CNN’s Abby Phillip Roasts Trump With Comical List Of Attack Targets That Includes ‘Red Dye No. 3’ And ‘Pennies’
CNN anchor Abby Phillip roasted President Donald Trump with a comically long list of fights he has picked with targets ranging from a list of enemies to “red dye no. 3” and “pennies.”
On this week’s edition of CNN Saturday Morning Table for Five, Phillip was joined by Alyssa Farah Griffin, Harry Enten, Melik Abdul, and Jemele Hill for her weekly panel show on current events.
She opened the show with a commentary on Trump’s feuds, accompanied by a Simpsons-esque text crawl:
ABBY PHILLIP: 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 Zelensky, 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. 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: 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 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 gonna break this pace that he’s working at, by the way.
So we’re 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 that 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.
Watch above via CNN Saturday Morning Table for Five.
