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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Sources Say, Israel Warns U.S. of Iranian Plot to Assassinate Trump; U.S. and Iran Trade New Strikes as Ceasefire Crumbles; Trump Fires Election Assistance Commission Leaders. Family of Mexican Immigrant Killed by an ICE Agent Calls for Investigation; Donald Trump's Next Pet Project Focuses on the White House Columns. Aired 10- 11p ET
Aired July 09, 2026 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[22:00:00]
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR (voice over): Tonight, breaking news. Israeli intelligence warns of a new Iranian plot to kill President Trump.
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: I'm their number one target.
PHILLIP: What it means for the future of Trump's Iran deal.
Plus, a fatal shooting during an ICE operation.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He did not deserve to die.
PHILLIP: The agent claims self-defense, and the family is demanding answers.
Also, Trump tells the remaining members of the Election Assistance Commission, you're fired. What does it mean for the midterms?
And next on the president's construction punch list, the columns in front of the White House.
TRUMP: We've taken about 150 years of paint off of the columns and redid them.
PHILLIP: A look at how some of the other pet projects are shaping up.
Live at the table, Ana Navarro, Scott Jennings, Caroline Sunshine, Geoff Duncan, and Jemele Hill.
Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here, they do.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIP: Good evening, I'm Abby Phillip in New York. Breaking news tonight, an escalation from Iran. Sources tell CNN that Israel has warned the United States of a new Iranian plot to assassinate President Trump. Some American officials suggested that the Israeli report could be an effort to sway Trump as he weighs whether to intensify his posture in Iran.
But it does come after days of crowds of Iranians calling for Trump's death during the funeral for the slain supreme leader. At the NATO summit yesterday, Trump appeared to reference some of the threats against him.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: They want to take out the U.S. leader, me. I'm on every list. I saw things this morning, I'm on every single one of their lists.
I may be gone too, because I'm their number one target. It's out all over the place. I'm their number one, because they're scum.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: It's the latest development that raises the question, is President Trump back to square one with Iran?
The week -- this week, he said the 60-day memorandum of understanding was, quote, over. Both sides have exchanged strikes in the region. Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has slowed significantly again. And now, sources tell CNN that mediators in the region are working to get the U.S. and Iran back to the negotiating table, a last-ditch effort to salvage what they can from the ceasefire agreement.
Now, remember, that agreement just laid the groundwork to start talking about Iran's nuclear ambitions and what would happen to their enriched uranium. The gap between the United States and its stated goals, and any chance of achieving them right now appears to be getting wider.
Joining us now in our fifth seat is Max Boot. He's the senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. But before we begin and open it up here at the table, you are invited to join the conversation and the debate. Go to cnn.com/abby. You can weigh in there. We'll get to some of your comments throughout the show.
But, Max, taking all of this into consideration, the -- what seems to be the increased belligerence from Iran a- as a result of this funeral, after this funeral, the MOU seems to be dead in the water, and perhaps a real threat that Iran is actually actively plotting to kill Trump again. What do you make of it?
MAX BOOT, SENIOR FELLOW, COUNCIL OF FOREIGN RELATIONS: What I make of it, Abby, is that the Iran war has not really ended. I mean, remember when President Trump started this foolhardy and unnecessary war of choice at the end of February, he said it would be a war that would last about four to five weeks, and here we are about five months later, and, unfortunately, the war is still continuing. I mean, I'm not sure that we're going to see a return to a full-blown set of hostilities, because I don't think Trump wants that, especially ahead of the midterm elections. He doesn't need gasoline prices to spike once again, especially with the U.S. petroleum reserve at its lowest level since 1983. I don't think the Iranians necessarily want a full-blown war either because they still have a lot of damage to repair from the previous round of hostilities.
But it's clear that the Iranians do want to control the Strait of Hormuz. They do want to make sure that 20 percent of the world's oil basically flows through their hands, which was not the case when Trump started this war. But now, since the war started, they've discovered that they have this weapon of economic destruction at their hands, and they don't want to relinquish it.
[22:05:04]
And oh, by the way, Trump is still not accomplishing his goal of eradicating the Iranian nuclear program. So, it's a mess.
But what I foresee happening, Abby, is we're likely to be in this period of low-level hostilities where it's not quite full-blown peace, not quite full-blown war, but kind of alternating between periods of hostility and peacemaking. But, again, I don't see us making much progress towards Trump's goal of ending the Iranian nuclear program.
PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, to that point just -- this was 20-something days ago. This is J.D. Vance talking about what he predicted would be a complete change in the posture of Iran as a result of this MOU. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
J.D. VANCE, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: The coolest thing about the progress we've made over the last few weeks is that you see people within the Iranian system, senior leadership, even IRGC officials say, you know what? We may have some animosity, we may have some mistrust, but we recognize the way that we've done business with the United States for 47 years is a mistake. Let's try something else.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: You know, Caroline, there was really nothing at the time that suggested that he was correct, certainly nothing in the MOU. In the MOU, it doesn't even address any concrete things about the nuclear program, Iran's support for terror in the region. So, were they just hoodwinked?
