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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Trump Defends Cashing in During Presidency, Everybody's Profiting; Trump Allies Call to Ban Pregnant Women from Entering U.S. Trump Gets His First Flight of Air Force One Gifted by Qatar. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired July 01, 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 VIDEOTAPE)
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR (voice over): Tonight, nothing to see here. Donald Trump defends cashing in on his presidency.
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: I'm profiting because the stock market's gone up. Everybody's profiting.
PHILLIP: Plus, after the Supremes reject Trump's attempt to kill birthright citizenship, MAGA has a backup plan.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get these pregnant women and women who could be pregnant the hell out of our country.
PHILLIP: Also, after calling affordable housing a yawn, the president shows off his new foreign-made plane.
TRUMP: I'm excited about the first flight.
PHILLIP: And fair games. We're learning that Trump is furious about the small crowds around his July 4th events and is making this promise despite record-breaking heat this weekend.
TRUMP: I'm going to make a really long speech just to show that I can do anything.
PHILLIP: Live at the table, Tara Setmayer, Peter Meijer, Lydia Moynihan, Antjuan Seawright, and Kmele Foster.
Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here, they do.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIP (on camera): Good evening. I'm Abby Phillip in New York.
While many people might not be feeling President Trump's economic golden age, his bank account certainly is. And tonight he's shrugging off concerns about his massively profitable year.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I don't get involved in my personal. We have funds that run my money.
You know, why I'm profiting because the stock market's going up. Everybody's profiting.
And I'm profiting because I have a lot of money and a lot of cash.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: The New York Times reports that Trump's revenue jumped at least $2.2 billion just in the last year. That's compared to $622 million in 2024, before he took office. And his own financial disclosure forms reveal most of that windfall came from selling new crypto products, including more than $500 million in tokens tied to World Liberty Financial. That's the business managed in part by his sons.
There's also the millions that he made from Mar-a-Lago, from Trump watches, from Trump Bibles, and shoes and perfumes, and that's probably just scratching the surface. The scope and the scale of this are unprecedented for a sitting president, and it's raising new questions about the conflicts of interest and profiting off the presidency, something that Trump once accused his political enemies of doing.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Look at the money they make. They're full-time politicians, Pelosi and all these people, Waters, Obama.
Hillary Clinton has perfected the politics of personal profit.
As vice president, Joe Biden flew his son, Hunter, around the world on Air Force Two, sucking up money like a vacuum cleaner.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Before we open it up to the table, we want to invite you at home to join our debate. Head to cnn.com/abby and weigh in. We'll get to some of your comments throughout the show. In the meantime back here in the studio, President Trump is now doing this openly. He's suggesting that this is just a byproduct of him being a business person.
But even he is trumping Trump, back in his first term, he didn't make this kind of money. He didn't do these kinds of stock trades. He didn't see his wealth balloon in this way. Something has changed, and I think part of it is also that he thinks that nobody cares. I mean, he told The New York Times when they asked, why are you doing deals while you're president? He says, I'm allowed to. He says George Washington, when he was president, had a desk in the White House. He had two desks. He had a business desk and a president desk. That's his explanation for why this is okay. PETER MEIJER, CO-FOUNDER AND HEAD OF STRATEGY, THE NEW INDUSTRIAL CORPORATION: There's no doubt that he's the wealthiest president to ever, or wealthiest person to ever become the president, and so it's not surprising that he's going to have greater returns.
But when you start talking about crypto revenue, when you start talking about fees associated with that, at a certain point, you know, Democrats are going to be in charge of one House or the other of the Congress, and this is the type of stuff that makes for a very compelling Congressional investigation, especially when it's not very clear, and you can muddy the waters just with insinuation, and that's before you even get to anything that may cross beyond anything that's legal.
[22:05:07]
Like the question of the Wall Street Editorial Board, is this honest graft or is it something more? I mean, that -- even if it is legal, you know, albeit unseemly, it is just going to be political fodder.
PHILLIP: Well, I mean, do you think it's unclear? Because it seems pretty clear. I mean, he --
MEIJER: Whether there are violations of the law is the --
PHILLIP: Well, look, I mean, whether there are -- I didn't even talk about the law. I'm just talking about did he make money off of things that he is in a position to influence as president, off of deals that he's in a position to green-light as president? The answer is unequivocally yes.
ANTJUAN SEAWRIGHT, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: The problem is the president, candidate Donald Trump, promised to be transparent, and he promised to drain the swamp. What we see now is the alligators are getting fatter. And it's not just Donald Trump who's benefiting from the presidency. This scent or the residue of corruption is surrounded this entire administration.
