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Conflicts and Controversies Occurring in President Trump's Second Term Examined; Senator Chris Van Hollen Meets with Deported U.S. Illegal Immigrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia in El Salvador; Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Draws Controversy for His Statements about Debilities Autistic Children Suffer and Causes of Increase in Autism Diagnoses; Democratic National Committee Vice Chair David Hogg Calls for Primarying Ineffective Democrats; President Trump Announces Plans to Renovate Penn Station in New York City. Aired 10- 11a ET.

Aired April 19, 2025 - 10:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:00:34]

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: This morning, choosing his battles and relishing the art of the fight.

DONALD TRUMP, (R) U.S. PRESIDENT: If I want him out, he'll be out of there real fast.

PHILLIP: Donald Trump takes on the Fed, the courts, and any institution that doesn't fall in line. The strategy behind the showdowns.

Plus, the court rips into Trump's handling of deportations and due process and issues a dire warning as the immigration P.R. wars escalate.

Also, RFK Jr. contradicting his own agency and sparking backlash --

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR., HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY: I'll never play baseball. I'll never write a poem.

PHILLIP: -- for bogus claims about autism.

And all aboard Trump station? The president adding one of the world's biggest transit hubs to his list of rentals.

Here in studio, Melik Abdul, Alyssa Farah Griffin, Harry Enten, and Jemele Hill.

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.

This is a president who promised a fight, and he's delivering multiple main card matchups. In the first 90 days in office, the Trump White House has gone toe to toe with DEI, tariffs, law firms. He is tearing through the Department of Education and everything from Early Start programs to the ivy leagues. Judges and the court system are fueling his ire. Greenland, Canada, the Panama Canal, South Africa, and the United Nations, the media, red dye number three, fluoride, USAID, the Kennedy Center, former officials from the Biden administration, officials from his own first term, autopen, military base names, pennies, pronouns, FEMA, flags, water pressure, national parks, paper straws, research programs, vaccines, President Zelenskyy, U.S. agency buildings, Governor Hochul, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, food safety inspections -- that's just to name a few. And it is a list that is getting longer every day. And his base cannot wait for the next round, but what does it tell us about this presidency?

Alyssa, he is taking on every fight under the book, and I can only imagine it's because he believes there are no consequences. And he might be right. But I think there are a lot of people who are worried. I mean, Karl Rove earlier this week said there's too much retaliation. He's distracting, actually, from his wins by fighting so much.

ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Donald Trump spent four years out of office basically fuming over losing the 2020 election and thinking and dreaming up what he would do when back in office. And he actually came up with an agenda. Some of it is Project 2025. Some of it is just simply things that he's tweeted about and talked about over the years. And he is doing it. He has staffed himself with loyalists who were told, these are your specific things that within the agencies you work in you're supposed to be doing. And he's not going to break this pace that he's working at, by the way. So were almost 100 days in. Expect even more for the next four years ahead.

And there's an element of retaliation, for sure, which I do not think plays well even with those who elected him. But some of this is truly what he thinks his base wants to see in the government, whether it's what he's doing at HHS, with RFK, and with some of these sweeping changes, or even within the Department of Education, some of it is aligned with what he ran on, campaigned on. And there's an element of the Republican Party is with him. But there is part of it that is pure Donald Trump vengeance. And that's where he gets himself in trouble.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICS WRITER AND ANALYST: You said we are not even 100 days in. I thought we were like 500 days in.

(LAUGHTER)

PHILLIP: Yes. Every day is like dog years.

ENTEN: Every day. I feel like a little shih tzu. Look.

(LAUGHTER)

ENTEN: You Google, you look at Google trends, more people are searching "Trump chaos" than certainly at this point in April of 2017. We're even higher for chaos in terms of searches than we were during the first term, at least on average. And, you know, you just think of it more than that. You look at the number of executive orders he signed. It's not just a record for dating back since like 1951 was as far back as I initially looked in terms of this point through a presidency, there are more executive orders that have been signed during the first less than 100 days than any president that I could find on record. There just is so much that's going on. And sometimes, even as someone who follows this, it's like, OK, where's the bouncing ball going to end up next?

