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CNN Live Event/Special
CNN Saturday Morning Table for Five. Trump Administration Tells Evolving Story about Group Chat that Revealed U.S. Attack Plans in Yemen to Journalist; FOX News and Conservative Media Coverage of Trump Administration Group Chat Scandal Examined; Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem Holds Photo Op Infront of Prisoners in El Salvadoran Prison; Trump Supporter Criticizes President after Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency Fires Her from Treasury Department; President Trump Signs Executive Order Demanding Removal of All Divisive, Improper, and Anti-American Ideology from U.S. Institutions Including National Zoo and Smithsonian. Aired 10-11a ET.
Aired March 29, 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)
[10:00:29]
SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: This morning, is the White House's handling of the group chat fiasco an ominous signal of what's to come?
Plus, admit nothing, deny everything. But does this blunder show a crack in the MAGA mantra?
DAVE PORTNOY, BARSTOOL SPORTS FOUNDER: Holy -- this is a -- up of epic proportions.
SIDNER: Also, from posing in prison to arresting on the street, this made for TV presidency has its scared straight episode.
And national parks, the National Zoo, and even the Smithsonian become targets of Trump's bid to invade culture.
Here in studio, S.E. Cupp, Arthur Aidala, Gretchen Carlson, and Toure.
It's the weekend. Join the conversation at a "TABLE FOR FIVE".
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SIDNER: All right, good morning to you. I'm Sara Sidner from New York in for Abby Phillip.
The fallout grows from the Trump administration's group chat fiasco, the one that could have endangered the lives of troops if attack plans landed in the wrong hands at the wrong time. But is the biggest story here not the breach itself, but their reaction to it? Instead of admitting their mistake, the response became a day's long circus of evolving deflections, denials, and insults. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, (R) U.S. PRESIDENT: It's equipment and technology that's not perfect.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Goldberg is an anti-Trump hater.
PETE HEGSETH, DEFENSE SECRETARY: You're talking about a deceitful and highly discredited so-called journalist.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you have somebody else's contact and then it -- and then somehow.
LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS HOST: Someone sent you that contact.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It gets sucked in. Now, whether he did it deliberately.
TRUMP: It wasn't classified, as I understand it. There was no classified information.
TULSI GABBARD, NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE DIRECTOR: There were no classified or intelligence equities.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was not discussing classified information in this, in this setting.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No classified information.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you still believe nothing classified was shared?
TRUMP: Well, that's what I've heard. I don't know. I'm not sure. You'll have to ask the various people.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There were no locations, no sources or methods revealed.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nobody was texting war plans.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why did "The Atlantic" downgrade their allegation about war plans to attack plans?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They even changed the title to "attack plans" because they know it's not war plans.
TRUMP: I think it's a witch hunt. I wasn't involved with it.
HEGSETH: I know exactly what I'm doing, exactly what we're directing. Keep everybody informed, that's what I did. That's my job.
TRUMP: Hegseth is doing a great job. He had nothing to do with this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SIDNER: All right, remember, they are the ones who added the journalist they're trying to smear to that chat.
The chaos raises the question, what will this same team do if an actual huge crisis happens, or if one of their mistakes does end up in the wrong hands? For one, sources inside the Pentagon say there's growing concern about Pete Hegseth's judgment and leadership, that he's more concerned about his image than substance. Hillary Clinton uses one word to describe all of these blunders -- "dumb."
All right, to my panel, I am going to start with you, Mr. Aidala. What happens if there is a major crisis and this is the response to it?
ARTHUR AIDALA, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, as a criminal defense attorney, I can tell you often the cover up is worse than the crime. And I'm not saying this is a cover up as much as it is excuses. It was a mistake. I mean, there's no ifs, ands, or buts about it. It was a horrible mistake.
Now, in the world of technology, have all of us had an email that's gone out that shouldn't have gone out, or a text that shouldn't have gone out? Yes. It's usually not about bombing another country. So, you know, when you're in that position, you have a heightened -- you have a heightened responsibility to the country, to the world, really.
When they say Hegseth is not doing a good job, I mean, if they're basing it on him putting someone on a tweet or a signal that he shouldn't have, I don't think that's fair, because as I said, so many people have done that. I don't think you could use this as a barometer to how they're going to react if, God forbid, a nuclear weapon is coming.
S.E. CUPP, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I do, I do. I think I'm going to raise my hand here.
