CNN Newsnight Abby Phillip 8/11/2025

Abby Phillip Newsnight August 11, 2025

Ben Ferguson: Christian Nationalist racist, misogynist, home-schooled country bumpkin from Texas.

Ben Ferguson let his small town Texas country bumpkin fly when he expressed shock and dismay when an effin' doorman told him to be careful.

"Two weeks ago I stayed two blocks from the White House. You know what the bellman said? He said be careful when you go outside at night."

WTF? Doesn't this moron know that DC is a big city? and not Mayberry RFD?

Doesn't this moron realize you can buy crack aross the street from the White House?

Does he know this is a school night? Does his mother know where he is right now?

Abby Phillip - ICE August 11, 2025

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST (voice over): Tonight, the takeover.

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: This is liberation day in D.C.

PHILLIP: Donald Trump sends the feds into the nation's capital for a universe he paints as hellish and dystopian.

TRUMP: Violent gangs and blood thirsty criminals.

JEANINE PIRRO, U.S. ATTORNEY FOR WASHINGTON, D.C.: Young punks.

DOUG BURGUM, INTERIOR SECRETARY: One of the most dangerous cities in the world.

TRUMP: Roving mobs of wild youth.

PHILLIP: But does the rhetoric match the reality?

KASH PATEL, FBI DIRECTOR: The murder rate is on track to be the lowest in U.S. history.

PHILLIP: Plus, Vladimir Putin gets a meeting in America while the president gets a head start on negotiations by promising concessions.

TRUMP: There'll be some land swapping.

PHILLIP: And a supreme request, the administration asks the justices to allow racial profiling in its deportation parade.

Live at the table, Scott Jennings. Tara SetMayer, Ben Ferguson and Dan Koh.

Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here, they do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP (on camera): Good evening. I'm Abby Phillip in New York. Let's get right to what America's talking about. Donald Trump makes himself Batman and the nation's capital is Gotham City. The president of the United States has declared himself crime fighter-in-chief. He's taking over Washington's police force. It is a move that the D.C. mayor is calling unsettling and unprecedented.

Now, Trump is painting it as an emergency, that D.C. is a hellhole, but he and this administration are contradicting themselves with all of this. You'll first hear Trump today and then the following sound doesn't quite back that up. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Our capital city has been overtaken by violent gangs and blood thirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged out maniacs and homeless people, and we're not going to let it happen anymore. We're not going to take it.

I know Eddie's very talented. Crime is down in Washington, D.C., street crime, violent crime, by 25 percent. And it's -- people have seen -- they've noticed a big difference.

PATEL: And the murder rates are plummeting. We are now able to report that the murder rate is on track to be the lowest in U.S. history, in modern recorded U.S. history, thanks to this team behind me and President Trump's priorities.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: They are right that crime is down in Washington at a 30-year low, and the same goes for other cities, that Trump is now threatening to militarize.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: You look at Chicago, how bad it is. You look at Los Angeles, how bad it is. We have other cities that are very bad. New York has a problem. And then you have, of course, Baltimore and Oakland. We don't even mention that anymore. They're so far gone.

We're not going to let it happen. We're not going to lose our cities over this. And this will go further. We're starting very strongly with D.C. and we're going to clean it up real quick, very quickly, as they say.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: So, the question is, does the situation actually warrant such a dramatic and provocative response, or as Gavin Newsom, the governor of California says, is D.C. just the first step of militarizing cities like dictators do?

CNN Legal Analyst Joey Jackson joins us in our fifth seat. It's an obvious, point why Trump would start with dc because D.C. is the one place in this country where there's a little bit more leeway to do this. But I think the question people are asking themselves is, is this a trial run for more?

JOEY JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: So, it could be, all right? So, there's a couple of considerations, Abby. The first, of course, political, and that's a story I think that needs to be talked about, whether it's warranted, whether it's appropriate. You played the clip there, if crime is down, and, of course, some suggests it's down lowest in 30 years. Is this necessary?

The next is the legal. So, there's two things to look at with respect to whether it's legal. The first thing is D.C., we all know, is very different from any other American city. Why? Because Congress has enacted legislation to allow it to be largely under federal control. What does that mean practically? It means practically that Congress essentially could do whatever it wants in terms of overturning anything the city council does.

It also means that the president of the United States is in charge of the National Guard.

