
And --
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: I think we have the greatest economy actually ever in history. PHILLIP: -- not even close. We're now learning Donald Trump had anemic job growth in his first year and Americans are paying 95 percent of his tariffs.
Live at the table, Scott Jennings, Charles Blow, Alencia Johnson, Chris Madel and Ana Navarro.
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, shouting matches, name calling, diversions, personal attacks and insults. No, it wasn't supposed to be a reality show but Pam Bondi's testimony became one for an audience of one. The attorney general came out swinging as she faced questions from lawmakers on a number of controversies, including the Justice Department's botched release of the Epstein files. Survivors and families were there watching as this chaos unfolded.
But Bondi refused to apologize for her agency's mistakes. Instead, she was combative and things got heated and downright ugly during the hearing.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BONDI: Excuse me, I'm going to answer the question.
NADLER: I answered my question.
BONDI: No, I'm going to answer the question the way I want to answer the question. Your theatrics are ridiculous.
NADLER: No, you're going to answer the way I ask.
REP. TED LIEU (D-CA): I believe you just lied under oath. There is ample evidence in the Epstein files.
BONDI: Don't you ever accuse me of a crime?
LIEU: I believe you had.
RASKIN: I told you about that, Attorney General, before you started.
BONDI: You don't tell me.
RASKIN: Yes. Oh, I did tell you because we saw what you did in the Senate.
BONDI: You're a washed lawyer. You're not even a lawyer.
I'm not going to get in the gutter for her theatrics.
Who he was -- UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Chairman, she's embarrassing you. This is your committee and she is embarrassing you.
BONDI: Have you apologized to President Trump?
You all should be apologizing. You sit here and you attack the president and I am not going to have it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: It almost seems like something out of a reunion episode of a Bravo show or something. But it's interesting because Pam Bondi actually, to be honest, has not really been around all that much. When we've been talking about the Epstein files, the person they've been putting out is Todd Blanche, and now she's there on Capitol Hill and seems to be putting on a show of defiance. But I think the real question is over what? Over the finding out the truth about a child sex ring? It just seems like the wrong attitude for this issue.
ANA NAVARRO, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Listen, I'm an institutionalist. I want there to be some iota of respect for the institution of Congress. I think this kind of performative theatrics, she says she's not going to get in the gutter for her theatrics, for somebody else's theatrics. Everything she did today was performative. And I say this as somebody who has known Pam Bondi for many years. I knew her back in Florida when she was attorney general.
I don't think this served anybody, I don't think, these shouting matches. And let's just be, you know, honest about it. When Democrats were in power in Congress, the shouting matches still went on. When Republicans are in power, the shouting match is still go. These Congressional hearings have really degraded --
PHILLIP: I don't know if we've seen anything quite like this. I mean, regardless of political party, I mean, even Trump's other attorney generals, Bill Barr, Jeff Sessions, I don't know. I don't recall --
NAVARRO: But the part that really bothered me today, and I give MAGA a lot of credit, the one thing I give them credit for is not letting go of the Epstein files bone. They just never did. And there was people like Nancy Mace, like Marjorie Taylor Greene, who defied Donald Trump and voted to release these files, and the MAGA bloggersphere and podcast universe who never let it go.
[22:05:12]
That being said, I thought today Pam Bondi, having those victims, those survivors there, and the family of the survivors that have died, and not having the common courtesy of, at the very least, turning around and acknowledging their presence, and I do think those survivors are owed an apology by four administrations. And she is right that Merrick Garland should have answered questions, but right now, today, this is her DOJ. It is up to her to prosecute if there's prosecutable crimes. It is up to her to release all the files and comply with the law that was passed. It is up to her to give justice and closure to those survivors. It was so shameful to me that those survivors got told and asked, raise your hand if you have called the DOJ and offered to testify. They all raised their hands and none had been contacted by this DOJ, which is run by Pam Bondi, a woman from Florida who knows who Epstein is. That is damn disgusting and shameful.
ALENCIA JOHNSON, FORMER SENIOR ADVISER, HARRIS 2024 AND BIDEN 2020 CAMPAIGNS: Yes. I mean, to pick up on that, because I think the conversation today, I've been watching all the news, has been about the theatrics that are happening -- that were happening on Capitol Hill. But the reality is the real conversation which we talk about is the survivors, the conversation of how brave it is for them to even have been there, one in five women in America have experienced some sort of sexual assault.
The reality is gives us the complete picture of what this administration is. They will do whatever to protect their sexual assaulter in chief who was found liable for sexual assault before. The reality is we're not having this conversation that protects women. It continues to perpetuate this situation and this culture in America where it makes women hard to come forward and actually say, this person did something extremely wrong to me.