PHILLIP: Yes, I mean, I remember in the first Trump term, one of the things that you would always kind of hear, especially from voters, was like, I am just so sick of hearing about Trump.

[10:05:06]

I am sick of hearing about what is happening in Washington. There are a lot of people in this country who are like, make my life better and stop making me think about you every day. And Trump is definitely making people think about him every day. That is what he loves to do.

JEMELE HILL, CONTRIBUTING WRITER, "THE ATLANTIC": One thing that I noticed when you were reading that list is, like, none of it had to do with making people's lives better on a day-to-day basis. He's picking fights and he's showing his pettiness all the time, to the point where we're just like, all right, guy, we get it. You lost the last election, and now you're using this very powerful platform to get off all your grievances. And it's like, that's not what you were elected for. You can do things to play to your base, but you run the whole country. You don't just run your base.

And so I think most people are feeling wildly uncomfortable with what they're seeing financially. We know that confidence and how he's leading the economy has plummeted. That's the main issue that everybody said that they voted for, or rather voted against in terms of not wanting Kamala Harris's agenda. So if the economy was number one on your priority list, what does the Kennedy Center, what does DEI, what does that all have to do with the economy? Literally nothing.

So to me, it's just a complete exercise and utter foolishness and chaos that leaves people feeling much more broken than it leaves us feeling unified. He hasn't done a lot to actually bring us together.

GRIFFIN: I don't think he's trying.

HILL: Everything -- and he does --

PHILLIP: I don't think that was on the agenda this time around.

HILL: That is a problem. That is a problem that he's not doing anything that makes us feel like, you know what, even though I didn't vote for him, all right, I'm good with it.

PHILLIP: I mean, I will never get over, you know, I had Dr. Ben Carson on the show, and he looked me plain in my face and said, no, there's no retribution. Trump is not going to -- that is what these first 100 days have been about.

HILL: He said that?

PHILLIP: Yes.

GRIFFIN: I was sitting by. You were like, huh.

PHILLIP: Ben Carson said it. You know, the senator from South Carolina said it. I mean, it's its retribution. And proudly so, proudly so.

MELIK ABDUL, MEMBER BLACK AMERICANS FOR TRUMP COALITION: Yes. So I think a lot of people felt that it wasn't going to be an element of that. And for normally, presidents have one thing that they're able to do in their first year, because we go into the midterms, you're not going to get anything done then. For Barack Obama it was Obamacare or the health care. For Donald Trump in his first term, it was, in those first years it was the tax cuts and jobs act.

Donald Trump this time around, and I do agree with Alyssa, Donald Trump, it really is a lot of unfinished business. He felt as if he didn't -- he was not allowed to have a second term. And Donald Trump is doing not just a lot of things, continuing what he did in the first term. It is those things that he always wanted to do that many people in the Republican Party always wanted to do. And I don't think that the pace is going to lessen in any way. Donald Trump is going to keep barreling forward.

And I think the important thing for him is that he wants to get as much done in as little time possible. Even though it doesn't typically work that way. Donald Trump is going to keep this pace.

HILL: Notice the word that you said is "he" and "Republican Party". You didn't say "us."

ABDUL: I didn't.

HILL: You didn't say all of us. So it's like, your number one job as an elected official, I don't care if you're a Republican or Democrat, is to serve the people and to listen to your constituents. He is doing neither. So that means it's a failure.

ABDUL: Well, it's not a failure yet. Donald Trump, the whole -- now, Donald Trump is not going to bring us together. What the world needs now is love, sweet love, that's just not going to happen with Donald Trump.

(LAUGHTER)

ABDUL: But I do think that a number of the things that the administration is doing, and we're going to talk about some of those things, Donald Trump is moving forward really at record speed on a lot of them.

PHILLIP: I just want to raise this because I think this came as a surprise to a lot of people. I think there's a lot of alarm about what's happening now, and that it's not just chaos for the sake of chaos. It's chaos designed to break down institutions from the judiciary to independent educational institutions, to using the IRS to go after people. David Brooks wrote an op-ed on Thursday evening that said, "What's happening is not normal. America needs an uprising that is not normal." He says, "These are not separate battles. This is a single effort to undo the parts of the civilizational order that might restrain Trumps acquisition of power, and it will take a concerted response to beat it back."