[22:05:01]

That distinguishes D.C. from any other state in the country where you have governors that are in charge. So, he clearly has more authority, that is the president, as it relates to doing things in D.C.

The other issue, finally, is whether or not he can usurp the authority of the locals, in terms of the police commissioner or the fire, et cetera. And that is a question of whether there is an emergency. So, on the one hand, National Guard, he's the command-in-chief, send them in. On the other hand, could he now suggest or otherwise employ the locals to be on the federal control? That's an issue, which would be whether it's an emergency, and these are emergency conditions.

And to your earlier point, I mean, when, on the one hand, they're saying the crime is plummeting, and on the other hand, they're saying that this is an emergency, and it's never been this bad, those two things don't really coincide.

DAN KOH, FORMER WHITE HOUSE DEPUTY CABINET SECRETARY, BIDEN ADMINISTRATION: This is about control and distraction for Donald Trump. If he were serious about cutting crime, he wouldn't be proposing cutting $400 million from the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms Department to regulate and help with guns, or cutting $500 million from the FBI 700 agents, or the DEA with drug enforcement, or the Office of Violence Against Women, $100 million from there, right?

This is about control. First, he went for the press, then he went for the universities, then he went for the lawyers, then the federal workforce, and now it's the cities. This is about him having control, making an example out of D.C. He's going to move on to these other cities, by the way, that also, as you mentioned, have the plummeting homicide rates that D.C. does, and also to distract from the Epstein files, like he's been doing with all these things that he's been rolling out.

PHILLIP: I mean, I hear you chuckling, Ben, but it's like there's no question that there that it is mostly politics here. Because if you wanted to deal with violent crime really where it's really bad in this country, there are a lot of places that he could start.

BEN FERGUSON, HOST, THE BEN FERGUSON SHOW: But it can start in the nation's capital where it is really bad. And if you look at the numbers, I understand you're excited about 30-year low. He's saying, we're not done yet. You don't -- you start and you keep going and there are people there that are dying. There's people -- go back to 2023. For every a hundred thousand people, 1,200 violent crimes, and 4,300 --

PHILLIP: I know that's incredibly convenient to go back to 2023 when there was --

FERGUSON: Well, those are when we have numbers. So, I'm trying to be accurate for you.

PHILLIP: No, that's not -- no, we have 2024 numbers. When 2023, you're right, there was a spike in violent crime in D.C. and in other parts of the country. But I think the point is that violent crime is on the decline. It's not just a D.C. thing. It's across the country.

FERGUSON: I agree, and a lot of it us leadership in Trump.

PHILLIP: No, it was happening before Trump. It has nothing to do with --

FERGUSON: I strongly disagree.

PHILLIP: Wait. Hold on a second. What evidence do you have that it's the leadership, Donald Trump --

FERGUSON: Number one, when you have the -- when you have the president of the United States of America that's enabling law enforcement to do their job, when you have ICE agents are going out there.

PHILLIP: So, then why did they try to start before Trump --

FERGUSON: Let me finish. I say when you have a president that says --

PHILLIP: Hold on, Ben. Why would the trend start before Trump as president if those are the reasons that crime is going down?

FERGUSON: I go back to what I was saying a second ago. You look at the president. He's empowered law enforcement to do their job. We are seeing numbers come down --

PHILLIP: So, by that logic, President Biden --

FERGUSON: Because you have a president who has decided -- President Biden was not tough on crime.

(CROSSTALKS)

PHILLIP: By that same logic, okay, why would violent crime start plummeting in 2024? FERGUSON: It wasn't plummeting.

KOH: It went down 50 percent.

PHILLIP: It went down significantly.

(CROSSTALKS)

FERGUSON: They would not say it plummeted.

PHILLIP: I guess what I'm saying is don't --

FERGUSON: That's just not that true.

KOH: 50 percent is pretty damn good.

PHILLIP: Don't let -- I know you don't want to let facts get in the way of the political talking point. I'm just asking -- I mean, I'm just saying --

FERGUSON: (INAUDIBLE) the point that I was making.

PHILLIP: I actually think that if you were to take politics out of the whole situation, there are a lot of complex reasons why crime goes up and why they go down, right?

TARA SETMAYER, CO-FOUNDER AND CEO, THE SENECA PROJECT: Yes.

PHILLIP: And, usually, the president has not a single thing to do with that.

FERGUSON: If you lean on the issue --

PHILLIP: Democrat or Republican.

FERGUSON: It does have an impact.