And that's the conversation we should be having, but I'm not surprised that this administration is deflecting from it because let's look at the first Trump administration when Kavanaugh was -- when the hearings around Kavanaugh and Professor Ford actually was brave enough to share her story,
PHILLIP: Even if we put the Trump of it aside for a second, there were still some really bizarre moments today. I mean, this is an interaction between Pam Bondi and Tom Massie, and he's asking her, why the DOJ hasn't or didn't prosecute some people who are named in the Epstein files as being co-conspirators. And here's how she responded.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. THOMAS MASSIE (R-KY): Are you able to track who it was that obscured Les Wexner's name as a co-conspirator in an FBI document?
BONDI: Chairman, may I give an answer on that? He's a political joke, and I need to give my answer on that.
REP. JIM JORDAN (R-OH): Yes. We'll let the attorney general respond and then the gentleman can move to his next question.
MASSIE: Chairman, it's my time.
BONDI: Within 40 minutes -- you asked me a question. Within 40 minutes, Wexner name was added back --
MASSIE: Within 40 minutes of me catching you red handed.
BONDI: Red handed, there was one redaction out over 4,700.
MASSIE: Where he's listed as a co-conspirator. BONDI: And we invited you in. This guy has Trump derangement syndrome. He needs to -- you're a failed politician.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Again, I just don't know who that serves, Scott. I mean, literally, on that document, the name that is blacked out says co- conspirator. That should be an obvious non-redaction. And to not even acknowledge -- I think that's a pretty big mistake to not even acknowledge that, I think, and then make it about Thomas Massie and his relationship with Trump or whatever, seems to obscure the bigger issue, which is that there are potential perpetrators, alleged perpetrators who are still being protected.
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, look, I don't know how the redactions are made or not made. And, look, obviously it was brought up and then they unredacted it and it's 3.5 million documents. And I have always wondered how in the world do you ever get it perfect. And I've also wondered, you know, the danger of accidentally or whatever, putting people's names out there who were victims, who shouldn't have their names out there anytime you're dumping this many documents, it's been worrisome.
All of that having been said, this hearing today to me -- look, I get the desire to fight because, look, and I agree with Anna, actually, these hearings are basically, people show up, they make speeches, then they give the witness ten seconds to respond, and then they yell at the witness. It's been going on for a long time. It makes these hearings useless.
That having been said, at the DOJ, I think if I were advising them, I would advise them to do it more like Scott Bessent handles his hearings. It's not a lot of performative. It's not a lot of theatrics. He remains cool. He is in command of the facts, and that's how he chooses to do it. They come after him the same way, but he has a different style of how he carries himself and how he presents himself.
[22:10:05]
I think that truthfully better serves the administration because it shows more confidence in what you're doing as opposed to just the fighting and the back and forth.
PHILLIP: She must be doing it because she thinks somebody likes it.
CHARLES BLOW, LANGSTON HUGHES FELLOW, HARVARD UNIVERSITY: Exactly. I mean, Bessent has the benefit of the kind of a financial view, which can be argued in multiple ways and you can have facts. The facts are just not on their side in these particular hearings. You know, we just saw Patel, now we've seen Bondi.
The Times -- The New York Times call this a stall and brawl strategy. I think that is a perfect description of what it is because we see people constantly contorting themselves to try to defend the indefensible. They deflect instead of answering questions directly. They try to substitute passion for truth. They try to talk fast rather than straight talk. And that is all for one person, only because it is a person who likes it, and that is Donald Trump. And so all of this genuflecting, I feel like every one of these people should have bloody knees because they are genuflecting to this man all the time.
NAVARRO: But, you know, if nothing else, she should have turned around to those survivors and said, my DOJ -- you know, we should have contacted you. I'm sorry we didn't. My DOJ will be on it and we will be contacting you and getting your stories. That's just unacceptable.
PHILLIP: Let me show you this image. This is Pam Bondi's notes. It was captured by a photographer, and it shows that they had taken over the DOJ notes of what members, in this case, it was Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, what they searched when they went into the DOJ to look at the Epstein files. And I don't know, what does that tell you, Chris, about what the priorities were going into this hearing on the Bondi side of things?
CHRIS MADEL (R), FORMER MINNESOTA GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: I just totally agree with Ana. I think that we've absolutely lost what this is about. This should not be political. This really shouldn't. These women were victims of sexual assault and we are continually just brushing over that for theater.
