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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip

Sources Say, Trump Campaign Effectively Pulling Out Of New Hampshire; McCain's Son Says, I'm Voting For Harris After Trump's Stunt; James Carville Lists Three Imperatives For Harris To Beat Trump; Vice President Harris Faces Criticism From Actor And Singer Tyrese; "NewsNight" Panel Discusses How V.P. Harris Handles Important Issues. Aired 10-11p ET

Aired September 03, 2024 - 22:00   ET

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

[22:00:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR (voice over): Tonight, the final act. The 2024 campaign nears a cliffhanger conclusion with just seven days until a debate. Are there even more plot twists in store for the country?

Plus, a violation, the service member's son of John McCain says Donald Trump's Arlington stunt disrespected the men and women who died to defend democracy.

Also, a campaign conundrum for the Democratic nominee.

KAMALA HARRIS, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT, DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Thank you, Joe.

PHILLIP: Does Joe Biden --

JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT: Like my friend, our great vice president.

PHILLIP: -- remind voters of all the things he's done or all the things he didn't get done?

And a Trump trailer.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. Hello, Judy. This is Donald Trump.

PHILLIP: The first clip from the movie the Republican nominee doesn't want you to see injects more drama into an election thriller.

Live at the table, Michael Eric Dyson, May Mailman, Coleman Hughes and Leah Wright Rigueur. Welcome to a special edition of NewsNight, State of the Race.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP (on camera): Good evening, I'm Abby Phillip in New York.

Let's get right to what America is talking about, where the Trump team thinks it can compete and where it can't. It turns out one of those places may or may not be the state of New Hampshire. So, tonight, breaking, we are learning that this Trump campaign official wrote this memo to supporters saying, New Hampshire is gone. It says, the campaign has determined that New Hampshire is no longer a battleground state. That means the campaign is suspending all resources, staffers, supplies, speakers, et cetera, to New Hampshire. What are we to do? Go to Pennsylvania. That's the nearest battleground state.

That might just be a simple statement of fact. He was suspended for it, and the Trump campaign is saying they're still competing.

MAY MAILMAN, TRUMP WHITE HOUSE LEGAL ADVISER: I think that this is an issue of incompetence more so than we can't win. It looks like the Trump campaign just never got around to staffing New Hampshire like they should. And so it seems like Tom Mountain, good guy, was like, you know what? Let's go to Pennsylvania. But actually now, Trump has come out and said we actually are very invested in New Hampshire. But the thing is, it's four electoral votes, it just --

PHILLIP: We're in a close election. I mean, the reason that states like New Hampshire and, you know, these places where you have a single electoral vote matters because when it's close, it matters. But, I mean, I heard you say that I was thinking to myself, what else has the Trump campaign been doing? I mean, they didn't have much of a primary. I mean, shouldn't New Hampshire have been something if they wanted to fight for it, that was on the map for them?

COLEMAN HUGHES, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, yes, I mean, they should have had a more robust and coordinated strategy going back months, and it looks like they haven't. You know, at this point it might be the smart strategy to say we've actually just -- we've basically lost this state, so let's focus on the bigger states that we still have a chance in, of course, even smarter than that would have been to sort of invest in this state months ago.

That said New Hampshire hasn't been won by Republicans since 2000, right, since Bush's first term. So, I think the Trump campaign was seduced by the fact that he got 3,000 votes away from winning in 2016, which is the closest Republicans have gotten in a long time.

MAILMAN: But they do have a very popular Republican governor and, you know, their state legislature is split 50-50. They've got statewide elected Republicans, their secretary of state, for example. So, New Hampshire is competitive in the sense that they, you know, they habitually vote Republican, except for sometimes on not Trump.

PHILLIP: Yes.

MAILMAN: But not for Trump.

PHILLIP: Yes, and something has happened with Harris, I mean, Harris in the latest Granite State poll by UNH, up seven points above Trump. So, she's really kind of changed the dynamic of this race.

I do want to get to another topic because this is the, one of the other things that we talked about Trump not being popular in New Hampshire. He's not popular in a lot of places. One of the other reasons for that is the way that he handles moments like this whole Arlington National Cemetery dust-up.

It's a question of you know, sure, that he was invited by some families, but did he break the rules for the other families who did not invite him?

[22:05:04]

And here's what he said to Sean Hannity tonight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: There was no conflict. There was no fight. There was no anything. And I get home that night and I get like a call that from one of the people that is press, sir, there's a story that your people got into a tremendous fight with people representing the cemetery.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: There was some kind of conflict, there was an incident, they've confirmed that. And Trump -- you know, there are choices here, right, paths on the road. He could say, you know, a mistake was made, we shouldn't have done it, even though we were invited, but he's doubled down, his campaign has doubled down.

