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President Trump Delays Tariffs on Foreign Imports Again Causing Uncertainty in U.S. Economy; President Trump Curtails Authority of Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency to Cut Federal Workforce; Trump Administration's Threats to Free Speech and Expression of Criticism Examined; House Republicans Censure Representative Al Green for Disrupting President Trump's Speech to Joint Session of Congress; Democratic Party Criticized for Lack of Leadership and Direction in Wake of Trump's Presidential Victory; Conservative Commentator Ben Shapiro Calls for President Trump to Pardon Derek Chauvin for Killing of George Floyd. Aired 10-11a ET

Aired March 08, 2025 - 10:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[10:00:44]

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: This morning, the golden age is off to a dim start. The president's bulldozer is rattling markets, allies, and his voters as the chaos is anything but controlled.

Plus, Donald Trump's favorite billionaire gets his chainsaw taken away, and the key may get locked in the cabinet.

Also, a stand-up protest becomes stand-up comedy.

REP. AL GREEN, (D-TX): I would do it again.

JESSE WATTERS, FOX NEWS HOST: Weird Al says his ponytail gives him special powers.

PHILLIP: From signs to shirts, Democrats are asking each other, did the party lose the plot?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's total bull -- absolute bull --

PHILLIP: And is MAGA's hope to kill the woke a pardon for George Floyd's killer?

Here in studio, S.E. Cupp, Melik Abdul, John Avlon, and Toure. It's the weekend. Join the conversation at the "TABLE FOR FIVE".

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Good morning, I'm Abby Phillip in New York. Let's get right to what America is talking about. The chaos returns. Donald Trump warned us that his sequel would be

harsher than the original, and at least on that, he actually told us the truth. Most notably, the economy. His tariffs backtracks and reversals are more on again, off again than Ross and Rachel. The exceptions here are delays there, no one can follow what's going on here with this, including the markets, apparently, which had their worst week in about six months.

On his government tear down, the dismantling led to the worst month for job cuts since 2009 during the great recession. In fact, Elon Musk's chainsaw is now apparently a scalpel. That's according to Donald Trump himself, who is now putting limits on his power after fielding complaints from his cabinet and from Congress.

Now, when it comes to the courts, he's having to change course as judges call his actions blatantly illegal. And globally, allies are ticked off about all of this chaos, each of them handling this in their own way. France is warning that Europe just can't rely on the United States anymore, and Ukraine is saying that the U.S. is disrupting the world order that it created. But is this what MAGA actually voted for? That's the question now. I mean, it seems like the complaints are coming from inside the house, from in the cabinet, from on Capitol Hill. All this chaos was a disruption at first. And now it's just something that is leading to just disagreement from the public. They're not happy with some of what they're seeing out there.

MELIK ABDUL, MEMBER BLACK AMERICANS FOR TRUMP COALITION: Well, first of all, I said that Elon Musk would be a problem. And I think we're seeing now where Elon seems to be overstepping his authority. And Donald Trump is now kind of trying to pull him back. But I think it's because Elon Musk represents a problem, not DOGE. Everybody is in agreement on DOGE.

PHILLIP: It is DOGE.

ABDUL: But when it comes, but when I say DOGE, as far as the mandate to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse, the public is on board with that. It is how DOGE has been conducting it.

PHILLIP: It definitely depends, right, on how you ask the question of the public. And since you brought it up, we'll just look at it, because, I mean, I think there's no sugarcoating the fact that the public opinion is a bit mixed on this. I think people are not sure how to feel. The CNN poll that we did earlier this month said 53 percent say it's a bad thing that musk and Trump are trying to shut down federal agencies, 54 percent says it's a bad thing that Trump has given Elon Musk a prominent role.

There are also other polls. Let's look at "The Washington Post" one. This one says the public is kind of split about whether DOGE is cutting necessary programs or wasteful spending. But I do think the risk here is the real stories. I mean, veterans losing their jobs because they actually work for the government, and they work for the government in a capacity where they're providing services to other veterans. And these stories are getting out. JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes. If you start seeing

veterans protesting in Washington because they've been personally affected. that's going to have a lot more resonance than a typical kind of partisan march.