AIDALA: I guess I'm in the minority.
CUPP: I think you can. I also, Sara Sidner, object to your premise. This is a crisis. What happened was a crisis. We don't have to wait for a crisis. It was a crisis that the people in charge of our national security are in a group chat texting about it on a commercially available app. Thats a crisis. And then the spin after is yet another crisis.
[10:05:01]
And that's a P.R. crisis, but it's a crisis of confidence and incompetence. And there is such an easy solution here, which is to fire someone. Fire someone, because we just want someone to be held accountable. We just want someone to say, it was me, I did it. This person is going to be fired. This person is going to be fired. And we're going to work on making sure this never happens again. See, that's the solution. We wouldn't be talking about it seven days later.
TOURE, SUBSTACK AUTHOR, "CULTURE FRIES BY TOURE": Very easy to say. A human mistake that many people have made. Obviously, not at this level, but we're going to tighten up. But this is not a P.R. thing. This is a character thing that goes to
the top where he cannot say, I made a mistake. Like, let's move forward. Like, he just wants to go forward. Forget my mistakes. And that when we get to a real crisis, he will be unable to say, hey, we made a mistake. You need to understand, we made a mistake, and we know how to fix it. You can't just say that, that's a problem.
GRETCHEN CARLSON, CO-FOUNDER, LIFT OUR VOICES: He's not going to fire anyone right now because that would be a victory for Goldberg, the reporter. That would be like, OK, so he, actually --
SIDNER: That's what they're thinking.
CARLSON: That's what they're thinking inside.
SIDNER: I don't think Goldberg would feel like it's a victory.
CARLSON: No, not for him, but --
SIDNER: The media, the media.
CARLSON: So maybe they're going to wait for a couple of months and then just quietly have somebody resign. But the other big part of this story is that the MAGA world has believed this kind of stuff over and over again, right? And they've gotten away with it. I mean, Trump has been able to get away with things that are on videotape saying one thing. He says, no, I didn't really say that. And his supporters believe him, even though it's on videotape.
This time, I'm not so sure that's going to work, because you actually had some of his supporters coming out and having a differing opinion, which I know --
AIDALA: For Hillary Clinton to say this is dumb, I represented Anthony Weiner.
CUPP: Change the subject.
AIDALA: No, I'm not changing the subject. I represented Anthony Weiner, who turned over a laptop, who was supposed to be -- it was supposed to be clean, and there was nothing on it, and there was something on it. That was an honest that was an honest mistake. He didn't think there was anything on it. It was on there. Technology, we've all screwed up. We have all screwed up. Should they have said we screwed up? I agree, they should have said we screwed up.
CUPP: This isn't a dick-pic, this isn't a dick-pic on a congressman's computer. It's a little different. And I don't think we should be that cavalier about the mistake.
AIDALA: You could yell as much as you want. I think -- I said they should be held to a higher standard than we do when we send a picture of our kids out on Halloween.
CARLSON: You're arguing about the actual mistake instead of what's happened afterwards. AIDALA: I did say the coverup is worse than the crime.
CARLSON: You did. Yes, but then you should agree with the rest of us --
AIDALA: I said they should admit.
CARLSON: That they --
AIDALA: -- but move on. I don't think someone should be fired because they, because they said something. And look --
TOURE: If you sent war plans to a journalist --
AIDALA: But there weren't war plans. You have to look at the substance.
SIDNER: Toure, go ahead.
TOURE: I mean, here's the thing. This is not a right-left issue. This is about good governance. A person made a mistake. So the right should respond the same way you would if the left -- this is not about ideology. This is about a person made a mistake. So if a Dem did this, you should respond the same way. I mean, I can't even believe that the right would even bring up Hillary Clinton at this moment.
AIDALA: Would you --
SIDNER: Hold on, hold on.
AIDALA: -- say the same thing if President Biden made a mistake? That's the problem in the country right now.
TOURE: You sank Hillary's entire campaign on a ridiculous issue, but her emails, a private server which had been normal throughout time, and this is, this is OK? This is just a mistake. But that was a great --
AIDALA: I don't think anyone is saying it's OK.
TOURE: It's ridiculous hypocrisy.
AIDALA: I don't think anyone is saying it's OK.
CUPP: They are saying it's OK. They are saying it's a hoax.
CARLSON: They're blaming the reporter.