LEAH WRIGHT RIGUEUR, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Yes. And I actually think that this is more common than we realize, that there are a lot of people who have gone into Arlington National Cemetery and politicized it. But one of the things that we see almost immediately is that as soon as it comes to light that this has been used for political reasons or what have you, which is against federal law, once those things happen, you see a backtracking. You see those things, those pictures, those documents, the video get pulled immediately. The best example that I can think of is in 1999, John McCain uses as part of this kind of primary GOP contest footage of him walking somberly through Arlington National Cemetery. And as soon as he is rebuked for this, he pulls in and he says, absolutely not, this shouldn't have been used.

What I think is unique about what we're seeing right now is that Donald Trump is actually doubling down. And so the campaign is still using those images. They're still using that footage. We've seen a lot go out and circulate despite the fact that even though several families said, yes, we did invite him, several other families have said very publicly that they felt like it dishonored the memory of their children, their spouses, their partners, whoever, that lie in Arlington National Cemetery, that this is sacred space, and it's also non-political space.

PHILLIP: And to your point, I mean, it's the law, like, I mean, it is the law for a reason. You mentioned John McCain, his son, notably came out today in an exclusive interview with CNN, and talked about this particular moment, and used it to argue against Trump. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JIM MCCAIN, SON OF SEN. JOHN MCCAIN: It's a violation because these rules are set in place. They're joining the military because they feel it's the right thing. And the least we can do is, when they're gone, you know, when they're in Arlington, is to respect the rules and regulations that are in place, like not politicizing the fact that these men and women are there. Go show respect.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: And he is now supporting Vice President Harris, a McCain.

MICHAEL ERIC DYSON, DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN STUDIES, VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY: Yes, it's rather remarkable. Though his father, of course, was known to be a rather independently-minded Republican. I mean, he was a deep and profound conservative, but he was open-minded. I have a fond place in my heart and memory for John McCain. I testified before his Senate committee, and we engaged in rather vigorous exchanges of disagreement, but immediately, he sought me out afterward and gave me a high compliment. And from then, we developed a kind of friendship over the years.

So, here's a man who was a maverick, who was intending upon preserving American democracy. Remember, during his campaign for the presidency against Obama, when one of his supporters stood up and made, you know, very, very negative statements about President Obama, then-Senator Obama, he said, no, he's an American citizen, we just happen to disagree. So, I think -- let me just say, I think then that his son is continuing in that tradition.

And this is easy, this is low-hanging fruit, you know what, I made a mistake, I'm sorry, let me move on. Even if Trump didn't himself witness that, this kind of consternation that he evokes constantly is part of his brand and it's going to, you know, hurt him.

MAILMAN: I think the I'm sorry that we're waiting for is from President Biden and from the last person in the room for I'm sorry for that botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, in which your family members were killed, in which we gave billions, tens of billions of dollars to terrorists, in which women, by the millions, lost their rights. And I think it's funny to talk about politicizing this moment when Jimmy McCain, off the top rope, where are you from, saying I am -- you know, I'd like to say something here because you're politicizing it.

So, I think the group of people that is politicizing Trump being at Arlington is not Trump, is not the Republicans. It is the Democrats. He has a longstanding relationship with these families. He has built up time at Mar-a-Lago and Bedminster with these people. He calls them randomly. And so, you know, the politicization --

RIGUEUER: And I think that's fine to do, and that is fine in terms of having a relationship with them. But there are sacred spaces that, for whatever reason, we have decided that are off sites, and this Arlington National Cemetery is one of them. I'd argue that the other one should be the Capitol, that there are certain things that shouldn't be done on the Capitol, but those things have been brokered as well. But I think what is important to remember here is these are all things that could be done outside of it.

[22:10:004]

And I would even point out that several of the families that were involved and engaged in this did note that they invited Trump to participate in this. There's a way that they could have done that outside of the cemetery.

PHILLIP: I don't anybody was saying that Trump shouldn't have been there. It's just a question of what he did, what he --

DYSON: But to pivot towards, if you have a legitimate argument, of course, in your own thinking, way of thinking about Biden and the lot, that has nothing to do with the fact that Donald Trump dishonored a sacred moment in a particular gesture that he doubled down on, revealing more of a troubling character in regard to respect for the protocols and rituals that define democracy.

So, you may have a legitimate argument. I disagree with it, but that's a legitimate argument to be made. But it has nothing to do with covering his hind parts about something he did that was deeply and profoundly troubling to not only, you know, Democrats but to all American citizens.

SINGLETON: In truth, this is a fairly minor violation. It's a violation, but it's the political equivalent of a speeding ticket more than a murder. And to your point, I think the difference between when John McCain did this and Donald Trump did this is that McCain apologized, removed the footage. And Trump did what is in his nature to do as a kind of classless person and he doubled down. He's not apologizing.