CAROLINE SUNSHINE, DEPUTY COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR, TRUMP 2024 CAMPAIGN: Well, I think we know now why J.D. Vance was sent out to go sell the MOU, and at the time, Marco Rubio was nowhere to be found. Like if you remember, J.D. Vance was doing interview after interview after interview, going out and selling this deal, and Marco Rubio was like, what, D.J.-ing a wedding still or something? Like he was nowhere to be found, because, as we've now seen, Vance, I think, was set up to be, you know, the fall guy for this. I -- now, I think we can all agree that if Iran were to assassinate President Trump, that would be wrong because it is wrong to assassinate leaders of sovereign nations, which is why we should have never assassinated the ayatollah and replaced him with a younger version, but I don't think Iran wants to assassinate President Trump. Because if they were to do that, that would create a rally-around-the- flag effect for this war in the United States that we have not seen yet, and it would almost 100 percent guarantee that the United States has no choice but to launch a full-on ground invasion of Iran, which is the one thing Iran does not want.
They have figured out what we have not figured out, which is that this is an economic war, okay? This war does not have a military solution. We've exhausted all the good military options. What Iran has figured out is war is about studying your opponent, and they've studied President Trump very well.
And I think it was just last week President Trump said, you know, my biggest fear is being Herbert Hoover. I do not want to be the guy who crashes the U.S. stock market. And Iran has studied that, and what they've learned is the playbook is, it's a really nice stock market you've got there. It'd be a shame if anything happened to it.
PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, he called it a risk of economic catastrophe. And Iran sees that, and they're using the leverage that they have.
The Journal had an interesting take on this, which is that the MOU had this part about the Strait of Hormuz that was so poorly written that the U.S. thought that it gave -- it opened up the Strait of Hormuz. But meanwhile, Iran reads it, and they say, oh, actually, we control this strait. We're the ones who are going to decide who comes in and out. And now here we are.
FMR. LT. GOV. GEOFF DUNCAN (R-GA): I think it speaks to the flippant nature of the whole situation. I mean, if we're being honest, I think if most Americans are being honest with themselves, this whole crisis, this war was created as a shiny object to distract so many folks from the chaos that was around this administration at the time, and what looked to be, was promised a couple of days, a couple of weeks, a couple of months, has now turned into some sort of endless, unpredictable end.
And it speaks to the serious nature of this. It speaks to the grave danger that not only the region but the world sits upon. And there's really two outcomes. There's either the U.S. is going to give in to Iran, continue to give and give and give and give, or we're going to have to commit ourselves and our troops and our military to some sort of effort that is going to blow us away for extended periods of time. It's going to break a lot of people's mindsets as to what Donald Trump's true intentions are there.
That's the ultimatum. There is no way to negotiate. This is a propaganda war. This is -- Donald Trump is using propaganda and he's propping up the markets. He's not talking to diplomats. He's not talking to generals on an hourly basis. He's talking to financial experts that are telling him when markets are closing, when markets are opening, and when P.R. needs to be pushed out. It's to change the narrative.
PHILLIP: Scott?
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: You seem to know exactly who Donald Trump is talking to. How do you know that?
DUNCAN: Well, just as an American watching it play out, it certainly feels as though there's no sort of organized fashion of what's going on.
JENNINGS: You said he's not talking to generals, that he's only talking to economic planners. I'm just asking if, how you know that. It just seems to be a wild assertion. I just wonder what evidence of that there is.
DUNCAN: As a taxpaying American, I sit there and I watch this stuff play out within minutes after the markets close. I watch before markets open.
JENNINGS: So, no evidence. So, here's what I think. I think we achieved a great military victory.
[22:10:01]
The Iranian military is devastated. I disagree with Max. I don't think they're currently on the brink of building a nuclear weapon because they can't be because of the military victory that we have achieved.
BOOT: I didn't say they were on the brink of building a nuclear weapon.
JENNINGS: You said we had made progress on it.
BOOT: I said we have not eradicated their nuclear program, like Trump said. They have like 1,000 pounds of highly enriched uranium. They still have it.
JENNINGS: Yes, and it's buried beneath a significant amount of rubble.
BOOT: Yes. And then they can take it out of there when they want to.
JENNINGS: Thanks to the United States military. So, that's number one.
Number two --
BOOT: Don't mischaracterize what I said, Scott.
JENNINGS: -- after the military victory, they gave diplomacy a chance. And as the president said repeatedly, he always said, I would like to have a deal. I'm prepared for them to not behave, in which case they get nothing and we have to go back to a military option, which is where we are today.
Where it ends, I don't know. There hasn't been as much volatility in the oil market the last couple of days, as some people might have projected, which is a good thing, but I do think it's true that they are not interested in rational outcomes here.