CUPP: We know from Maggie Haberman's reporting that Trump really doesn't want to fire anyone because he doesn't want the media to win. And let me tell you, the media is winning. The media because of this story, because they refuse to fire someone and move past it, the media is getting eyeballs, clicks. They're selling newspapers and magazines.
AIDALA: And CNN reports that Trump's approval rating, CNN reports Trump's approval rating is higher than ever. I'm not saying that. That's what CNN is saying.
CUPP: The media is doing it's job.
SIDNER: Hold on, hold on. Hold on. Wait. Let me just speak to what you said. That was before this scandal, just so you know, that CNN reporting, there was some -- it was it was before the scandal. Harry Enten came out and said, look, he's doing well comparatively. But it was like 45 percent of the country. That's not a great number, but that was before the scandal.
CARLSON: Yes. And here's the problem, though, with the media. I agree with you that this is a bigger story than some of the other ones, because they have not handled it correctly. So they could have nipped it in the bud, but it continues and continues. The problem is, is that a lot of Trump supporters are watching outlets where they're not hearing a discussion like this. They're not hearing another point of view. So to them, they don't really -- they don't really know that the rest of the world is discussing this. And that is what I think is the scary thing that we should be focusing on.
[10:10:03]
TOURE: The personal attack on Jeffrey Goldberg is also really disgusting. And this notion that we can just smear him as somebody who has peddled terrible stories time and time again, this is a complete lie, and there is no need to drag him down. He's not some muckraking journalist who found these papers. They included him. They sent it to him, and he did something incredibly responsible in not reporting it right away, which some of us would have. He waited until they said, it's not classified and you're lying.
SIDNER: Next, see two very different reactions as we were just talking about to Trump's performance in MAGA media.
Plus, hear from a self-described MAGA junkie who is now saying she regrets her vote.
And the TV presidency had quite the episode this week, including the Homeland Security chief standing inside a prison with alleged gangbangers in their briefs.
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[10:15:39]
SIDNER: Welcome back. MAGA world loves Trump, you know this, and usually will cover for him whatever he does. It is a rare day when diehard Trump supporters and Trump loving media figures criticize him publicly. So, like America's game, is it possible for MAGA world to call balls and strikes when there are blunders that are obvious blunders? The signal scandal is an interesting experiment. Clearly, there was a mistake made. Clearly, it was their fault, and clearly, it had life and death consequences potentially. But if you watch FOX's spin, there were more pretzels than on opening day.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JESSE WATTERS, FOX NEWS HOST: Did you ever try to start a group text? You're adding people and you accidentally add the wrong person. All of a sudden, your aunt Mary knows all your raunchy plans for the bachelor party.
WILL CAIN, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: If you read the content of these messages, I think you'll come away proud that these are the leaders making these decisions in America.
SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS HOST: Now, I want you to believe that they actually give a and care about national security. More feigned, phony outrage.
CAIN: Is there not some ethical obligation on Jeffrey Goldberg to announce himself and to leave?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SIDNER: Those are the reactions. On the other end, though, of the MAGA spectrum, Barstool sports Dave Portnoy, who is a Trump supporter, openly, took exception with the administration's response.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAVE PORTNOY, BARSTOOL SPORTS FOUNDER: Trump, you may love Michael Waltz. You love Pete Hegseth. You may love these guys. Somebody has to go down. To me, it's Michael Waltz. You can't pooh-pooh it. You can't downplay it. You have to sit up there and be like, holy -- this is a -- up of epic proportions. There will be accountability. I will get to the bottom of this. I don't care if you're right or left. This is a -- there's nothing being made up here.
Jeffrey Goldberg is telling the truth. It's obvious these texts are real. It's obvious they're classified. It's obvious we gave away the strike information two hours before it happened. We're lucky it didn't cause the death of American military members. Somebody has to go down for this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SIDNER: So, Gretchen, in hearing that was that was the strongest rebuke I think I've heard from someone who is openly and publicly a supporter and who usually finds ways to say, like, look, this is OK. He's just talking. Is there going to be accountability, though?
CARLSON: Well, there may be, because you have people like Dave Portnoy actually doing this. For the record, when I saw this on X, I was like, what? And I was like, this is a fantastic rant. I retweeted him. I don't think I've ever retweeted Dave Portnoy or agree with most of anything he's ever said that's come out of his mouth. But this is what needs to happen.
