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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Harris and Trump Prepare to Meet Face-to-Face for First Time; Trump Explicitly Threatens to Jail Political Opponents. "NewsNight" Panel Discusses Trump's Appeal To Voters; ABC Network Airs Harris- Trump Debate. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired September 09, 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, on debate eve, why Kamala Harris is preparing for a circus in a face-off that will define the rest of this race.
Plus --
KELLYANNE CONWAY, FORMER ADVISER TO PRESIDENT TRUMP: This is the new narrative by all the lemmings in the mainstream media this week.
PHILLIP: If it wasn't clear then, it is now. In a chilling warning, Donald Trump says he'll throw his political opponents behind bars.
Also, Liz Cheney calls Trump and Vance sexist.
FMR. REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WY): They're misogynistic pigs.
PHILLIP: Nikki Haley gives the Republican ticket some blunt advice. Change the way you talk about women.
NIKKI HALEY, FORMER REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You don't need to call Kamala dumb.
PHILLIP: And we fact-checked the latest conspiracy. Donald Trump saves the world from a game of duck hunt.
Live at the Table, David Urban, Ana Navarro, Madison Gessiotto and Keith Boykin. Welcome to a special edition of NewsNight, State of the Race.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP (on camera): Good evening, I'm Abby Phillip in New York.
Let's get right to what America is talking about. 24 hours from now, Vice President Kamala Harris and Donald Trump will not only face off in Philadelphia for their very first and possibly only debate, but it will also be the first time that the two of them have ever met face to face. Tonight, Harris is preparing for Trump to make things very personal.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAMALA HARRIS, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT, DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: He plays from this really old and tired playbook, right, where he -- there's no floor for him in terms of how low he will go. And we should be prepared for that.
I think he's going to lie. And, you know, he has a playbook that he has used in the past. Be it, you know, his attacks on President Obama or Hillary Clinton. So, we should expect that some of that might come out.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: All right, debate eve, Ana Navarro, that's what she'll expect from Trump, but how will she respond? Because she seemed to almost suggest that maybe she might just try to ignore it and breeze past it, but can she do that?
ANA NAVARRO, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: So, she seems to have done that so far, right, because Donald Trump has been throwing out, spewing out ad hominem attacks against her nonstop since she became the nominee. And I feel like every day I turn on CNN and David Urban is on T.V. telling Donald Trump that he advises him not to use personal attacks and he's obviously not listening. I think his advisers are telling him not to do it. I think the guy cannot control himself. He's been doing it for 78 years, hard to think that he's going to stop for 78 minutes tomorrow.
Kamala Harris needs to be unbothered. She needs to not let him get under her skin, not let him bait her. The people who have gone toe to toe and into the mud with Trump, people like Marco Rubio, where they were having a debate over the size of their hands and all this stuff, it's never ended well. But what she cannot do is let him bully her. She's got to be presidential, she's got to stand her ground.
You know what she's got to do? She's got to fact-check him. That guy's never getting fact-checked on real time. I am looking forward to Kamala Harris being presidential, holding her own, demanding her time, reclaiming her space, and fact-checking him.
PHILLIP: Donald Trump seems to have the easier job here. All he has to do is not go off the rails. That might be it as --
DAVID URBAN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Listen, I think that --
NAVARRO: Go ahead, do it once more.
URBAN: No, listen, I will encourage him to do that. But I think the vice president's being hopeful that that's what Donald Trump does, that he engages in that kind of rhetoric because it makes her job a lot easier. If she's got to show up and talk about her record, it's going to be a lot more difficult, because people in this election are looking for change. They're unhappy with the current course of the Biden-Harris administration. She's trying to run as an outsider, right? She's got to try to defend the current positions, while positioning herself as yet an outsider.
This is a lot of she's going to have to engage in some real political gymnastics tomorrow, right? Our own K-File had a report today, you know, going through her report, her, some of her responses to an ACLU questionnaire written and for this last presidential election, she is in so many different places and so many different positions, and yet she says -- no, but, Keith, it's fair.
