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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip

Soon, Mayor Zohran Mamdani Briefs on Man Shot by ICE Agent on Street; ICE Agents are Told to Ramp Up Daily Arrests Ahead of Midterms; Rogers and El-Sayed Debate in Critical Michigan Senate Race. Heated Michigan Senate Debate Overruled by Personal Attacks and Bitter Clashes; Kimberly Guilfoyle Accused of Seeking $100K Credit Card Payoff from Trump Donor for Access; Trump Administration Bars Microsoft and Select Tech Firms from Sponsoring H-1B Green Cards. Aired 10-11p ET

Aired October 08, 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]

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening. I'm Abby Phillip. We'll get to the debate in just a moment, but, first, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani will soon hold a news conference on a shooting that involved an ICE agent in New York City. He says a man was shot in the street with a five-year-old child in the back of the car.

DHS says that the man is a longtime criminal, here illegally with ties to gangs. And all of this comes as the tensions are rising in American streets. ICE agents were told to ramp up daily arrests ahead of the midterm elections.

Let's go straight to Shimon Prokupecz, who's on the scene. Shimon first of all, tell us where you are and what's been going on there over the last couple of hours?

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: So, we're here in New York City. Some people -- this is the Marble Hill section. Some people say this is Manhattan, some people say this is the Bronx, but it's up in the Bronx. And where there was a shooting here with an ICE officer an individual that was in a car.

The circumstances surrounding the shooting is unknown. This happened sometime around 4:00. As you said, the Department of Homeland Security says that they were involved in an operation, a targeted operation. This is what we hear from them after these shootings. Just another incident involving ICE officers and car stops, and something happened here. We don't know why they decided to shoot at this man.

We saw the car. They just about 30 minutes ago -- Abby, behind me here, this was a scene filled with FBI agents, investigators that were going through the scene. They just, in about 30 minutes ago, removed the car. But as they were removing the car, I could see a bullet hole in the windshield on the driver's side of the car, a bullet hole on the windshield of the driver's side car, did not see any other bullet holes in the car. The man that was inside the car, we're told, he's going to be okay. He's at the hospital. There was that five-year-old that was in the car as well. We actually spoke to a woman who said she was his aunt, the driver's aunt. She said that he had been here, this individual, for three years. The Department of Homeland Security says that he had an extensive criminal record and perhaps that was why they were targeting him, but they have said that before. And other than that one statement that they released on X, we have not heard more from them.

I want to say out here now, we are waiting for the mayor. We are waiting for the police commissioner and other elected officials and local leaders to come here at this hour and brief us on what happened here. Perhaps we'll hear from the police commissioner.

The NYPD is not involved in any of this. They were here. They did appear to transport the individual who was shot to the hospital, and they've been mostly out here just trying to keep the tension low. There was a lot of tension out here. Many people came to this area. Just so quickly people heard about this, and they started coming to this area. And there have been some arrests, I was told, by the NYPD, about three arrests after confrontations with some of the protesters who marched to the hospital.

But at this moment, at this hour, so late in the night the mayor is coming out here, A, to try and keep the community, you know, calm and sort of also offer his support. And, obviously, we know from that post on X how he feels about what happened here, saying this was unprecedented.

And truly the way, you know, Abby, I have covered so many of these now and it just seems that time and time again, the way in which ICE is conducting these operations those operations need to be questioned, why at 4:00 in the afternoon they are targeting individuals in this way? Those are all questions that need to be answered.

We know that ICE -- our reporting from Priscilla Alvarez that ICE is stepping up operations and now this happens.

PHILLIP: Yes. And you pointed out the Mayor Mamdani's tweet. He said, he called this unconscionable and incredibly serious. He said he called President Trump and demanded that ICE end all enforcement operations in the city of New York. At the same time, as you just mentioned, the ramping up of arrests, this is part of a mandate that has come down from the highest levels of the federal government to go from 1,000 to 2,000 to 3,000 arrests potentially per day leading up to the midterm elections.

And you alluded to this, Shimon, by saying 4:00 in the afternoon targeting an individual that that might be targeted for deportation.

[22:05:06]

You've covered law enforcement for a long time. Tell us about why that may have become a problem in this particular situation and why the quota itself might lead to more of these types of moments that we're seeing here. PROKUPECZ: Well, certainly, there is pressure on the ICE officers by their bosses, their supervisors, to go out and make the numbers, go out and make these arrests and detain people. So, that's pressure on them.

The tactics, you know, time and time again, they need to be questioned. What ICE is doing, what they continue to do, those tactics need to be questioned.

You talk to law enforcement officials, leading law enforcement officials who do training they have questioned the way in which ICE conducts car stops. This essentially was an attempted car stop. Something happens here. They're trying to perhaps stop this individual. That individual maybe tries to flee.

We don't know the entire story. And what happens in those moments, we don't know. But time and time again, certainly people have questioned. These are law enforcement officials, people who know -- who train tactics, who work at police departments, who have worked at police departments. I was in Minneapolis. I've been in other cities, in Chicago where this has happened, and all of those officials have questioned the way in which ICE conducts these operations.

I've been out on an ICE operation. A couple years ago, I went out with ICE officers here in New York City. The way they would normally do this is they would do this early in the morning. You go to an individual's home. You try to establish that the person is there. You try to learn their routine, and then you try to surprise them. If you're trying to detain someone, you want to surprise them. But obviously now we're seeing a much different posture. The aggressiveness of these operations continue.