And to your point, both sides need to do this. This is what America is so frustrated with is that you have both sides in the trenches, not admitting potentially when they make mistakes, especially on the Trump side. And I think that that continues to fracture America. Forty-three percent of us are sitting in the middle as independents, and we actually want compromise and people to come together and get you know what done, right. So this is helpful. This is very helpful to have a prominent figure who helped Trump get elected, by the way, especially with young men, it's helpful for his followers to see this.
CUPP: You know, I know Dave a little bit and he's very savvy. The main thing to know is he's beholden to no one. So yes, he is a Trump supporter, but he has zero f's to give. If he doesn't like something, he says it, because his only concern is Barstool nation. OK, so him saying this means he believes it, and he doesn't care if it makes Trump mad. Thats why it's so powerful, because he is sort of on the inside. I mean, it's not like working for Trump, but he's a supporter, and he is saying, I think what everyone can see with their own eyes. It's just common sense. This was clearly a mistake. Jeffrey Goldberg did nothing wrong. This was bad information to be shared outside of a SCIF. So I like the commonsense, no nonsense, tough love to, I'm sure, a lot of Trump supporters who are on Barstool and listening to El Prez's emergency press conference.
TOURE: I mean, I feel like this is such an outlier that, I mean, I used to take Dave seriously in any political context. I'm not talking about him --
CARLSON: You should, though, because he had a huge impact in the election. Piers Morgan also came out against him.
TOURE: I understand. There's another person I'm not ever taking seriously.
[10:20:00]
I don't expect any sense of accountability for anything. I mean, we are -- this, this, this is so small compared to the march toward authoritarianism that we're having.
SIDNER: And to that point, there is a potential of them listening more, the representatives, the people who have to go out to the town halls and who have to talk to people and listen to people. And some of those town halls have gotten very fiery and people are very frustrated. I do want you to listen to someone who was a full on supporter of Donald Trump and has wobbled. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If you could say anything to President Trump now, what would you say?
JENNIFER PIGGOTT, TRUMP SUPPORTER FIRED FROM TREASURY DEPARTMENT: I expected better from you. I really did. I expected that you would do what was right and cut waste and fraud, and all of those things that you promised us before we elected you in office. But you're not doing that. You're creating a disaster. And I don't know what America is going to look like if this continues.
(END VIDEO CLIP) SIDNER: Now, this is a person who considered herself what she called a MAGA junkie. She was just let go from the Department of the Treasury in Elon Musk's and DOGE's purge of many of these places. What do you say to her? If you are in Trump world, what do you say to this woman?
AIDALA: It's very similar to big hotel chains that bring someone in, like an Elon Musk, and say, you know what, we don't need this cashier anymore. We don't need this person to make the beds anymore, because now I have a computer that can do this, and a robot could do that. And my job is to make the Marriott Marquis or the Hilton or the Hyatt more money. That's my job. And unfortunately, you can't -- your job has been eliminated, and your job has been eliminated. We don't need 10 people to do what now with computers and A.I. and technology, two people could do.
SIDNER: OK, do you actually think that they have put A.I. and robots at the Treasury Department right now? Because the issue is not being careful with who is going. It's doing it like a blast and then saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, we've got to hire you back because, oh, you have the nuclear codes.
AIDALA: OK?
SIDNER: So that's not how Marriott does it. That is not how these different chains do it.
AIDALA: I would beg to differ only because of some cases that I have. However, however, sometimes when you have to clean out the garage or the shed, you take everything out, and then you say, OK, we don't need all of this, and we need --
TOURE: It's not garage.
AIDALA: But it's become a garage. But it has. There is so much waste, and we all know --
TOURE: -- and find out what happened after we do it.
AIDALA: OK, if they call it tomorrow, if they call in Sunday morning and say you have your job back, is she not going to go back to work? You think she's got a job from Amazon?
CARLSON: It costs so much more money to do it that way. I'm not arguing with you about fraud and waste. I think most Americans would agree with you that we want to eliminate it finally, somehow, someway. But then you come in with a whiteboard, you come in with consultants who know how to do this kind of stuff. You mark down with the people who lead a particular agency, and you say --
TOURE: Nobody is committing more fraud than Elon Musk. Elon Musk should not be profiting billions of dollars from the administration. So if DOGE was serious, DOGE would investigate Elon Musk.
AIDALA: Elon Musk, Gretchen, Elon Musk is the human being on the planet earth that figured out how to rescue two people up in space. He did it. CARLSON: That has nothing to do with DOGE.