If you look at the no-bid contracts we've seen coming from this administration, like with the Reflection Pool, now this all these other projects. We can also see that there were almost 3,700 trades by this president, unprecedented. If this were Joe Biden or any other Democratic president, the legislative branch, which has the responsibility to have oversight to the executive branch, would be crawling with investigations, trying to rein this in and get something done about it, but we don't see that. We see a lack of action from the legislative branch.
PHILLIP: I mean, to the point on the trades, The New York Times is reporting 3,600 trades in the first three months of this year. The prior months, he'd only disclosed 25. That's like $100 million in money changing hands while Trump is president, in some cases involving businesses that he is actively promoting, like Dell. There was fresh reporting that he had made a bunch of purchases of tech stocks literally on the day that he announces an A.I. initiative to boost basically these same companies. Again, if this were any other president, particularly if they were a Democrat, wouldn't Republicans be up in arms about this?
LYDIA MOYNIHAN, CORRESPONDENT, NEW YORK POST: I know they've offered explanations about the funds are in a blind trust, and I know at least in case of World Liberty Financial, that was started before President Trump took office. But it's definitely a fair --
PHILLIP: It was like six-day, I'm pretty sure it was less than a week before the inauguration.
MOYNIHAN: The optics are not great, totally. And I think this is something that they're going to have to deal with, as Peter mentioned, in the midterms if we see Democrats take one House. So, I think they're going to face some consequences for anything like this.
I think for most Americans, though, this isn't their primary concern. I think they're a lot more concerned about how taxpayer funds are being spent and often funneled to fraud. And so that's a bigger --
PHILLIP: Well, some of these taxpayer funds are going to --
MOYNIHAN: A bigger concern with where is the Medicaid money going?
PHILLIP: There's taxpayer dollars going to these companies that Trump is getting a financial windfall from. That's also a problem.
TARA SETMAYER, CO-FOUNDER AND CEO, THE SENECA PROJECT: Many companies, and not only that. Let's just put this in context. When Donald Trump was in office the first time around, to answer your initial question, he didn't do this because he was facing re-election, and the people in the White House knew that the American people actually do care about corruption. They do care about a president profiting off the presidency. They do care about grifting. So, they knew better. Now, don't do this now.
But now in the -- now, in this term, he doesn't have to face re- election, he doesn't give a damn about Republicans and their re- election, kook at the way he's legislating, if that's what we're calling that. He's not. He's engaged in vanity projects and things that, you know, putting his name on things and everything else, but giving any kind of real attention to the affordability crisis and what's happening to people in this country. So, his vanity projects are costing the American taxpayers a whole hell of a lot more money than the alleged fraud that they claim that they're going after.
This whole thing about fraud in the government is a red herring for them to distract from. Is there fraud? Of course, there is. There's also a lot more corruption and conflicts of interest going on with Donald Trump and his family. What's happening with his sons is incredibly sleazy, as the New York Post called it, and others inside, even Fox News is questioning what is going on here with Donald Trump profiting off the presidency because it's that egregious.
MEIJER: I was just going to say, I mean, in the first term, I can't remember how many times I heard the words Emoluments Clause, and concern about the Trump Hotel. So, I mean, I just want to say there were --
SETMAYER: You think that's invalid?
MEIJER: No, I'm saying your idea that there was nothing going on in the first term.
SETMAYER: Oh no, I'm not saying nothing. No, I'm saying not at this level. I'm not saying nothing. There was plenty of problems in the first term but not to this level, as evidenced by the numbers and the difference in how much money he made in the first term versus now. Now, he just doesn't care.
And I don't want to hear anything about the transparency argument, which is what James Comer tried to say, well, at least he's being transparent about it, well, just because you can doesn't mean you should.
[22:10:06]
PHILLIP: Yes.
SEAWRIGHT: And I would just say the split screen here to push back on something you said, the split screen is you have everyday Americans, forget about trying to make ends meet, they're putting two ends together hoping they meet, and yet they voted for this person who's making billions while he slashes government, people are losing jobs, losing their homes, credit card debt massive, piling up, and yet this man is profiting and these people are hurting. That is the split screen that everyday Americans are thinking about.
So, I think it's intellectually dishonest to say that everyday Americans are not concerned about what they see happening.
PHILLIP: The other thing is that it's not as if -- I think there are actually a lot of conservatives, and maybe you're among them, who recognize that this is a problem. Here is Megyn Kelly's take on it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DANA PERINO, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: He put out a disclosure yesterday. It was eye-opening for a lot of people that you can make that kind of money. Maybe it is in crypto, maybe it's not, but it does feel a little bit like, wait, what is going on?