And so we wait to hear if the Department of Homeland Security will explain to us exactly why they decided to open fire on this individual.

PHILLIP: A lot that we need to learn, and maybe we'll learn a little bit more tonight when we hear from the mayor.

Shimon, stand by for us. We'll come back to you and to that press conference that we're anticipating in this hour very soon from Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

I do want to just read the ICE statement just so that people hear what they have to say. They said that they were conducting a targeted enforcement operation in the Bronx to arrest a criminal illegal alien from the Dominican Republic with a prior criminal conviction for grand larceny and multiple prior arrests for assault, robbery, possession of drugs, and weapons possession.

He has associations to the Trinitarios gang, the same gang that brutally shot a CPD officer last year. During the incident, an ICE officer discharged his weapon, and the criminal illegal alien was injured. ICE officers immediately rendered aid.

So, that's their version. We'll hear over time what actually happened, because we know that sometimes their version is not always accurate.

But to talk about what Shimon was saying, you know, it's the tactics that have gotten them in trouble on this stuff. How you go about arresting dangerous people, how you do that in a way that keeps people nearby safe. There was a five-year-old in the vehicle when apparently gunshots were shot into the vehicle. Shooting drivers of vehicles is something that a lot of police departments ban for very good reasons. But ICE continues to use these tactics that raise a lot of questions about training, about how much time they have to do their surveillance, and about what the consequences are for people around when these operations are going.

NOAH ROTHMAN, SENIOR WRITER, NATIONAL REVIEW: Well, when we're talking about this very specific case, which happened minutes ago, maybe an hour ago or so, we just do not have the information necessary to responsibly speculate about the culpability of these ICE officers. Certainly, I would say that the mayor doesn't have nearly enough information to suggest that this is an unconscionable act.

We do know that the vehicle was in motion, which could've been interpreted by the ICE officer as a threat. We do know that this bullet hole apparently entered the front of the car, which suggests that the officer was in front of the car when it was in motion. All of these are, you know, exculpatory details, but we don't know any of the information necessary.

And if the ICE statement is true, we don't know if it's true, I'm happy to be, you know, careful about that. Nevertheless, if it is true, not only was this a high priority deportation target, it's a target that the American people want to see deported, even if they're uncomfortable with a lot of the deportation regime. This is the precise kind of person that they want to be deported from the country.

XOCHITL HINOJOSA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: But can I just say can I just say, the FBI arrests violent criminals and terrorists every single day.

[22:10:05]

They do not shoot and kill Americans. They do not shoot at moving vehicles with five-year-olds in them. They do not shoot and kill or injure immigrants in this country who have no -- who are not violent criminals, like we've seen in Texas and in other places. They -- FBI agents, the Marshal Service, every law and federal law enforcement agency does not do what ICE does.

You heard Shimon. What did Shimon say? This is happening time and time again. That is a pattern that is happening with ICE. And I agree with you. We should find out what happened. There should be an investigation. The problem is that the federal government won't investigate ICE officers.

In a normal federal government, the Justice Department, because it was a federal-involved shooting where there are questions about what happened, whether there was a moving vehicle, et cetera, the Justice Department would automatically do an investigation. The Trump Justice Department will not do that because they don't want to know exactly what happened, and they don't want to potentially have to prosecute an ICE agent. And so this isn't just about this one incident. This is about the ICE tactics overall.

And I will -- the last thing I'll say about this is when you, when there are quotas ahead of an election, that is not a law enforcement strategy to keep people safe. That is a political strategy in order to send a message to all the Republican voters who are staying home because they -- Donald Trump is not on the ballot, and Donald Trump is trying to figure out exactly how to get them out and vote. And this is exactly what that strategy is.

PHILLIP: I think you wonder about why the quota is increasing before the election because it actually is not popular, the immigration enforcement right now. A majority of Americans disapprove of the president in terms of immigration enforcement. There was a recent poll that suggested that they disapprove specifically of the zeal with which he is deporting illegal immigrants, so that issue.

Is it really because they think that this is a good political strategy or because they fear that they are going to lose the House and that they won't be able to do things this way once hands change in Congress?

PETER MEIJER, CO-FOUNDER AND HEAD OF STRATEGY, THE NEW INDUSTRIAL CORPORATION: I think getting back to that idea that the enforcement was unpopular, right? Why was it unpopular? Because you saw folks who had no criminal records getting arrested, and you had violent altercations that went down, that the American public, many of whom looked at it and said, this doesn't feel right.

Again, going off of, and we're giving the benefit of the doubt right now to the ICE statement, because that's the only information we have, criminal aliens who are here who have broken the law, who have criminal convictions, somebody who had weapons charges, again, according to ICE, weapons charges, larceny charges, that is exactly who Americans want to see deported by -- that's an 80/20 issue. Those are the people that when they voted for Donald Trump, they said, oh, yes, that guy, this guy, with gang affiliations, with criminal records, get him out of the country. When that deportation was extended more broadly to more sympathetic characters, that's when the president started to see that popularity decline.

So, I think this is -- far more than anything, this is a reaction to the broader public sentiment and frustration with elements of the immigration policy.

HINOJOSA: But you can do it without shooting people. This is the whole thing.