AIDALA: It does. It has to do with someone's intellect. It has to do with their executive functioning skills.
TOURE: Oh, my God.
AIDALA: It has to do with their ability -- it has to do with their ability to get things done. He sent people to space to save two human beings. Who else is doing that?
SIDNER: Hold on. S.E.?
CUPP: Just really quick.
SIDNER: S.E.?
CUPP: I just I don't think we should compare firing veterans from the V.A. to cleaning out the garage. I think --
AIDALA: What about cleaning out the Treasury Department.
CUPP: -- that's really gross.
AIDALA: What about cleaning out the Treasury Department.
CUPP: These are people. And like Gretchen, I'm a conservative. I want a smaller --
CARLSON: I'm an independent.
CUPP: No, no, no, I mean, like Gretchen, me, as a conservative, like Gretchen, I want to cut fraud and waste. I want to make the government smaller. But there's a smart way to do it. And we're talking about human, human capital. That's not the same thing as cleaning out the garage. And unfortunately, I feel like Elon and Trump see it your way, like we're just cleaning out the garbage, which is actually humans, humans like veterans and humans like air traffic controllers, aka people who know stuff.
AIDALA: Thats life. That's how it works in all big corporations.
TOURE: The government is not a corporation.
AIDALA: Why was Michael Bloomberg the best mayor this city he ever had? Why was Michael Bloomberg the best mayor the city ever had? Because he ran the city like a private corporation.
TOURE: The point of government is --
AIDALA: He eliminated waste.
TOURE: -- to help business function and to protect citizens. It is not a government -- it's not a corporation. It's not supposed to make a profit. AIDALA: If your taxes were lowered on April 15th, that wouldn't
protect you? Eliminating all of this waste means eliminating our spending, it means eliminating the debt, that wouldn't help you. That wouldn't be a good thing for you and your family?
CUPP: No one is arguing with that. Nobody is arguing with that.
AIDALA: He's arguing with it. He's arguing with that.
CUPP: No one is arguing with that.
AIDALA: He is arguing it right now.
[10:25:00]
CUPP: There isn't a public or private company around that would survive with the grifting, the corruption, and the lack of transparency, and the incompetence that is happening inside the federal government right now.
TOURE: -- take care of people who doesn't even vote for it, that don't even like it. A company only has to deal with its clients, its customers. Government's responsibility is so much larger than a corporation, and we cannot run a government like a corporation. It's such a feebleminded idea to think we're just run it like --
AIDALA: You tell that to Mike Bloomberg and the New Yorkers who for 12 years had the best time in the city of this New York when that man --
CUPP: I would disagree with that.
AIDALA: I know you would, but everyone else would. And crime was down, tourism was up. The environmental protection was through the roof. We had a million --
CARLSON: With private companies, you don't have entitlement programs. The problem here, the big picture here is Musk will never be able to actually get into our national debt by cutting the one-third of the federal budget that he's looking at right now, because two-thirds is entitlement programs.
AIDALA: You're right.
CARLSON: And no politician is going to go near that, right. So is this all just farcical?
SIDNER: We'll see about that.
TOURE: I don't know why you're so confident about that.
SIDNER: We will see about that.
Next, more made for TV moments from the Trump administration with serious real life consequences. We'll discuss what the cabinet's photo-ops mean for America. Take a look at some of what we've been seeing this week.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:30:47]
SIDNER: Welcome back. If you needed more proof that Donald Trump sees his presidency as a TV show, there are images this week that would make the case. This is Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem, a photo-op inside the El Salvador prison where the U.S. sent alleged gang members. It's still not clear who exactly they are or what exactly they're accused of doing.
And another college student thrown in handcuffs, broad daylight, this time a Tufts graduate student with a valid student visa. Those you're seeing there are plainclothes DHS agents arresting her in masks. The agency says she supports Hamas and is losing her visa. It is unclear what the alleged support entails other than a column she wrote calling Israel's effort in Gaza a genocide.
And the vice president using the ice and snow as a backdrop for his visit to Greenland, a place that doesn't want him.
But in all cases, the theatrics are very clear. So we will begin with this. What is the messaging when you see Kristi Noem, for example, with these folks that they're accusing of being gang members? We have not seen what it is they're accused of. We don't know who they are. And then seeing someone on the street who is a student arrested broad daylight, cameras everywhere. What's the point of this?