SETMAYER: Okay. Nationwide, let's use actual numbers as examples. There are 18 other places, other cities that have more violent crime than Washington, D.C., number one being St. Louis, Missouri, four times the homicide rate of Washington, D.C. I don't see Donald Trump sending National Guard troops and taking over the police department there, or in Memphis, or Memphis, Tennessee, another red state. Right, okay, then, you know, Memphis has -- was one of the murder capitals of the world. And how come you're not calling for Donald Trump to send National Guard troops in there?

FERGUSON: Because I also understand the laws and I understand that it's different in Washington, D.C.

SETMAYER: Oh. What about New York? Wait, he said -- wait. He said he wants to also move this little experiment here of taking over cities and police departments to New York, Chicago.

FERGUSON: It's amazing how much you guys get mad about fighting crime. SETMAYER: No. Don't change your subject. Nobody's getting mad about fighting -- time out, let me finish. Nobody's getting mad about fighting crime. I come from a enforcement family, my grandfather, captain of the police department for 40 years, my hometown. My husband was a federal officer.

FERGUSON: Thank you for service.

SETMAYER: Unlike you guys, I actually support federal law enforcement officers and don't --

FERGUSON: It doesn't sound like it.

SETMAYER: It doesn't sound like it? I'm sorry, you're okay with Donald Trump pardoning 1,600 January 6th --

PHILLIP: Hold on one second. I'm going to let -- hold on. I'm going to let Joey make a legal point.

SETMAYER: So, don't conflate the issues. Don't ever question my support for law enforcement. I want to let Joey make a legal point, then I want to let Scott have a word. But, you know, Ben, I think the point that she's making is also accurate, which is that Trump has said that this is just the first place he's going to start. There are a lot of questions about what else he wants to do, but I think this is the thing that has people questioning what he has up his sleeve down the road.

JACKSON: So, Abby, speaking of questioning, I think the question, and it's legitimate, if we're going to ask him about whether this is an emergency, why are we speaking about a situation where they're at a 30-year low, right? If you're at a 30-year low in crime, that would speak against the issue of an emergency.

And what happens is in law, believe it or not, we engage in facts. There are hearings and hearings determine what the numbers show, what they suggest, and whether or not your steps that you're taking are appropriate. That's number one.

Number two, we have to look at the broader implications. Now, this is D.C. and it's somewhat unique because the president has unique authority for Washington, D.C., that he does not have in other cities across the country. So he could not come in and do this.

For example, in California, we all know there's litigation happening now with regard to him, that is the president, having the National Guard go into Los Angeles, right, to police Los Angeles, whether that's appropriate, whether he could do it without the governor really giving his authority into it, Gavin Newsom, and whether their questions, was there an invasion going on? Was there a rebellion going on or anything else?

So, before anybody gets hysterical about what's happening in D.C. can happen to other parts of the country, I would hasten to add that there are laws protecting the other cities in the country.

SETMAYER: Except that he hasn't respected those laws, and we've seen that.

JACKSON: Well, that's another.

SETMAYER: And that's the problem. He was itching to do this since his first presidency.

PHILLIP: Scott, why does Trump keep talking about other cities when, as Joey points out, he probably doesn't have the authority to meddle in their local law enforcement?

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, there definitely is a difference between D.C. and the other cities. I totally agree with that. And, you know, how he would engage in those cities, I don't know. I assume there are additional federal law enforcement resources that could be deployed to those cities to bolster local law enforcement. But there's an obvious difference between D.C. and any other city in America?

You know, a few months ago, I was in Union Station and saw a body hit the floor at the bottom of the escalator in Union Station because there was a murder right in front of me up on the second floor. I was going to get a tie. And I heard the shots and saw the body hit the floor. So, I've been listening all day long to people trying to make some argument that Washington, D.C., is a safe place. It's not a safe place.

And we can argue about statistics and numbers. There's a police commander right now on suspension because there's some allegation that the statistics have been altered, but we can argue about that all day long. Nobody in their right mind who lives there or visits there on a regular basis would tell you that Washington, D.C., is safe and everybody who goes there knows it and everybody who goes there knows --

PHILLIP: Hold on a minute. I don't know that --

(CROSSTALKS)

PHILLIP: I don't know that anyone was saying that Washington, D.C., is a panacea of no crime.

FERGUSON: Have you been to CVS?

PHILLIP: Hold on.