Do you ever, Alyssa, have any fear that David Brooks is right, that Trump is trying to break down any inhibition to him doing any and everything that he wants?

GRIFFIN: I called it on Inauguration Day it was a shock and awe campaign, and that's a military term basically meaning you overwhelm your enemy or your perceived adversary so they don't even want to fight back. And that's what this is. It is flooding the zone.

The fact that he came out with an executive order saying that he was going to target two of his former officials, Miles Taylor and Chris Krebs, with the Department of Justice, and it was basically not even a full day story. It's basically kind of forgotten in the headlines, two former colleagues of mine, and people who simply did their jobs.

[10:10:05]

That just goes to show when you throw so much out there, there is a limited appetite in the media and in the public opinion to even kind of permeate in looking into how much these things actually matter. That's one small example of countless things that have happened in 90 days.

PHILLIP: And there's a lot of folding happening. I mean, these law firms folded faster than a bag of chips. I mean, it's -- nobody is really, except for now we're seeing what happens with Harvard and some of the courts, there's not a lot of resistance happening here.

Much more to discuss ahead. Coming up next, Senator Chris Van Hollen meets face to face with Kilmar Abrego Garcia in El Salvador. What the right has to say about the latest move in the pitched battle over immigration and a wrongfully deported man.

And outrage after RFK Jr. once again delivers a stunning claim about autism, fueled by misinformation.

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[10:15:38]

PHILLIP: A legal battle and a person's freedom in the balance. This week, Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen traveled to El Salvador and finally met with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man who was mistakenly deported to a notorious prison there. He posted a picture of the two sitting at a table together.

Now, for his part, President Trump posted that the meeting made Van Hollen look like, quote, "a fool." His administration is also defying a court order requiring them to facilitate Abrego Garcia's return, saying that it's out of their hands. It is something that a federal appeals court slammed as lawlessness. In a scathing seven-page ruling, a three-judge panel noted unanimously, "The basic differences between the branches mandate a serious effort at mutual respect. The respect that courts must accord the executive must be reciprocated by the executive's respect for the court. Too often today, this has not been the case."

Now, Trump had this to say about the courts.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: -- hold you in contempt. Will you take steps to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the United States and put him in front of a judge?

DONALD TRUMP, (R) U.S. PRESIDENT: Well, I'm not involved in it. I'm going to respond by saying, you'll have to speak to the lawyers, the DOJ. I've heard many things about him, and we'll have to find out what the truth is.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: So let me show you what open defiance of courts looks like. This is what the White House posted on X. They took a "New York Times" headline and they crossed out "wrongly deported," even though they have admitted in court that he was wrongly deported. And they crossed out "Maryland man" and put "MS-13 illegal alien," also disputed, "who is never coming back" is what is written in the corner there. They don't think there are any consequences.

ABDUL: I thought initially, and I probably said this before, that I thought with this, what Donald Trump was going to do, he was going to test the limits of executive authority. He's doing it in a way that is much more aggressive than any other president. I think that, and thankfully, you know, I get your alerts on Twitter, so I know what the polling is.

(LAUGHTER)

ABDUL: Is that Donald Trump, when it comes to immigration, he still, that's probably where he's polling best, on the issue of immigration. I've said many times before, I think that this is not the person that they should have chosen as the face of deportation because he didn't go through the due process. But what people need to understand is that this guy did have a standing deportation order. That does not, you know, forgive, you know, make excuses for Donald Trump not going through, you know, the due process. But he did have a standing deportation order.

And I can tell you, I talked to people not just who are on television, but just friends of mine, those who vote, don't vote, don't know a lot about politics. And I can say I'm not hearing many people, even on this case, say, I don't like what Donald Trump is doing there. PHILLIP: Yes. OK, let's talk about the polling, and then I want to

talk about another thing you mentioned, which is the optics of it. But on the polling, because I think this is important, you talk -- he's right. Trump has his best favorability on the issue of immigration broadly. But can I ask you to explain something to me.