AIDALA: It's like Gretchen was saying earlier, there's a base, a MAGA base. There's the people who voted for President Trump. The number one issue was immigration. That was the number one issue was, according to polling, was migrants, migrants, migrants. So here it is. Here it is.
SIDNER: It was actually the economy. But it was the second. Immigration was very close. It was one and two.
AIDALA: So here it is. We got these really, really bad dudes. We did what we said 90 days into our administration. Look at how bad these are. Look at how -- look at how tattooed those, look at how tattooed those shirts are.
TOURE: -- without taking them to court, you're OK with that.
AIDALA: Look at how tattooed those guys are. They look like they're scary guys behind bars.
SIDNER: But here's the problem.
AIDALA: If you see them, Gretchen, what they look like in there, they were tattooed from --
SIDNER: Hold on.
(CROSS TALK)
SIDNER: So here is the problem. You are an attorney. I mean, look, you're an attorney.
TOURE: Wow, wow, so the loss of due process is OK to you?
AIDALA: The people who vote voted for President Trump in middle America, I think that they would see a bunch -- there was dozens of young men tattooed from the top of their head to the bottom of their knees, I think they would look at those people like a threat. Like if I was alone at 8:00 at night and I would see them --
SIDNER: Hold on, guys, hold on.
AIDALA: This is what the administration, the image they're putting out there. These are not people I want to see when I come out of a Broadway show or when I come out of church. So they're behind bars. They're behind bars. And if there's people who are threat -- this is what, you're asking me what the imagery is from the Trump administration.
SIDNER: I understand.
AIDALA: What is the messaging? This is their messaging. You voted, you voted for us to do this, and we have done it. That's the messaging. You can talk to my esteemed colleagues if it's right or if it's wrong. The question I was asked was what is the messaging --
CUPP: You're a lawyer.
AIDALA: I wasn't asked that question.
CUPP: Don't you want to weigh in, though?
AIDALA: No.
CUPP: I'm interested in your opinion as a lawyer.
AIDALA: She's the host. She's the host.
(CROSS TALK)
SIDNER: What I need to have happen, I will ask you the question. I'm letting you finish your point. That point has been made that it is for show that you think that people will look at these people and see the tattoos and say, oh, they've got to be criminals. So the question is, as a lawyer, do you think people -- by the way, Pete Hegseth has a bunch of tattoos? Is he a criminal? OK. But it doesn't matter how the tattoos came --
AIDALA: Those are -- let me ask you, young man, how many members --
TOURE: -- brown skin versus white skin.
AIDALA: Did you represent someone from the Crips gang this week? Because I don't think so. I did. Don't tell me about gangs and tattoos and gang signs. It's the world I live in.
(CROSS TALK) AIDALA: So don't be schooling me about gangs and tattoos. It wasn't a tattoo that says, "Mom." These are all tattoos that say how many people they've killed, how many people they've killed.
(CROSS TALK)
TOURE: -- the evidence.
AIDALA: It is messaging.
(CROSS TALK)
AIDALA: Of course it is.
TOURE: A tattoo is evidence?
AIDALA: Absolutely.
TOURE: Wow. Wow.
AIDALA: You don't think a prosecutor is allowed, you don't think a prosecutor is allowed to have someone show their tattoos?
[10:35:00]
TOURE: Look at his tattoos. He must be guilty.
(CROSS TALK)
AIDALA: Are you kidding me?
(CROSS TALK)
TOURE: -- New York state bar.
AIDALA: It is absolutely admissible.
(CROSS TALK)
SIDNER: Order in the court. All right, talking over each other doesn't work. No one -- talking over each other doesn't work. No one can hear what you're saying.
You are making the argument that having a tattoo can make someone look like a criminal. OK, that's the argument you are having. Sometimes it's admissible, but you're also making the argument that because they have tattoos, they must be criminal. Is that what you're arguing?
AIDALA: No.
SIDNER: It sounded like that's what you were arguing.
AIDALA: I'm saying the imaging on television that that Trump is trying to put forth and the White House is trying to put forth is you elected us to clean up the killings, the gang members, in Long Island and New York. SIDNER: Right? But it they are not gang members, then that's a problem. And they haven't been convicted. S.E., go.
(CROSS TALK)
AIDALA: She's the host. Tell that to the host.
SIDNER: S.E.?
CUPP: What's interesting here. What's interesting here is the Trump justification for rounding these people up without due process is the alien, the Alien Enemies Act.