[22:05:08]
Listen, you can say the President Trump has evolved on abortion, right? But, listen, he's explained it. What Kamala Harris hasn't done is she's not explained her position how she's evolved on fracking, how she's evolved on guns, how she's evolved on -- whether reparations, how she's --
KEITH BOYKIN, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Well, let's look at the issues here. I mean, abortion, you talk about that issue. Donald Trump has been on every side of the abortion issue in the past month. He's even switched his opinion on the amendment in Florida. Look at the border. Donald Trump has no credibility on the border issue because he was the one who killed the border deal. And border crossings are lower now than they were when he left office.
He can't talk about crime because, you know what, he's a convicted felon and crime went up when he was president and went down under Biden. He can't talk about defense because you know why, because he wouldn't defend America on January 6th. He can't talk about the economy because we lost 2.7 million jobs when Donald Trump was president and we gained 15.6 million jobs with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
So, on every single issue, not even talking about family values, because this is a guy who slept with a porn star and paid hush money to do so, I mean, this guy has no credibility for all the issues that Republicans said they believed in for decades. He is the epitome of the antithesis of what they said they believed in.
MADISON GESSIOTTO, FORMER RNC NATIONAL SPOKESPERSON: When you talk about this is not what the polling is showing. When we look at the polling going into tomorrow, many more people are going to be hearing from Kamala Harris for the very first time.
Almost a third of people that are going to be voting that are likely voters, aren't sure what they feel about her. And so she has to win over a much higher percentage of people tomorrow than Donald Trump does. Many people's opinions already baked in of Donald Trump. When you see people wanting change, and you see this New York Times poll reflecting that Donald Trump is two times more of a change agent than the way people view him, 53 percent of people view him as that, only 25 percent of people view Kamala as that, and I think that's a problem.
BOYKIN: But Donald Trump is spending his whole campaign talking about the past. He's talking about going back to re-litigating the 2020 election, re litigating. GESIOTTO: The past four years ago, we were economically in a much better place when he was --
BOYKIN: Four years ago, we lost millions of jobs and we couldn't buy toilet paper.
GESIOTTO: The Trump economy was significantly better. And you and I both know that's the way most people across the country view it. You can argue about COVID, but you can't argue because of COVID. And you and I both know that people don't view that as a reflection of Trump.
PHILLIP: Hold on, one of the things that Madison just brought up is important because that New York Times poll does show that about a third of the electorate says they don't know enough about Vice President Harris. And her campaign has pursued a strategy of saying they're going to be super selective about how they put her out, when they put her out, how that message comes out about what she stands for, putting out, for example, that just this weekend, page on her website. Was that really the right strategy given that we're eight months out from the election and that many voters say they don't know enough about her?
NAVARRO: Look, I think she needs to do a lot more press, particularly local press, particularly podcasts, press that reach young people. It can't be, you know, that she does one interview and because it's one interview, it all of a sudden becomes this event. And I think she did well in that interview. She needs to do interviews, more interviews. People need to get to know her more. You know, the truth of the matter is that being vice president, I think they actually knew her better when she was a U.S. senator and when she was attorney general than they did as vice president because the job of being number two is the job of being number two. You know, it's --
GESIOTTO: And nobody has ever voted for her at the top of the ticket. And that's I think something interesting going into November. It'll be the first time that something like this has happened where she's never been voted for at the top of the ticket in a primary.
I understand people make the argument that, yes, she was on the ticket with Biden, but she was not voted for as that top ticket candidate in a primary. And a lot of people that I talk to, Democrats included, say that they don't believe she may have been the candidate if there was a primary.
URBAN: You know, Abby, you said you brought the New York Times poll up. I just want to just talk about it real quickly. The Siena poll found 61 percent of voters want the next president to bring, quote/unquote, major change from the Biden administration, right, 61 percent of the people. And they got at which candidate represents change, 53 percent Trump, 25 percent Harris.
This election is about change. If Donald Trump shows up tomorrow night and talks about, you know, this is the Biden-Harris administration, you can't run from your record, if you feel good about this administration --
BOYKIN: He's going to talk about the past again. He always talks about the past.
GESIOTTO: He had a lot of past successors that I think people would be convinced by.
BOYKIN: He spent the past week talking about his litigation, his court cases. He's talked about the past.
URBAN: Wrong past.
BOYKIN: Well, that's the past he's going to talk about.
GESIOTTO: He needs to talk about the past that will help him win. And that's his past record on the economy and on the border.