ENTEN: Please.

PHILLIP: You have some polling that shows Americans would be OK with everybody being deported who is here illegally. There's also polling that asks, more specifically, if you are have been in the United States for 10 years, you paid taxes, you have no criminal record, but you are undocumented, do you support deporting those people? And 63 percent oppose that. So how do we even make sense of these numbers?

ENTEN: Yes, sometimes it's so interesting. You poll the public and it turns out the public can hold conflicting views even within themselves, right. And it's part of my job to figure out, OK, where do they actually feel on the overall immigration picture?

And I think it's important to note, as we have mentioned, is that Donald Trump's net approval rating on immigration is actually positive, which is very much unlike his first term. If you ask, are we on the right track or the wrong track when it comes to immigration policy? The plurality say that were on the right track, which is very different from where we were just a few months ago under Joe Biden.

So, yes, you see those polling and you see it's conflicting. It kind of actually reminds me a little bit of the gun control debate, right, where you see, oh, my God, 90 percent backed background checks. And then of course, you look at ballot measures in places like Nevada and Maine. And then when it's actually on the ballot, it's basically 50- 50.

[10:20:00]

In my opinion, on this particular topic, what we're really talking about and the metric we should be looking to is do people like, when they ask, do you like what Donald Trump is doing on immigration? And if the plurality says yes, which is what's going on, then that's the number that I think is most representative of the public at large.

GRIFFIN: But there is a little bit more complicated nuance to that because I fully agree, which is also how you consume information, so how you're viewing what he does, because I feel very similarly. If I talk to people in my life, they broadly agree with what he's doing. Well, of course, if you came here illegally, you should be deported. And we heard that he's a member of MS-13, and he's got these potential, you know, this restraining order from a prior wife before from these documents that the Department of Justice put out. What they may not have is the nuance of some legal experts explaining those wouldn't have held up in court, and that, again, he wasn't entitled to the due process that he should have had, and that all should have preceded him leaving the courtroom.

So I think that there's a lot that -- the way this is kind of consumed and being received by half the country is fundamentally differently than how we are talking about it at this table. In the White House, I mean, I saw that White House tweet and all I was thinking is, like, White House counsel is probably running over to White House digital so quickly being like, you're about to get us into so much trouble.

(LAUGHTER)

GRIFFIN: But people do, a lot of the country agrees with roughly what they're saying.

PHILLIP: I've got to take one moment on the propaganda game going on here. This is the picture that Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador, posted that it shows, if you look really closely there, you'll see a couple of cups with some cherries on them, maybe a margarita, I don't know. But here is what Van Hollen said about that photo.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, (D-MD): Nobody drank any margaritas or sugar water or whatever it is. But this is a lesson into the lengths that president Bukele will do to deceive people about what's going on. And it also shows the lengths that the Trump administration and the president will go to, because when he was asked about a reporter about this, he just went along for the ride. So the White House and the president have been lying about this case.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: President Bukele, the reason that Trump likes him so much is that he knows how to play the same game that Trump likes to play, and that was one of those moments.

HILL: And he's also getting paid to actually house him and house prisoners from the United States, which we can't forget that part. He's an independent contractor of the U.S. And so there's a financial motive that's also there. And there's been other reporting that substantiates the fact that, yes, this was part of the propaganda.

I guess my overall point, or just thinking about this as you were talking about what the polling says, is Americans are really good at saying what they think when it's from afar. But when it hits home, then they're like, oh, well, we didn't know that meant grandma. Oh, well, we didn't know that meant the, you know, restaurant that I go to down the street where they have undocumented workers. It's like they ask for things that they don't actually want until it shows up at their door, and then they realize like, oh, there's some nuance here. This is something that maybe we shouldn't have such a unilateral opinion.

And unfortunately, where we are in this country because of the lack of empathy and compassion that you always need a perfect victim. Why do we always need a perfect victim? Why do we always need somebody to run through our little individual purity test in order for the Constitution to hold up? Because that's kind of how we operate. And so even with the polling, I'm like, yes, they're saying that until

they actually realize the nuance of what it means, because if they can do this to him, believe me, there will be -- and we've seen so many instances already, we've heard about them, about perfectly, fine legal American citizens being detained by ICE, being put in isolation, and having their rights stripped away. So if you can't stand for the dude that -- and again, I'm not saying that he shouldn't be deported. What we're saying is, does he deserve to go to a prison in El Salvador? That's what we're saying. Thats like the basic difference.