SIDNER: From 1798.
CUPP: He is saying that essentially we are being invaded. It is a war. That is how he's justifying this without due process. I'm not a lawyer, but I know what due process is, and it's important. The thing that's funny about this now is if it's a war and you're doing this under the auspices of war, Kristi Noem just broke the Geneva Convention because you're not allowed to pose in front of prisoners of war. You cannot have it both ways. You cannot just say, well, these are just detainees now. They're not our problem. They're in some El Salvadorian prison so I'm going to take a photo-op to look like I'm playing at politics, and say that we are at war from illegal invasions of people that we don't even know. We haven't named them. We are just disappearing them, like Russia, like Syria, like every bad regime and actor out there, we're just disappearing people now.
AIDALA: And they may have probable cause to believe that criminal activity is afoot. It means they can pick them up, but they can't be putting them on a plane and send them out of the country. They have to be detaining them and putting them in front of an appropriate judge, whoever that may be, a federal judge, an immigration judge. And yes, of course they should be due process.
SIDNER: All right, we've cleared that up like mud.
Coming up, President Trump is looking to the nation's historical museums, demanding they remove anything divisive. Is this rewriting history, is that what we're doing, or something else? My panel will debate that coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:42:20]
SIDNER: President Trump signed an order this week in his war against woke. His latest executive order demands the removal of all, quote, "divisive, improper, and anti-American ideology" from famous institutions. First, he took over the Kennedy Center, as you remember. Now, Donald Trump wants to control the Smithsonian, the African American Museum, national parks, and the National Zoo. The executive order says it is for restoring truth and sanity to American history. But does this really just translate into whitewashing American history? We are going to discuss first to you, Toure. TOURE: Yes. I mean, he talks about American greatness, and clearly he
means white greatness. And we are erasing black history. I mean, I didn't realize that the Smithsonian, the black history museum, was part -- I mean, like, obviously. But I didn't read that yet, and it almost makes me want to cry because that is such an incredibly important space. I took my children and my wife there, like as soon as it opened.
And like I studied Af-Am in college, and I learned a lot going through that museum. And it's deeply emotional and moving. And to say, we don't want to talk about the history of racism, that is part of American greatness. It's part of America's evil. But the way we have moved from enslavement to segregation to wherever we are now or wherever we were a few years ago is part of America's greatness, and it's part of Americas real story. And to say we're going to erase this and just focus on what white people have done, that's not what America is.
SIDNER: So far, we do not yet know exactly what this -- again, it's one of those nebulous things. We don't know exactly what this means. Gretchen, what do you think this means?
CARLSON: I think it means that we will soon see the regents at the Smithsonian looking exactly like what the Kennedy Center board members look like now, which are FOX News hosts. So we are going to probably see a complete changeover. Unfortunately, the Smithsonian gets two- thirds of its budget, $1 billion budget, from the federal government. Now, whether or not Congress needs to appropriate that or make the decisions about whether or not that's cut off, that's up for debate. But so far, we haven't seen Congress really taking a tremendous amount of action on the DOGE cuts, even though they have appropriated that money as well. So somebody in Congress is going to have to step up, or people in general, in Congress are going to have to stand up.
SIDNER: The National Zoo threw me for a little bit of a loop. S.E., any ideas why that one is upsetting?
CUPP: Listen, they're looking at it all. They're looking at national parks as well. And monuments. The idea that we would turn our cultural institutions or museums into temples of propaganda is very Russian coded, OK. And it worries me that were going to -- monuments to American greatness are going to erase our flaws and the ugly stories of American history, which are just as important as our stories of greatness and triumph and hope.
[10:45:12]
And what's odd to me is, as a conservative, I'm old enough to remember when the right was mad at the left for revising history, for trying to erase civil rights history, whatever it was, they were mad at the left for trying to do this. The Confederates was part of our history, right. Now it's the same. There's no daylight between this. If you want to pretend that America was only good, it is just as bad as pretending that it was only bad. And I just -- the hypocrisy of it all, you know, yet again, bothers me. TOURE: Remove totems of black history, but restore the Confederate
statues. So we are moving down a specific line of history and prizing this specific -- I mean, like, you know, let's have more. Let's pull back the monuments to slave owners, right? Like, that's -- you want to erase what they did, but still, I don't understand. I mean, we do understand, but we don't.