FERGUSON: It's bad.

PHILLIP: Hey, hold on a second. I lived in D.C. for a long time, okay? It's not a panacea of no crime. But I think the point made by Tara, and we have the data, the most dangerous places in the United States, D.C. is not in the top ten list.

SETMAYER: Have you ever seen body drop --

(CROSSTALKS) PHILLIP: The number one place is in your home state, Memphis, Tennessee. So, I guess the point is there are a lot of places actually in this country that are very dangerous, maybe more dangerous than D.C.

JENNINGS: I mean, for homicide rates, it was fourth highest last year.

SETMAYER: We're talking about now.

PHILLIP: Lots of places that are dangerous in this country. But Trump is clearly using D.C. to make a point about, you know, having the National Guard roving the National Mall where there are, last I checked, no crimes really being committed on the National Mall, and that's not where the crime is. I mean, if he sends the National Guard or, you know, FBI agents to southeast and southwest, that would be saying something, but they're trying to show something.

JENNINGS: Is there really going to be a resistance to have any kind of people on the street just looking at that? The kid that worked at the White House, when he got jumped by the ten kids in the (INAUDIBLE), it was only because two cops saw it that he was able to escape.

PHILLIP: I am in favor. By the way, I lived in DC for a long time. There are people in that city who are not anywhere near the White House, not anywhere near the National Mall, not anywhere near northwest Washington, D.C., that are victims of crimes every single day. The question is, is this actually an attempt to address that or an attempt to create --

(CROSSTALKS)

FERGUSON: It's clearly an attempt to address the issue. Otherwise, the president wouldn't be trying to do this.

KOH: Here's what he could do.

FERGUSON: I stayed two weeks ago, two weeks ago, two blocks from the White House. You know what the bellman said? He said, be careful when you go outside at night.

PHILLIP: We keep talking about blocks outside of the White House as if --

FERGUSON: It's two blocks.

PHILLIP: We keep talking about blocks outside of the White House where you all hang out, as if that is where people in D.C. are struggling with crime. I'm just saying --

(CROSSTALKS)

PHILLIP: I'm just saying, Ben, I'm just saying that --

[22:15:01]

FERGUSON: Northwest by the Supreme Court. PHILLIP: It's incredibly convenient --

FERGUSON: It's not convenient for third block, one block from the Supreme Court.

PHILLIP: -- for this to be the focus of everybody's attention is the places where people dressed in suits are affected. But at the end of the day, the crime problem in major cities, in D.C. and elsewhere, are not necessarily in those places, or it should matter when it's not just in those places.

KOH: I was chief of staff of a city that had a 3.5 per a hundred thousand people homicide rate. Compare that to D.C. at 27.5 or Jackson, Mississippi, at 72. How did we reduce it? Community violence intervention grants, getting the community, the clergy, everyone together. That is what --

FERGUSON: We've tried that. It's been a failure.

KOH: Well, you know what Donald Trump did?

FERGUSON: We tried it in Memphis. Look at it.

KOH: Do you know what Donald Trump did?

FERGUSON: It's still the most dangerous city in. And I was shot at there with that type of stuff. It didn't work.

KOH: In April -- let me finish. He froze programs to 550 community violence intervention programs, 170 million across 48. If he were serious, he would be funding these programs to help --

(CROSSTALKS)

PHILLIP: We have to hit pause in this conversation for the moment. There's another angle to all of this, and it is that Trump is now demanding respect for the very officers who were attacked by people that Trump actually just pardoned. Another special guest is going to be with us at the table.

Plus, he's a war criminal but Vladimir Putin is coming to America receiving a face-to-face with the president. So, who -- he is now calling this a summit a feel-out meeting between the two sides of this conflict. We'll debate what that's all about, next

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:20:00]

PHILLIP: More on our breaking news, including a stern warning from Donald Trump about the flexibility of police in his takeover.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: You know, they love to spit in the face of the police as the police are standing up there in uniform. They're standing and they're screaming at them an inch away from their face. And then they start spitting in their face. And I said, you tell them, you spit and we hit, and they can hit real hard. And they're standing there and people are spitting in their face and they're not allowed to do anything. But now they are allowed to do whatever the hell they want.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Retired NYPD Sergeant Felipe Rodriguez joins us now at the table. I'm not sure what he's talking about there. Is he talking about what happened on January 6th? Is he talking about protests? I mean, I think that we've seen that before, and he did not have the same energy. You know, it's just a few years ago.