[10:05:01]

Look, there is a way to do this. If you want to actually cut down on waste, fraud, and abuse, the GAO has a report saying it's a quarter of $1 billion a year or upwards annually. You do it in a bipartisan way. If you're doing it this way, which is totally ad hoc. It's sort of meme driven. It's a lot of people are getting caught in the crossfire and cabinet officials are getting pissed. But more importantly, it's hurting people and cutting across the promise to address affordability crisis, which is what we all thought the election was about. This is an ideological power grab, and it's going to off a lot of people who are going to get hurt, many of whom voted for Donald Trump.

S.E. CUPP, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, and that's the point, right? Because critics are going to critique, right? But the voters didn't actually vote for this. And when you look at some of the other consequences of DOGE and the cuts and the layoffs, this is delaying deportations, right? Which is something that a lot of MAGA voters really want.

It's kind of funny how that's receded into the background in the midst of all of this.

CUPP: Sure, there's that too.

AVLON: The caravan disappeared.

CUPP: But Elon Musk is an unelected manchild running around the country with a pretend chainsaw playing at politics. Of course, people are going to get sick of this when it isn't working.

None of this feels America first, especially the economic policy. America first is letting countries mind their own business. We are going to other countries and mucking about in their economies. It might not be boots on the ground, but it is economic warfare. And by the way, we're also threatening boots on the ground in countries like Panama and Iran and Greece.

PHILLIP: And Greenland.

CUPP: And Greenland. So none of this feels America first. None of this feels like what people who voted for Donald Trump voted for.

ABDUL: That was amazing. We should do a show together.

(LAUGHTER)

ABDUL: That was a great pitch.

PHILLIP: I wonder what's happening right now. Oh my gosh. TOURE, SUBSTACK AUTHOR, "CULTURE FRIES BY TOURE": But look, I would also like to see this done with honesty. When the president comes in and says, we're giving all this money for transgender mice, and it's transgenic mice, which actually help us fight cancer, or when we say, oh, we cut $8 billion, it was actually $8 million, you're not doing this in an honest and transparent way. And even worse, you are pretending to be transparent when you are not. And if this was a movie or a book and this person cut the Department of Education and then showed an absolute lack of understanding of government in his behavior, you'd be like, that was too on the nose. You can't have him cutting the DOE and then not knowing enough to do his job. The incompetence is rank. And we are all dealing with his now inability to understand what tariffs actually are and do. And we're all saying tariffs go this way. And he's like no I think they go that way.

PHILLIP: Well, let's play what he says. This is what he says tariffs are about in his mind. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) U.S. PRESIDENT: Tariffs are about making America rich again and making America great again. And it's happening. And it will happen rather quickly. There'll be a little disturbance. But we're OK with that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: By the way, that speech, the joint address, that was this week actually, not like five years ago.

(LAUGHTER)

PHILLIP: But tariffs will make America rich again. One of the interesting things, we talked about France and Zelenskyy and all that stuff. But the war with Canada, is -- it boggles the mind.

TOURE: This is a "South Park" idea to go to war with Canada. This is not a serious concept.

PHILLIP: It is very serious right now, though. I mean, you know, the Canadians, there was some reporting this week that they believe that this is really Trump actually trying to destroy and overtake their country, like for real. Not in a "South Park" episode, but in real life in 2025.

AVLON: Well, he has consistently talked about 51st state. Now, you know, calling it, you know, Prime Minister Trudeau, Governor Trudeau is sort of a right wing meme, and he's got designs on Greenland. The larger, sort of -- if there's any vision behind this, it seems like he's sort of saying that China can take can take Asia. Russia should have dominance in Eurasia. And then the U.S. will take North America, thank you very much.

Canada is one of our greatest allies. We have the longest peaceful border in the world. It is not a driver of fentanyl into our country, nor is a major driver of migrants. The fact that he's teed off on Canada so persistently is so counterproductive for the United States. And remember, he's trying to replace a deal he put in place when he renegotiated NAFTA. So this is actually something so profoundly screwed up that it's going to have blowback for all of us for a long time.