And some of his supporters like him for that quality. Some of his supporters hold their nose and vote for him for other reasons. But at this point, everyone knows what they think about Donald Trump. This is who he is. And this episode is not going to change anyone's mind.

PHILLIP: I do want to play one quick thing from J.D. Vance, Trump's running mate, tonight also kind of using the military in a pretty political way. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. J.D. VANCE (R-OH), VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: This is a person who wants the United States Army to be about gender inclusion, ridiculous diversity politics instead of about serving your country and uniting together as Americans to serve on the same team and defend your nation.

If you're a person thinking about joining the military, you're probably not going to want to sign up if Kamala Harris is the potential commander-in-chief.

(END VIDEO CLIP) PHILLIP: That's a pretty strong thing to say. I mean, I guess it's not the first time the military has been used in that way, but --

MAILMAN: Well, there is a recruiting challenge currently under the Biden-Harris administration.

PHILLIP: Just to be clear, there's been a recruiting challenge for the military that and it's not linked to the Biden-Harris administration.

MAILMAN: But it does currently exist. And I think what --

PHILLIP: I just have to say it's, it exists for a lot of reasons. One of the reasons is because we have an education crisis in the country and a lot of people -- and we have a health crisis. A lot of people simply cannot meet the standards of the United States military. That has nothing to do with Biden-Harris.

MAILMAN: Yes. But I think also there is a narrative, and I think there's something to it, where you looked at the recruiting videos, and it was, a softer, like, look, you know, the military is all about diversity. And then, all of a sudden, it changed to, let's go win, right? Let's bring everyone together, like this sort of patriotism. And I think that the patriotism, let's go win, that actually is what motivates a lot of people to go potentially die for our country. And so --

DYSON: Well, at the risk of sounding, you know, obvious, the point is, there's not a problem with diversity until diversity exists, until Eisenhower signs, you know, a command, a covenant to say, let's integrate in Truman, let's integrate the military. We don't have a problem until women or people of color are involved. It's terms of patriotism, of the greatest patriots who, despite the segregation to which they were arbitrarily subject, gave their lives in valorous commitment to American principles.

So, why should it be either you are concerned about diversity in a multiple range of things or you're a patriot? How about both? How about patriotism is a respect and appreciation for broad variety of diversities, not only racially, by the way, but geographically in terms of one's outlook and perspective as well.

HUGHES: I think if you ask an 18-year-old that's considering joining the military, like what's your decision based on, I don't think they're thinking about who's in the Oval Office. I think they're thinking about, you know, first of all, whether we're at war that obviously was fighting. You know, Iraq was a huge draw for people to go and sign up for a specific mission that they believed in. Or because the military is a smart decision for them, and the prestige of it and the opportunities can it can unlock. I don't think it matters so much who's in the Oval Office,

PHILLIP: Or rather, it perhaps shouldn't matter so much, because it's about what's the right thing for the country.

DYSON: It mattered at one point because one person in the White House really delivered a stroke of genius against the segregation of the army or the military.

PHILLIP: Yes, that is a very important point. Everyone stick around for us.

Coming up next, James Carville says that there are three things that Kamala Harris must do in order to beat Trump, except one of them she may not be willing to do. A special guest is going to join us in our fifth seat.

Plus, the movie that Donald Trump does not want you to see is hitting theaters right before the election.

[22:15:03]

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I got flair and I'm smart, so I think that's going to make me successful.

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PHILLIP: Only two months now until the election, only seven days, though, until the debate. And James Carville has some unsolicited, I think, advice for Kamala Harris. The famous Democrat outlined three imperatives for her to beat Donald Trump. The first, Carville says, is that Harris has to let Trump sink himself at this next debate.

[22:20:00]

The next one, Harris needs to highlight her policy differences with President Biden, something that she has yet to do. And finally, Harris must show that she has grown out of some of her political stances when she ran for president in 2020.

With us now is pollster Frank Luntz. He's joining us in our fifth seat at the table. Frank, first of all, do you agree with those three points from James Carville? I mean, and is that really the formula for this next debate for her?

FRANK LUNTZ, POLLSTER AND COMMUNICATION STRATEGIST: I'm not convinced. Now, I'm going to follow what James Carville says, because he's had years of success. But that said, Trump's strongest position right now is the policy differences between him and Harris, inflation, which I call affordability, immigration, which I talk about national security and sense of safety and security. These are areas where Trump has the advantage. If it's about personas, if it's about character, she wins and she'll win easily. If it's about policy, Trump has a ten-point advantage on affordability, a 12-point advantage on immigration. So, he has to go.