And this whole threat to assassinate our president, just say one other thing, for all the people out there who've been crapping on our relationship with Israel and what we do with Israel and our alliance with Israel, they gave us intelligence to help us keep our president from being assassinated. That's a good thing.
SUNSHINE: I think we need to focus on our intelligence, though. Because our intelligence, if we listen to our intelligence, maybe we should start listening to our own intelligence, because not listening to our own intelligence agencies is how we got into this war. Our intelligence agencies assessed that Iran was not building a nuclear weapon. That assessment has not changed throughout this war.
ANA NAVARRO, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: And Israel also gave us intelligence telling us that the Iranian regime was about to fall, and that proved to be terribly false.
I also think that there is a bigger foreign policy mess here. If you all remember, January 3rd, extricated Maduro out of Venezuela, for what was supposed to be interim elections shortly afterwards. Venezuela has now been hit by two devastating earthquakes, and the Maduro vice president and his entire regime is still in place. They're completely incapable and inept to responding to these earthquakes.
We saw this week U.S. officials, SOUTHCOM officials, greeting and hugging and meeting with the worst of the offenders, the executor of the oppression in Venezuela, Diosdado Cabello. And he couldn't -- you see, so we couldn't be in Iran when 50,000 Iranians were getting slaughtered in the streets because a fourth or a third of the U.S. Navy was off the coast of Venezuela. And that now is a hot mess. The woman who gave him the peace prize, she's not even allowed back in her country, and there is nothing this administration is doing to do that.
Iran is a quagmire. It feels like every other day they tell us that this is about to end, and it doesn't end. And Cuba, you got 10 million people without electricity, a grid that has completely collapsed, and a bunch of Cuban Americans in Miami wondering when the hell it's going to be their turn.
PHILLIP: So, to your point about whether this will be a quagmire, one of our viewers has a question, where does the panel think that the U.S. will be a year from now in Iran? I mean, Max, you suggested that it's like an on again, off again conflict. But where does that end? Are we going to do that forever?
BOOT: Well, to coin a term, Abby, it looks an awful lot like a forever war, you know, one of those forever wars that Trump was promising to end, and he just started one, and he doesn't know how to get out of it because he thought that the Iranian regime would fall within a few days, which no serious intelligence analyst, which the U.S. intelligence community, nobody really believed that. But Trump seemed to think that because Netanyahu told him that. Clearly, that's not the case. He doesn't have an exit strategy. And so we're basically stuck with this hostile regime, which is as big of a threat as ever to the rest of the region. And --
NAVARRO: But if Republicans lose the House and/or the Senate, can that change? Can a Democratic House and/or Senate put some guardrails on Trump?
BOOT: I doubt it because, you know, he has huge authority as commander-in-chief. He doesn't listen to Congress. I'm not sure that there's much that can -- the only authority he --
JENNINGS: Guardrails for what?
BOOT: The only authority he recognizes, as we were discussing earlier, is the markets. So, he doesn't want to do something that tanks the market.
JENNINGS: Guardrails for what? To go back to a world where we're all rainbows and unicorns with the Iranians? They've been at war with us for 47 years.
NAVARRO: nobody's being rainbows and unicorns --
JENNINGS: 47 years.
SUNSHINE: Scott, come on, 47 years? Okay.
JENNINGS: -- of death to America.
NAVARRO: Nobody has been rainbows and unicorns with the Iranians.
SUNSHINE: Why didn't I learn about the 40 -- why didn't -- I'm sorry, the first time I've ever heard about the 47-year Iran war was like this year. Like we don't teach --
JENNINGS: I'm sorry, you don't read much.
SUNSHINE: -- about the 47-year war with Iran in school.
JENNINGS: Did you just start following the news this year?
SUNSHINE: Like it's insulting to actual conflicts that we've been involved in to say that we've been at war with Iran for -- how many Americans have they killed on U.S. soil in 47 years in the war that we haven't had with them?
JENNINGS: They have killed thousands of Americans. They have maimed American soldiers.
SUNSHINE: Yes, which is all wrong.
JENNINGS: They have attacked American allies, and they have been at war --
SUNSHINE: But why have our soldiers been over there? JENNINGS: -- with the west for ever since this regime came to power, and it is their intention to build a nuclear weapon and use it on us, and use it on Israel, and use it on the west.
[22:15:02]
That is their intention, and they state it every day.
SUNSHINE: No. They intend to just keep using the Strait of Hormuz. They have now learned that they can behave like a nuclear power without ever needing to be one. But, okay, so like if we're going to keep going with this, what number of American troops are we willing to commit to keep going? And like what's your number? Like how many U.S. troops are you willing to expend to achieve your objectives? And what amount of money? Because like we're not having that conversation, and we need to, because we've already spent $300 billion, we've already lost. Like those are the questions we need to we need to answer.
JENNINGS: What amount of money am I willing to expend to keep the American people safe from the worst regime in the world? A fair amount.