And your children are involved in this. And if you remember, we spent a lot of time talking about Hunter Biden.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: That was Dana Perino on Fox today. Let's listen to Megyn Kelly.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MEGYN KELLY, HOST, THE MEGYN KELLY SHOW: I'm not going to lie. I'm like -- I'm disappointed with some aspects of the Trump presidency, for sure.
It's so grifty. I'm not going to lie, it's grifty. You know, the Trump family is grifty. There's been like story after story about all the money that his sons are making off of the government, these government contracts they're getting. All that, I can't stand that stuff.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, look, grifty is one way of putting it. I mean, I think the scale here is what is at issue. Because, you know, I think the politics of the Republicans going after Biden are what they are, right? But that was like pennies, and we're talking about billions of dollars here. And also the ongoing nature of it, the repetitive nature of it, industry after industry, crypto, mining, robotics, defense contracting, drones, you name it.
SEAWRIGHT: Pardons.
PHILLIP: It doesn't seem to have an end. And I guess I'm wondering, like does it need to? I mean, should we go beyond just this is bad, unseemly, maybe unethical? And should there be a real conversation about whether this even should be legal?
KMELE FOSTER, PODCAST HOST, THE FIFTH COLUMN: Well, there should certainly be investigations, and I think even if one tries to cast this in the best imaginable light and presumes there's nothing illegal here, unseemly is the word that you used yesterday. I'm not sure that there's a better one to describe it. The fact that the president gives this explanation when asked about this directly, oh, you know, I've got so much money. It's in the market. It's in a blind trust. No, the bulk of this money appears to come from the sale of cryptocurrency coins.
We know that there are foreign governments and foreign actors who bought these coins in order to get the opportunity to sit down with the president. They are purchasing access to the administration --
PHILLIP: And just to explain just this -- if you don't understand how this works for Trump, it might surprise you. The crypto coins right now are worth almost nothing. But it doesn't matter because Trump and his family were enriched to the tune of more than $500 million by just having people transacting on these coins. So, just the buying and selling of coins, they made money, half a billion dollars in something that is completely worthless.
SETMAYER: And here's the other thing about that.
PHILLIP: That's amazing.
SETMAYER: You know, here's the other thing that people need to know. The people who bought these coins, because crypto is scammy, and the people who bought these coins, a lot of them were Trump supporters also, regular folks, Trump thinks they are suckers because he knows he's going to make money, whether that crypto coin is worth anything or not, because they make money off the transactions. So, all of these things that they do, from the phones to, you know, the Bibles to crypto, he is selling things to people because he thinks his own people are suckers.
And this is what's so infuriating. Donald Trump continues to insult his own constituency with these things. He's saying to them, yawn on affordability. I don't care. His own people are suffering because of his policies, and he promised them that he was going to make life better, and he hasn't. But life has been better for him. And that is the hypocrisy here that is politically toxic for Republicans. They have to justify it.
SEAWRIGHT: It's a crime scene. The White House -- what we see coming out of this White House is a crime scene. That's how everyday Americans view it, as a crime scene, because this, if this was any other president with a Democratic label, they would be trying to not only impeach them, someone would be trying to send them to jail.
PHILLIP: All right. Next for us, after the Supreme Court rejected the Trump administration on birthright citizenship, his allies are now calling for the United States to ban pregnant women from entering the country.
[22:15:00]
Plus, as many Americans say they can't afford to live, the president is touting the new Air Force One gifted to him by Qatar. And now Democrats say it makes the U.S. look weak.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: Tonight, after the Supreme Court struck down Donald Trump's executive order on birthright citizenship, officials and allies of the president are considering a backup plan, ban foreign pregnant women from coming to the U.S.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHEN MILLER, WHITE HOUSE DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF FOR POLICY: If a person comes here nine months pregnant to go look around at some things, in a couple of weeks, that is the mother of a lifetime American citizen and a direct line into American cash and welfare.
[22:20:07]
MARKWAYNE MULLIN, SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY: You're not going on vacation in emergency and late term pregnancy. And so those are some issues that we can look at.
TODD BLANCHE, ACTING ATTORNEY GENERAL: It's a violation of our laws if your intent in coming here, if you're pregnant, is to have a child to become a United States citizen.
What we have to do as the Department of Justice is make sure our agents, our HSI agents that we work with and the FBI are focused on stopping that.
REP. ANDY OGLES (R-TN): It's time for Congress to pass a law to say you can't come here. You can't have a baby on U.S. soil and exploit this loophole.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: In a related proposal, longtime Trump legal adviser Mike Davis is urging the administration to shift its focus on mass deportations.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They need to get moving and start deporting people as fast as possible, starting with birthing-aged women.