And the problem for Trump is he has the inability to do that. He has no self-control, he can't keep his criticisms, and if I'm her, I'm trying to find one word to summarize everything that she's thinking as Trump goes after her, and that word is, really? PHILLIP: I have a feeling that we might hear that. I mean, you know, I feel like at this table, we've been talking about exactly that over the last, you know, what, six weeks, basically since Kamala Harris came into this race as the top of the ticket, Trump's inability to make the case against her, it is the biggest thing. And it also has allowed her to not actually really break with Biden in a lot of ways. In her interview with CNN last week, you know, she outlined what she was running on, but she didn't break with Joe Biden and that seemed to me to be a very clear, concerted choice on her part.

DYSON: Yes, well, why would she? I mean, until forced, right? And then, even if you take Carville seriously that she's got a break with him, you can do that implicitly as well. In other words, you don't have to say, hey, I don't even like what Biden did or what he did I'm doing differently. You just announce your set of priorities, things that you find important, underscore them and then take what was good from Joe Biden and extend it, and the things that you want to leave aside, you can do so. When you sit down to a mill and you don't like the whole thing, you don't just trash the whole thing, you pick and choose, and I think she's capable of doing.

PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, actually, Frank, just going back to you for a second, the Post has a good headline, kind of summarizing what we've been seeing a little bit in the polls. Biden is suddenly seeing his best polls in years. All of a sudden, the country is the same. Nothing has really changed since he left the race. But the voters view him more favorably now? I mean, so is it really about policy or is it just because many of them thought that he was too old to run again?

LUNTZ: He was absolutely too old. And it was not just the age. It was his inability to talk about the future. In the end, the number one value the public wants is a detailed plan of action. They don't want to be looking backward. They want to be looking ahead. And they question whether Biden was going to be strong enough two years from now, four years from now, let alone a year from now.

RIGUEUR: I think one of the other things that we've seen is that even in the just the month or so since Joe Biden has stepped down and Kamala Harris has replaced him at the top of the ticket, we've seen the level of campaigning that we just haven't seen from the Biden. We just didn't see from the Biden administration, even looking at things like the media ad buys, right, $90 million, I think, in a three week span, as opposed to the Biden administration spending or Biden campaign spending almost nothing on television and media advertising and media buys across the country, the kind of really just intense campaigning that is necessary, pounding the ground, hitting these various stops, swinging through these quite literal swing states, we did not see from the Biden administration.

The other thing that going into this is, remember, the narrative around Joe Biden has changed since he stepped down. So, before, it was, was he willing to put himself in front of country? And the second that he stepped down, the narrative around him changed. We saw in public opinion to someone who was willing to do the, quote/unquote, the right thing for democracy and the right thing for the country. And voters are rewarding him for that. MAILMAN: But they're not rewarding Kamala Harris at the levels that they were excited for Joe Biden in 2020. So, Kamala Harris is still polling below where Joe Biden was right after Labor Day. So, she still has to pick up swing voters. She still has to pick up young voters. She still has to pick up a lot of demographics.

And so what I think about this James Carville strategy of let Trump blow himself up, you know what? Trump is going to say a few things, but it's going to be noise added to the noise and no one will learn. No one will lose. Nothing will happen from that.

[22:25:00]

If Kamala Harris actually wants to grow from her 40-something percent and she wants to try and solidify, then she actually has to make a case for herself. She can't just sit there and say, this guy, there has to be some reason to vote for her. I don't know whether that's separating from Biden. I don't know whether that's running away from what she has said publicly.

HUGHES: I think the fourth thing that Carville should have written is that Kamala should continue her strategy of avoiding unscripted interviews. Because I think we know if we're being honest from the past several years of seeing her as vice president that she can be a gaffe machine in unscripted moments. And her strategy over the past month has basically been to do no interviews except for the one with CNN, and that's basically worked. I mean, the polls are showing it's worked. So, when the polls are showing that your strategy is working, you keep doing what's working, which is, you know, no unscripted moments, and let Trump destroy himself.

DYSON: Look, I think she's highly intelligent in terms of what she's learned in this phenomenal period of time. You're right in terms of the polling, even among African-American people, but we've only known her for about a month now. So, if given just a little bit of time that's left for her to continually to be aggressive about going after those votes is ingenious, but I do think Brother Coleman is right in the sense that you know why fix it if it ain't broke. And because it's worked in to her advantage when it comes time for, I think, for the debate, we see her forensic capability. We see her prosecutorial experience coming to bear. And I think that she begins to expose the holes in Trump's thinking. It doesn't take much to do that, but it also reveals his character.

PHILLIP: Look, whatever the reason is that there's been one interview and not more than one interview, either way, that Trump and the Trump campaign has not actually been able to weaponize that against the Harris campaign. I mean, that is pretty remarkable.