SUNSHINE: Okay. Iran -- nobody is like -- first of all, Iran does not have a nuclear weapon. They don't want a nuclear weapon. And nobody is firing --
JENNINGS: They don't?
SUNSHINE: Nobody is firing a nuke at a country that has 5,000 of them. Do you understand? Like nobody's firing a nuclear weapon at a country that has 5,000 of them.
JENNINGS: A, they do want a nuclear weapon, as Max knows, and, B, you're --
SUNSHINE: That's not happening.
JENNINGS: -- arguing that they are some sort of a rational actor here. They're irrational people. It's pretty apparent, is it not?
SUNSHINE: Oh, I think they're very -- I think --
PHILLIP: I think one of the other things about this, Scott, I heard you earlier saying that if they don't behave well, they don't get anything. Why is this always about what they get? What about what we need to get? We need to get the uranium.
JENNINGS: Yes.
PHILLIP: We need to get inspectors on the ground. We need to get the -- we need Iran to stop funding terror. And it seems like there's actually no mechanism whatsoever for us to get any of those things.
NAVARRO: And to safely navigate through the Strait of Hormuz.
PHILLIP: And the Strait of Hormuz. JENNINGS: Well, that was the point of attempting diplomacy. But what they've learned is there was always a high percentage chance this was not going to work. It didn't.
PHILLIP: But in the absence of diplomacy, what is the mechanism for us to get any of those things that we say we need?
JENNINGS: In the absence of diplomacy?
PHILLIP: Because you're saying diplomacy is done --
JENNINGS: Eternal vigilance and willingness to pummel these people into submission.
PHILLIP: You're saying diplomacy is done.
JENNINGS: I don't know that.
PHILLIP: We're just going to basically bomb them forever. But bombing them forever doesn't get us the nuclear material. It doesn't get us inspectors. It doesn't get us a change of their actual behavior. What does it get us?
JENNINGS: Well, you --
BOOT: It doesn't get us lower oil prices either.
JENNINGS: You posited that the choice was diplomacy or this. A, I don't know that diplomacy is done. Maybe it's not. I sort of think at the moment that it is. But, number two, just like with any irrational bad actor, you have to be willing to monitor and pummel as needed. I mean, that is what will have to happen.
PHILLIP: Sure. But, again, how are we getting the things we want? That doesn't answer the question.
JENNINGS: Well, I mean --
PHILLIP: we can pummel them all we want, but we don't get a single thing as a result of that.
JENNINGS: What do you mean? If we pummel -- if we disable through military action their ability to wage war in the region or do any of the things you mentioned, that would be a good outcome.
BOOT: We pummeled them at the beginning of the war.
SUNSHINE: How is that going for us? I mean, respectfully, two weeks ago, we said we were going to strike Iran. And you know what they did? They said, oh, okay, if you do that, we're going to treat Elon Musk's Starlink infrastructure in the region as military assets, since Starlink helps the U.S. military. And we didn't go through with the strikes. You want to know why? Because SpaceX's IPO was scheduled for two days later.
Like there's no military solution to this conflict. Iran has figured out that this is a stock market war. And so, I mean, they blunted our strikes. Like you see how the chess works, right? There's -- we have the greatest fighting force in the world, but it's time to bring them home because there's not a military solution to this that doesn't involve us being over there years from now, which is what we don't want, to that viewer's question.
PHILLIP: We will leave it there.
Next for us, the president tells the remaining leadership of a key election commission, you're fired. So, what does that mean for the midterms that are just four months away?
Plus, the family of a man who was shot and killed in an ICE operation demands answers. Tonight, we're learning that there were no agents wearing body cameras, and the man was killed and he was not a target of the operation in the first place.
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[22:20:00]
PHILLIP: Tonight, with just months until the midterms, Donald Trump is firing the leadership of the Election Assistance Commission. That commission is a bipartisan federal agency created to help states administer elections. The move just comes days after the Supreme Court overturned decades of precedent, granting Trump the power to remove heads of independent agencies.
As Trump seeks to overhaul federal elections, The New York Times is reporting that his administration is also threatening to withhold tens of millions of federal anti-terrorism funds from states that refuse to comply with his demands.
Now, Trump's efforts would force these states to transition to paper ballots and to verify citizenship of voters, among other changes. Courts have already blocked previous efforts by the administration with similar aims.
Geoff, your state is a particular target, Fulton County in particular, of these kinds of machinations. But what do you think is the intention here of essentially gutting the leadership of this Election Assistance Commission?
DUNCAN: When you wake up every day and you just want everybody to call you king, elections are always going to feel inefficient. And Donald Trump wants to eliminate oversight of his administration's oversight, and that's what this is about. You talk about Fulton County specifically. I mean, we're six years removed from the 2020 election, which, by the way, front row seat, not rigged, no proof, nothing was erroneous in that election, but six years removed.