We're going to get these pregnant women and women who could be pregnant the hell out of our country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Pregnant women and women who could be pregnant.
I also just find it interesting that Andy Ogles, who is a member of Congress, doesn't know that it is already not legal to come here with the express purpose of giving birth to a child so that they can gain citizenship. That's a violation of our existing immigration laws. But this idea that now women are the targets of immigration because they wanted to change birthright citizenship via executive order, that seems like, I don't know, bad politics, bad optics, maybe both.
MOYNIHAN: I mean, we already know that foreign adversaries are exploiting this. There's been 1.5 Chinese CCP babies who've been born on U.S. --
PHILLIP: 1.5 what?
MOYNIHAN: 1.5 million people who've come via birth tourism have children in the U.S. over the last few decades.
PHILLIP: I've never seen the number be that high. I don't know if you're referring to --
MOYNIHAN: The New York Post has reported on it, but that's an issue that we know our foreign adversaries are exploiting --
PHILLIP: Are you talking about just Chinese nationals who have children here?
MOYNIHAN: Yes, who come here.
PHILLIP: Do you realize that not all of them are here to give birth via birth tourism?
MOYNIHAN: Okay. Well, we can argue about the numbers. That is the number that's been reported --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Hold on, Lydia. I'm arguing about the numbers because the numbers matter.
MOYNIHAN: Yes, of course.
PHILLIP: This is a country of hundreds of millions of people. And if you are talking about a number of people that is in the tens of thousands that where there are already laws that address this issue, that should be part of the conversation because it's misleading --
MOYNIHAN: There's still birth tourism schemes - that are advertised --
PHILLIP: Oh, trust me, I understand that. You know, back in the day and early in my career, 2015, there was a huge birth tourism crackdown. I covered that. This has been going on for a long time. But what is the scale? What is the true scale, Lydia? If we are being truthful, the true scale is not 1.9 million --
MOYNIHAN: 1.5 over the last few decades.
PHILLIP: 1.5 million Chinese people coming only for the purpose of birth tourism.
MOYNIHAN: we already though know that this is something that our foreign adversaries are using to exploit us. We already know that 61 percent of people who come and have a child here are on social welfare services. We already know that people are using it for social welfare services, so why would we want more of that?
PHILLIP: Wait, how many people are you talking about, Lydia?
MOYNIHAN: I already mentioned the 1.5 million --
PHILLIP: You're saying that all of the 1.5 million people of Chinese heritage are coming for the sole purpose of utilizing social services.
MOYNIHAN: You want people whose parents are CCP citizens, who grow up in China to come here and vote?
PHILLIP: There are plenty of people who have parents of foreign citizenship who are American citizens and do in fact have the right to vote. They might be from China. They might be from Russia. They might be from England. They might be from anywhere in the world. That is not illegal to have parents from another country.
MOYNIHAN: I don't understand why it would be controversial to crack down on birthright tourism.
PHILLIP: It's not. It's actually -- that's my point. It's not controversial. It's already illegal.
MOYNIHAN: So then what are we arguing about? Can we agree that's something we should crack down on then?
MEIJER: So, we do have laws on the books, or I should say there are rules on the books because a lot of this is interpretations around, like a category B visa issuance. And if you are coming from a visa waiver country, the CBP official that you talk to, that you show your passport to, can reject you if, again, they suspect that you're coming here for that express purpose.
PHILLIP: Exactly.
MEIJER: Now, what is that threshold? Because the other point here is the optics around, you know, whether you are arresting and intentionally targeting for deportation a bunch of pregnant women, those optics are not good. Or if you're a CBP officer at an airport and all of a sudden it's like pregnant woman on my line, get out, like you are just creating a lot of challenges.
PHILLIP: Or if you're Mike Davis, that was the last voice you heard in the intro, and he says women of childbearing age. So, if you're under 40 and you're on a visa waiver from the U.K., they're basically going to say, oh, sorry, you're a woman under 40, you can't enter our country.
[22:25:07]
MEIJER: I don't -- but he's not an administration official.
PHILLIP: I'm just saying --
SETMAYER: Okay, I mean, Mike Davis has a lot of influence inside the administration. He was also very instrumental in Project 2025. He was also very instrumental in the elections denying scheme during Trump 1. Let's not minimize who Mike Davis is. That's right. He is a despicable human being, and these are the types of things that he's been advocating for a long time.
Now, what we just saw should scare the hell out of every American. We're about to celebrate the 250th anniversary of our country. You know, I actually did a very touristy thing today. For the first time in like ten years, I took one of those sightseeing boats, and I passed by Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. And it brought me to tears because I'm looking at how far our country has come under these, under the leadership of people like this, and the hypocrisy of people like Stephen Miller, whose own family were Jews who came to this country to escape what happened in Germany, and the despicable things that come out of his mouth, and a lot of these other people.