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

Coming up next, RFK Jr. says autism is preventable and calls it an epidemic, which is not what his own department says.

Plus, extreme makeover Penn Station edition. The White House says it's taking over the renovation of one of the biggest transit hubs in the world. Next stop, Trump station?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:29:12]

PHILLIP: Welcome back. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is facing growing backlash for making stunning claims about autism that go against the findings from his own department. Kennedy likened the condition to a measles epidemic that's caused by environmental toxins. And now he's in search of the science to back that up.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR., HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY: This is a preventable disease. We know it's an environmental exposure. These are kids who will never pay taxes. They'll never hold a job. They'll never play baseball. They'll never write a poem. They'll never go out on a date. Many of them will never use a toilet unassisted.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: RFK doesn't dispute autism cases are rising, but experts already know why.

[10:30:00]

In part, including the CDC, which released a report this week pointing to improvements in early identification, better diagnostic practices. In fact, RFK tried to clean up his comments just hours after he said that. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR., HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY: There are many kids with autism who are doing well. They're holding down jobs. They're getting paychecks. They're living independently. But I was specifically referring to that 25 percent, the group that is nonverbal.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: But is the damage already done thanks to his constant, constant misinformation? Alyssa, the trouble with this is that there are a lot of people who want to believe that what he is saying is true. There are a lot of people who also have personal experiences with kids with autism who just think that the idea of kind of writing them off is really offensive. How do you think that this all plays?

GRIFFIN: Listening to those comments, if you're someone who loves someone who's on the autism spectrum, it just hits you. It's like a gut punch. That is not how you would talk about them. That is not the experience that you have living with them and knowing them.

And coming from an era of the Republican Party where we believe -- Republican Party, where we believed in human dignity, and that we are made in the image of God, for him to be talking about these people in that way just flies in the face of decades of what we claimed that we stood for.

And I would not be surprised if he doesn't hear from many Republicans who are also parents of kids with autism, who are just struck by how he talked about it.

And then the foolishness. It reminds me of dyslexia. There's more cases of dyslexia now because we know how to diagnose it and isolate it and treat children for it, not because there's a rise in cases. It's just basic information.

PHILLIP: He also suggested in that Hannity interview that no adults have debilitating, you know, developmental disorders. What? But the bottom line is, though, he's in a job where he's in charge of the science, and he seems to be allergic to science. Thats the part that I think is really perplexing about this.

ENTEN: He already knows the answers to the questions before he asks them. He knows where he wants things to go. And you know, I am young enough, fortunately, still a relatively young man, young enough to remember getting tested because, you know, I didn't talk until three, four years old, that testing that was done. And you look at the difference between my father, who was born in 1927. He's like, Harry doesn't need the testing, versus my mother, who was born 20 years later. And she's like, no, let's send him in for the testing.

Now, I, of course, am not autistic, but it was very possible that it could have been the case based upon what I was -- how I was acting early on in my childhood. So I have firsthand experience. My parents have firsthand experience with the idea that there is more testing.

And more than that, though, I will point out that he is, in my opinion, unfortunately, starting to speak for a larger share of the American public when it comes to vaccine skepticism with the belief that, in fact, it's not extremely important to have early vaccination.

PHILLIP: Earlier this week, I spoke with Melinda French Gates about what the consequences of that skepticism is, and here's what she said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: This administration is now, in a way, a bit of an incubator for vaccine skepticism, both here in the United States and around the world. What are the consequences of that?

MELINDA FRENCH GATES, PHILANTHROPIST AND AUTHOR, "THE NEXT DAY": Children's lives. So we have seen children die in the United States now of measles. There is no child in the world that ever needs to die of measles. And we haven't seen that in a long time in the United States, and that is because of vaccine hesitancy. And so I don't think that is right for the world. These are lifesaving tools. I talked to women and men who have walked for miles in the heat to line up at clinics in all kinds of countries around the world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: I mean, we are in the middle of a of a pretty big measles outbreak right now, and you almost couldn't tell based on how RFK Jr. is continuing with his nonsense.