It has nothing to do with refuting the 2020 election. It has to do with sowing seeds of doubt in forward-looking elections. It's to plant nuggets and seeds of doubt and chaos and usurping the system. And so -- and that's really what they're trying to do. I think every day more and more people are seeing through it, even Republicans. JEMELE HILL, CONTRIBUTING WRITER, THE ATLANTIC: It doesn't, to some degree -- I mean, you're right, obviously, but, to some degree, it doesn't feel like people are seeing through it because now the conversations that people are having around the elections are built based off conspiracy theories.
[22:25:00]
They're built off things that aren't proven, and it's accomplishing this narrative of continuing to drive home about the election being stolen, continuing to zero in on doing things like this to upset and create chaos.
I think to some degree it has, that seed of doubt that has been planted has worked. And that's the unfortunate part about all of this, because now people have this idea that their vote isn't protected or that these elections are not as safe as they have always been. And I think it's really not just disrespectful, but it's also meant to increase the amount of intimidation as well, it's to make people feel intimidated about the voting process.
And so it's accomplishing, unfortunately, the thing that it was meant to accomplish, to not only sow seeds of doubt, but to also intimidate voters who want to feel secure that their vote actually does count.
NAVARRO: You know, Jemele, I think it's going to have the opposite effect. I think there's going to be a backlash amongst voters who I do think see everything he's trying to do to tip the scale and rig the elections, give himself an unfair playing advantage. And I think you're going to see people come out of every nook and cranny to make sure that their vote counts and that these elections are not stolen.
And this is not happening in a vacuum, this firing of this commissioner, right? We saw that Trump started this contest of redistricting halfway through. We saw -- we've heard ad nauseam his attacks on absentee mail balloting. We have seen him claim, with no proof whatsoever, that the California elections were fraudulent, despite the fact that his endorsed candidate for governor made it to the primary and is in a runoff now in the general election.
We have seen him bully states demanding their voter rolls. We have seen him threaten to withdraw funds, of anti-terrorism funds, if they don't do that, if they don't hand over their rolls. So, it's been one thing after another after another, where he's trying to sow doubt, I agree with you, but I don't think it's going to work.
PHILLIP: And, notably, I mean, he can't get the SAVE Act passed because Republicans don't want it to pass. The courts have already said -- a lot of what he's targeting right now was in this executive order that he signed at the beginning of his administration that's been held up in the court that tried to basically use the power of the pen to force voters, force states to check citizenship or use paper ballots. He can't do it through official means, maybe even legal means, so now he's sort of trying to do it through coercion and administrative means. And I think that that seems to indicate that Trump knows that he can't do this on the up and up. He can't go to Congress and say, go ahead and change all of these laws, because they're not going to go for it.
JENNINGS: Can I go back to an issue on the voting rolls? Do you have an objection to voting rolls being as clean as they could be before an election?
NAVARRO: No, and I trust states, as did the framers of the Constitution, to manage those elections.
PHILLIP: And also going back to my question to you --
NAVARRO: And I do -- and I certainly --
PHILLIP: Scott, hold on. Going back to my question to you, Scott, Congress passed a law in the early 2000s that establishes the process to check voter rolls. If Trump wants to change that process, he knows he's got to go through Congress. But instead of doing that, he is using the -- he's using coercion. He's even using DOJ to try to get some of these things through.
JENNINGS: Well, my problem with the voting roll complaint is that in state after state after state, we see local leadership unwilling to do anything to keep their voting rolls clean. We saw it, say, for instance, in the state of Oregon, where hundreds of thousands of fraudulent or non-existent voter registrations, through some litigation, had to be taken off the list. This is true in a lot of states.
I just -- I don't understand the objection to having a clean voting roll if for no other reason than to give the inhabitants of the state some confidence that people are keeping up with it.
PHILLIP: First of all, that's not the only issue at play here.
JENNINGS: I agree. It's not.
PHILLIP: He's trying to change laws that he has no business changing when it comes to how people are able to register to vote. That's the first thing.
The second thing is this insistence on paper ballots is almost entirely due to Trump's fictional view of what happened in 2020, where he thinks that the voting machines were compromised. So, he's trying to lay down policy based on his kind of imaginary pipe -- delusions, pipe dreams about 2020. That's the real problem here.
It's not just about the whether voting -- they've been fighting over whether the voting rolls are clean for 30 years, Scott. This is -- that's not a new thing.
JENNINGS: Yes, and finally someone did something about it.
PHILLIP: This other stuff is. SUNSHINE: I'm the only person at this table that will probably find this funny, but like President Trump is such a troll. Like I've thought that he should take Maduro, who we kidnapped, and like get him to say, yes, it actually was, it was stolen, you know?
[22:30:04]
Like just to be a troll, but nobody would find that funny except me and the MAGA audience, but is what he's doing illegal? No.
The Supreme Court just said he can, he can do it. I don't even know that this commission existed before tonight. I don't think most Americans had ever heard of it either, but I do think most Americans go, well, why is it that we can't have elections where everybody has to show an I.D., no matter what?