And a number of their names were released here. They were victimized again. And I've seen this in my job a number of times and we keep forgetting this over and over again, but then when the attorney general gets up there and just wants to combat and just wants to yell, it seemed a lot more to me like an interview for the White House than it did rather than trying to actually address the underlying problem.
I mean, when you have a Republican like Massie saying, hey, listen, why aren't you going after these people? Why are you redacting names that say conspirator, and then you have Democrats in the other hand saying this, you have lots of Democrats in these files, you have lots of Republicans in these files, but we're forgetting all these women that are sitting right behind you?
And I totally agree with Ana. Just -- I don't understand why you can't start a hearing and just simply I am sorry? I am sorry about not only what you have gone through, but I'm also sorry that my department released your names publicly. That is not a big ask.
JOHNSON: Well, Pam Bondi has clearly shown us that she has no soul and does not literally care about people's experiences, and that's why we couldn't get it, and I wouldn't have expected that from her.
NAVARRO: It was also absolutely ridiculous for -- first, she was being very inconsistent with what Todd Blanche has said about some of these -- in some of these answers. But it was ridiculous for her to say that she had nothing to do and no knowledge about the transfer of Ghislaine Maxwell, who is a monster and should be in the worst possible prison, not a prison camp.
PHILLIP: Yes. And she is --
NAVARRO: And that she doesn't say, I disagree with what happened, and I think she should be sent back to where she was. There is no way that it passes muster that it just so happened that after Ghislaine's interview with Todd Blanche, she ended up at, you know, camp prison or whatever it's called. It's just, you know --
PHILLIP: Right. And by camp, you mean, yes, like summer camp but for prisoners.
NAVARRO: With a puppy.
PHILLIP: Okay.
NAVARRO: Right.
PHILLIP: All right. Next for us, in addition, in another embarrassing episode for this Justice Department, the six Democrats the DOJ failed to indict are livid tonight and they are issuing a big threat.
Plus, the president says his economy is the greatest in history, but we are now learning the job growth during his first year was far worse than previously thought. We'll debate.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:15:00]
PHILLIP: Tonight, another embarrassment for Trump's handpicked D.C. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, a federal grand jury has refused to indict the six Democratic lawmakers who reminded troops of their right to refuse any illegal orders.
Now, you'll remember this video from November. All of the lawmakers in it served in the military or in spy agencies. President Trump called the video seditious behavior and shared a post suggesting that they be hanged. One of those lawmakers says he's putting Pirro on notice to preserve all documents, suggesting he's prepared to file a lawsuit against the White House.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JASON CROW (D-CO): Every American should be raving pissed that they're using taxpayer dollars in the public trust of the Department of Justice to go after political opponents, weaponizing their justice's system who's supposed to be going after real criminals and keeping our communities safe. That's one.
Two, if these fuckers do think they're going to intimidate and bully me and get me to back down from doing my duty, they have another thing coming.
[22:20:00]
I went to war three times for this country in Iraq and Afghanistan as an Army ranger and paratrooper. I took an oath. It is a lifetime oath and I'm never backing down from it.
(END VIDEO CLIP) What do you make, Chris, you're an attorney, of this, both the attempt to indict them and the failure to indict them?
MADEL: So, the Fifth Amendment to our constitution says that you're entitled to have a grand jury indict you. And I'll be honest, from a white collar criminal defense attorney, I really don't like our grand jury process. I think it's remarkably unfair. Prosecutor gets to be in there. There's even a debate whether or not the prosecutor has to give exculpatory evidence.
There's an old maxim among defense attorneys that say, you can indict a ham sandwich. I thought it was true until this week.
PHILLIP: It's generally true.
MADEL: And I was -- and I now have to rethink everything that I've thought about the grand jury. I am so proud that people are now actually paying attention and saying, hey, listen, this doesn't seem like a crime, and they're fighting back with respect to the Justice Department. That's not just with respect to this case, but I'm saying generally across the country. I think it's a really great indication of our system actually working as it was designed to do.
Now, apart from that, this weaponization of the criminal justice system has just got to stop, and this is at the top of the list. This was First Amendment protected activity. And this was not anything that should even be remotely close to a grand jury. And I know, again, as a Republican, I agree with these Democrats to say that this is wrong. This should not have been done.
PHILLIP: I mean, talk about a precedent that the Trump folks are trying to set here. And, I mean, according, I mean, obviously the grand jury stepped in and said no, but they're trying to set a precedent that lawmakers can be charged for saying things that the president doesn't like?
