Amid Donald Trump’s ongoing government shutdown, which has already drawn widespread backlash — a new controversy may be brewing after CNN host Abby Phillip accused the president of lying during a live broadcast. She could further join the dots after one of Pam Bondi’s revelations paved the way to reflect major inconsistency, proving that she might have been pressured to nod heads to a decision that she was not aware of in the first place.
Well, according to Abby, she attributed Trump for pressuring Pam Bondi to punish his political enemies on his behalf, something which happened right before Attorney General of New York, Letitia James, was indicted. For the unversed, the acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Lindsey Halligan, announced that James was indicted on the basis of charges for bank fraud and even making a false statement for a mortgage application for her.
It’s pretty wild that Trump ordered Bondi to go after his enemies via his social media and now that post will be used as evidence to drop charges against Comey, Tish James and anyone else they go after pic.twitter.com/QYXNL9WUI3
— Wu Tang is for the Children (@WUTangKids) October 10, 2025
Reports also suggested that Pam Bondi was unaware of the indictment decision beforehand. In fact, she went on to vow that she would deploy extra guards to protect ICE agents after a shooting incident that took place in Dallas.
Addressing the issue, GOP strategist Lance Grover told Phillip, “I think they’ve been very clear about the role that they have and what they expect out of their justice department.” In response, Abby mentioned “Which is that the justice department does what the president wants”, indicating the kind of pressure Donald Trump can keep up over his departments, in this case, that of justice being supreme. Moving on in the conversation, Trover poked sarcasm at the situation, comparing it with the context of the November 2024 polls, to which Phillip further added, “So in other words, doubling down on a two-tier justice system is what Trump ran on. Correct?”
The CNN host then further recalled a past instance where Senator Tim Scott had previously denied the possibility of Trump going after his political enemies in the near future. Phillip mentioned, “I asked Senator Tim Scott when he was on the show last year, is Trump just going to go after his political enemies? And he said, ‘Absolutely not. Trump has never said he’s going to go after his political enemies.'” He then acknowledged the polling results of 2024, which brought Trump to his second chance at the Presidency, claiming that the American people must have actually voted for him last year based on his plans of prosecuting those who are on his enemies list.
The exchange quickly went viral on social media, particularly on X (formerly Twitter) — as users rushed to share their reactions. One anti-Trump critic was quick to comment, “This is how a fascist party behaves. It adopts whatever messaging is useful in building its power at a particular time. Later, it spins a new story and pleads ignorance of the earlier version. As in Orwell’s 1984, what is true and right is never a consideration.”
Another critic wrote about the administration’s ‘pretend payback’ attitude, saying, “So now we’re just pretending political payback is a ‘campaign promise”? That’s not leadership, that’s personal vendetta dressed up as policy.”