NAVARRO: The things he has said in the last few days have been absolutely horrible where he talks about releasing political prisoners. You know. I'm from Nicaragua. I have so many friends in Venezuela. Those are political prisoners. For him to be calling the insurrectionists on January 6th political prisoners and saying he's going to release them should really just remind all of us of why he is such a threat to democracy and to the Constitution.
[22:10:07]
PHILLIP: There are so many trap doors for Donald Trump in those kinds of questions, which inevitably will and probably should come. He cannot help but re-litigate 2020. He cannot help but talk about January 6th, you know, convicted criminals as prisoners.
NAVARRO: He can't help us talk about Hannibal Lecter.
PHILLIP: Yes. And also --
URBAN: And Dana and Jake asked --
PHILLIP: You know, Harris dumb, that type of thing.
URBAN: Yes. No, Dana and Jake asked those questions during the CNN debate with Joe Biden. We can remember that. And Trump answered those. He responded. He said, you know, he would consider pardoning some of the people on January 6th if the cases came up and they were determined to be held, you know, and each case would get a hard look. He didn't say pardon everybody. And so I think that some of those are going to be asked and answered already.
NAVARRO: So, the difference is that night of the debate with Joe Biden, Joe Biden was having the worst night of his political career.
URBAN: And Trump still answered the questions.
GESIOTTO: And he was still restrained in a way people doubted that he could be that way.
NAVARRO: But there was nobody -- well, because, you know, he was debating Joe Biden, who was -- he wasn't debating.
BOYKIN: Yes, exactly.
PHILLIP: I'm curious, Keith, because I was listening to you with your first answer, and you really had a whole litany of things, comebacks, I guess, you could call them, about Trump. What makes you, if anything, nervous about what could happen on Kamala Harris' end, what she might fall short on tomorrow night?
BOYKIN: Well, I think she has a tricky job, because on the one hand, yes, she has to sort of be the prosecutor versus the felon, but she has to do so in a way that doesn't look like she's too aggressive about it. And I think she has to stay on her message. Because she could spend all day -- I agree with what Ana said about fact-checking, but she could spend all day fact-checking Trump and never get out her message. So --
URBAN: What is her message?
BOYKIN: Well, you want to be able to pivot from yes, this is not true, that you didn't win the election, but then talk about the economy. Talk about health care. Talk about your plan for $25,000 for people who want to buy a home. Talk about your plan for $6,000 for people who are just having a new child. Talk about your plans to help ordinary people. Those are the issues that --
URBAN: How are you going to pay for?
BOYKIN: Yes, well, you know, how did Donald Trump pay for his tax cut for millionaires and billionaires?
URBAN: She was asked the question. She couldn't answer it.
BOYKIN: This is the other thing.
This is the other example of hypocrisy. Republicans love talking about deficit spending and the economy and all this stuff, and then they have Donald Trump who comes into office and blows a hole in the deficit, puts $7 to $8 trillion onto the national debt. And he's a guy with six bankruptcies and this is the guy you say is the one who's going to be the leader of the economic agenda for the future?
URBAN: When she was given the question, how are you going to pay for this at the Pittsburgh airport before she got up there, she can't answer it.
BOYKIN: How is Trump --
NAVARRO: When Donald Trump was at the New York Economic Club last week, Donald Trump got asked if he was going to raise the child care --
PHILLIP: Hey, I agree that we would like to hear how things are going to get paid for. But Ana's right. Donald Trump has not said how he is going to pay for virtually anything that he has proposed.
NAVARRO: Tariffs. He's paying everything with tariffs.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Maybe we can agree on that, both of them have some answers to give. Everyone, stick around for us.
Coming up next, Donald Trump He's explicitly promising that he is going to throw his political opponents in jail. So, why are so many not even batting an eye at that fact?
Plus, the new conspiracy theory being pushed by J.D. Vance that migrants are kidnapping and eating your pets. Well, spoiler alert, it's not true. We have a special guest to join our fifth seat, coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:15:00]
PHILLIP: Donald Trump is once again threatening to Shawshank his political opponents, throwing them behind bars if he wins. But this time the threat is explicit, quote, when I win, those people that cheated will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, which will include long-term prison sentences so that this depravity of justice doesn't happen again.