JENNINGS: Yes, I'm not sure what the reporting says about what they were trying to charge them with, so I'm not sure what the charges would have been asked for in there. Look, I've been very defensive of the grand juries. As you know, I was defensive of it on a number of cases. I'm still defensive of it today. You know more than me, you deal with these things, but, you know, this is a jury made up of citizens.
Now, in this case, it's citizens in Washington, D.C., where Donald Trump got 6.5 percent of the vote. So, am I super surprised they rejected these arguments? No. But it is a grand jury. This is how our system works. It works this way in D.C. It works that way in Virginia. It works this way in Minneapolis when Don Lemon gets indicted. This is how it works and we have to respect that.
That having been said, I will just say this video was extraordinarily irresponsible. Not one of these lawmakers has ever articulated a single illegal order that they're talking about to try to make the American people believe the commander-in-chief had given illegal orders, extremely, extremely irresponsible. But obviously the grand jury didn't find it criminal, so that's the way it works.
BLOW: Well, it's not exactly true that he hasn't given illegal orders. The federal judge found that deploying the National Guard in Los Angeles was illegal. It violated the Posse -- how do you say this -- Posse Comitatus law, right, the act that prevents you from using military to do policing work in American cities. That's against the law.
So, it's not exactly true that he hasn't done this, but I will say this, the idea, the phrase that every accusation is an admission will never get old under this administration because it will never not be true. They complained for years that the Biden administration was engaged in lawfare, and now we are engaged in the largest, most expansive demonstration of lawfare in American history under this administration.
NAVARRO: And also, Charles, you're forgetting the part about the droning of the boats off the coast of Venezuela, that then they came when there were survivors, they came and did a second pass. And there's a very serious question as to the legality of not having rescued those survivors of the first strikes.
We know that there's people in the military, including the former head of Southcom, who have resigned because they were unwilling to follow some of these orders. We know that in the Don Lemon case that you cited, they went to three different courts to try to find somebody that would indict Don. He's actually up for arraignment, going to arraignment in Minneapolis, I think, at the end of this week.
So, you know, we know that they got the federal grand jury indictment against James Comey, and it was later dismissed. I think the congressman's point to the waste of taxpayer money at the same time that they refuse to prosecute people who may be prosecutable and the Epstein files. That should piss off every American woman and any American with a moral conscience.
JENNINGS: But this video was about Venezuela. It came out right on the cusp of Venezuela. It was about Venezuela. They wanted to raise the idea that dealing with Venezuela was illegal.
[22:25:03]
And in the case of the droning of the boats, you said someone resigned, it's also true that the military brass in charge of this operation testified under oath before Congress that they made the decision and that they had legal advisers standing right next to them who affirmed that, in fact, how they were doing it was legal. So, one person disagreed, but you had a legal officer and the general in charge saying, this was a lawful order, and we got legal advice saying it was a lawful order.
So, just because there's disagreement doesn't make it illegal. This was all about Venezuela. This video was all about Venezuela.
NAVARRO: A lot of more than one person disagreed. Remember there was -- that they wouldn't release the full footage of the video, that Hegseth claimed that he had been there the entire time, oops, except for that one little piece when they didn't pick up the survivors.
I mean, this isn't as clear cut and black and white as you want to paint it. I think people do have a serious debate. And they weren't telling the -- you know, they weren't telling the military not to follow legal orders. They're saying if you don't have to follow illegal orders.
PHILLIP: Well, to that point, I'm not sure that it really matters whether they should or have to articulate any actual order. I think the question is, and Chris alluded to this, is this rhetoric and is the Trump administration trying to criminalize rhetoric? Saying or restating something that is in, you know, the code of conduct for the military is rhetoric. You don't have to have a reason to restate it.
JOHNSON: And that's the thing that I'm thinking about. What is this saying to the American people who don't understand all of the legality around this, but they're hearing, oh, if I say something against this administration, I will be punished, right? And Donald Trump doesn't care about winning or losing court cases. He likes to win the conversation, the rhetoric.
And so that's the piece that I think we have to pay attention to is how are the American people feeling about this when it's, I can't dissent, which should be protected under the First Amendment, when I can't push back and say, actually, I shouldn't do -- you shouldn't do something that you feel is illegal in your orders when you're scared of what the president might do. I think that's the conversation we should be having because here's the thing, Donald Trump is going to continue to lose a lot of these court cases, but how are they going to communicate it to the American people? And then more importantly, how are the American people going to respond to it?
I'm so glad that this jury actually, I believe, did the right thing. But are people intimidated to stand up and push back?