LUNTZ: I think it's going to come. I'm watching what's happening on universities right now and the level of hate that's already being shown. Columbia was a disaster today in its first day. And I'm watching to see how she handles it, what happened in Israel 48 hours ago. And I've seen some of the tweets, both from Democrats and Republicans saying these people, they were butchered, they were murdered. They didn't die. They were murdered. Or the idea that these are terrorists that are committing these crimes, and some outlets are not saying it.

Ritchie Torres was brilliant in his tweet today about all of this. She's going to have to choose sides. Does she stand with the oppressors on the university or does she stand for law and order?

DYSON: Well, I think both of us are at the university. I don't think she's staying with any oppressors. The oppressors are not unique to universities. What she did at the convention was right She talked about the undeniable evil that was revealed on October 7th and she talks about the ongoing carnage and devastation of Palestinian people. We cannot -- let me finish. So, we can't talk about being fair and just by talking about who's an oppressor and who's not without acknowledging the complex and nuance analysis of what's going down there on the ground. So, we can't dismiss 40,000 to 50, 000 people who are dead as just compensation for the undeniable evil that occurred.

LUNTZ: Sir, this is about anti-Semitism.

DYSON: Anti-Semitism? Look, I wrote in the New York Times about anti- Semitism. I take it seriously.

LUNTZ: It's about hate.

DYSON: It's about hatred of Jewish brothers and sisters. It's about the hatred of Islamic folk. And we've got to grapple with it. Yes, it is.

LUNTZ: When you try to --

DYSON: Not either or. It's not equal.

LUNTZ: You try to equalize it.

DYSON: I'm not equalizing. Those are my principles of justice. As a Baptist minister, I'm concerned about evil and the horrors of terror that are visited upon people. I'm worried about my Israeli brothers and sisters and I'm worried about my brothers and sisters who are not Jewish as well.

LUNTZ: These Jewish kids are afraid and they're being attacked. We just finished. You've got it in the control room.

DYSON: That's absolutely wrong.

LUNTZ: It's not wrong. You have it in the control room.

DYSON: No, I'm saying it's wrong to attack them is what I'm saying.

LUNTZ: Okay, I accept that. What you have in your control, you can decide if you want to show it or not. What's happening on college campuses, these kids are actually being attacked. And at some point, she's going to have to take a point of view --

DYSON: Yes, I would like to see -- look, any assault upon Jewish brothers and sisters is patently wrong. Any attack upon Islamic brothers and sisters -- LUNTZ: It's not happening.

DYSON: -- is patently wrong. And to deny -- you're talking about a university, free speech, the ability of people to articulate their viewpoints, regulated and governed by, of course. But you're telling me as a black person without hate, the kind of things we've been doing?

LUNTZ: I'm telling you as a Jewish person about the hate.

PHILLIP: Frank, what I'm trying to understand here is you're suggesting that Harris has not said anything about anti-Semitism, when that's definitely not true. And it's also the case that her husband, who is Jewish, has led the administration's anti-Semitism efforts.

LUNTZ: It's not enough. That's all I'm saying. If you saw hatred towards certain groups, you would speak up.

[22:30:02]

PHILLIP: Yes, I mean, look, I agree with you that there's too much. A little bit of anti-Semitism is too much. A little bit of anti-Semitism is too much. But I guess what I'm wondering is how you can say that that is a uniquely Kamala Harris problem.

LUNTZ: It's a problem for the country. Every time I come on this show, I speak about understanding. I speak about finding common ground. I appreciate your comments. I respect them very much. We have to do something because it's starting again. And so, in the debate, I believe she's going to be asked this question, as will Trump.

DYSON: Right.

LUNTZ: The question is, does she try to equivocate or does -- is she very clear in what she's saying?

MAILMAN: The question is whether the conversation moves further, right? So, the reason that Kamala Harris has been able to have a momentum push is because Trump has not been able to capitalize on her hiding. And so, at the debate, I think the question will be, you have said that you want a ceasefire and you want a hostage deal. What does that mean? Tell me what does that look like?

And here's the -- she is smart. She is a prosecutor. But when she talks about things like, you know, Brett Kavanaugh, she says it with confidence and she goes, you know -- you know what she knows what she's talking about. When she talks about foreign policy and Russia being a country next to Ukraine, you have real serious concern.

HUGHES: I totally have concern that she might have no idea what she's doing on these issues.

PHILLIP: That's --- there's a whole other conversation. That is a whole other conversation.

RIGUEUR: But I also think --I also think -- but it's also -- it's also true. It's also true that over the last couple of weeks, we've seen a very different Kamala Harris. We've seen one who has been very strident.

I don't know how anyone could look at the Democratic National Convention and the speech that she gave and think that she is soft on -- on you know, anti-Semitism or soft on foreign policy. I think she knows that she has to be strong. We saw a performance of that and we'll see another one in the debate.

