Abby Phillip CORNERS MAGA Goon's RACISM Denial, He Completely LOSES IT!

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]Are you saying that a congressional representative is responsible for the quality of life of No, that's what she's saying. She's saying that you need to you need I didn't imply that, but I didn't imply that, but I mean listen.

[00:00:15]There are a lot of reasons that black people in Louisiana have poor outcomes than their white counterparts and a big one is Jim Crow. Okay? Wait, wait, wait, this is all over the country. Hold on.

[00:00:26]You can't tell the story without telling that part of the story. And then on top of that, I mean don't forget that that's a state that is controlled by Republicans.

[00:00:36]In today's video, Abby Phillip corners Hal Lambert on Newsnight with Abby Phillip. Whether it's sending troops into another conflict without a clear end game or redrawing district maps to protect politicians, people are tired of leaders playing political games while ordinary Americans are left dealing with the consequences. At the end of the day, voters want accountability, transparency, and a government that actually works for them. So, let's dive in and watch how Abby Phillip shuts down Hal Lambert on Newsnight with Abby Phillip.

[00:01:09]I think that's part of the problem is that war has not necessarily gotten us the outcome that they say that we are trying to get here.

[00:01:17]>> No, that and and that's because the rationale for the war has shifted multiple times. No one here has ever said we want a nuclear armed Iran. That is a red herring at this point because it's the only talking point that the pro-Trump folks have because they've gotten themselves into a situation that they were unprepared for. And what's incredibly ungrateful, you know who's incredibly ungrateful? Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth for the men and women who are serving in this war, who are on deployments that are extra long, who are not getting their their ships resupplied, who are the who don't understand what they're doing over there, who are being taken for granted.

[00:01:59]Our military is the greatest in the world, and the men and women who serve are the greatest in the world, and they are being taken for granted as props in a political effort by Donald Trump to make himself feel better till he can distract from everything else that's going on domestically. And now he's gotten himself into a situation where he can't even explain cogently why we're there, what's going on, and why the American people should have to pay the price for it. So, that's what's going on here. I mean, I I When when I was a Republican for many years, we were we absolutely looked at Iran as the threat that it is, and absolutely were trying to do things to make sure that they did not continue to be the world sponsor of terror, but this isn't it. This is not it.

[00:02:40]>> what you talked about >> the districts for themselves on whatever basis. So, I do think the ruling was probably generally in the right direction. What we need now, however, is some actual gerrymandering reform.

[00:02:52]>> Republicans have power right now, and they could pass a national gerrymandering ban, but instead they're listening to Donald Trump and allowing him to drag us down to the depths of hell on this redistricting case. I don't think there's any better vindication of the VRA section two than what's happening after section two was effectively struck down. We have Memphis, where they're about to take I believe it's like a 60% black population, and they're about to split that, dilute that into three separate districts. This is exactly why section two existed in the first place.

[00:03:20]>> they did in Nashville, also.

[00:03:22]>> in Nashville. And you can't ban gerrymandering.

[00:03:25]Let's Let's Let's just deal in the reality here.

[00:03:28]From a conservative point of view and a constitutional point of view, the arguments around intellectually, the academic arguments about the Voting Rights Act that have been going on for 30 years now, are fair in ivory towers.

[00:03:42]In real world The real world consequences of this, though, we are not a utopian society where we are race neutral on anything. As much as we are aspiring to be to reach our more perfect union, we are far from that.

[00:03:56]They're right. Americans are getting tired of being told every new military escalation is necessary, only to watch the goal post move every few weeks.

[00:04:05]We've seen this movie before. Iraq was sold as an urgent threat. Afghanistan shifted from counterterrorism to nation-building. And in both cases, the American people were left with trillions in costs and thousands of lives lost.

[00:04:20]According to Brown University's Costs of War Project, post-9/11 conflicts have cost the US over $8 trillion. That's money that could have gone to infrastructure, healthcare, or helping working families here at home.