Like, I think most Americans go, that doesn't make any sense, but they've never heard of this commission, however.
PHILLIP: Well, because we have a federal system, and the states get to decide how they run their elections. It's that simple.
JENNINGS: That's true, but one thing about this commission, which is obscure, and it's been around for a little bit, but it does offer best practices, advice to states on how best to run elections. That doesn't put them in charge of it, but they can offer advice.
My suspicion is they're going to end up appointing commissioners who have more of the President's point of view, which, as Caroline said, is in line with the Supreme Court ruling of the other day.
PHILLIP: Let me just make an important point about that. This is a congressionally established commission, it's supposed to be bipartisan. Two of the members need to be of the opposite party of the other two.
JENNINGS: Right.
PHILLIP: So if Trump wants to pack the commission, he's going to have to pack it with Democrats and Republicans. It's also possible that he doesn't do anything at all, and that he leaves the commission completely impotent as we go into a midterm election, which might have other consequences as well.
Next for us, an ICE traffic stop ends in tragedy, with a man shot and killed who was never the target. That man's family is now fighting the agency's version of events. We're going to discuss that tragic case next.
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[22:35:00]
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PHILLIP: The family of a Mexican immigrant is demanding answers after an ICE agent shot and killed him during a traffic stop. New video shows the moments after the shooting.
You can see 52-year-old Lorenzo Salgado Araujo on the ground, surrounded by agents. The witness who shot this video says that he was screaming in pain and yelling, "Help me, they shot me."
A source tells CNN that the man was not actually the target of this ICE operation, even though DHS previously described the incident as a targeted operation. DHS also said he was trying to evade arrest, and he rammed his vehicle into an ICE vehicle and refused to follow commands, and tried to run over an agent before that officer fired in self-defense.
Now DHS tells CNN the officers did not have body cams on, and now Salgado Araujo has lived in the United States for 35 years, he's had no criminal record, and his family says that the officers were following him in unmarked vehicles. He was afraid of being robbed, they said. Salgado Araujo's son spoke recently about the emotional toll that all of this has taken on the family, and he describes the way that he found out that his father had been killed.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RONALDO SALGADO, FATHER SHOT AND KILLED BY ICE: I saw a video posted on Facebook that he had been shot. I recognized him immediately, not from his appearance, but from his voice, crying for help as he lay on the street, bleeding out.
He did not deserve to die. He did not deserve to be reduced to a headline of Mexican man shot and killed by ICE.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So this is coming at a moment when ICE is actually bragging that they have surged to 10,000 arrests in five days, in early July, and they're pushing toward this goal of 2000 arrests per day. Stephen Miller wants 3000 arrests per day, and it seems that whenever they're pushing in that direction, we seem to get stories like this.
ANA NAVARRO, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, AND IHEART RADIO HOST, "BLEEP WITH ANA NAVARRO": Well, look, I think they have made efforts to try to get the abuses and excesses of ICE out of the headlines after Minnesota, which was, I think, such an outrage for most Americans when they saw people being killed in the streets of our country. This last case, again, it's something else that's not happening in a vacuum. It's the latest case that's happened, but there's been now at least five people killed by ICE in the streets of America.
Ruben Rey Martinez, they killed a young man, they killed in San Padre Island in Texas. Silverio Villegas Gonzalez, Keith Porter, they killed him in L.A. Renee Good and Alex Pretti, they killed them in Minnesota, and now Lorenzo Salgado Araujo.
SUNSHINE: Do you know the names as well of Americans who have been killed by illegal immigrants? Do you have that list?
NAVARRO: I know some of the names. I don't have the list, but I do know some of the names.
SUNSHINE: What are their names? What are some of their names?
NAVARRO: Listen, we have heard all of the names.
SUNSHINE: No, just what are some of the names?
NAVARRO: This is not me doing a contest of whether you know the names or whether I know the names.
SUNSHINE: It's not a contest.
NAVARRO: I want to pronounce these names because I think we need to put names and faces and stories.
SUNSHINE: I agree. Absolutely. And send to the faces of Americans who have been killed by illegal immigrants as well.
NAVARRO; Okay, but the people they killed don't have criminal records.
SUNSHINE: What are their names?
NAVARRO: The people they killed.
SUNSHINE: Dawson Nungare, Nate Steinle.
NAVARRO: And what are the names of people that have been killed by U.S. citizens?
[22:40:01]
SUNSHINE: How is that relevant to this?
NAVARRO: Well, you want to start talking about people who have been killed? Then let's start talking about people who have been killed in this country.
But there's a hell of a lot more people that have been killed by U.S. citizens than people who have been killed by illegal aliens. And that's not what we are talking about right now. We are talking about a government agency that is out of control, killing even American citizens, killing immigrants without a criminal record that are not the target of the investigation, lying about it as they have done and there being no full investigations and accountability.