And I thought about my own family that came here through Ellis Island in 1924. Could you imagine -- I mean, my Italian, my Sicilian family, you know what they were called when they came here? All kinds of things. Irish families, all of those things, and but they were still able to survive and persevere in this country.
And that nativist kind of language that's coming back, that anyone that -- you know, if you're pregnant, if you -- what if you got a tan and you're pregnant, and somebody suspects, oh, well, you must be from one of those shithole countries that Trump doesn't like. What have we become? This is -- and targeting women?
The misogyny here is on full display. It's bigger than just trying to make up something about, you know, some red herring again about CCP Chinese agents. That's a bunch of bullshit.
MOYNIHAN: That's a legitimate concern.
SETMAYER: It's a concern about this big, when that's not what they're talking about.
MOYNIHAN: So, why can't we accept the concern?
SETMAYER: If that's such a concern, sweetheart, how come none of them said anything about CCP agents? They targeted women and minorities.
MEIJER: In 1986, 25 years ago, caused a really big issue.
PHILLIP: Let me just make a note that this has been being addressed by the federal government for a long time. The Biden Justice Department in 2022 sentenced Turkish nationals to 27 months in prison for orchestrating birth tourism. In 2024, a man and a woman also found guilty of criminal charges in connection to birth tourism.
Again, back in 2015, there was a huge bust in California. This has been prosecuted. It's been an issue. It is not -- and also, I also -- here's the reason it's really a red herring. The birthright citizenship thing is not actually about birth tourism. They wanted to change the rules so that they could decide whatever category it was.
In this case, sometimes they would say it's illegal immigrants, sometimes they would say it's temporary visitors. Whatever category they decided, those people would not be citizens anymore. That's really what the birthright citizenship ruling is about. It is not about birth tourism.
SEAWRIGHT: These people are sick, and that's what you saw on the video with these comments. The fact of the matter is it's easier to be angry than it is informed. And there are a lot of angry people because Republicans have made a living and a giving of immigration being a red meat issue for their base. And because they're losing every single argument you can make in a political year, they want to turn back to what they know and what they lean on, and that's red meat, right wing, divisive language, and that's what you see coming from their leaders.
I'm thankful that the Supreme Court affirmed what we've always fundamentally believed, at least in my lifetime in this country, that if you're born in America, you are American. And that is a blow and a strike in the face to this right wing MAGA movement who wants to try to rearrange the card decks about who we are as Americans, a story and a country of immigrants.
FOSTER: I mean, briefly I have some personal investment in this. My mother arrived in this country on a visa around 1920, was very much pregnant with me at the time, and I am a citizen of this country. I've built businesses here. I love this country profoundly. I think immigrants have a way of revitalizing the kind of commitment to the original tradition of this country in many respects.
I think it is utterly reasonable for people to have serious concerns about immigrations. I think plenty of people have grave concerns about illegal immigration. Perhaps some of that has been overemphasized in the past.
But in the current moment, I think the administration, and I think you're correct in a certain respect, the administration has made a particular effort to simply eradicate birthright citizenship as though people coming from abroad, having children here, who are here legally or even illegally, having children here and then building lives for themselves degrades the citizenry of people who are otherwise naturalized, who have perhaps been here for generations.
PHILLIP: That's actually the language that they've used. I know Peter wants to get in, but that is the language that they've used, that it degrades the citizenship of Americans to have people be able to become Americans.
MEIJER: I just want to say, I mean, talking about immigration is not a red herring.
[22:30:02]
I mean, this is an issue that is-- that deeply concerns broad swaths of the electorate and was one of the key areas in which the Biden administration's just absolute incompetent handling of the southern border and on the immigration issue more broadly really sounded their death knell politically and then probably led directly to the rise and the re-election of Donald Trump non-consecutively.
ANTJUAN SEAWRIGHT, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST AND FOUNDER AND CEO, BLUEPRINT STRATEGY: But I'm not saying it's not an issue, what I am saying is how Republicans talk about immigration and how they use it as a weapon of mass political destruction and distraction is the issue. They purposely use the language in some of the examples for the sake of revving up their base because they need energy and that's what the MAGA base is built on.
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: Let me just point out one interesting thing. I mean, this is a Fox News poll that asked, should the children of illegal immigrants born in the U.S. automatically, should they become citizens? A year ago, that number was 67 percent said yes, they should become citizens. Today, it's 69 percent.