CUPP: Yes, I didn't mean to cut you off.

But I was really sad because I saw an ad run. It was a Canadian ad telling Americans why we are their best trading partners.

PHILLIP: I've seen this. And the fact that it exists.

CUPP: It is. I love Canada, we go to Canada a lot. It's so great. Quebec is just delicious, and like, my husband likes to joke, the fastest way to get to Europe, because it's just so beautiful.

[10:10:00]

And the Canadian people are so nice. And no offense to the Canadians, they're also irrelevant to us, really. And why we're picking this fight --

AVLON: That was a hard turn.

CUPP: They mind their business. They never threaten us.

AVLON: They're great.

CUPP: They are great. And I don't know why we're picking this fight.

PHILLIP: I'm with you on this. I mean, in the sense, S.E., that, like, Canadians do not pose a threat.

CUPP: No, that's what I mean.

PHILLIP: They really do not. I mean, even when it comes to the United States and when it comes to the economic relationship, there is way more to be gained than to be lost in that relationship. But which is why the Canadians are like, the only explanation for this is that this is not a meme. They are starting to believe that he really wants to overtake a whole other country, which is very illogical because they're pretty liberal up there in Canada. OK, so I'm not sure where he thinks all those Canadians are going to go in terms of the Electoral College. But this is a real thing.

ABDUL: Yes. Canada is not just Toronto and Montreal. It's pretty big. And it's its pretty --

TOURE: If Canada became a state, it would surely be liberal. Surely it would --

ABDUL: Absolutely.

TOURE: -- the Senate and congress.

ABDUL: Look, I'm not going to play as if I understand economics. You guys probably are much better at this than me. But I have some questions that just haven't been answered when it comes to Trump as far as these taxes. What happens in the summer months? Because the whole goal seems to be, what is this, short-term pain for long-term gain? I don't -- me. I don't.

CUPP: You're talking about tariffs.

ABDUL: Yes.

CUPP: Yes, I can explain it. I can explain it. Nobody wins a trade war. Tariffs are bad.

(LAUGHTER)

ABDUL: I don't understand. But my point is from --

(LAUGHTER)

CUPP: Now you know as much as everyone else.

ABDUL: My point is from Trump's perspective, because that is what Republicans and conservatives have said. But I don't know --

PHILLIP: I just want to say one thing to that. One of the things that Trump said this week is that the oil and gas companies called him and said, hey, give us a break, give us a break. And that's why he put another one-month delay on these tariffs. So he understands what you're talking about. When we come into the summer months, people are driving and there are real concerns about the economic impact of all of this.

Let's take a pause here. Coming up next for us, while Trump critics are scared to speak out in this second term, well tell you why. Plus, Democrats are having a heck of a time trying to figure out their place in this new Trump world. And so far, it has not gone so well.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Choose your character.

(MUSIC)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[10:17:22]

PHILLIP: Welcome back. Since his arrival onto the political scene, Donald Trump has made it clear that he wants to muzzle his critics -- the insults, the lawyers, his calls to cancel them. And nearly 50 days into his second term, it may very well be working. "The New York Times" is reporting that many are now afraid to speak out, fearful of their family's safety or the fate of their businesses. That includes Democrats, CEOs, fired federal workers, university presidents, even old school Republicans. Quote, "More than six weeks into the second Trump administration, there is a chill spreading over political debate in Washington and beyond." One historian calls it the slippery slope to authoritarianism.

This is part two of what has been happening. You've been calling it the woke right. I think there is this sort of spread of illiberalism in the sense of you can't criticize Trump, you can't say anything negative about him in the government or outside of it. You can't, as a private company, do anything that is disfavored by the government, which is --

AVLON: Doesn't sound like free speech, does it? No, look, this is the key point. People cannot give in to fear. Be not afraid right now. You have not very little control over what the government does, but you have control over how you respond. And when people self-censor for trying to, maybe they can work their way into good graces. Winston Churchill's definition of appeasement. It's feeding an alligator hoping it eats you last. Don't be afraid. You have control over that. That's the most important thing citizens can and should do right now, particularly people in positions of responsibility. And people in the Senate and the House are the ones who are the biggest cowards, it seems to me. They're not standing up and speaking their mind too much of the time.