MEIJER: Of course, and this is where we don't know the examples. Because there are times when there is absolutely going to be use of force called for. We don't know that yet.

ROTHMAN: If the law enforcement officer feels his life is in danger, he can discharge his firearm. And no law enforcement officer wants to discharge their firearm

HINOJOSA: How is it that the FBI can arrest terrorists all of the time and they do not have to shoot at a moving vehicle with a five- year-old, or shoot and kill --

ROTHMAN: Shoot? You know the FBI discharges their firearms when their lives are in danger, right?

HINOJOSA: No, because the FBI is trained to do this. They understand how to deescalate. They know how to arrest. They know -- ICE is not trained to do these operations at this scale.

MEIJER: If we're thinking about the Elian Gonzalez case --

VAN LATHAN, PODCAST CO-HOST, HIGHER LEARNING: Well, I mean -- well, they told us everything about who this guy was, but they still haven't told us why this happened. And like why this happened is what people care about. When Alex Pretti was killed, they said that he was somebody that came to a protest with a gun looking to do maximum damage. That was a lie.

So, it doesn't matter what narrative they're going to spin. Did they try to make sure that this gentleman was seen as, whatever bloodthirsty Americans might be out there, as the central casting casted version of what you want to see? I'm sure they did, but they didn't tell us why this happened, whether or not this was lawful, this shoot, or whether or not their agents acted within this person's rights their due process by being in this country.

They didn't say any of that because, number one, they've lied in the past and they don't want to have to be held to, their feet held to the flame to something, and, number two, that's really not what they were trying to do.

[22:15:00]

They were trying to make sure that you know and everybody out there knew that this person was somebody whose life could be taken.

ROTHMAN: Well, again, that's the information they have. They know who the target was. They don't know what happened on the ground. None of us do.

YEMISI EGBEWOLE, FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF AND ADVISER, BIDEN WHITE HOUSE PRESS OFFICE: Can we talk about visually though? Visually the hardest part for this administration to sell their immigration plan has been, especially when it involves children. I keep coming back to the five- year-old. We don't know a lot, but we do know that there was a child in the car.

And it is very, very hard for this administration to get -- if we're going to talk about voting, and we're going to talk about getting close to midterms, suburban women who are just a gold rush for votes for both Republicans and Democrats, what are some of their biggest concerns when it comes to immigration? It is the images of the children that are affected, and so now we have another situation where a child's life was put at risk.

And we don't even know if this child is like medically okay, psychologically okay the impacts of that. It's so -- it ends up being so much bigger of, you're right, I would like to see criminals deported. Everybody agrees. It's an 80/20 issue. And they hit themselves in the foot time and time again when things like this come up because they don't even -- the damage is done, and now their response to it is probably going to be underwhelming.

LATHAN: Look, I understand when we say we want to see criminals deported, I get it. This was never about this. This was about making one group of people, who are brown, the scapegoat of all of America's problems, and putting them before the entire country as examples of how you're going to clean up the streets.

It was never about that from the beginning. If it was about that, then you would've used a scalpel. You didn't use a scalpel. You used a sledgehammer because you don't care about these people's lives. When are we going to tell the truth about what this has been from the beginning, which was legitimately an entire project to terrorize brown people and make them afraid?

ROTHMAN: I think that the quotas argument -- I'm an anti-communist. I hate quotas. Quota's bad. I agree with you there. But I think Republicans would love to have the argument on the exact terms that you established it there because that was what we lived through in Joe Biden's term. It was 7 million migrants coming into this country, irrespective of their backgrounds, irrespective of their criminal histories, because if we were to do anything about it, you'd be accused of being racist. And that was a winning message for Republicans then. I think it's a winning message today.

HINOJOSA: But I actually agree with Peter here because he's talking about this isn't just violent criminals anymore. If you are in South Texas, where I'm from, and you are a U.S. citizen, and you are brown, you're Mexican, and you drive a truck with a ladder on it, you are no longer going to work because you will be stopped and detained by ICE.

That is what is happening in my hometown of Brownsville, Texas. Businesses are hurting. Construction sites can't get workers, and it's not because of undocumented immigrants, it's because the Supreme Court said that this administration can racially profile and stop and detain any brown person in America. And if you look like you're undocumented, you are being detained, and that is Donald Trump's America.

MEIJER: And to the point on the communist, that's why you also don't want a papers please type of world. But the number one thing I want to get out of this investigation, and this is where I hope part of the reticence on ICE to talk about this, is because they're still collecting the facts and they don't want to get ahead of their own investigation, is I hope that there were body cams. Because the amount of times that has been exculpatory, that has helped clarify a situation, is critical.

LATHAN: Can I ask you real quick, like to your point, they don't have the facts on it, right? So, a responsible thing to say would be to come out and be like, hey, there was a shooting, blah, blah, blah, blah, we're collecting all the facts. But what they did was make sure that this guy fit the bill of the type of criminal that they think this could and should happen to.

All of that information was pretext for people to believe whatever they say on the backside of this, right?

MEIJER: It's pretext for the deportation. His criminal record is incredibly relevant.

(CROSSTALKS)

PHILLIP: We'll pause on that point. I mean, a couple of big questions. Were they wearing body cameras? I mean, they were supposed to have been issued to ICE officers who are doing these kinds of traffic stops. Were they? If they were, were they on? And are they going to actually conduct an investigation? Because we have really yet to see DHS really fully conduct investigations into some of the more dangerous and deadly incidents that we've seen so far. But when we have that information, we'll bring it to you.