I'm going to actually just point out that is actually a margin of error result. So essentially, a year of demagoguing on this issue has not really changed the views of Americans about whether or not this is part of how the country has functioned over the last 120 years and so, you know, we talk about 70-30 issues, 80-20 issues, this is one of them.
TARA SETMAYER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, CO-FOUNDER AND CEO, THE SENECA PROJECT: AND The American people understand the importance of immigration. Listen, I worked on immigration as a Republican staffer for many years and I was a hardliner on a lot of these things and birth tourism was one of the issues that we needed to address along with securing the border and all of that.
However, it's about enforcement, not about changing the Constitution and what it means. The framers of the 14th Amendment were very clear about drawing a bright line. It did not want politicians politically weaponizing what it meant to be a citizen in this country and that's exactly what this administration is trying to do and how dare they.
PHILLIP: Next for us, the President showed off the new Air Force One today, a $400 million gift from the Qataris. He says the U.S. could never build something like that. We'll discuss next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:35:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: Tonight, President Trump broke in his new Air Force One, taking the inaugural flight on board. The new luxury jet was donated by the government of Qatar and it is reportedly worth $400 million and the government has spent additional hundreds of millions of dollars to retrofit and secure that plane.
Critics have raised legal, ethical and even national security concerns over a U.S. President accepting such a massive and expensive gift from a foreign nation. But Trump defended the jet and said that Qatar was willing to spend more than the U.S. would be willing to spend to make a plane like that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: They just completed it. They made it appropriate for a President that means the security and all of the different bells and whistles they put on. Very complex stuff, but it's really quite something and this is a plane that the United States of America should have.
Frankly, we couldn't build a plane like this because we wouldn't be willing to spend the kind of money necessary. They spent top dollars.
I said, I'd like to use it. And the Emir Tamim, who is a great gentleman, he said, no, I'd like to make a contribution to the country. So it was very nice.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So much for American made.
Antjuan, let's pull from the, you know, the chapter of if this were another President, even Trump saying that Americans couldn't build a plane like that, that would be a political faux pas in any other era.
SEAWRIGHT: It's a slap in the face to Americans and the idea that he's an American first President and the fact that the Republicans are focused on an America first agenda. So that's number one. Number two is the biggest load of corruption we've seen, perhaps in my lifetime.
How is the corruption here?
MEIJER: I mean, if a foreign government is giving a gift to the United States, how is that different from foreign --
SEAWRIGHT: You're a former member of Congress. You're saying that this is not corrupt when these type, when this should come before Congress for approval. You're saying this is not corrupt, I think it's corrupt.
MEIJER: You can, you can gift funds to the U.S. You can, you can, you know, buy weapons from the U.S., which does actually have congressional approval.
SEAWRIGHT: These type, this type transaction should have approval from the United States Congress. One.
MEIJER: Under what statute?
SEAWRIGHT: Number two, Donald Trump is going to personally benefit from this plane when he leaves office.
MEIJER: We don't know that.
SETMAYER: He's taking it with him.
KMELE FOSTER, EDITOR-AT-LARGE, TANGLE, AND PODCAST HOST, "THE FIFTH COLUMN": He said he might go to the library, but even, but even going to the, even going to what, if he continued to use it personally afterwards, I suppose that would be a challenge.
SETMAYER: Are we really giving him the benefit of the doubt?
FOSTER: I'm not giving him the benefit of the doubt.
SETMAYER: I'm just saying.
FOSTER: I don't know the future. That would be disconcerting.
SETMAYER: This is about him and earlier he said that he complained that the other planes were too old and he couldn't wait.
[22:40:00]
Okay, I mean, look, Donald Trump insulting Americans about, you know, well, we could never do this. And then he says, and then he's, then he's like --
PHILLIP: Wait, what do you mean? That's not what he said.
FOSTER: He said he would not spend the kind of money that they spent to build the plane like this.
SETMAYER: -- appropriate billions of dollars for the new ones that are being built by Boeing.
PHILLIP: Can I also put another part of this on the table that maybe you might appreciate?
One of the reasons that Americans don't build palaces in the sky for their presidents is because presidents work for the citizenry. They're not emirs.
They're not, you know, they're not kings. They don't get a palace. We don't pay for a palace because you're a President, not a king.
So that is -- there is a real reason why there is a degree of modesty in the White House, in Air Force One. And Trump seems to absolutely hate that.
FOSTER: Sure, I will grant all of that. And I'm not suggesting that this is totally above board and I'm completely fine with it.
But the parts of it that don't bother me, if it's foreign money, foreign direct investment, buying things from abroad and getting them cheaper, retrofitting the plane. That doesn't bother me because it isn't nearly the same level of corruption as what we were talking about earlier.