HILL: Well, this is why he never should be in this position. It's like, he's not a doctor. He has no training. He's written some books, like, he has nothing in his history suggests that he's even remotely prepared for this position.

And I don't know if you guys are into the show on Max, "The Pitt". I love "The Pitt". Right? Yes, love the show, right. But there was something on there, a line that was said that stuck with me. People want the treatment, they don't want the advice. And so we're in a time now that as much information that we have that is accessible, it's also creating this idea that everybody is an expert. And he is definitely an embodiment of what that is. And he does not understand when you're in that position and you're responsible for the public health of millions of people, you have a different responsibility.

I'm really good friends with Holly Robinson Peete, whose son is autistic, who works for the Dodgers, pays taxes. You saw her reaction, very strong, and I understood that. And while we know that there are many different cases, that's why it's called a spectrum, the way that he came off in insulting those parents and insulting those kids, it was just that was one of the more disgusting and vile things I've ever heard.

[10:35:09]

PHILLIP: All right, everyone, coming up next for us, Democrats squaring off against Democrats. A vice chair of the DNC now threatening to fund challenges against Democratic incumbents that he deems ineffective. We'll discuss next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:40:08] PHILLIP: Welcome back. We've got a good ole internal party fight on our hands. David Hogg, the Parkland survivor and now a vice chair at the DNC, is now leading a controversial effort to challenge what he calls out of touch and ineffective incumbents. And he's pledging $20 million to fund candidates who will take them on. Why?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID HOGG, VICE CHAIR, DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE: Here's the deal. You can have a great script, but if you have actors that are awful at their jobs, it doesn't matter how good that script is.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Now, this comes as thousands are turning out for the Fight the Oligarchy tour that features Senator Bernie Sanders and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. But former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo says that they are, quote, "capitalizing on voters' fears of Trump." And he is slamming both the message and the messengers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDREW CUOMO, FORMER NEW YORK GOVERNOR: Yes, focus on Trump. But learn your own lesson. You can't have this extreme wing of the Democratic Party running the Democratic Party, because it doesn't work.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is AOC part of the extreme wing?

CUOMO: Yes. Yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: The big question is, do these family feuds actually help or hurt the Democrats? Malik, what's your take?

ABDUL: I absolutely love this.

(LAUGHTER)

ABDUL: I want more, David Hogg. I want more of Spartacus giving -- Cory Booker, I want him giving another 48 hours.

HILL: Did you call Cory Booker Spartacus?

ABDUL: Well, you know, that was his thing. He calls himself Spartacus. I want him giving a 48-hour speech. It reminds me of when AOC went to the border in her winter white. And she had that picture of her kind of crying at the border. This is great stuff. This is great. These are great ads for Republicans.

Yes, these fights exist. It's going to exist. It existed in the Republican Party when we were in the wilderness. And so you find that the Democratic Party, they're simply in the wilderness. But I -- we are going to use this guy as the face of the Republican Party. PHILLIP: Addition or subtraction? AOC is putting out 12,000, 15,000

people in places like Idaho. David Hogg is like, we've got to take some people out.

ENTEN: I mean, oh, crowd sizes. Were back to this argument. Fantastic.

PHILLIP: No, I mean, I'm just talking about energy, and you know.

ENTEN: No, I know. Look, we know from the polling that, you know, if there was essentially you ask who is the leader of the Democratic Party right now, Ocasio-Cortez lands very much near the top of our list we had in our CNN poll. But it's like 10 percent, right? So it's the tallest of some very short folks out there.

(LAUGHTER)

ENTEN: So but, I mean, look, we know that the Democrats, congressional Democrats are polling at an all-time low with their own party. But David Hogg's job, being part of the Democratic National Committee, is to help Democrats get elected. It's not to take them out. You see it right there. I mean, the view of the Democratic Party over 29 percent. I mean, it's abysmal.