SIDNER: Does this not give you chills down your spine to think that an administration wants to change things because they don't like it because it's woke? The woke that has come out of this administration from the first time had to do with black folks. A lot of it had to do with black history. So does this not disturb you listening to what the changes that might happen?
AIDALA: The only reason why I'm hesitating, obviously, if what you're saying is accurate, if what you're saying is accurate, like they're going to wipe out all the slavery stuff like it never happened, of course that would disturb you. I just don't know if this is just a little bit more of the Trump show. It's a little bit more of appealing to the base. Wokeness, wokeness was part of --
SIDNER: But why is he appealing to the base. He is the president of these United States, and he doesn't he's not going to run again. Maybe.
TOURE: Whoa, whoa.
SIDNER: Just saying. What I'm saying is the base has spoken, Americans have spoken, right. So now he has to be the president of these United States for all Americans. Why are you picking this particular thing, wokeness? What does that have to do with the economy? What does that have to do with the immigration? What does that have to do with anything?
AIDALA: I think the difference between when he lost and when he won had to do with a lot of the wokeness that took place in those four years. And people were a little bit fed up.
CARLSON: That's different than erasing history.
AIDALA: I agree.
TOURE: In 2016, was working here and going around and talking to people, and people kept saying, without being prompted, this is our last chance, right? Fearful that white people were losing control of the country. And at that point, we were talking a lot about how people under a certain age, I think that point was like 12, now it's like 18. There are more people of color than white people, and white people know this. And they are afraid of a future where they are not in control of the country the way they always have been. And he represents maintaining that control. And this is just about erecting symbols to it.
SIDNER: We're going to end it there.
Next, the panel's unpopular opinions, which may have already been shared a bit. But they're not afraid to say more of them out loud.
But first, a programing note. Get the inside story on Twitter with the final episode of "Breaking the Bird." It airs tomorrow night at 10: p.m. only on CNN.
We'll be back.
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[10:53:12]
SIDNER: All right, we are back. And it's time for unpopular opinions. You each have 30 seconds to put it out there, starting with you, Arthur.
AIDALA: Well, it's kind of what we were just talking about moments ago. I mean, if he's good enough to be on Mount Rushmore, I think Teddy Roosevelt should be good enough to put on in front of the Museum of Natural History in Manhattan. He goes down as one of the greatest presidents in this country. Did he have mistakes? Did he have flaws? Absolutely, as do every president of the United States. So I'd like to see him back in front of the Museum of Natural History.
SIDNER: S.E.?
CUPP: Well, I think it's time to ban cryptocurrency because I don't understand it.
(LAUGHTER)
CUPP: And it is in everything now. It is in our monetary policy. It is in my 401(k), apparently, and I don't understand it. So it feels particularly personal, like it needs to go away because I don't get it.
SIDNER: All right, Toure?
TOURE: Pickleball is the devil's invention.
(LAUGHTER)
TOURE: The little dinks. There's a box you can't walk into in the middle of the court, little dragon strokes you're doing.
CUPP: You are a tennis player --
TOURE: We're getting there.
(LAUGHTER)
TOURE: There's three numbers in the score. What are you guys doing? You said it's easy to pick it up. How come I played twice and I'm better than you? Look, play a real sport like tennis.
(LAUGHTER)
SIDNER: She's a bit of tennis phenom.
CARLSON: Ball drop, ball drop, instead of a mic drop.
Speaking of balls, baseball season, we had opening day this week and this weekend. And I really want the game to be shorter, even shorter than the rules that they've instituted over the last few years about how long a pitcher can actually take to pitch.
[10:55:01]
And I'm saying this at great risk because my husband is in the baseball business. But I think games should be shorter. There should actually be a time limit, or you should only be allowed to make certain amounts of pitching changes, OK. No more for bring in the lefthanded pitcher for the righthanded batter, and then you -- because how long does it take right?
TOURE: And he's got to warm up good.
CARLSON: So no crypto and shorter baseball games.
AIDALA: Its America's pastime.
CARLSON: Pastime.
AIDALA: It's America's pastime.
TOURE: Making it shorter already, I appreciate that because we used to watch Red Sox games with the Yankees for five hours.
SIDNER: Fair enough. We have to go. We've called balls and strikes so far. Thank you all so much. That was wild.
And thank you for watching "TABLE FOR FIVE". You can catch Abby every weeknight at 10:00 p.m. eastern with the "News Night Roundtable." But in the meantime, CNN's coverage continues right now.
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