We're also waiting for a news conference from New York City's Mayor Zohran Mamdani. We'll bring that to you as soon as we have it. But now let's turn to midterm politics, including a high-stakes debate that just occurred in Michigan for a race that could ultimately determine the balance of power in the United States Senate. Republican Mike Rogers and Democrat Abdul El-Sayed faced off tonight trying to convince Michiganders that they should be the next senator.

The margin is razor thin in that race, according to recent polling, that shows no clear leader in the race. And just a reminder, in 2024, President Trump won the state by only 80,000 votes. And things got ugly tonight, and very personal.

[22:20:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE ROGERS (R), MICHIGAN SENATE CANDIDATE: Listen to this guy and what he's trying to sell here today. You're going to find out that this guy is not what he says he is. He is actually selling the best con I think I've ever seen.

ABDUL EL-SAYED (D), MICHIGAN SENATE CANDIDATE: It's about whether or not you can see your doctor. It's about whether or not you trust your next U.S. senator to stand up to Trump and Trumpism. But when you're running because Donald Trump called you and asked you to run, you can tell he's not going to stand up to anybody.

ROGERS: What my friend here just wants to do is, he's kind of like a glitchy A.I. chatbot, is say the same thing over and over and over again.

EL-SAYED: Under this guy, who's going to rubber stamp everything Donald Trump tells him to rubber stamp, you're going to continue to pay way more out the nose because he works for corporations and Donald Trump.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: So, that was just a taste of the back and forth between -- it was a lot of personal attacks actually. And I do wonder what your take on this is because it did seem that El-Sayed was more disciplined about trying to get back to kitchen table issues, and it shows the divergence in their strategies here.

Democrats feel like they're on the upper hand when they talk about the economy, and I think Rogers is really experimenting with terrorism and all this other stuff that they want to bring up about El-Sayed.

MEIJER: I mean, there was a lot of talk of -- or there was a lot of elements in which this debate, there was nothing surprising. You'd expect the Republican to say this, you expect the Democrat to say that. It got personal because Abdul El-Sayed has a rental property in Dubai, and Mike Rogers has a second home down in Florida, and so they spent a lot of time talking about that.

But cards on the table, I'm voting for Mike Rogers, right? That probably shouldn't be surprising. But I do -- but I've also not been overly critical of Abdul El-Sayed because I think he's a talented individual. He's a smart individual.

The moment where I just -- I can't understand how somebody who's that politically smart has not fixed their position is when he was asked who's the greater danger to America, Israel or Iran? Three times he was asked that. He refused to answer. Afterwards, he said, that's a dumb question. And he was right. It is a dumb question because the answer is so painfully easy, but he couldn't say that.

He criticized Mike Rogers for asking him to condemn Hamas, Hezbollah, Al-Qaeda, saying they're scary words, but he hasn't condemned them. And they are scary words, because they've killed hundreds of thousands of innocents, including 3,000 Americans three miles south of here.

So, at a certain point, it goes from either this is political malpractice at the best, or he can't or he won't because of something deeper, and that is far more troubling. And I just -- I don't get it because I don't want to get it because it really is dumb.

ROTHMAN: I do. I get it. It's hard not to at this point. I mean, the associations are clear. Yes, Muslim Brotherhood, he's said it a million times, but has the advantage of being correct. The man has surrounded himself, including high-profile family members, with individuals who have ties to care, which is a line -- which has been implicated in terrorism financing scandals, can't condemn the attack on the synagogue without condemning Israel in the same voice, can't celebrate the death of the Ayatollah Khamenei, who killed Americans, and so on and so forth. Eventually, you have to confront the evidence of your own eyes.

PHILLIP: I guess the question that -- let me just read this because it's relevant to the -- the question that I have is, is that line of attack on him even working? Because, ultimately, we know what matters most to Americans, and neither of the things that you talked about touches on that.

You also have President Trump flying in proverbially, saying in this Truth Social post, Mohammed El-Sayed is a terrible candidate for the Democrats. Mohammed goes back to the days of jihad. He's a radical extremist terrorist sympathizer. Mohammed's values are not exactly those of Michiganders.

It's a blunt force object, and I'm not sure that voters are in that place right now in this election.

LATHAN: Just straight up question. Are either one of you guys suggesting that Abdullah El-Sayed is a terrorist?

ROTHMAN: No, he's not committed terrorist acts. He's clearly comfortable with people who do.

LATHAN: I would like him to clearly say just over there, so are you saying that he is someone who sympathizes with terrorists, that he is an either an intellectual or spiritual terrorist?

ROTHMAN: No, I'm not saying he's an either an intellectual or spiritual terrorist. I'm not sure what that even means.

LATHAN: Well, I'll tell you what it means.

ROTHMAN: He does have a disturbing level -- do you not -- are you not disturbed by the level of comfort that he evinces with people who do set out to kill Americans, kill Jews, kill civilians?

LATHAN: Nope. I'm not concerned with any of that because all of that is a lie. All of that is a concoction by people like yourselves, all due respect, however you want to take it --

(CROSSTALKS)

LATHAN: Well, it's a lie. What you guys are seek to do is to like play on the deepest fears that a lot of the American public has in order to discredit him, right?