HILL: But that's not a bad thing. And listen, unlike in the Republican Party, where they just capitulate and bend the knee no matter what's said, there's actually a process in which open ideas are welcomed. And I didn't find a lie in anything that David Hogg said. There is very much at the root of it a lot of Democrats are pissed. And they want to see more action. Chuck Schumer, do you think that played well? No. They want him up out the paint. So they --

ABDUL: Cory is going to get him out.

HILL: Exactly. And like it or not, in this moment of uncertainty or tumult, if you will, AOC and Jasmine Crockett and younger people have been the ones that are gravitating -- you can say all that all you want.

(LAUGHTER)

HILL: Don't pray for something that you don't want.

PHILLIP: Andrew Yang, who ran in the Democratic Party primary, you remember that? He says the Democrats should be two separate parties. Same with the Republicans. If we were a healthier country, that would have already happened.

GRIFFIN: Andrew Yang is a friend of mine. He's full of ideas that are never happening.

(LAUGHTER)

GRIFFIN: So let's just --

(CROSS TALK) PHILLIP: Ranked choice voting, not going to happen.

GRIFFIN: I wish. But listen, there's a place for both of these things. People who can be the national spokespeople for parties who energize people. Fine, AOC. But you need to be able to beat Democrats. You need -- I'm sorry. You need to be able to beat Republicans. You need people like Elissa Slotkin who are going to win in places that Trump won. You don't win by running to the left. Unless, of course, you want Donald Trump in 2028.

PHILLIP: That's a whole other story.

Everyone, coming up next, all aboard. Is Trump station next? We'll tell you what the president is planning to do for his next big project.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:49:17]

PHILLIP: President Trump has a new makeover project -- Penn Station. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announcing the DOT and Amtrak will take over the project and work together to save millions. It's not the only Trump project that he's got his eye on. This week, the Kennedy Center announced it is permanently changing the outdoor evening lighting to be red, white, and blue to highlight American spirit.

ABDUL: Yes. I love the red, white, and blue. Like, I love the red, white, and blue. It looks great, especially if you --

HILL: If you have the force patriotism, then what does it mean?

PHILLIP: Well, I don't know that it's the most important thing. Which makes me wonder, like, why -- was this why they took over the Kennedy Center?

[10:50:00]

But the aesthetics are so important to this president. He literally wants to renovate a train hall in New York. He's the president of the United States, the leader of the free world.

GRIFFIN: So Penn Station just stuns me, because who would want to take on that job? Have you been to Penn Station recently? Thats not an easy, that's not a winning -- Moynihan is doing well, but you go to the other part of it, that's very dicey. But good luck to him.

I mean, he's a real estate developer. I don't know what to make of it.

PHILLIP: Are we going to be talking about gold everywhere. How is that going to save us money?

ENTEN: I just wish that the trains would run on time. That is all I want. I always said, you know, Donald Trump would have actually been a very good mayor because he's always hand-gladding, you know, going around shaking hands, making gifts. Make the run -- make the trains run on time. Don't make the trains look nicer, OK? That's just my New York opinion.

ABDUL: I'm for Penn Station being renovated. I don't think it will be named Donald Trump.

PHILLIP: It was going to be -- just to be clear, it was going to be renovated before. It's just that now Trump is going to be responsible.

ABDUL: Oh, he's now going to be involved in it. I think it's a great idea. And I take, instead of Moynihan, when I go to D.C., come up here, I actually go back and I go through Penn Station as opposed to Moynihan. And that's simply because you get to the trains faster if you --

PHILLIP: It's dark. It's dark down there.

ABDUL: It is.

PHILLIP: I mean, OK, so this is the other thing that happened. Steve Witkoff, who is the president's chief negotiator, was over in Paris. And here's what he told the French as he sat in Elysee Palace.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE WITKOFF, TRUMP ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: You know what this looks like? This actually looks like President Trump's club in Mar-a- Lago.

This is really, it's fabulous what it looks like. And he actually works on it himself. He's like an architect or a designer.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Trump's Mar-a-Lago. It looks, Paris looks like Mar-a-Lago. Or does Mar-a-Lago look like Paris.