SETMAYER: It's another piece of it. There's so many layers.
FOSTER: Let's not overstate the significance of this particular thing.
SETMAYER: And the optics of this are horrible, number one. Number two, it wasn't a gift.
It wasn't a gift. I'm talking about the political optics. It wasn't a gift because it still costs the American taxpayers almost a billion dollars to retrofit it.
So it's not a gift that will cost us.
FOSTER: Even if it were a more modest plane, it certainly would have cost more.
SETMAYER: But Congress didn't appropriate the money for that mission.
PHILLIP: They are building the other plane.
SETMAYER: Yes.
PHILLIP: The money has already been spent for the other planes that have been authorized for the purpose of hiring the President. I mean, look, part of the other thing about this thing with Trump, as you saw there, he's very excited about the plane.
It's important to him to show it off. It's not an American plane. It's a foreign plane.
But it's also one of the many projects that he is so excited about that that's almost all he talks about now. According to the "Washington Post," Trump evoked projects such as his ballroom renovations, the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool, the restoration of the fountains on nearly four out of every five days in June, that's up from about a third of the days in January and an eighth of the days in last June.
So for the past three months, Trump has talked about his construction projects at a greater frequency than topics like health care and wages and about as often as he's talked about inflation and prices. And if you want a visual, you can literally see it here.
That blue line at the top that I'm going to show you is how much he talks about inflation and prices. But look at how much construction and beautification has just skyrocketed into just being at the top of his priority list at a time when Americans are very clear that they think that their pocketbook should be the most important thing to have.
MEIJER: Yes, I mean, that line is also driving up towards the 250th anniversary of the United States. Fourth of July.
I mean, there's a reason why there's a lot of focus on beautification in Washington, D.C. leading up to a very substantial anniversary in our nation's history.
PHILLIP: How is touting a Qatari plane part of touting the 250th anniversary of America?
MEIJER: I mean, that was about beautification projects in Washington, D.C. I mean, sure. But I just want to say, there's a reason why they're calling this the VC-25A bridge, because the successors to the VC-25A, which are the original ones going back, you know, 35 to 40 years.
PHILLIP: You're talking about the planes that carried the President.
MEIJER: The planes, yes. Those were supposed to be delivered, you know, initially it was a decade ago. Then it was supposed to be five years ago.
They have slipped past their schedule to the point where the maintenance and the on-time availability of these aircraft is very limited. So there is a very logical rationale.
SEAWRIGHT: Peter, can I share with you just one small difference? Those planes will not go to the Trump Presidential library. This plane will.
MEIJER: You're making a ton of assumptions, and I agree with you.
SEAWRIGHT: He's unapologetic.
MEIJER: It's a donation because the VC-25Bs come online, and this is no longer needed.
PHILLIP: But let's say, what does happen if there's a $400 million plane given by a foreign government, then the United States government pours hundreds of millions into that same plane, and then it goes to his Presidential library? That's okay?
LYDIA MOYNIHAN, CORRESPONDENT, "NEW YORK POST": I mean, Reagan obviously has a plane in his Presidential library. I think a couple things can be true at the same time.
A couple things can be true at the same time. One is that, yes, we absolutely have an old fleet.
You know, when they were going to Davos, it had to turn around. There was an issue. So definitely need new planes.
[22:44:58]
I actually am not super comfortable with the idea that, especially as we are in the midst of a war and trying to figure out what our strategy in the Middle East is, that we are accepting such a large gift from Qatar. I don't love that.
On the beautification front, though, I think it's totally fair and valid for President Trump to be proud of Washington, D.C. He talks a lot about it, but guess what? He talks a lot more than pretty much any other President in recent history.
Biden gave a couple of press conferences, Trump is talking to the press every day. Actually, yes, he's talking about beautification a lot, but he's also talking about inflation and health care and all of these issues.
PHILLIP: As you're talking, you just reminded me, because, I mean, Trump, yes, he talks about the fountains and the reflecting pool, but he also talks about redoing the stone in the White House walkway, which really only he and his aides get to use. And you know what stone he --
MOYNIHAN: They're not going to be using it in two years.
PHILLIP: You know what he did?
MOYNIHAN: Investments he's making for the future.
PHILLIP: This is very reminiscent of the Qatari plane. He took American-made stone and replaced it with foreign-made stone because he liked the way that it looked better. Now, I don't know what that has to do with the 250th anniversary of America, but it seems to have a lot more to do with Trump deciding that he wants the White House to look more like his personal home.
MOYNIHAN: He's spent his life building and creating properties and real estate. It's obviously something that he feels deeply passionate about. And he's not going to be at the White House in two years.