[22:25:05]

ROTHMAN: You've accused a very serious accusation on air. What have we -- what have we said that's wrong?

LATHAN: I asked you guys both like a direct question.

ROTHMAN: Yes.

LATHAN: Because before this -- because let's just talk about it. Before this, both of you went through different reasons why you don't trust Abdul El-Sayed and why he might be a sympathizer with terrorism, or he's hasn't full-throatedly enough rebuked terrorism sometimes.

MEIJER: And hasn't rebuked, period, and he refuses to condemn.

LATHAN: The reason -- ROTHMAN: Everything that comes before the but is meaningless.

MEIJER: Saying Al Qaeda is bad. That should not be something that is easily debated.

LATHAN: What I would say is this, though, is I think that a lot of times, like he doesn't take the bait on things like that because all of that stuff is immaterial to what his messaging is. And what his messaging is about how people in Michigan can improve their lives. And he wants to do that by addressing healthcare, addressing housing, addressing education. And you guys want to make veiled like accusations that he's sympathetic or a part of the Muslim Brotherhood.

ROTHMAN: He talks a policy. Here's one of his policies. He wants to cut off all aid to Israel, including defensive aid for interceptors. The only point of those is to stop rockets from hitting civilians. He has said he'd rather redirect that aid to UNRWA, which had employees who participated in the October 7th massacre by admission of UNRWA. He'd rather fund that, and he would rather remove the defensive ordinance from Israel.

He won't say why, but Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has. Her logic is that if more Israeli civilians die, it raises the cost of military action and prevents Israel from taking action on its own defense.

LATHAN: So, he's also said he wanted to --

ROTHMAN: That's grotesque.

LATHAN: He also said he wanted to stop military aid to Egypt.

ROTHMAN: Yes, so he wants to invalidate the Camp David Accords. Good luck.

LATHAN: Well, he wanted to stop military aid to Egypt. What he believes is that that money is better spent on people here. He is consistent.

ROTHMAN: That's what he says. But he says he also wants to fund UNRWA Van, that's inconsistent because they're not compatible.

LATHAN: No, what I'm saying right now is we could decide that in America we're going to have a debate on the merits of these arguments or we could engage in the same --

PHILLIP: Hold on.

LATHAN: I like this. I like this. I like when you get like that. Yes, get busy. Let's do it.

MEIJER: That was the exact same thing that he did when he was asked, is he shifted the topic to something he was more comfortable about. If I say, is murder bad? And you say, listen, that is distracting from the topic, because maybe you had a murder in your background and you don't want to talk about that. The idea is that it should be a yes or no answer, that all you need to do, all you need to do -- I referenced something that is equivocally bad, unequivocally, which is murder, period.

LATHAN: No. Okay, so you said murder is bad, right?

MEIJER: Yes. Do you think murder is bad?

LATHAN: And then on the backside of it, you concocted a reason in your head why I would not answer your question.

MEIJER: I'm giving you a more outlandish example of something that you should be able to say you should not -- thou shall not kill, which is one of the Ten Commandments.

LATHAN: Let's play your game. Well, let's play your game.

MEIJER: Sure.

LATHAN: So, thou shall not kill unless you're one of 20,000 kids in Palestine that's been killed since October 7th, but whatever. I see your game now.

(CROSSTALKS)

LATHAN: Can I just play your game real quick? I just want to play --

PHILLIP: Peter, let him finish and then you can respond. That way we actually --

LATHAN: So, you said -- okay, I asked you if murder is bad. You don't answer the question. Then you said, the second part of your fantasy was, that's because there's probably a murder in your history. That is the part where you intellectually assign something to someone who hasn't earned it, which I'm saying that you're doing about Abdul El- Sayed.

PHILLIP: Okay. Can I --

MEIJER: My point is if you can't condemn murder, it raises questions --

PHILLIP: But, Peter, let me ask you, because, again, this is why -- the reason I'm asking this is because this is -- these questions are being asked of Abdul El-Sayed because he's Muslim. And Bernie Sanders wants to cut off aid and military weapons to Israel as well, right? There are, what, maybe 45 Democrats in the Senate at this point who would vote for that at this point.

MEIJER: Right, pretty far north of that.

PHILLIP: A lot of mainstream Democrats have that view. Just to play devil's advocate, you know, as Van is making this point, if you're Abdul El-Sayed, you're wondering why is it that he is being asked constantly to address terrorism. When he's talking about the economy, the only retort on the other side is addressing terrorism, addressing terror attacks, addressing Iran, addressing all of these other things. That's the -- I think that's the question that if you're Abdul El- Sayed, you're wondering. MEIJER: If he kept having to answer the same question and he answered it clearly, I would totally agree with that. And this is where I get back to if you believe that, you know, Iran and Israel are either equal parts or Israel's more a threat to the U.S. than Iran, what the hell, right?

If your first reaction to, again, a terrorist attack in the state that you choose to represent, that happened in March, against a synagogue, if your first reaction is, hurt people, hurt people, the reaction with the Khamenei killing was, I don't really know what to say because a lot of people that I know feel very hurt right now because they were his supporters, right?

[22:30:02]

Again, we're not talking about some nebulous entity. We're talking about foreign terrorist organizations that are declared so and have been recognized as such by Republican and Democratic administration who have the blood of thousands of Americans on their hands.