(LAUGHTER)

ABDUL: Mar-a-Lago is beautiful. Mar-a-Lago is beautiful.

HILL: Will I ever have an inner monologue to understand how this sounds out loud? Because it feels like --

ENTEN: Can I just say, I knew Steve Witkoff like 20, 25 years ago. I was friends with his son. Not in a million, gajillion, billion years did I ever think that Steven Witkoff would be in the position that he is right now. It just goes to show you can't predict the future.

PHILLIP: I mean, you cannot. But he also knows what makes Donald Trump happy. I just think it is so funny that Trump likes the gold, because Paris did it before everybody else did. I'm sorry to tell you, buddy.

GRIFFIN: It's like sad, funny. Paris was not following Mar-a-Lago.

PHILLIP: No. No, it was not. So --

ABDUL: Trump likes gold.

PHILLIP: Trump Hall in New York.

ABDUL: I don't think it should be --

PHILLIP: Trump Hall at the Kennedy Center. Maybe that could happen.

ABDUL: If you wanted to donate some money, because that's typically how it gets named after people. They donate a lot of money. You know, Donald Trump, this whole -- you know, he loves gold. I remember, everybody remembers watching Donald Trump on the "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" in the penthouse. And it was full of gold, gold toilets and all of that stuff then. He's a fan of gold, and that's Donald Trump's thing.

PHILLIP: Record prices for gold in the marketplace these days.

(LAUGHTER)

PHILLIP: Coming up next, the panel's unpopular opinions, what they are not afraid to say out loud.

But first, a programing note. Don't miss an all new CNN original series, "Eva Longoria, Searching for Spain." It premieres Sunday, April 27th, at 9:00 p.m., right here on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:58:12]

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

ABDUL: To all my folks in the DMV, especially those who know me personally, you know how I feel. Crabs, eating whole crabs, it is a waste of time.

HILL: I didn't know where that was going at first.

(LAUGHTER)

ABDUL: It is a waste of time. The idea that you spend so much time trying to get a little piece of meat, it reminds me of eating neckbones. Neckbones which I ate growing up. It's too much work for a little piece of meat. Eating crabs, whole crabs, unfortunately, folks, it's a waste of time.

PHILLIP: I'm from Maryland, but I've got to agree with you on that.

HILL: You all better beware when you go back.

PHILLIP: I know, right?

HILL: All right, here's my unpopular opinion. Brussel sprouts are trash. And I don't care how much you dress them up, you know. Have you had them sauteed, balsamic, bacon wrapped? I've had them all. It's still trash. They have undergone one of the most craziest rebrands in history. It's like --

ABDUL: Brussels sprouts?

HILL: Crispy, nasty brussels sprouts. They are terrible, people. Stop lying to people about brussels sprouts. They're trash.

PHILLIP: Dang. OK.

ENTEN: My unpopular opinion, I know a lot of you all are happy that spring is upon us, but I actually miss winter because I get to wear one outfit during the winter. I just wear a freaking jacket. It's so easy. Now I'm going to have to get my beach bod ready.

PHILLIP: Just a jacket.

ENTEN: Just a jacket. You don't ever know what's going on underneath it. You don't have to know anything about it. Now I've got to work out, make my body look better if I'm going to wear shorts. No. I want winter back. Springtime, go adios, amigos.

PHILLIP: Oh, my goodness.

GRIFFIN: I'm going to hard disagree with that.

Unpopular opinion, ban phones at sporting events and concerts. I was watching the Masters and nobody was taking their selfies. They weren't recording Rory McIlroy. No, they were in the moment, riveted. It was so exciting, even from home to watch.

And then Coachella is going on. I don't know that people go to Coachella to actually listen to music. They do to take videos of the fact that they're at Coachella. Ban cell phones at concerts and sporting events. They will be infinitely more enjoyable.

PHILLIP: Yes, I've been to those kinds of concerts. It's not really that much fun.

Everyone, thank you very much for watching. Thanks for watching "TABLE FOR FIVE". You can catch me every weeknight, 10:00 p.m. eastern with our "News Night" roundtable and any time on your favorite social media, X, Instagram, and TikTok. But in the meantime, CNN's coverage continues right now.