BLOW: Well, in addition to American people, I worry about the younger soldiers. Not the generals or whatever. They should know better than they are and they know more. But these young kids -- you've been on a flight with these young kids. They're like babies. They're like 18 years old, right. I don't want them to be continuously put in situations where they have a moral dilemma of trying to figure out is this one of those situations where it may be illegal for me to do this, and what do I do now? And I don't think that the military and those officers have been put in that position in the same way with other presidents as they are being put right now.
PHILLIP: All right. Next for us, the president is touting this month's jobs report, but if you dig deeper, there are some disturbing trends from Trump's first year in office. We'll debate that next.
[22:30:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: Tonight, good news and bad news for the economy with some underlying alarm bells. First, the good news. The U.S. added 130,000 jobs last month according to the January jobs report, and the unemployment rate ticked down a tenth of a percent to 4.3 percent. That's far stronger than was expected.
The bad news? Well, the revisions found last year was one of the worst non-recession years of job creation in recent history. The economy added just 181,000 jobs for the entirety of the year, far fewer than the previous estimate of 584,000.
So for reference, in 2024, on average, 122,000 jobs were added every month. That number dropped to just 15,000 monthly in 2025. And if you look even deeper and you look at a particular day in history, let's call it Liberation Day. When you look at Liberation Day, what you see is a clear trend. Job creation starts to trickle down until it gets negative in October. And it seems like 2025, for that reason, was a lost year for the Trump economy.
Scott, I mean, this number is fine for January, but there's a whole year of data that suggests a complete stagnation in the American economy otherwise.
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, there's a lot of data out there. And look, what they did is not for short-term gain. It was for long-term reordering of the American economy. And if you talk to their people, Bessent and Hassett and the others, they believe what they did with the tariffs, what they did with the tax, that permanency and other tax cuts in the summer is going to lead to a boom in 2026.
The January data suggest that they might be right. But there's other things going on here regarding what kind of jobs we have in America. One of the big things I look at in the chart today was, we have the lowest amount of federal government workforce since 1966.
[22:35:07]
Yet private sector jobs going up, government jobs going down that was the purpose of what they were doing to grow the private sector to shrink jobs. I've been working in Republican politics for 26 years. Every Republican I've ever worked for said they were going to shrink the government. Trump's the only one that ever did it.
We literally have the smallest federal workforce in '66 and as a percentage of the overall workforce, the smallest on record. I want more private sector. I want less government. So, if you're a Republican and you look at that, you're thinking, gosh, this guy's actually executing on what they always told us they were going to do.
(CROSSTALK)
ANA NAVARRO, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Many other Republicans that you worked for were against tariffs except for Trump.
JENNINGS: Broadly, mostly against tariffs. Although Bush, who I did work for, did implement some steel tariffs for a period of time. He did pull them down, but he did implement some steel tariffs. And so did Reagan in the '80s, he did implement some tariffs on Japan but it wasn't a broad program the way Trump has implemented.
PHILLIP: Look, I mean I think one of the tricky parts of this and what you're saying generally about private sector payrolls versus government payrolls although it's not really the federal government that's driving this, it's state and local governments that's driving the job losses, that's true.
But when you have an economy where all the job growth is happening in basically just one sector which is health care, and everybody else in the economy is losing jobs, that seems to me to explain why when you ask Americans how they're feeling about this economy, a lot of them are saying, I don't feel very good about it.
Because unless you're in those -- that those healthcare sectors and good for the people who are, the entire rest of the American economy is, is going down in terms of --
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: It's like a Dickens book. It's a tale of two economies. If you talk to wealthy people who have money in the stock market that they control. So, I'm not talking about the state worker or the teacher whose pension is in the stock market. I'm talking about the people who have a portfolio they control. Those people are sitting high on the hog right now.
You talk to the soybean farmers, they've been knocked to their knees. You talk to the people who have to go to the grocery store. Those prices, the tariffs have cost average Americans between $1000 and $1300 so far.
The difference in this country is between the people who don't even know what they spend at the grocery store because they're not the ones going to go shopping, and the people who are trying to stretch their dollars in the grocery store because it's just simply not going as far as it used to.
ALENCIA JOHNSON, FORMER SENIOR ADVISER, HARRIS 2024 AND BIDEN 2020 CAMPAIGNS: Well, one of the things that this administration, one, Donald Trump ran on fixing the economy, making things affordable, helping people get jobs, 319,000 black women don't have a job under this administration. But they also came into this administration talking about how we're going to feel some pain initially, but hold on.