(CROSSTALK)

NOAH ROTHMAN, "NATIONAL REVIEW" SENIOR WRITER: And it's reporters these questions. It's not Republicans asking these questions. They're not asking them because they don't get any answers.

MEIJER: No, all they need to do is answer the question. That is my problem.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: One other thing. So, one other thing. Again, this election is going to be fought on economic terms. You guys might not like it, but that is the reality of the situation. And this race right now is extremely close in a way that maybe it shouldn't be or maybe it should be.

UNKNOWN: I don't think it would be this close if it was a purely economic question.

PHILLIP: Well, maybe. But I also think that it's a close race. So, is the edge going to come from Mike Rogers hammering home this stuff? Or is it going to come from Mike Rogers addressing the reticence that voters have about giving Trump two more years on an economic policy that they believe has failed?

YEMISI EGBEWOLE, FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF AND ADVISER, BIDEN WH PRESS OFFICE: It's going to come down to Abdul focusing on the pockets that everybody says he's underperforming, and the polls are showing he's racing in, he's gathering back the confidence of Jewish Americans. He's getting enthusiasm out of the fair, shaky -- look, he's not going to pull Haley Stevens numbers with Jewish Americans. We know that.

Look, Kamala didn't come for no reason. And Barack Obama is coming because Abdul sees how tight it is. And like, yes, that is an issue. It's a D plus nine generic ballot environment. We should definitely have more space and more room in this race for the environment that Democrats are running in. But he is pulling in very favored establishment folks. You may not

like Barack Obama, but he is our most popular Democrat. I mean, the heavy hitters are coming in because he sees where this is going to tighten. And the fact that he's bringing in Obama, says, I know where I need to make up some losses. And that is going to be my entirety and focus. So, I hope he doesn't lean into any of the attacks that Mike Rogers is sending his way right now.

PHILLIP: Right. Everyone, stand by. Any moment now, New York City's Mayor Zohran Mamdani is going to hold a press conference on the ICE shooting that unfolded in New York tonight that's sparking some protests in the city. Stay with us. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:36:37]

PHILLIP: Tonight, new allegations of corruption within the Trump administration. At the center of it all is a former Fox News star and U.S. ambassador to Greece, Kimberly Guilfoyle. "The Wall Street Journal" reports that in the days leading up to Guilfoyle's confirmation hearing, she pushed Trump donor Eric Deters to pay off a $100,000 American Express bill in exchange for access to administration officials.

In a text message, Deter shared with CNN, Guilfoyle writes, "Honey, please, I need you to get this done for me today." In another, she says, "It won't show up anywhere if you buy your money to American Express. That's all it will show. Please." She then follows up by saying, "I can get you in for a meeting on the matter we discussed. Please get back to me ASAP."

A lawyer for Guilfoyle is disputing the authenticity of the messages. Deter says, though, that he didn't end up making that payment. He spoke with CNN earlier tonight. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ERIC DETERS, RETIRED LAWYER AND FORMER TRUMP DONOR: There was no question it was a quid pro quo. She knew she was nominated. She tried to cover it up. She wanted to paper it by coming up with this idea that it was for past consulting fees. And I wrote her that fake letter saying, oh, here's for those fake consulting fees.

But she's dug a deeper hole now. I bash the Bidens all the time for what I saw is (inaudible)--

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: OK. This whole story is weird. But that guy being the main character is -- I mean, first of all, I neglected to mention. I mean, Kimberly Guilfoyle is the president's son's ex-girlfriend --

UNKNOWN: Ex-fiancee?

PHILLIP: Ex-fiancee. UNKNOWN: She almost got there.

PHILLIP: Still in the fold somehow.

MEIJER: Ex-wife of the government of California as well.

PHILLIP: Ex-wife -- yes. I mean, there's a lot going on.

MEIJER: There's a lot going on.

PHILLIP: But a hundred thousand dollars to pay off an Amex bill, and the quid pro quo is very evident. And we have the evidence because he is coming forward.

UNKNOWN: Yes.

MEIJER: I don't want to say that something in here is a criminal, but I'm reminded of what the great Stranger Bell said to, I believe, was Sean "Shamrock" McGinty as he was taking notes on a criminal conspiracy. Like it's, like just the text messages alone.

UNKNOWN: I don't even -- I don't even know how you react to that. Pick up the phone if you're going to conspire.

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: She said don't paper it. Don't paper it. I mean --

EGBEWOLE: They have phones in Mykonos. She should have picked up the phone.

PHILLIP: She did not want him to put this on -- in paper.

(CROSSTALK)

XOCHITL HINOJOSA, FORMER DNC SPOKESPERSON: There's a paper trail. There's a paper trail. There is an interview. There is -- and this is just one person that we know of. We -- this is because he came forward. And if you are federal law enforcement, we're talking about, of course, the Justice Department's not going to investigate it.

They've have no problem investigating Gavin Newsom and Ruben Gallego and people that are eyeing a 2028 run. But when it comes to -- there is -- their paper -- there's a paper trail of this. There is a man on television talking to Jake Tapper about exactly what happened. And yet, where is the federal government?

The way we find this stuff out about what exactly happened is to actually have the federal government look into it.

(CROSSTALK)

MEIJER: There's an inspector general investigation, I believe that was --

(CROSSTALK) PHILLIP: Yes. Let me let me just play -- J.D. Vance was asked about this today.