CUPP: But it's hard. It's harder than that. I mean, I'm.

AVLON: So what? It's that simple. It's that simple.

CUPP: No it's not. I'm a parent.

AVLON: Me too.

CUPP: I've been threatened.

AVLON: Yes, me too.

CUPP: At my home.

AVLON: Yes.

CUPP: That is real. And that, I'm sure, magnified times 100, takes place if you're in a real position of power and authority over your company, over your media company. I'm not excusing it, but this is how the autocrat has won. People should not be afraid of their government. And when they are, it has this chilling effect. That's because he's a thug. He only knows intimidation and strongarming. And that's what he's leaning on. And it's no wonder people feel afraid. They're afraid of the mob, too, for good reason. For very good reason.

TOURE: For good reason. And horrific things have happened to all sorts of people. And I don't imagine that the American people are rulable over an authoritarian, that we are too much invested in the First Amendment, that we are too invested in the freedom that has been about America.

[10:20:07]

We are not rulable, right. So, like I imagine that we will push back, and we will say, like you're saying, we have to stand up. And if you're saying, well, my bottom line is more important, then you're part of the problem.

CUPP: My safety is more important.

PHILLIP: Hold on just one second here.

CUPP: My safety is more important. Obviously, I'm here. I'm doing it. I'm doing the job. I'm standing up every single day. But I can very much understand the real threat and fear that is taking over. Not a company who doesn't want to lose money. I'm talking about real threat to safety. And that's what "The New York Times" was sort --

PHILLIP: I think you're right. I mean, so first of all, like Eric Swalwell says, he's friends with some many in the Republican Party. But what they're afraid of is their own personal security. They tell me that their wives tell them, don't contribute to us getting harassed at church or at the grocery store or at the club.

CUPP: It sucks.

PHILLIP: So, so to me, this is both, yes, the security concerns, but I think there's a lot of, in-group -- a desire to be in the in-group that is happening here. I think there are profit motives, but I think that a lot of people also just, they don't want to be on the outs. And, and when you are, I mean, not to direct this toward you, but when you are a sort of like a Republican who is not a Trump Republican, you don't have a whole lot of space anywhere in this country.

CUPP: Or friends.

PHILLIP: Or friends.

ABDUL: So I don't think that this is unique to the Republican Party. We saw just under the Biden administration, you would be hard pressed on many -- because I was the outsider watching a lot of people on these networks. And to find a Democrat who was willing to criticize Joe Biden or --

TOURE: It's not all the same. Joe Biden did nothing to silence his critics.

ABDUL: But the point is, is that people are afraid for many reasons. Some people are afraid for financial reasons. Some people are afraid for security reasons. We know that there were people because of the rhetoric that Democrats were doing around abortion, who was that? Kavanaugh had somebody come outside of Kavanaugh's house threatening to kill --

PHILLIP: There were threats --

ABDUL: Yes, against Kavanaugh. We've seen this before. So this isn't something that's limited to now the Republican Party. I think the problem is, is at least with the Republicans, is that we control both the Senate and the House. Even as members of Congress --

PHILLIP: What has made this different is that Trump has, for example, the U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., which -- AVLON: Ed Martin.

PHILLIP: Ed Martin, who has literally proclaimed himself the attorney of Donald Trump, and has used the power of his office to threaten people with legal action for doing or saying things that are critical, not even just of Donald Trump, but of Elon Musk. So it's gone --

TOURE: And he's weaponized the pardon now. Anybody who commits violence on behalf of Trump knows they will be pardoned. So we could attack anybody, and you know you're going to get out of it.