PHILLIP: All right, everyone, hang tight for us. Coming up next, Vice President Harris is facing sharp criticism from black male celebrities and sometimes it's not based in fact. Is it a sign of a bigger trend among black male voters? Maybe they're shifting toward Trump? We'll find out and we'll discuss.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:36:31]

PHILLIP: As Kamala Harris and Donald Trump court black men, a key demographic in this election, the actor and singer, Tyrese, is taking heat tonight after claiming that the Biden administration didn't create laws to protect black and Latino people. Listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TYRESE GIBSON, ACTOR: It is a crime bill that was signed into law that protects Asians at all costs. Where is that same (BEEP) law to be signed into the -- into law when it comes to black and brown people. Because what you're doing is, President Biden and Kamala Harris, what you're doing is you're saying that black and brown people will continue to be disposable.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Saying it with a lot of passion but that is not true. For example, there is the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act signed by President Biden just two years ago that made lynching a federal hate crime offense. I'm back with my panel. The reason that this is interesting is partly because it actually seems like part of a pattern.

There is a bit of a war here, politically speaking, over who is speaking to black men. And some of these really high-profile black men are expressing those views and a quick Google search could have addressed this issue.

WRIGHT RIGUEUR: So first, I want to point out, you know, Tyrese, I think, is coming from a good place. He cares deeply about black and brown people, about his community. So, his passion in that moment came from, you know, powerful feelings.

But I will also say this, the best kind of misinformation and the best kind of disinformation always starts from a kernel of truth. So, the kernel of truth in this case was the fact that there is this anti-hate crime past under the Biden administration.

What then happens there is that we see a lot of stuff that is put into, essentially an echo chamber, that suggests that by virtue of supporting these kinds of laws, other people are left behind, rather than looking at the full scale of things and saying, actually, everyone benefits under this.

And so, this is actually why it's really important for people to go out there. In this case, it was Roland Martin who went out and said, actually, I'm going to correct everything on the record. And I'm going to work with these celebrities because of the platform that they have. And so, it's not necessarily, I think, that Tyrese is going to influence anyone to, in any particular direction.

Nobody's going to wake up in tomorrow and say, because Tyrese said this, I'm not voting for that candidate. But instead, it's a reflection of certain kinds of attitudes and misinformation and how they proliferate in these communities and end up affecting people's actual vote patterns.

LUNTZ: Yeah, I think that's --

HUGHES: We should also ask why -- why do we have all of these symbolic hate crime pieces of legislation to begin with, whether it's the anti- Asian hate crime or the Emmett Till Lynching. First of all, murder is already illegal. Hate crimes -- federal hate crimes against all groups are already additionally illegal. I don't know if Congress should be spending our time on these symbolic bills that end up --

DYSON: Well, it wasn't a call to anti-Asian. It was the COVID.

HUGHES: Sorry, sorry.

DYSON: No, no, that's all right. But it was COVID, so we don't want to take the bait that Brother Tyrese -- I miss him on that Coke commercial when he was younger. And maybe he's fast and furious. But the point here is that it was a COVID bill.

[22:40:01]

And it was a president who was talking about the China --China virus, who then instigated, I think, abhorrent acts of violence against Asian brothers and sisters. But the more -- the broader point is we never win by xenophobia or misogyny.

And I think if we're going to call a spade a spade, the point is that there has been growing concern among certain varieties of black men in certain communities about Kamala Harris that ain't got nothing to do with her policy. It has nothing to do with what she represents. There's a kind of resentment of her female power and what that represents and their own particular existential problems at home. So, Sister Leah was great.

HUGHES: What is the message about her being a female?

DYSON: Because I think that clearly, when they talk about --one person talked about, I will never put her in office. What's the young man on Instagram who says, if you ever put a black woman, she'd never be put in an office where she is allowed to have power over anybody. Now, that was particularly virulent in its misogyny.

But there are other black -- that's one random guy but I mean we're talking about black churches that don't have black women as preachers. There are all kinds of systemic expressions of misogyny and gender oppression.

MAILMAN: Kamala Harris hasn't been able to get the same support from black men, from the black community generally, but from black men that Joe Biden had and certainly that Obama had. And so, I guess to your point, like, the question is why and what can she do? And you don't just see Tyrese talking about like a random COVID legislation from years ago. Like -- is something inspired that?

PHILLIP: Yeah, I mean, I think you're probably right. Something inspired it. We don't know what it is, but I want to play what D.L. Hughley said at the DNC actually about how he kind of navigated this himself.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

D.L. HUGHLEY, COMEDIAN: I made assumptions about Kamala's record. And I often repeated them to a lot of people. Then one day, Kamala invited me to her house, she put her hand on my shoulder, and she asked me to do some research. Something I had never done. Something a lot of people I know had never done before.