FELIPE RODRIGUEZ, RETIRED NYPD SERGEANT: And that's something we have to be careful with. You know, at this point he's saying, right now we're going a hundred miles an hour till full for law enforcement. And on January 6th, we saw that he pardoned these individuals. So, one day, you can't say, let's follow the law, and then another I give out so many generous pardons.

At the end of the day, the police have to enforce the law. That's what people forget. We don't write the laws. We don't -- we basically enforce them, and we still need the public support. So, coming out in such an aggressive manner could actually backfire on us.

PHILLIP: That's an interesting point.

JENNINGS: I will just point out that the head of the D.C. Police Union, here's a direct quote, we completely agree with the president that crime in the District of Columbia is out of control and something needs to be done with it. So, it sounds like to me, among the rank and file, the president has some support from the cops for doing this today in Washington.

RODRIGUEZ: No. We do need the support. We need the support of the public. We need the support of numerous people. No one wants to take this job anymore. Look at Washington, D.C. They're giving a $25,000 bonus and they still can't get anyone to take the job. You know, post- Floyd, post-COVID, the law enforcement is no longer seen as an honorable way to a profession. And we're suffering and the public is suffering. So, something has to get fixed. I'm not saying what the president is doing 100 percent correct, but at this point, crime, the way it's going, we have to do something.

SETMAYER: You know, I think it's important that people understand something here about law enforcement officers and at every level, right? Like I mentioned in the last segment, I come from a police family and I bleed blue. And I was on this set for many years defending law enforcement officers during Ferguson and during other times where police officers were getting bad raps on certain things, explaining the complexities of the job.

And it really is something that I just cannot tolerate when Trump supporters are trying to sit here and act as though Donald Trump supports and backs the blue. No, he doesn't. You look at what Donald Trump did and what MAGA has done to the police officers who defended our Capitol on January 6th. You want to talk about spitting in the face? Donald Trump spit in the face of every single one of those officers who took that oath to protect and serve on January 6th when he pardoned those insurrectionist bastards and who wanted to take down our Capitol and stop the free and fair, peaceful transfer of power.

So, how dare he say this now? It is the reincarnation of George Wallace, of Huey Long, of the disgusting policies of the past that have this strong man desire to use law and order and the fear and demagogue for people that Donald Trump is channeling right now. And so how dare people sit here and say that he backs the blue? He abdicated that, because you know what? He did not protect or defend the Constitution and he violated his oath of office.

You know, who said that? You did after January 6th. And that's exactly what he continues to do right now with the way he is throwing around our military, our police, talking about moving us to other states. This is something people should be very concerned about.

PHILLIP: I mean, how can Trump say that he backs the blue --

FERGUSON: I just -- the idea that somehow Donald Trump doesn't support law enforcement, where everywhere he goes, law enforcement cannot wait to take a picture with him.

[22:25:02]

You travelled with him. I've been with him, everywhere he goes.

By the way, that wasn't happening with Joe Biden. He also says, let them do their job and be able to do their job well. He's advocating for the police. You just talked about D.C.

PHILLIP: So, why --

(CROSSTALKS)

PHILLIP: Hold on just a second. Hold on a second, Ben. Let me play this. This is a guy, his name is Jared Wise. He was there on January 6th. I'm going to play it. I'm going to explain it to you on the other end.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You guys are disgusting, man. You guys are disgusting. I'm former law enforcement. You're disgusting. You are the Nazi. You are the Gestapo and you can't see it because you're chasing your pension, right, pension, your retirement, right? That's what ruined your life, your retirement.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The sad thing is they're not even going to get your pension because it's going to be your (INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Shame on you. Shame on you. Shame on you. Shame on you.

(END VIDEO CLIP) PHILLIP: Yes, kill them. That guy now works in Donald Trump's Justice Department after his case for this conduct and other things was -- is no more. So, I mean, look, people want to take --

SETMAYER: Are you okay with that?

PHILLIP: There are many --

FERGUSON: I've said it very clearly before.

PHILLIP: There are many cops of multiple political persuasions in this country. That is totally fine. But Donald Trump -- we're talking about Donald Trump's conduct. And he actively went out of his way to pardon people who assaulted cops, who said, kill them, who were there spitting, literally spitting in the face of officers on January 6th.