AVLON: And this is the threats. I hear what you're saying, S.E. but I also think, especially people are serving in Congress, take an oath to uphold the Constitution. And we saw in the first Trump term, particularly at the end, and we're seeing it now, people saying, I can't speak my mind. I can't vote my conscience because I'm afraid for my safety. That is giving into the threat of a mob. And that cannot be allowed. If people are so afraid of losing their job that they're willing to abandon their oath because they're afraid of losing a primary, a lot of people throughout human history have stood up for a lot worse. And this is a time for courage, not that kind of cowardice, particularly --

ABDUL: The overwhelming majority members of Congress fit that mold. They're not going to do it for political reasons.

PHILLIP: All right, everyone, we've got to leave it there for that conversation.

But up next for us, have the Democrats lost their way? The question is now getting louder after the party's scattered and sometimes eyebrow raising stunts this week. We'll debate that.

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[10:28:14]

PHILLIP: Welcome back. Liberals are lost, and their lack of direction was on full display at the president's address to Congress this week. Some of them were holding up signs as if they were bidding at an auction. Some resist by storming out in t-shirts. Others wear pink, even if the reason isn't entirely clear. And some just stand up and shout.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(SHOUTING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Al green's stunt that you saw there earned him quite a lot of criticism and a censure led by Republicans, for which Democrats responded by singing a sacred civil rights anthem.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Representative Al Green be censured with public reading of this resolution by the speaker.

(SINGING)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The House will come to order. The House will come to order.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: It got more cringey from there when several congresswomen appeared in this influencer's video.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Choose your character.

(MUSIC)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: So look, I mean.

TOURE: That was not fair. We can't be that bad. That makes the whole --

ABDUL: Yes, you are.

PHILLIP: I'm asking the question, but it is what it is.

[10:30:01]

I mean, nobody asked for that in particular. And I also just think it's like you start with all the chaos of the different responses at the joint address, and then you have this like super sober Elissa Slotkin response. And then a couple of days of just all this random social media.

TOURE: They clearly don't have an idea of what to do. They have had at least months to prepare, at least since the election, to start preparing. This is weak. This is not the way we should be responding. This does not give the country any confidence that there is an opposition to this. I actually think Al Green had the right idea. If we think that he's a dictator and we're moving in an authoritarian direction, then we should be standing up. But then to have Democrats vote to censure him for shame, as if their civility is more important than standing up to a dictator.

PHILLIP: So the Al Green thing, you know, first of all, yelling at a joint address or a State of the Union or whatever, this is nothing new, OK. Marjorie Taylor Greene would like to have a word. She was not censured for it. But it almost seemed like because there was a lack of backup, there was not a plan. So he got dragged out. And then, as you point out, Democrats, then they don't stay united and then they vote against him.

AVLON: I just want to see the same standards applied to both parties. So the Republicans who censured Al Green, I assume they will censure Joe Wilson and Marjorie Taylor Greene the next Democratic president. But of course, that's not going to happen. Look, Democrats are facing a problem that stems from the fact that there's not a leader of the opposition. It's sometimes been said we've got all the disadvantages of a parliamentary system but none of the advantages. One of the advantages is there's always a leader of the opposition. And so I do think the Democratic Party should be focused a little bit more on, on this sort of like cringe playing, you know, to TikTok influencers, but really focusing on, if there are six folks who want to run for president, start putting them out now, start having that competition, and have folks who are actually trying to bridge the divides and break up the negative stereotypes --

PHILLIP: There's a couple of things. Part of it is the personalities and lack of leadership. And it's not Chuck Schumer. Guys, you've got to empower some younger people. People like --

TOURE: Like Hakeem Jefferies. What's he doing?

CUPP: OK. But I'm thinking more like Tim Ryan, Luz Rivas, Seth Moulton, Lisa Blunt Rochester, some really young, great Democrats who are not coming in with 50 years of baggage, who maybe weren't at D-Day physically and who, want to progress the party forward in a clear-eyed way.

But there's also another problem that Democrats really don't want to face. I say this all the time. They've got some bad math, and the bad math is policies that did not work. You can tell me all day long that Biden's border policy was good. It was not. Americans totally, totally disagreed with me -- with that policy. You can say that the economy was great under Biden. Americans disagreed with your inflationary economic policy. You can say crime was down. Americans disagreed with your soft on crime policy.