But there are people, majority of Americans can't actually hold on when they're feeling pain, when they're choosing between medical bills and food on their table and gas in their car. That is not why some folks who voted for Donald Trump voted for him.
But then there are people that did vote for Donald Trump, wealthy people, his friends, that voted for him so that they can continue to get rich while the poor get poorer and the racial wealth gap continues to get wider in this nation. And we have to continue to pay attention to that. The reality is Donald Trump understands this is an issue during this
election year, which is why he's now talking about affordability, which is why he called one of my former bosses, Senator Elizabeth Warren, to have a conversation about this, which they talked to the mayor of New York about this. So, you know, it's really interesting to see this and it'll be interesting to see how the Republicans --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Speaking of how Trump is spinning this, let me play what he said earlier this week in his interview with Larry Kudlow.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LARRY KUDLOW, FOX BUSINESS HOST: Can you beat history on these midterm elections, carry the House and the Senate for the GOP? Can you do it on the economy? Do you need more communication? Do you need more marketing? Do you need more help? I mean, the numbers are on your side. The question is, does the public know this?
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Well, you know, we have a fake news that doesn't get the word out. That's why I love doing an interview. We get the word out. I'm popular and I've done well. I mean, I think we have the greatest economy actually ever in history. We have to get the word out, okay? If we can get the word out, we should win.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Sounds familiar, first of all, just P.R. problem, but secondly, he's not popular, particularly on the economy, and he doesn't seem to understand that, which seems like a major political issue.
CHARLES BLOW, LANGSTON HUGHES FELLOW, HARVARD UNIVERSITY: Well, and he thinks that he can manipulate it, and I think that that would be disastrous. He -- in that interview, I think he was saying that we should have the lowest interest rates of anybody in the world or something. And that's a problem because the markets, the people with the money, you can't actually pull the wool over their head in that way.
And they react to that kind of manipulation because they don't want their money to get messed up because you're playing around with interest rates in ways that they're not supported by the fundamentals.
[22:40:00]
I had a conversation a couple of months ago with someone who was on the federal open markets committee. These are the 12 people who vote on interest rates, whether they go up or down. That person was explaining to me even the interest rates they were doing then, they did not agree with that because the fundamentals in the market just were not there.
I'm not an economist. I don't know, but he was making a strong argument to me and he really did know. And I believe that we have that situation already, the insinuation was that there was political reasons already. I think we go too far down that political manipulation of the markets and the markets themselves will start to reject that.
PHILLIP: I got to let Chris have a word.
CHRIS MADEL (R) FORMER GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE, MINNESOTA: Well, but that seems to indicate to me though that the Fed believes that the economy is doing fine. If they thought that the economy was doing poorly, they would be buying bonds, interest rates would be going down, and they'd be trying to stimulate the economy. They're not.
(CROSSTALK)
BLOW: Well, this person said that they were not -- they were doing it for political reasons.
(CROSSTALK)
MADEL: That's why I think that my good friend Scott is right here when he's talking about shrinking the federal government from a macroeconomic standpoint is going to take time for that to actually filter to the private sector. I think we've gotten so used in the political cycle to thinking, oh, it's just going to, overnight, we're going to have everything bring much better.
And frankly, the President doesn't -- he doesn't make it better. I was just about to say that. He doesn't make that much better. But I also think that especially when you're shrinking the government in the way that he's done, it is going to be a good thing in the long run.
JENNINGS: There were two other numbers that jumped out to me today that also, if they hold portend positive outcome for them this year and it was wage growth and inflation -- wage growth in January was 3.7 percent, inflation 2.7 percent. So, prices are never going to reset back to, say, 2016 or 2017. That's not going to happen.
But what you want to do is have people's wages outstripping inflation. That actually happened in January. So, you have a smaller government, an increasing private sector, wages outstripping inflation, median rents are down the lowest in four years. The stock market is up over 50,000. That does help a lot of people who are active investors and also people that have 401ks and pensions, et cetera, et cetera.
So, if I were in their shoes and telling a story, there's plenty here to tell. And you know, if what their predictions are about a boom in 2026 come true, you can see how this might turn around for them in the election cycle.
PHILLIP: Yes, I mean, look, it's -- anything is possible. I think one -- one thing to keep in mind, these January numbers, there's a lot of caution around them, not only because of the cold snap reduced how much people were responding to the survey. So, they may be messy, maybe slightly inaccurate. And as we've seen, lots of revisions that are pretty significant, changing the direction of this stuff. But I mean, look, private sector job growth increasing is good, but
when it's only in one part of the economy, you have to ask what's happening in the rest of the economy. And I think that's -- those chickens are going to come home to roost, as well.