FERGUSON: I go back to what I said a moment ago. You have a president that is trying to fight crime and he's getting criticized solely for political gain, and there's nothing that he's ever going to do to stop people from being killed or murdered or raped, or going after the cartel members, going after MS-13 gang members. You guys criticize him on every damn thing he does to try to keep people safe because you hate him more than you care about people --

(CROSSTALKS)

FERGUSON: That is the truth. I am being (INAUDIBLE).

SETMAYER: No, you're not.

FERGUSON: Has he ever done anything that you support? Has he ever done anything that you support from law enforcement?

SETMAYER: Yes. Actually, he offered pardons for Border Patrol agents who didn't deserve to be prosecuted. That's not what we're talking about. Don't change the subject.

FERGUSON: I'm asking you, is there anything he's ever done to law enforcement that you support?

SETMAYER: Don't change the subject.

FERGUSON: No, because you hate Trump.

SETMAYER: No. Are you okay with the (INAUDIBLE) they just played getting tax on working the Department Justice getting --

PHILLIP: Ben, you are changing the subject.

FERGUSON: I'm literally saying that I support the president of the United States of America.

SETMAYER: You answered that.

FERGUSON: So, advocating and going out there and protecting Americans in dangerous cities, and you guys like always going to go into Memphis and he's going to go into L.A., and then all of a sudden people may stop dying.

RODRIGUEZ: You know, cops should be apolitical.

PHILLIP: Hold on one second.

FERGUSON: I agree. But why is it so political --

RODRIGUEZ: Defending the Constitution is the most important thing as a police officer.

PHILLIP: I mean, listen, Felipe, I actually -- I mean, I would mildly disagree with you in the sense that I think cops are Americans. They're allowed to have their own --

FERGUSON: The Democratic Party didn't treat them that way.

PHILLIP: Excuse me, Ben, just a second. They have their right to have their political views. I'm not besmirching anybody's right to like Donald Trump or to hate him. In the conduct of their job, yes, they should be apolitical. They are enforcing the law. But I also think that we are not talking about whether cops like or don't like Trump. We're talking about whether Donald Trump, when he had the chance to act on his words, actually acted on them, and I think that's the big question that you were avoiding.

KOH: And the reality is study after study shows that the way you actually reduce violence in the long-term is invest in young people and invest in people who don't have means. Donald Trump just announced that he's cutting the Job Corps program that invest in at-risk youth to get them dropped.

FERGUSON: Show me a city where it's worked.

KOH: Let me finish, please. Medicaid, he's slashing, Medicaid expansion shows to reduce violence up to 10 percent. He cut $4.5 billion from early youth education intervention programs. These are the things that, in the long-term, make all of us safer. So, he's cutting people off at their knees before they even have a chance.

If he were serious, he would be investing in our future. That's how you do --

FERGUSON: Everything you just talked about, they've done in cities like Memphis, where I come from. It's been a failure. Kids are dying.

(CROSSTALKS)

PHILLIP: (INAUDIBLE) Memphis, but there are other cities where these states --

FERGUSON: Well, it's the number one most dangerous city in America. So, I think --

(CROSSTALKS)

PHILLIP: Let me give you another example. Baltimore has been one of the most dangerous cities for a long time, and they have put in place a combination of efforts that include community intervention programs that have worked, that have brought their homicide rate --

(CROSSTALKS)

PHILLIP: Hold on a second. I want to give Scott a moment because he has not said a single thing. So, Scott, I mean, on this point, I mean, Tara spoke your words about Donald Trump on January 6th, you don't have to turn on Donald Trump to say, and as you have said, that it's not a good idea to pardon these folks, but it makes it harder for him to then come to the American people and say that this is about respect for police when he didn't care whether they were respected on that day.

[22:30:05]

JENNINGS: Well, look. What happened to the cops that day was a disgrace. They didn't deserve to be treated that way. They were defending the Capitol. I think what happens to D.C. police on a rolling basis -- I think what happens to cops on the most violent cities in America on a rolling basis is a disgrace, as well.

I think what the President is responding to today is, what can I do today? D.C. is the only city I really have control of, so I'm going to try to give them some support. He's getting a note of confidence from the D.C. police union. I suspect if they did things in other cities, other police unions in those cities would also offer some support.

And so, what I would simply say is that all you can do is hit the next shot. And the next shot right now, I think for a lot of Americans is what can be done today to reduce violent crime. And to make me feel safer in my neighborhood, I think he's going to get a lot of political support for the idea that the federal government's getting a little more muscular when it comes to cracking down on violent crime.