PHILLIP: So the number, according to the A.P., that they have for fatalities in these immigration sweeps so far is eight. ICE says in response to that, our message is clear. If you come to our country illegally, we will find you, we will arrest you, and we will deport you.
But I don't think that that really addresses why people are dying. Because arresting, deporting people who are found to have either violated the law or, you know, whatever, is completely different from people being shot in the streets. And I think the other part of this story is, first of all, we don't have body camera video. It's not clear why they didn't have them, considering that ICE has tens of millions of dollars that has already been appropriated for that purpose.
But they've found that officers have lied repeatedly in these incidents. And I think there's a lack of trust here, Scott. That's part of the problem.
JENNINGS: Well, I agree with you on the body cams.
I think every single federal officer ought to have body cams. I think the President has said he agrees with that. They have money.
Every single one of these officers, not just ICE, any federal law enforcement, I think ought to have body cams that would give you instant evidence and instant information. We don't have that here. The details of this are just coming out.
I'm kind of in wait-and-see mode on this because, as you pointed out, we have had instances in the past where something has happened, a story was told, details changed. And so commenting now means you may have to comment differently later. I do think this, it's tragic any time anyone loses their life, but if the DHS version of events is true, if someone rammed into a car, didn't obey commands, which I assume they meant put agents' lives in danger, you can imagine how this would have escalated.
They are having, one more thing, hundreds of thousands of interactions with illegal aliens all over this country. It is inevitable that you are going to have a few violent instances anytime anybody dies.
JEMELE HILL, CONTRIBUTING WRITER, "THE ATLANTIC": So killing people is just the price of doing business.
PHILLIP: Let me just play, Jemele, for you. This is his son talking tonight on Erin Burnett about why his father might have been afraid of a bunch of unmarked vehicles chasing him down in the street.
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SALGADO: There's been instances in the past where his van got stolen and his tools got stolen. So ever since then, he's been very cautious about people following him. He did not know that those vehicles following him were ICE agents.
Again, these vehicles were unmarked. They had no emblems, no logos, no flashing lights. There was no way for him to know that they were ICE agents.
I know my dad would have stopped, had ICE agents formally and clearly identified themselves, at least through their vehicle markings.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: That's part of a pattern that we've seen. Officers maybe not identifying themselves. Traffic stops are always dangerous, it's particularly dangerous when people don't know who's after them.
HILL: You brought up and mentioned something a moment ago. I think that's important. It's the lack of trust that people have in this organization that too often behaves recklessly and behaves with a lack of disrespect and care for the citizens that are here.
We have seen this movie before where they put out a version of events that once the evidence starts coming in, we see is completely untrue and fabricated. They have lied on people.
And it's not just about what they are doing in these particular instances. It's also about the other abuses that we're hearing about, the fact that they've had to remove some of the female detainees because of the rampant sexual abuse that is taking place in some of these detainment facilities. It's a whole picture that Americans are getting that are ugly.
And part of what is really disgusting about this entire process is that there is a mentality in this country that because people are here illegally or because there are certain kind of people that it's okay to dehumanize, disrespect, and kill them.
Because as you just mentioned a moment ago, Scott, you said, well, they do hundreds of thousands of interactions, and sometimes these things happen. You said it so casually like it's just okay to kill people if that's just the price of doing business.
JENNINGS: That's not at all what I said. I just factually stated that anytime you have hundreds of thousands of law enforcement interactions, it is inevitable that not all of them are going to go smoothly. You are going to have situations where violence occurs between officers and the people they're trying to detain.
[22:45:04]
And by the way, in many cases, they are trying to detain and deport extremely violent people. So you're going to have some issues.
GEOFF DUNCAN, FORMER REPUBLICAN LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR OF GEORGIA, AND FORMER GEORGIA DEMOCRATIC GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: The Trump administration's immigration policies are rooted in fear and intimidation, not policies.
PHILLIP: Next for us, the East Wing, the Rose Garden, and now the columns on North Portico. A look at President Trump's newest worksite next.
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[22:50:06]
PHILLIP: Tonight, a massive tarp hangs over the White House's North Portico covering scaffolding as crews make repairs to the building's iconic columns. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum says that President Trump requested the fixes.
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DOUG BURGUM, U.S. INTERIOR SECRETARY: President Trump comes out to greet a world leader. He sees door dings in the pillars and says, look at all this stuff that needs to be repaired.
KATIE MILLER, HOST, "THE KATIE MILLER PODCAST": Oh, is that what you're doing, fixing the dings in the pillars?
BURGUM: Yes, everything. I mean, it's all historic renovation work. I mean, he's trained on restoring the plaster and not just at the door level, you know, all the way up to the crowns of those towers.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: It's the President's latest pet project as he tries to leave his mark in and around Washington. It's also one of several things that we were getting updates on his arch.