[22:40:00]

And here's how he responded.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNKNOWN: Do you have any reaction to a U.S. government official, in this case, a U.S. ambassador, asking someone to pay off debt in exchange to access to other government officials?

J.D. VANCE, VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Well, so with that hypothetical geomancy (ph), I don't love that. But I, you know, I don't know exactly what you're talking about. I don't know the full details. Of course, I don't like anybody selling access to another government official, certainly a high level government official.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: I don't like it. I don't know what you're talking about, but I do know what you're talking about. Just not, you know, respond to it. I'm not sure how much that's going to fly. And by the way, he is in charge of investigating fraud.

EGBEWOLE: Fraud. This is his case.

PHILLIP: Yes.

EGBEWOLE: This is -- this is the one to take the mantle. I do love everybody pretending that they don't remember her, especially when she was so heavily featured at conventions. She traveled in the inner circle with the family.

And frankly, she felt so emboldened to operate like this in a way where it was very sloppy, messy, it was going to come out. I mean, this is not her first time asking people for money. You don't ask for 100K on an Amex to be covered if you haven't done that before.

PHILLIP: Yes, and it will be interesting to see if she reported this debt when she was going through the confirmation process, or if the debt is not there, in which case who paid it. I don't know.

This is also a moment when Americans -- 89 percent say that corruption is a widespread issue in the United States government. It's not just Kimberly Guilfoyle. It's because they perceive, and it is also true, that the President has become massively richer, massively richer since becoming president a second time. His family has become massively richer, Van.

And so, people are responding to this and they don't like it. They don't like it.

VAN LATHAN, "HIGHER LEARNING" PODCAST CO-HOST: There's an air of impropriety here, but this is kind of what they've been living through and what people have been seeing. And the question is, like, who's serious enough to like, ask? Because this is funny.

This is kind of funny because it's like mess. It's like the kind of mess that you like. At the same time on the back, it is, it is funny. At the same time, though, I think there's real concern here about whether or not government is seeking to enrich itself or whether or not government is working on behalf of the American people.

And by the way, I don't think that that concern on behalf of the American people has a political party, I think that that's a wider, deeper concern that people have. That's why they would take something that's clearly hilarious like that, that guy straight out of Central Castle. Why they would take something like that serious is probably what they're going to say.

UNKNOWN: No.

PHILLIP: President Trump, you know, I mentioned the President's wealth. A story today from CNN that the President bought SpaceX bonds, Meta and Microsoft shares weeks before meeting with the tech leaders. Beyond the SpaceX debt, Trump purchased up to $25 million in Meta shares, $6 million in Microsoft stock, and a smaller amount of Oracle shares, according to filings.

Those trades occurred weeks before Trump convened Musk, Meta, and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other A.I. leaders for a White House summit.

So, first of all, just the fact that the President and his -- or his, you know, the people he's deputized, he's trading to, are still actively trading while he is in the White House, I think the White House has made that sound as if that is totally normal and that happens all the time, but it's not at all. And it, even if it is not illegal, it looks improper.

ROTHMAN: Yes, absolutely. And I think it probably is improper. I mean, we don't actually know the extent of the President and his son's self-dealing, but there's evidence everywhere that they've been soliciting high dollar donors to get access to the President to the tune of seven, you know, seven figures.

You can sit down with the President, share your thoughts, share his influence, world affairs, for you know, the low, low price of $1 million, their Bitcoin ventures, et cetera, et cetera. Cabinet officials have increased their wealth by billions over the course of two years.

All that doesn't look great. And I think they're going to come to regret it. Democrats are very likely to take the House next year. They're going to have investigatory power and they're going to haul every member of this administration, including the president's family, before Congress and ask them a lot of very uncomfortable questions.

And we're going to have to learn the intricate ins and outs and details of a lot of very sordid schemes. And it's going to make the President's life miserable. Is it really worth what you got for that kind of torture?

HINOJOSA: I think it's also going to be a headache for J.D. Vance, especially if he runs for president. J.D. Vance is in a situation where he cannot criticize the President ahead of a primary, ahead of getting a nomination, because if he does, he might not get it.

So, what does he do when there are investigations that reveal that there is improper action, corruption by this president and his family?

[22:45:02]

PHILLIP: And I will say, sometimes where there's smoke, there's fire. This Kimberly Guilfoyle thing, it is amusing. It really is. But it seems like the tip of the iceberg, given how unsophisticated it was in terms of what they were trying to do here.

All right, next for us, the Trump administration is suspending Microsoft and some other tech companies from a visa program for immigrant workers. The White House says that they used the visa holders to replace American workers. We'll debate whether that's true.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:50:14]

PHILLIP: The Trump administration is banning Microsoft and some other companies from seeking permanent residency for foreign workers hired through the H-1B visa program. Vice President J.D. Vance alleges that the tech giant abused the system by laying off thousands of American citizens and replacing them with cheaper labor from abroad. This is just the latest push from the White House as it escalates its crackdown on immigrant labor.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VANCE: We cannot allow both either foreign or domestic companies to send a message to the American people that they're not good enough for their own nation because when they do, it pads their profits, it depresses the American spirit of camaraderie and self-determination. It's a terrible deal for American workers and we're putting a stop to it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: But President Trump said just the opposite last year.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LAURA INGRAHAM, "THE INGRAHAM ANGLE" ANCHOR: And does that mean the H-1B visa thing will not be a big priority for your administration? Because if you want to raise wages for American workers, you can't flood the country with tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of foreign workers.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I agree, but you also do have to bring in talent. (CROSSTALK)

INGRAHAM: We have plenty of talented people here.