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: All right, we have to leave it there.

(CROSSTALK)

TARA SETMAYER, CO-FOUNDER AND CEO, THE SENECA PROJECT: If he controls D.C., why didn't he do it on January 6th?

PHILLIP: We have to leave it there.

SETMAYER: Why didn't he do it on January 6th when he sat there and let them take over the Capitol? He had the opportunity but he didn't.

(CROSSTALK)


[22:48:23]

PHILLIP: Can ICE raids be race-based? The Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court to allow racial profiling to arrest people suspected of being here illegally. That means stopping them based on how they look, what language they're speaking, and what kinds of jobs they have.

The White House argues that the practice meets reasonable suspicion covered by the Fourth Amendment. Quote, certain types of jobs like day labor, landscaping, and construction are most attractive to illegal aliens because they often do not require paperwork, that the vast majority of illegal aliens in the district come from Mexico or Central America, and many only speak Spanish.

Now, this comes exactly one month after a judge blocked racial profiling, similarly, when the Trump administration tried to argue that it was necessary. Joey is back with us. I mean, they're taking this to court and they're explicitly saying we want to be able to stop people because we observed them speaking Spanish at a Home Depot.

JOEY JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yeah, this is very troubling and I could tell you Abby that we litigate this issue every day in courts across America. What issue is that? You know, when the police stop you, there has to be some basis for the stop. It can't just be what we call pretextual. We've all heard driving while black, that kind of thing. There has to be specific identifiable reasons as to why you are stopped and that's a foundation of who we are.

And oftentimes you have these hearings in court and the hearing is to determine whether or not the facts would sustain the stop. What was it based on? Was it based on the shade of your, you know, your hue of your skin or something else? Something that would relate to you engaging in some kind of criminal activity.

[22:50:01]

They call that reasonable suspicion, right?

PHILLIP: So, the Trump administration, Joey, right now is basically asking a court to be able to do this without having to actually go to a court and prove that the stop was lawful.

JACKSON: Can' t do it. It's foundation, all right? And so, there's two types of layers here. The one thing is you have to articulate specific reasons. Now those reasons -- do we really want to live in a society where we say, well, somebody look like they were Spanish and therefore, we stop them. And somebody look like based on the nature of their skin, based upon how they sound. And in terms of an accent, regarding the fact that they were at Home Depot or they were at a particular bus stop.

I mean these are really basic things. And so, that gets you to reasonable suspicion and then another legal term, probable cause, we've all heard of that. That's what you need for an arrest. And so, there has to be something identifiable and if not you could just willy-nilly start picking up anybody for any basis. That can't happen.

PHILLIP: So, that question, is this the kind of society that we want to live in where if you speak Spanish or you speak another language, where maybe you look like you are not from this country that the government has a right to arrest you just for that reason.

FERGUSON: I don't think arrest. I think certainly asking questions is one thing. I mean there's kumbaya and there's reality. If you come to Houston, Texas and you go to the Lowe's or Home Depot, there's about 100, 150 people in the parking lot that are trying to get day labor.

Should ICE be able to go there? Because we all know that the mass majority of them there are illegal immigrants and have been there for years. And that is where you go to find illegal day laborers. I don't think there's a problem asking a question there and saying, are you in the country legally or not? I don't think that you're talking about arresting everyone there either.

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: Well, it's more --

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: The other part of it is that it's not just the stopping, right? So, one of the things that's been happening is that they stop and question. And if someone walks away or runs away, then they use that as pretext for saying that maybe perhaps that person is here illegally when maybe they just don't want to be caught up. Because many people we know, have been caught up.

JENNINGS: Yeah, it's an interesting case because obviously, Trump ran on being as aggressive as possible and deporting people from the country, and they had taken aggressive measures. I don't know what the Supreme Court will do. I'd -- I do think there's a difference between maybe you can tell me the legal difference between simply having a conversation and quote, "picking someone up." I mean, it seems like there's a pretty big --

(CROSSTALK)

JENNINGS: -- between a simple question or a simple conversation and toss somebody in the back of a car. And it seems like a golf to me.

JACKSON: So, here's the answer. The answer is that in a democracy, you should be able to walk the streets freely, and you shouldn't be able to be in a, for example, a particular neighborhood and just based upon you being in that neighborhood or being amongst people to be stopped to be questioned in any way. All of us have the right to bodily movement. We have the right to go where we want, when we want, how we want, with whom we want.