He overhauled the commission that would approve it. Now they've basically approved it, but they've put aside the issue of how tall it is. He is really fixated on being the constructor-in-chief in Washington.
HILL: Yes, maybe he's thinking after his presidency is up, he'll go beyond fixer upper or something. For most of the American people, I think they look at this and they think about the status of the economy. They think about all the other things happening in this country.
And it is, as we say, playing in people's faces. I don't care about any of this stuff.
What matters to me, how you leave a legacy is policy. You leave a legacy by making sure that the citizens of America today will be better off once you leave it and that you somehow improve their quality of life. They don't care about columns, they don't care about pools, they don't care about any of this dumb stuff that he seems to care about and be fixated on.
It's like, fix the economy. Fix the things that people care about. Buildings, nicks, no one cares about this, he cares about this.
JENNINGS: I mean, is it mutually exclusive that you could pursue major policy initiatives and also make sure that you're just doing basic maintenance on the house you're living in?
I mean, they're fixing what appears to be very minor issues. I remember when I went to work in the White House back in the Bush years, in the executive complex, the ceilings were falling down. Now we ended up shutting down half the building and renovating it and then moving all around.
I remember thinking at the time, it's kind of weird to be here at the seat of power in America and there's plaster falling off the ceilings all the time. There's water damage. So, I don't know, I think it's kind of natural to take care of the place where you live. He lives in the White House. He sees issues that need to be taken care of.
It seems like a pretty minor but needed fix to me.
SUNSHINE: I think the President is a builder. I just wish that he would build the wall instead of building some of the other things that we're building.
I feel like it's coming from a place of frustration with governing. Governing is frustrating.
PHILLIP: I hope he didn't build the wall.
SUNSHINE: Not quite. And I think if the President wants to really build something for his legacy, I think he thinks he'll be remembered for the way that he's beautified D.C. and the monuments that he's built. But really building that wall is what we will be remembered for and that's where I want to see the President's legacy go.
But I think right now it's just like, you ever have a to-do list where you're like, oh, I can't really do all these other things, so I'm going to do this. Because it's tangible, I can do it. I'm waiting for it.
It feels good, I get it.
DUNCAN: I'm just going to say this out loud, probably not popular in all circles, Donald Trump has terrible taste. His taste is absolutely jaunty.
SUNSHINE: I disagree.
DUNCAN: As you travel around the state, Georgia, as you travel around the country, Americans are worried about groceries, gas, rent, and he's trying to find a way to find more wall space in the White House to put ten more pounds of gold. And by the way, the ballroom is not a minor restoration.
JENNINGS: These columns.
DUNCAN: Oh, I know the columns, too. I'm just saying you talk about all these other projects that are going on.
NAVARRO: I'm still waiting for the beautification part to kick in because we've got a reflecting pool that's falling to pieces. We've got a ballroom that's nothing but a hole in the ground. Basically, practically everything he touches turns to crap.
DUNCAN: We've got Bob the Builder.
PHILLIP: Next for us, the panel is going to react to some of your comments on CNN.com/Abby. First, though, a quick programming note.
A quiet English town is thrust into the global spotlight when a mysterious poisoning reveals a deadly international conspiracy. "The Salisbury Poisonings, A Spy Next Door," premieres Sunday at 8 p.m. on CNN and streaming the next day on the CNN app.
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[22:55:00]
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PHILLIP: And now for some viewer feedback from CNN.com/Abby.
One of you commented, how come ICE isn't targeting all illegal aliens? There are illegal aliens from European countries north of the border and all over the globe, but ICE is only looking for brown illegal aliens. Ana, you want to take that one?
NAVARRO: Well, I guess because it's easier. The Supreme Court also allowed racial profiling when it comes to that. And I guess for the same reason that they're allowing only white refugees in from South Africa and not refugees from brown and black countries.
JENNINGS: I disagree with the premise of this question. I don't think it's true.
I think the administration's policy has been quite simple. If you're in this country illegally, we will track you down and we will deport you. They haven't put any parameters around that other than are you here illegally and that would be from any country.
HILL: It doesn't feel like that's the way they're enforcing it. I mean, I think it's the easiest narrative to sell in America is when you create a level of fear, especially built around race, it's very easy to sell dehumanization and all the other things that come with it. So, yes.
[23:00:05]
PHILLIP: It's also objectively harder to go after visa overstays, as people who are living in certain parts of the country.
JENNINGS: They haven't sent a bunch of visa overstays away.
PHILLIP: They have, but it's easier to -- I mean, they've used basically profiling legally, according to the Supreme Court, to get at some of these immigrants in brown communities.
SUNSHINE: They're going after everybody, though. And they're also giving people the option to self-deport. But those are the stories you don't hear about.
Like this week, ICE arrested an illegal immigrant who allegedly raped and kidnapped a woman. We spent all week talking about rape allegations. The guy had to drop out of the Senate race, but we don't hear about that ICE story.
PHILLIP: All right, everyone. Thanks for joining us. "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