If they don't address those three policy issues, then none of this matters. Those are the things that are going to get them voted into office again and restore that confidence that a lot of people are lacking.

TOURE: In some of those situations that we are dealing with an electorate that's being lied to. We are. We are at crime in America is way down. If the president comes and says crime is up and his people believe it.

CUPP: The FBI revised the numbers to say crime was up. Biden didn't want to admit that. But you can't tell a woman who does not feel safe in their city crime is fine. It's a myth. Don't do it. It's going to lose you an election.

PHILLIP: I think you're right. Look, crime is an experience that people, their safety, right? I mean, the Democrats, this is how they view the economy and also crime. It's like when you look at the big scheme of things the last 25 years, yes, crime is down. Crime, you know, the economy actually is quite good. The Fed chair said that just this week. But people are not feeling it in their day-to-day lives. And now they're in a position of being in the opposition and they don't have a lot of credibility from voters to start with, let alone from their own base that actually wants them to fight back even harder.

ABDUL: Yes. So who was it that the Democrats just chose for the chair and the vice chair? These are supposed to be people who are as far as messaging -- yes, these are supposed to be the people who are involved in messaging. What we saw.

PHILLIP: You mean at the DNC.

ABDUL: The DNC, yes.

PHILLIP: Nobody is looking to the DNC.

ABDUL: But that's their -- but that's but that's their job. Much like the RNC, that's the DNC's job. It's just that they chose people who are bad at their job.

What I was reminded of with the video, the Grand Theft Auto video of the Democrat women, I was reminded of, who was that, Nancy Pelosi, what's his, Clyburn, and a number of others.

[10:35:03]

Remember when they kneeled on the Capitol floor and Kente cloth?

PHILLIP: Yes, I do. You don't remember?

ABDUL: You don't remember?

TOURE: Of course I remember. But I don't understand the point. The Republican Party is completely in disarray and elected --

ABDUL: But the Republican Party. But the Republican Party won. Democrats, this was years ago when they decided to do that. And they're doing that same type of thing now. It's just not working.

PHILLIP: I think Melik's point is, which is like in the same sense that that was a performative thing that no one asked for, the question is, what are Democrats doing to lead in this moment? I mean, really, what voters are asking for is not symbolism and stunts. They're asking for legal victories and a legal strategy and a fundraising strategy, and maybe a plan to identify what the message ought to be.

AVLON: Well, and also don't -- it's important to come across as authentic. A lot of this sort of pandering stuff doesn't come across as authentic. But you're right, they need to be organized around a message, say the Trump administration is all about chaos and cruelty and corruption. That's a clear message. Say that Hakeem Jefferies made the point, the campaign, we should be talking about reclaiming the flag and faith and freedom and families.

ABDUL: They've abandoned that.

AVLON: And I think those kind of messages are things that should be driving the Democratic Party.

CUPP: I thought Elissa Slotkin made a lot of sense, and she was really good, because she did say, like, my dad is a Republican, we don't hate a lot of people.

PHILLIP: A lot of people didn't like that.

CUPP: No, I thought she was great.

PHILLIP: She mentioned Reagan, and I saw some people complaining.

CUPP: But she talked about feeling safe. She talked about people wanting cuts to government. She admitted that voters are right in in diagnosing problems. We have different solutions. I'm not hearing that from all liberals.

TOURE: I don't want a blue Republican Party, but I do want us to learn a little bit more of the fight, a little bit more of the spine. I want -- you see, we don't want to be like Trump. But we see that he has changed politics. The authenticity -- he lies a lot, but they believe that he tells the truth. Who is a Democrat who people say, not a politician, but seems like a real person who gets me. I want somebody like that.

PHILLIP: Who is that?

TOURE: Could be Bernie.

(CROSS TALK)

PHILLIP: AOC was in that cringe video, right, the Grand Theft Auto video, as you called it. But she would be better off doing what she does best, which is getting on a on a live and just talking for an hour-and-a-half. That is what people want more of, not the TikTok trends that are several years old.

TOURE: You know what about TikTok?

PHILLIP: I don't know about TikTok, but I just know that that --

TOURE: The trend is years old.