[00:04:34]And while politicians argue on television, it's military families who bear the burden. Longer deployments, repeated tours, and uncertainty about the mission take a real toll. Even senior Pentagon officials have acknowledged that morale suffers when service members don't have a clear understanding of what success actually looks like. On the voting rights side, Tara is also making an important point that often gets lost in these theoretical debates. In a perfect world, race wouldn't matter in redistricting, but we don't live in that world. The reason the Voting Rights Act of 1965 existed in the first place was because states repeatedly used neutral-sounding rules to dilute black voting power, and that's still happening today. The Supreme Court's weakening of federal protections has opened the door for states to redraw maps in ways that can fracture communities that would otherwise have a meaningful voice. If a city with a large black population gets sliced into multiple districts, that community can lose influence even if every resident still technically gets to vote. At the end of the day, whether it's war policy or voting rights, leaders shouldn't be able to hide behind slogans while ordinary Americans pay the price. People deserve clear explanations, honest debate, and decisions that are based on reality rather than politics.

[00:05:58]And unfortunately, under this administration and under what Donald Trump has been doing now for the last 10 years and what Republicans have done, it has all been about diluting the votes of minorities because minorities don't necessarily vote in from for Republicans. And this is the way that they have been planning this for decades. This has been a long game and especially in the South >> You disagree that the Supreme Court has been >> at the If you look at the judges that Donald Trump has had federal judges that he has nominated to the bench at the federal level in the South in particular, they have all been anti-voting rights judges from Alabama to Texas to to Florida. Well, this is This is the Supreme Court that has been very anti-voting rights for all of these years.

[00:06:44]>> Yes, and the Supreme Court that has been very anti-voting rights >> of time, so let me let you finish. So, let's just be honest about what this is really about. Let's be real. New England has gerrymandered everything. There's 21 congressional seats in New England. All of them are Democrat. Zero Republicans when there are 40% Republicans in New England. So, let's The only reason the South wasn't able to gerrymander like this because of the Voting Rights Act.

[00:07:05]Because the South was Jim Crowed by No, listen to me. So, so because all the states Let's not ignore why.

[00:07:15]That is the Supreme Court. That is the Supreme Let me finish my point. You're making an argument. The gerrymandering wasn't allowed because of the Voting Rights Act. Other And the New England took advantage of that and created a bunch of Democrat seats. So, but wait a minute.

[00:07:27]Just back to your point. You're saying somehow that black representation is needed to improve the black District 2 in Louisiana. Let's get back to Louisiana. District 2 in Louisiana has has been represented by a black person for 35 years. The income in that district is still half of whites.

[00:07:42]There's been no improvement. That being represented by a black representative have has not improved their life. It's about you have you have hold on. Are you saying are you saying that a congressional representative is responsible for the quality of life of the entire district?

[00:07:57]>> No, that's what she's saying. She's saying that you need to you need to you need to certain imply that. She's certainly implying that. She's certainly implying that.

[00:08:04]>> but there are a lot of reasons that black people in Louisiana have poor outcomes than their white counterparts. And a big one is Jim Crow. Okay? Wait, wait, wait, this is all over the country.

[00:08:16]You can't tell the story without telling that part of the story. And then on top of that, I mean don't forget that that's a state that is controlled by Republicans. So if Republicans and at the state level, which has way more to do with people's day-to-day lives, can't improve the lives of black people in their own state, I don't know how you can make the argument that somebody who represents them in No, this is all outcomes. To Camille's point, we're Listen, but I'm not I mean I'm just I'm just responding to what Hal said blaming black representation for the state of black people in a particular And this is about black I don't think there's a relationship. I don't think that you can say that the black representative is responsible for the outcomes in a particular district where those outcomes came about because of decades and decades of policies at the state level and at the federal level that disenfranchised and hurt black And that's not what this is about. Okay, so that's all I'm saying. Yeah, but that's what happened. This is what happens A lot of people like to act as if gerrymandering is some harmless political game both parties play. And sure, both parties have done it, but there's a reason the Voting Rights Act of 1965 existed in the first place. For decades southern states used every trick in the book, poll taxes, literacy tests, and carefully drawn districts to weaken black political power even after black Americans had the legal right to vote.