SETMAYER: He hasn't built anything since Trump Tower.
MOYNIHAN: All of these investments he's making in D.C. actually are benefiting the American people.
SEAWRIGHT: Can I stay with one continued theme from my perspective here? Corruption.
No bid contract for the fountain, no bid contract for this ballroom that he wants to build. Well, the contractor was a friend of his.
MOYNIHAN: Is he going to be using the ballroom in two years? Is he going to be using the ballroom in two years? Or is that something that somebody else is going to be using?
It's a ballroom that the American people wouldn't have to pay for.
PHILLIP: Antjuan, this is the last word. We got to go.
SEAWRIGHT: I just want to say the continued theme here is corruption. No bid contract for the ballroom, no bid contract for the reflection pool. And now we're talking about Qatar plane. Corruption follows this man and this administration.
PHILLIP: All right. Next for us, your feedback.
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[22:50:00]
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PHILLIP: Now, some viewer feedback from cnn.com/abby. Here's our first comment.
Capitalism is corrupt. That's why socialism is rising in politics.
SETMAYER: Well, under this administration, I get it.
MOYNIHAN: It's a popular viewpoint these days in the Democratic Party.
PHILLIP: You're laughing, but isn't it a legit issue that when people see capitalism being weaponized to enrich politicians and oligarchs, that they might get skeptical of it?
FOSTER: I can understand that. If they would actually read a couple of books, they might appreciate the extraordinary body count that socialism has managed to rack up, which is the reason why people imagine saying Democratic socialism makes it fundamentally better.
PHILLIP: Let's not say that socialism is better than capitalism. But I'm just saying, isn't it? No, I'm not asking you to.
But I'm just saying, isn't it bad P.R. for capitalism? For capitalism to function the way that it is functioning in some cases right now?
MEIJER: You should want as clean a capitalism as possible. The question is, what are you comparing it to?
Because I think the Republican argument in a lot of cases would be, where you have the corruption, where you have the greed and the graft, that is when you have the ability to exert control in the rent-seeking behaviors, where you use the government as an extension of that to seek profit.
I mean, we've seen this with so many corrupt industries that have become entrenched. They have built up protective moats of legislation around them, and then they get lazy, they get shiftless. You end up not having the ability to then be competitive on the global market. And the next thing you know, we lose those industries because we're no
longer competitive. But the comparison of socialism, my God, just look at the amount of countries where the leaders are now on the Forbes billionaire list, not because they've ever had a private sector job in their life, but because they are able to literally steal everything from their people.
SETMAYER: That sounds an awful lot like Donald Trump in this administration, doesn't it?
MEIJER: He's had a job, he's built businesses.
SETMAYER: He's also bankrupted casinos. So, listen, socialism, of course, is not the answer. Capitalism --
MOYNIHAN: I'm glad you're saying, of course, because that's --
Most people in your party now are seeming to embrace that.
SEAWRIGHT: Don't say most people in my party.
SETMAYER: However, here's the thing. When you have such corruption in the government like we have right now, weaponizing capitalism, as Abby said, I understand why people are skeptical, and they end up going towards something that is folly, which is socialism, and doesn't work, especially in a country this size.
So, if we had all the things that you just said, and we had a legitimate Department of Justice, we wouldn't be getting rid of the fraud divisions. We wouldn't be prosecuting for doing these things.
PHILLIP: We're short on time.
I just want to give a voice to this second comment, which is, I'm a federal employee, and we have to abide by a multitude of ethics and regulations. I want to know why President Trump doesn't have to abide by the same rules as we do.
We don't have time to get into it, but unfortunately, he does not. The President is largely exempt from all those ethics rules, and that's probably why we're in this situation.
Now, for the more important thing, after a viewer shot his shot with Ashley Allison the other day, Ms. Moynihan's digits are the ones to get, says this viewer. She is amazing.
[22:55:09]
MOYNIHAN: He's talking about the fingers, right?
PHILLIP: Right, exactly.
And finally, not to be outdone, Kmele is sporting some nice glasses tonight, says another viewer.
FOSTER: Thank you. That's because my vision is deteriorating, but I'm glad that I can still be fetching.
SETMAYER: But no hat tonight. No hat.
PHILLIP: Compliments all around, everyone. Thank you very much. We'll be back in a moment.
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[23:00:10]
PHILLIP: It's Wednesday, which means a new episode of "Confessions and Obsessions" is now streaming. I sit down with a group of familiar faces, and they reveal some things that they want to get off their chest, including the horniest city, GLP1's, dating icks, and more. You can check it out at cnn.com/confessionsandobsessions, or on the CNN app.
Thank you very much for watching "NewsNight." "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