PHILLIP: Coming up next for us, Derek Chauvin, he pleaded guilty, as you remember, to federal charges in the 2020 death of George Floyd. Now, there are some MAGA people who think that he should actually get a pardon from Trump. We'll discuss that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:42:40]

PHILLIP: Welcome back. Many conservatives see the summer of 2020 as the original sin of wokeness. While the nation debated masks and lockdowns, the killing of George Floyd set off a racial unrest on a national scale. But now MAGA thinks that the man who was responsible for Floyd's death, the officer who kneeled on his neck for nine minutes, is the victim.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BEN SHAPIRO, CONSERVATIVE COMMENTATOR: If we are issuing pardons, however, there is one person that President Trump should pardon from federal charges forthwith. It would be incredibly controversial, but I think that it's absolutely necessary. That person is Derek Chauvin. President Trump should, in fact, pardon Derek Chauvin.

The evidence demonstrates that Derek Chauvin did not, in fact, commit murder of George Floyd. George Floyd was high on fentanyl. He had a significant preexisting heart condition. George Floyd was saying he could not breathe before he was even out of the car.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Trump says that he hasn't heard about this. But Elon Musk, who, of course, has the president's ear, shared that sentiment with his 200 million followers on social media. Now, legal experts say that even if Chauvin got a pardon, he'd still have to serve out the rest of his sentence on state charges. But of course, a pardon would reopen a wound for Floyd's family. And his family says it would set the country back 400 years. Of course, in a world in which Trump has already pardoned many people who assaulted police officers, assaulted the Capitol, et cetera. this would come up. But I cannot fathom why you would take this on and say, OK, somebody who kneeled on another person's neck until they were dead deserves a pardon in this moment. I mean, I remember actually, Trump put out a statement.

TOURE: Sure did.

PHILLIP: He put out a statement decrying George Floyd's death. OK, he said a lot of stuff and did a lot of stuff after that. But he recognized that this was a murder that was caught on video.

ABDUL: He didn't just put out a statement. Donald Trump gave a press conference where he talked about George Floyd smiling down on us because of what's happening, the movement, concern about black lives. This is something that Donald Trump said.

Now, I'm convinced and I talked about it on Twitter, that Charlie Kirk probably doesn't even know that it was not just Donald Trump. You can literally go down.

PHILLIP: You mean, Ben Shapiro.

ABDUL: I'm sorry, Ben Shapiro.

TOURE: They all look alike.

(LAUGHTER)

[10:45:00]

ABDUL: That Ben Shapiro didn't know that Donald Trump, Dan Bongino, Ivanka Trump, Melania Trump, all of these Republicans out there condemned what we saw on that video. He didn't know. What this is about for Ben Shapiro, it is engagement forming because he wants to stoke racial tensions -- PHILLIP: Let me just take. I'm just going to take the other side of this argument. He knows.

CUPP: He knows.

PHILLIP: He knows that. There is a project on the right, right now, to tell us that down is up and up is down. And particularly on this stuff, they want to relitigate what happened in the George Floyd case. They want to change the historical narrative about who is the victim and who is -- who is the perpetrator in this case, despite the juries. What he said there, there's no evidence. The juries looked at the evidence.

ABDUL: And he's talking about the defense. He's talking about the defense.

CUPP: I know Ben. Ben knows. Ben is one of the smartest people I know. I completely disagree with him here, but he knows all the things. But this is so on brand. I don't know why anyone is surprised by this. This is the Kyle Rittenhouse, justice for the white man sort of crusade that has become the MAGA brand. It appeals to this young, male, white guy that the Republican Party is sweeping up in droves. It's very scary, but they are tapping into this kind of grievance with people like Charlie Kirk. And Ben Shapiro is now jumping into it. It's really scary. But it's very on brand.

TOURE: Yes, this about white grievance and the sense that white people have been attacked. So we need to get them back. This is purely evil, because we all saw this nine minutes of kneeling on his neck. We all heard the scientific data in the testimony that this was not about fentanyl. This is not about a previous condition. Derek Chauvin ended his life. And to stand up for a murderer is the ultimate in saying whiteness is always right.