[00:09:44]That history matters because its effects didn't magically disappear. Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and other southern states still have some of the largest racial wealth gaps in the country. In Louisiana, for example, median household income for black families remains significantly lower than for white families. And that has a lot more to do with generations of discrimination than with who happens to represent one congressional district. And that's what makes House argument so weak. Expecting one member of Congress to undo 150 years of structural inequality is like blaming your doctor because you ignored a health problem for decades. Congressional representation matters because it gives communities a voice in Washington. It doesn't instantly erase problems created by state policies, underfunded schools, and unequal access to housing and jobs.

[00:10:39]Another important point is that state governments often have more direct impact on daily life than Congress does.

[00:10:46]Education funding, Medicaid expansion, criminal justice, and infrastructure are largely controlled at the state level.

[00:10:53]So, if outcomes are poor in a state that has been run by one party for years, it's fair to ask who's actually been making the decisions. At the end of the day, Tara and Abby are making the stronger argument. This isn't about giving anyone special treatment. It's about making sure every community has a fair chance to elect representatives of their choice, and that decades of voter suppression aren't brushed aside as if history doesn't matter.

[00:11:21]So, when you get into a process argument over making it more difficult for people to vote and to have representatives that represent them, if Republicans were so confident in the system, then they not be trying to game it right now to their advantage and Donald Trump is telling the quiet part out loud. We could have had an intellectual argument about whether the VRA was still needed or not and whether it's fair or not, but if we were in a color-blind society, but we're not especially when you have someone like the Trump administration coming in after diversity, women of color women people of color and all the things that they're doing to say that oh, it's a we're we're you know, it's it's a reverse racism and now they're coming for voting rights. That's what this is absolutely about and we can't ignore the game that we're in right now and the political reality of what they're trying to do. All right, Camille, do you want a quick last word?

[00:12:10]>> I was just saying that I don't I don't know that color blindness is the real standard here. Again, I think if we're looking for to create competitive districts, that's the most that's the most important thing and vacating the the the sort of status quo creating a circumstance wherein the law is not particularly interested in race, that actually seems like a very good outcome for me. The only question is how do we get more competitive districts from where we are now.

[00:12:35]>> In the long run if you have good faith actors, that's not what Republicans are All right, next for us Most people would love to live in a country where race no longer affects outcomes. The problem is we're clearly not there yet. Just look at the numbers.

[00:12:49]Since the Supreme Court weakened the key protections in the Shelby County V Holder, states that were previously subject to federal oversight have passed wave after wave of voting restrictions.

[00:13:00]We're talking about reduced polling locations, stricter ID requirements and district maps that courts have repeatedly found diluted minority voting power. And if Republicans were truly confident that their ideas were popular enough to win on a level playing field, they wouldn't be spending so much energy trying to redraw maps and change voting rules. You don't keep moving the goal posts if you're sure you can win the game straight up. That's why the let's just ignore race argument feels detached from reality. It's like saying we should stop looking at a car's dashboard because we'd rather not see the warning lights. Ignoring the problem doesn't mean the problem goes away. Tara's broader point also lines up with what we're seeing beyond voting rights, whether it's attacks on diversity programs, efforts to roll back civil rights protections, or rhetoric suggesting discrimination against my minorities is somehow overblown. There's a clear push to pretend structural inequities no longer exist, and history tells us that progress is rarely permanent. Voting rights were expanded because people fought for them, and they can absolutely be weakened if people stop paying attention. At the end of the day, Tara is bringing the conversation back to the real issue. Democracy only works when everyone has a fair chance to participate, and when politicians compete for votes instead of trying to choose their voters first. That's not a partisan point. That's just basic common sense.