Imagine attacking someone's character without a single Google search. So, I did what I should have done in the first place. I learned that she had done for us exactly what she promised to. I believe that your apology should be as loud as your accusation. And I'm here apologizing in front of the whole damn world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: So, look, I mean --

DYSON: I don't know if Tyrese gets an invite to Kamala Harris' house.

PHILLIP: Look, I, on the one, right. So, like, on the one level, right, you can support whoever you want to politically. But what is to respect about that is to say, I didn't actually do any research before I formed an opinion. I mean, what do you make of it?

LUNTZ: I think that's a wonderful -- we need to apologize more. We need to acknowledge. You should not have on your show, and I'll do it. Every one of us should have to admit a mistake that we made so that the public knows our honesty or integrity. We should have to acknowledge it. But the Democrats, Joe Biden was having trouble with young black men before Harris was ever under consideration.

And it's not about their dislike or their opposition to her. There's something about Trump that is appealing to young black men. They think Trump's a victim. They think that they're not being heard, that Trump speaks loudly. They want to speak loudly. They want to be respected. They want to be appreciated and they like the way Trump rolls.

DYSON: And his misogyny is attractive to some of these people, too. I mean, I agree.

MAILMAN: But isn't there a policy? Like, isn't the economy also important? I mean --

WRIGHT RIGUEUR: So, not necessarily. So, part of what we saw, too, is that when there is - when there is no black man on the ticket, when Barack Obama is not on the ticket, the numbers actually resort back to the way things used to be. The anomaly, the one that stands out, are the Obama years. And I mean, think about it. Everyone wanted to be quote, unquote on the right side of history.

But one of the things that we see in data about black, a certain subset of black male voters is that they are more susceptible to Republican overtures and they have always been more susceptive to --

PHILLIP: We have a great picture of Hall of Famer Jim Brown and Richard Nixon. Leah has written about this but -- you've written about --

WRIGHT RIGUEUR: Yes, this picture is actually in my book.

PHILLIP: - a lot of black men who support Republicans.

HUGHES: What's the name of your book?

WRIGHT RIGUEUR: Oh, it's "The Loneliness of the Black Republican: Pragmatic Politics and the Pursuit of Power".

HUGHES: Oh, really, really?

WRIGHT RIGUEUR: We have a black man who is a Republican at the table.

HUGHES: Well, I'm not a Republican. I'm Independent.

PHILLIP: Okay, Independent, Independent.

WRIGHT RIGUEUR: So, they show up in the book too.

PHILLIP: All right, but Leah, you've written a lot about this.

WRIGHT RIGUEUR: But one of the things that we see with celebrities over and over again, Black celebrities, Black male celebrities in particular, is this real investment in a kind of transactional politics that is rooted in what they say is organic and authentic authoritarian maleness and masculinity, which I think brings together some of these themes that we've been talking about. Jim Brown, whether it be Jim Brown, whether it be Ice Cube, whether it be Lil Wayne, right?

[22:45:01]

All of these people have endorsed Donald Trump. Jim Brown died recently, but also before he died, endorsed Donald Trump for very particular economic and essentially, machismo reasons, right? So, one of the things --

DYSON: And the wing had off, so I would vote for him, too.

WRIGHT RIGUEUR: It is deeply --

PHILLIP: Last word to Coleman, then we got to go.

HUGHES: The important and obvious point we're overlooking, right? Men, in general, gravitate towards the Republican Party more so than women. Why would that be different for black people, right? So, in a way, the whole framing of this conversation as about black men misses the wider point that this is about men versus women.

DYSON: But most black men are not gravitating toward the Republican Party.

HUGHES: More so than black women.

PHILLIP: More so than black women, yeah. I was going to say maybe Leah should write a book about this topic. She had a lot to say, but she did.

HUGHES: What's the name of your book?

WRIGHT RIGUEUR: "The Loneliness of the Black Republican".

HUGHES: Okay, that's amazing.

PHILLIP: Hold on, hold on. We've got more ahead. Coming up next, a damning movie about Donald Trump will now hit theaters just before election day. Will the harsh story be on the big screens and will it impact voters? We're going to discuss that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:50:23]

PHILLIP: And we are back and it's time for the "News Nightcap". You each have, of course, thirty seconds to say your piece. Coleman, you're up.

HUGHES: Okay. Can we please, please stop talking about Project 2025, okay? It is not news. It is a wish list of a right-wing think tank. It is not something the Trump campaign came up with. It's not something he endorsed. In fact, he's denounced it two or three times now.

And please don't tell me that some of his friends kind of had a hand in it because you know that argument wouldn't work the other way around. If the ACLU came up with a far-left wish list that some of Kamala's friends were involved with, no one would link that to Kamala or call it news. So, no more Project 2025.

PHILLIP: Friends or former employees, cabinet secretaries?

HUGHES: Shoe on the other foot test.

PHILLIP: Maybe, I don't know, his vice president wrote an intro to the book.