PHILLIP: But there have been a lot of people, honestly, on the right to your point standing up for people who kill other people, and on the basis, actually, frankly, as you said, of race. I think the underlying thing here is that the white man is being unfairly prosecuted when really the narrative that we should be looking at this from is from humanity, OK. A human being was killed on camera. It almost doesn't matter in a way, whether George Floyd was black or not. But that's, the white grievance is what's animating this.

AVLON: Yes. And if you -- look, this is not, Democrats need to win back young men who have been alienated. But Derek Chauvin is not an avatar for most young white men. This is something that goes back to the politics of the belief that might makes right. It goes back to politics around reconstruction. And this is not even a Daniel Penny situation, Derek Chauvin's.

So if you're going to stand for law and order, do it consistently. Respect due process. But that clearly is not this project. And it's not -- maybe it is just a play the outrage Olympics and get a lot of eyeballs, but it opens the door to something a lot more sinister if you look at American history.

PHILLIP: This is where we are in the country today, and it's very sad.

Coming up next, though, for us, we've got some unpopular opinions from our panel, but they're not afraid to say out loud.

But first, a programing note. Don't miss CNN's original series "Twitter, Breaking the Bird." It's the inside story of the small startup that changed history. It premieres tomorrow night at 10:00 p.m. only on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:53:11]

PHILLIP: We're back, and it's time for your unpopular opinions. You each have 30s to tell us yours. John, you're up.

AVLON: All right, I'm just going music here. You know, there's a debate always about the Beatles. And this is about conventional wisdom in music. It's always "Sergeant Pepper" is the best Beatles album. People will fight over this.

CUPP: That's a fact.

AVLON: I think it's a "Magical Mystery Tour."

CUPP: Thats insane. Thats insane. That's insane.

AVLON: Thats why I'm happy to have this debate. I think about what's on that album. It's "Strawberry Fields," "Penny Lane," "All You Need is Love." I'm telling you, it's not a traditional choice.

CUPP: "A Day in the Life."

AVLON: Yes, solid, but I think, but then you still have to deal with, like, "Mr. Kite."

TOURE: "A Day in the Life" is incredible. But he's actually 70 years old.

(LAUGHTER)

AVLON: Nobody cares about the Beatles. Elvis was a hero to most.

TOURE: French wine is not as good as California wine. I'm sorry I had to say it. When I drink French wine, I can taste the snootiness. I can taste the --

(LAUGHTER)

TOURE: You are pronouncing that wrong. When I drink California wine, I feel the warmth. I feel the welcome. I feel the beach. I feel the fruit in the sun. I like California wine and I'm American. I like foreign everything.

AVLON: You're pro-tariffs.

TOURE: I drive a BMW. I want California wine.

CUPP: Communist.

PHILLIP: OK, you all are coming in hot today.

CUPP: My unpopular opinion is that reality stars are role models. Just this past year alone, three of my friends, Shep Rose, Carl Radke, and Craig Conover, used their shows to talk about mental health and addiction in ways that are so powerful because you're watching their real lives. And a lot of young people watch these shows on Bravo, and I'm just so proud of them for doing that. Yes, there are the Jen Shahs of the world, I'm aware.

PHILLIP: But a cautionary tale nonetheless.

CUPP: Yes. When these young guys get up and talk about what they struggle with, it really makes a difference.

PHILLIP: Melik?

[10:55:00]

ABDUL: So look, the debate is over. People need to realize that, yes, Androids are absolutely superior to iPhones in every single way. I'm just letting everybody know, from the camera quality to the customization, androids are absolutely superior phones.

PHILLIP: So when I get the green bubble.

(LAUGHTER)

PHILLIP: Yes, the green bubble ruins everything. Just for the record.

Everyone, thank you very much. Thanks for watching "TABLE FOR FIVE". Our debate continues after the break.

Head to CNN's YouTube channel to see one that did not make air.

Also, you can catch me every weeknight at 10:00 p.m. eastern on our "NEWS NIGHT" roundtable. But in the meantime, CNN's coverage continues next.

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