(CROSSTALK)

JENNINGS: All the citizens. All the citizens.

JACKSON: And it gets -- but how, well, listen, the bottom line -- right.

(CROSSTALK)

SETMAYER: Based on skin color and language?

JACKSON: Correct.

JENNINGS: But this is the debate that we should be having is we've had 20 million people in this country illegally. The people voted in our democracy for some kind of internal immigration enforcement, so that's what they're trying to get.

(CROSSTALK)

JACKSON: But here's my problem. The problem is that you cannot turn laws on their head in order to get that result. Is there an immigration problem and an issue? There is, undeniably. How do we get the result we want while respecting our laws --

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: Hold on. Let me let Dan have a word.

KOH: It's about more than that with this president. The president of CNBC celebrated 1.7 million foreign-born workers losing their job. Many Americans are in that statistic. He also said that people from the inner city couldn't do work on the farms. That was obviously a trope, okay? This is the guy who wants to redo the census.

The Howard Kennedy School said that six million Latinos will be disenfranchised, many of them American, as a result of that census. So, we shouldn't be surprised that the guy with this lens is espousing these kind of things.

SETMAYER: Well, not only that, though. We're not talking about the Europeans or the Asians that have visa overstays. All the examples you guys have used have been about people who are Hispanic, and speak Spanish. That right there, the fact that they're not asking to go and they're not asking to go and raid the, you know,

(CROSSTALK)

SETMAYER: The French bakeries, and the people who have come over from Europe --

(CROSSTALK) FERGUSON: Is French bakery issues that we don't know about tonight?

(CROSSTALK)

FERGUSON: Breaking news tonight, there's French bakery problems.

SETMAYER: There's a lot of people who come over here that stay illegally with visa overstays from European countries and other places that are not.

(CROSSTALK)

FERGUSON: I'm all in favor of enforcing the law. I'm a law enforcement guy. I love this idea. Let's go.

(CROSSTALK)

SETMAYER: But I didn't hear you using those examples. So, that's the problem. When you start going down the road --

(CROSSTALK)

FERGUSON: It's not a problem. I'm in favor of all that.

SETMAYER: You got a chance to talk. I'm not.

(CROSSTALK)

SETMAYER: We are not going down the road. When you start going down the road --

(CROSSTALK)

FERGUSON: It's French bakeries.

SETMAYER: -- of racial -- yeah. Well, you said as an example, because you used Home Depot, and you guys are uninterested in the racial profiling --

(CROSSTALK)

FERGUSON: There are hundreds --

(CROSSTALK)

SETMAYER: -- of people who are not Hispanic or not speaking in Spanish. That's the problem.

PHILLIP: There was an interesting -- there was an interesting note --

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: Hold on Ben. Hold on, Ben. There's an interesting --

(CROSSTALK)

SETMAYER: You can --

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: Ben and Tara -- Ben and Tara, just a second.

(CROSSTALK)

SETMAYER: -- you don't know the facts are visa over stays and --

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: There is an interesting statistic in the CNN reporting that says -- that in states that voted for Donald Trump, ICE agents are far more likely to arrest immigrants from prisons and jails, the criminals that he talked about.

[22:55:01]

But in Democratic leaning states, he -- it says, ICE is frequently arresting immigrants from work sites, streets, mass roundups, and that's what sparked protests and backlash in some of these cities.

JACKSON: I've got good news, Abby. I've got good news.

SETMAYER: Yeah, schools, baseball teams, kids in, you know.

PHILLIP: Go ahead.

JACKSON: The good news is that justice prevails.

PHILLIP: I hope so.

JACKSON: We had a district court judge which indicated that it's wrong. You can't do it. It's offensive to our notions of democracy. It's offensive to our notions of freedom. It's offensive to the notions that we live by in United States. And guess what? It wasn't only a district court judge that said that. It was a Court of Appeals. That means that was a court that checked that judge and indicated, you know what judge, you're right. And that's why this President is looking to the Supreme Court which of course he's stacked to make a determination as to whether we can do this or not.

PHILLIP: All right everybody. Thank you very much. We'll be back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK))

[23:00:25]

PHILLIP: And thank you for watching "NewsNight". You can catch me anytime on your favorite social media -- X, Instagram, and TikTok. "Laura Coates Live" is right now.

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