TRUMP: No, you don't.

INGRAHAM: We don't have talented people here?

TRUMP: No, you don't have -- you don't have certain talents and you have to -- people have to learn.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Not singing from the same songbook at all. And just to add to that, today, the President honored a bunch of tech giants with the Medal of Science, which is actually the first time he's ever awarded the Medal of Science in either of his administrations.

One of the people being awarded was Satya Nadella of Microsoft, an immigrant. Look at those folks there. That's not the exhaustive list, but it's five out of the seven. And all of those people there, they're immigrants. They're people who came here from other countries. So, what are we doing here?

HINOJOSA: And we're allowing H-1B visas too, right? I mean, those companies do, too. I mean, yes, it was in the morning they sort of, we're going after Microsoft and others, and then by a few hours later, they were giving them awards.

And so it is, I mean, I am not sure what the strategy is here for Donald Trump and this administration, especially given the fact that you can -- these CEOs can easily get into the White House and change policy just right off the bat.

But I mean, it's somewhat of an embarrassment for the White House to just -- to act this way one morning. You know, they're speaking from both sides of their mouth at this point.

MEIJER: I think it's pretty consistent to say, if you are bringing in foreign talent because you can't find it here because it's necessary for growth in ways that will support American companies, American jobs, that's okay. If you're bringing in foreign talents, you can fire American workers and maybe pay somebody from overseas less, that's not --

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: I mean, what you said, first, is what the companies say that they're doing. The second thing is what J.D. Vance is claiming, but he's actually not providing real evidence of it. He made a claim today that Microsoft fired 6000 Americans so that they could hire 6000 people through H-1B visas.

Microsoft responded to that by saying, of the approximately 6000 H-1B visa applicants that they submitted in the last fiscal year, 80 percent were to extend or change the status of existing Microsoft employees. So not to replace people, but to just extend the status of people who were already employed.

These were not new hires, they say, and the remaining filings for new employees were for individuals already legally in the United States. And they also added that, contra to what J.D. Vance said, they don't pay their foreign workers less than they pay American workers.

So, I guess what I'm saying is, if you're going to make accusations like this, don't fudge the statistics. Actually have the real data and the actual proof to back it up. Otherwise, don't say it.

ROTHMAN: That would be ideal, I agree. Some of this stuff is still under investigation, including, we talked about H-1Bs and also J-1s, which are these work student visas. And there are nine institutions of higher learning that are under investigation.

Now you can't get ahead of the investigation, but under investigation for abusing that process, including Caltech and MIT, real big tech giants, which sort of lend some credence to the argument. All the libertarian arguments are available to me and, you know, Peter.

We can all say that this is talent, that we need to attract, that we actually have a labor shortage at the top of the market in the tech sector, et cetera, so forth.

Those arguments are not available to progressive Democrats, who have been warning for decades that allowing foreign workers into this country and displacing American workers -- this is Bernie Sanders' cause celeb, displacing American workers distorts the economy and reduces our social cohesion in the way that J.D. Vance just said.

He's echoing Democratic talking points that I have wrestled with for 20 years. You can't tell me that my last 20 years were invalid merely because the jerseys have changed.

[22:55:02]

PHILLIP: I mean, I do think it is an interesting point that you're suggesting, although I don't fully agree with you, that you're suggesting that J.D. Vance is sort of miming. You know, old Democratic talking points.

(CROSSTALK)

ROTHMAN: Not suggesting, I'm saying outright.

PHILLIP: But just as a factual matter, the United States, just look at the list, SpaceX, Google, NVIDIA, Microsoft, AMD. We are literally eating off of the productivity and the job growth created by immigrants and created by the companies that actually utilize these visa programs the most.

So make it, to me, I just want to understand, if you're trying to argue to American workers that the tradeoff's not worth it, then just get rid of these companies, kick them out, and then we'll see what happens. EGBEWOLE: The beauty of America is I don't think we get to decide who

these companies get to employ. I mean, somebody like Jensen Wang, founded NVIDIA, worked at Denny's out of college and creates this idea, completely accelerates GPUs.

I mean, I'm actually really happy that he got the award that he did today because I think he has changed advancement. We will have medicines in our lifetime that our parents could never even imagine help eradicate diseases.

All of that to say he built a dream here, and if those companies want to import people here to work really, really good-paying jobs while also uplifting, because they do invest in schools, they do invest in programs throughout America, they also want to invest in students.

I don't agree with the President that American students are just at a disadvantage, but I also, we can't ignore that there is really strong talent that comes from out of this country.

(CROSSTALK)

ROTHMAN: The American government should be business-friendly climate, not great, but we absolutely do get to select what immigrants come to this country.

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: Take that out of the equation and we wouldn't even have, I mean, the stock market growth Trump he celebrates would be completely wiped out.

All right, everyone, thank you very much. We are awaiting the mayor of New York City to hold a news conference on the shooting by an ICE agent in New York City. Protests have erupted tonight. We'll be back in just a moment with that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)