Coming up, days after a posting of a video depicting the Obamas as apes, Donald Trump is now posting old pictures of him with black celebrities. We'll discuss what he's trying to say with that.
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[22:47:45]
TRUMP: Nobody has done more for the black community than Donald Trump. I am the least racist person -- the least racist person that you've ever seen. I'm the least racist person in this room. With the exception of Abraham Lincoln, possible exception, but the exception of Abraham Lincoln, nobody has done what I've done. Look at my African American over here.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Tonight, just days after posting and then deleting a racist video depicting the Obamas as apes, which he has still not apologized for, Donald Trump took to social media to assure Americans he has black friends. On Truth Social, he posted videos of himself alongside Mike Tyson, Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jackson, among other celebrities. Here is just one of those posts.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(MUSIC PLAYING WITH SLIDE PRESENTATION)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: That settles it then. Nothing more to say here.
(CROSSTALK)
BLOW: Most of those pictures are from the '80s?
PHILLIP: He's got a lot of black friends.
BLOW: Where were those pictures from?
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: Dead people. I mean, Michael Jackson is in there.
BLOW: I have met Donald Trump only one time at a cocktail party. He was coming to speak to the people I was talking to. Turn around, he's there, he introduces himself. The first and only thing is out that he knows who I was at the time, "Black people love me." That's what he -- literally, he goes into this speech about he is the most liked person among black people. Everywhere he goes, black people are trying to convince him to run for
office and the only names he gave me were the names of celebrities. I went back to the "Times", I wrote about it immediately because what are you talking about? Who are you talking to?
PHILLIP: Well, yes, okay --
JOHNSON: Charles thank you for your service.
(LAUGHTER)
BLOW: What are you talking about?
PHILLIP: Can I just make a tiny counterpoint to that which is, there was a time when Donald Trump back in the '80s.
[22:50:00]
Hung around with Mike Tyson. He hung around with Don King.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: In all these rap songs, I mean, he was because he was this cultural figure. He was perceived as rich and successful. There was like a cultural cache there --
JOHNSON: Totally. Yes.
PHILLIP: -- which is not the same thing as him --
(CROSSTALK)
JOHNSON: Trying to become president.
PHILLIP: -- being exonerated from the racist video and all the other stuff.
JOHNSON: Exactly.
BLOW: Well, that's flashing it from the bottom. That's what it was. Flashing it from the bottom.
(CROSSTALK)
JOHNSON: But I will say this.
(CROSSTALK)
JOHNSON: Flash it from the bottom during Black History month for having this conversation, which is actually quite ironic, but you make it raise a good point. It was fine when he was over there just being a curator of culture and it was kind of cool, whatever, to have him in your rap video, but a lot of people in New York, including somebody who is in that video, like Reverend Al Sharpton, they constantly talk about then lawsuits against him from -- his housing lawsuits, what happened with the Central Park Five. I want to be very clear, if we think about what's happening right now, he disinvited the only black governor from the governor's meeting in the White House. He is actually championing a bill that actually would take voting rights away from a lot of black people in this country, all during Black History Month and then call the president -- the first black president and the first lady monkeys and apes in this -- during this month.
So, this doesn't absolve Donald Trump of his racism. We all know exactly who he is. The reality is the conversation and the question should be, why do people continue to support him if they don't want us to believe they are okay with racism?
JENNINGS: Wait. What voting rights is he taking away from black voters?
BLOW: The Save Act.
JOHNSON: Oh, we look at The Save Act, that's exactly what we're talking about. That is actually going to continue to disenfranchise overwhelmingly a lot of people of color.
JENNINGS: How?
JOHNSON: There are so many civil rights organizations that have run the data. If we look at the way that it is going to disenfranchise black voters, it's the same reason why Chuck Schumer called Jim Crow 2.0.
JENNINGS: So, how?
JOHNSON: This is the same president. We want to continue --
JENNINGS: You haven't said how yet.
JOHNSON: I am talking about it.
JENNINGS: How?
JOHNSON: It's the way that we're putting new poll taxes on this when you're making people have --
JENNINGS: Poll taxes?
JOHNSON: -- that's what we can call them now. It's kind of an idiom, right? If you want to say that people have to prove that they are citizens, that they have to prove with a voter ID. The reality is you're layering what is a constitutional right for the American people and making it harder for people to vote in this country, and it's going to disenfranchise black voters.