HUGHES: Denounced it three times.

PHILLIP: I don't know, there's a lot there. There's a lot there. Okay, Leah?

WRIGHT RIGUEUR: Okay, so crypto -- cryptocurrency. I know it's the funny word, it's the funny topic, we don't know a lot about it, but I think it's the dirty little secret of the 2024 presidential race. And I'll tell you a couple of things. Farrelly Dickinson just came out with a new study that showed that crypto voters overwhelmingly, by 12- point margin, support Donald Trump.

And it reflects a lot of the work that the Trump campaign has put into this area of cryptocurrency in an effort because they see it as a pathway to win the election. And I got to say, it is something that Democrats really should be paying attention to. Why? Because crypto owners, whatever we're calling it, right, currency -- one, it's here to stay. But their owners are young, they are predominantly male, and they are a relatively diverse crowd of people.

So, in fact, crypto has become a way, right? It has become politicized, and it also has become a gateway into Trumpism. Tennessee last month -- there were about 150,000 people who showed up at a crypto conference just to see Donald Trump speak.

PHILLIP: Wow.

WRIGHT RIGUEUR: So --

PHILLIP: The crypto constituency.

WRIGHT RIGUEUR: Democrats, pay attention. Pay attention.

PHILLIP: All right, May?

MAILMAN: All right. My hot take is that J.D. Vance's pro-family policy is not that scary. So, I know we hear a lot about cat ladies, but when you actually think about families -- this is something that should not be controversial to discuss, that we should want kids to be raised to the extent possible, and two parent families eliminates the poverty rate by a third. And you know, all sorts of good indications for going to college and crime reduction and all the rest.

So, what does that actually look like? What J.D. Vance has said is a tax credit, which is something that Democrats are for. What Hungary does, which I think is also very interesting, is that they will give families a $36,000 loan and they will forgive it in full if you have three kids. So, you get it forgiven in the latter for each child. So, there you go. You could just get money.

PHILLIP: Nothing wrong with having kids. Just people have an issue with putting down people who don't have kids. All right, Michael.

DYSON: Well, let me say it very briefly. Charlamagne the God is watching. He texted me and said, how do we know that black men are not going to support Kamala Harris? A poll? He said they're going to be the second biggest voting black for her. Cool. Got to get it out. For me. I think --

PHILLIP: Hello, Charlemagne. Good to see you.

DYSON: What's up, bro? See you on Tuesday. But here's the thing, that -- that Patrick Mahomes' wife, I don't want to just call her Brittany, you know, liking, a post by Truth Social -- by Donald Trump is going to create a little bit of problem in Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce and their whole togetherness there. I think the box might be a little bit tense this year. We'll check it out.

PHILLIP: All right, Michael has a new book and it's not about Taylor Swift. It's called "Represent the Unfinished Fight for the Vote". All right, Frank, you're up.

LUNTZ: Okay, I've never done this before. You talk about a budget deficit around this table. I think there's a fund deficit that people aren't enjoying themselves, and they're tired of the campaign and tired of politics.

There's a company that's in the process of being founded that's going to offer real people a real opportunity to get behind the scenes, to jump the ropes, to get in the front row of the things that matter most to them, and it's going to be led by someone who I'm calling the Willy Wonka of 2024 and he's got a whole bunch of golden tickets to give to anyone who's tired of politics and just wants to have fun.

PHILLIP: All right, we love having fun.

[22:55:00]

All right, last thing. We've got this movie coming out. It's a biopic about Donald Trump. It's called "The Apprentice". It's supposed to be very controversial. There are some things in there, including an allegation of rape against Donald Trump that was levied by one of his ex-wives. Will it have an impact on this election? It's coming out in October. No? I mean --

MAILMAN: I don't know. The story of Trump has been told so many times by this special and that and this book.

PHILLIP: Perhaps never like this.

MAILMAN: Yeah, so a rape scene is like a little much. But we had a rape trial, so maybe it's not, you know?

PHILLIP: Yeah, I mean, what a thing to say. I mean, the story is based on his relationship with Roy Cohn. And it's also played, I should say, by Jeremy Strong, who's an excellent character actor. But will you see it?

HUGHES: I'm absolutely going to see it for Jeremy Strong and just for the story in general, the trailer looked really good. No one is going to care about this vis-a-vis their vote. If you like Trump, they're not going to believe what's -- the bad parts of the movie. If you hate Trump, you're going to believe it. But you already hate him. So, this is not changing anyone's mind.

PHILLIP: All right.

DYSON: It's a poor rerun. The movie itself is far more fascinating -- the real-life Donald Trump.

PHILLIP: I will say, this year has already been like something of a movie. Everyone, thank you very much. And thank you very much for watching "NewsNight State of the Race". "Laura Coates Live" starts after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)