JENNINGS: Does it -- does it concern you that you're making all these claims, you've yet to layout how it's hurting anyone but 76 percent of black voters think we should show an ID to vote 80 percent of Hispanic voters, 83 percent of the American people? Are you saying that black voters are too dumb to know what's good for them? I mean it sounds pretty condescending.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: The Save Act isn't just --the Save Act isn't just --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Just to be clear, the Save Act is not just about IDs.
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: -- that want voter ID.
PHILLIP: Just to be clear, the Save Act is not just about IDs.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: The Save Act is not just about IDs. The Save Act is about proof of citizenship. So, it doesn't -- actually
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: We talked about this -- I was about to say we talked about this before. It's not -- it actually -- there's an argument to be made that red state voters, women, poor white voters could be --
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: You think they're dumb, too. Don't you? I mean that's the thing.
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: Hearing these arguments
PHILLIP: Hold on.
JENNINGS: I've heard them all-week-long.
PHILLIP: Scott, hold on, Hold on, Scott. Please don't. No, no.
(CROSSTALK)
JOHNSON: There's a deflection from talking about Donald Trump's racism right there.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: You should be thinking about your constituents and -- or your --
JENNINGS: I think they're smart enough to figure out how to register to vote, Abby.
PHILLIP: Hold on, hold on. Most Americans don't have a passport. Many Americans don't have access to their birth certificate. Many women, a majority of women who change their names for marriage have to provide additional proof that they've changed their names in order to register to vote.
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: Listen, this -- all-week-long, all-week-long, I have heard Democrats with the same argument.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: So Scott, why don't you actually respond to the substance of what I'm saying --
JENNINGS: I am and the substance is this.
PHILLIP: -- as opposed to making this about something that it's not.
JENNNINGS: You're saying --
PHILLIP: It's not just about voter ID. It's also about who has access to --
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: -- you're saying married women, black voters --
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: -- are too stupid to figure out how to register to vote?
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Excuse me?
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: Are you saying they can't figure out how to vote?
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Scott, I am saying --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: I'm just saying a fact that a majority of Americans do not have passports. Many Americans, including white people, okay, do not have their original birth certificate or access
JENNINGS: You didn't say --
(CROSSTALK)
BLOW: -- all for the proof of this.
PHILLIP: Yes, because that is also relevant. It doesn't matter to me where people live. JENNINGS: I guess I have little more faith in rural America and married women than you do.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: I don't know why you think -- why you're making this about whether you're smart or not.
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: You're saying that they can't vote, that they can't figure out how to document to register to vote?
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Scott, access to documentation of proof of where you were born or proof of citizenship is an additional thing that people will have to --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: It is a barrier.
[22:55:00]
(CROSSTALK)
BLOW: It is a barrier.
(CROSSTALK)
JOHNSON: It is a barrier.
PHILLIP: Scott, do you have your original birth certificate?
JENNINGS: Yes.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Does everybody that you know have their original birth certificate?
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: Everybody that I know?
PHILLIP: Yes.
JENNINGS: I don't know. But I know where mine is. In know where my kids' are.
PHILLIP: I mean, there are elderly people in this country who are 80 years old and they haven't seen their original birth certificate in decades. They would need to provide proof of citizenship --
(CROSSTALK) JENNINGS: This is fear mongering.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: That's just the reality. And listen --
JENNINGS: Jim Crow 2.0.
PHILLIP: Scott --
JENNINGS: They said that about the Georgia. What happened? Voter participation.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Here's how policy -- hold on. Here's how policy --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: -- in this country.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: You have a proposal, you look at the impacts of it and you decide whether it's the right thing or the wrong thing to do. I think it is perfectly fair whether you think that it disproportionately affects people of color or not, to ask the question will a majority of Americans who want to be able to vote be able to access the documents that they would need --
JENNINGS: Yes. I think, yes.
PHILLIP: -- in order to prove citizenship?
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: That's your view but I'm saying people have raised questions about that.
(CROSSTALK)
BLOW: But Abby, you're asking the underlying question which is impacts. The reason that this works this way is impacts -- Jim Crow 2.0.
JENNINGS: No, I --
(CROSSTALK)
BLOW: That's what you just said. You just said the words Jim Crow 2.0. So, I'm going to put it -- put it right here at the moment. And that is exactly the way that Jim Crow 1.0 was born. They took laws.
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: Let me correct -- (CROSSTALK)
BLOW: Yes, I will finish. They took laws that were operational in the north and they said these work on -- by the -- you know, on the letter, but we're going to disrupt the spirit. They're going to take these laws and use them on black people in the South to disenfranchise and that was the effect.
PHILLIP: All right, everyone, thank very much. We will be back in just a moment.
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