He said that threat applies to, quote, lawyers, political operatives, donors, illegal voters and corrupt election officials. They will be sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never before seen in our country. That's a quote. It's that very threat that Trump's allies have said repeatedly, including on this show, doesn't exist.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CONWAY: This is the new narrative by all the lemmings in the mainstream media this week. Trump wants revenge and vengeance.
SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL): Donald Trump has been the one that's been very clear that his vengeance is going to be by winning and making America great again, not going after his political opponents.
SEN. TIM SCOTT (R-SC): I'm simply saying that President Trump has said it himself, the best revenge is success.
PHILLIP: Actually, Senator, I have to correct you on that because he's explicitly said --
SCOTT: No, you can't correct me on this, Abby.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Joining us in our fifth seat, Brian Stelter. Just in time for Marco Rubio, there's his home state paper, the Orlando Sentinel, Trump threatens to jail adversaries. That's going to be some news to, you know --
BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA ANALYST: Look at that, right there on the front page, the way that belongs. That's the way it should be played on the front page.
PHILLIP: A lot of voters in Florida who are, as Ana was saying, fleeing regimes that actually did this stuff.
STELTER: And that is why, even though there is a so called Trump discount, right, there's Trump amnesia, these stories should still be front page news. He's practically daring us to make this front page news every day when he says these things.
PHILLIP: But for some reason, it almost seems like everybody's just like, well, it's not going to happen.
URBAN: Well, it isn't going to happen.
[22:20:00]
So --
PHILLIP: Then why does he keep saying it?
URBAN: I don't know. Listen, I wish the president, as Ana said, would talk about the things that matter around people's kitchen tables, right, the failed Biden-Harris border policies economy, inflation, Afghanistan, right? There are lots of things we could talk about.
PHILLIP: Yes.
URBAN: And we should be talking about this. And every time we don't talk about it, he's detracting from the core message of --
BOYKIN: But you just said a minute ago that he was going to do that at the debate. Now you're saying he's not.
URBAN: No, no, listen, he needs to do it to be victorious.
NAVARRO: Well, to me is one of the most ironic things. Donald Trump, and Republicans have been doing it for decades, way before Donald Trump, calling every Democrat who runs a communist and a Marxist, and Donald Trump has been doing it consistently against -- well, he did it with Biden and now he's doing it with Kamala Harris who he calls Comrade Kamala.
This, of putting your opponents, your political opponents in jail, is happening right now in Nicaragua, where just last week the U.S. government helped release 135 opposition political prisoners that Ortega had put in jail. This is happening right now in Venezuela, where Maduro has put more than 2,000 opponents in jail, where this weekend, the opposition leader who won the legitimate election that Maduro will not accept the results had to flee to Spain.
And so I take this really seriously, and it's really upsetting to me, and it's something that we cannot take democracy for granted. We can't just take when the leading candidate, Republican candidate, possibly president, and former President, is issuing those threats. To me, they ring like threats. PHILLIP: I don't see how you cannot take it seriously. He wrote that down. I mean, it's not just a thing that he said off the top of his head. It was written in a social media message.
URBAN: Yes. I would say, you know, that, you know, that Donald Trump feels that the exact same thing has been happening to him on the other side, lawfare. Listen, Keith, I'm just saying that it's been -- that all these cases, all these suits that have been brought against him. Look, there have been people on this network that say a lot of these suits wouldn't have been brought if his name wasn't Donald Trump. Some very respected --
GESIOTTO: And many voters see that and feel the same way, which is part of why I think it has resonated across the country. But those are the people that have to get out and vote for him, to help him win in November.
BOYKIN: Let me ask you a question.
GESIOTTO: You may not like it, but it's the reality.
BOYKIN: Let me ask you a question, Madison.
GESIOTTO: And we can sit and debate back and forth, but you have to remember, you have to have empathy for the people out there across the country who are struggling.
PHILLIP: Like Donald Trump has empathy for people? Are you kidding?
GESIOTTO: Please don't interrupt who are going to the grocery store and are struggling to pay for their groceries for their children who are going, and the economy has ravaged their lives.
BOYKIN: Let me ask you a question.
GESIOTTO: Inflation has become incredibly insane. He left office, it was 1.5 percent. By 2022, it was over 9 percent. This is a reality people are living with. And it may hurt Kamala Harris more than you think.
BOYKIN: Inflation is down now at 2.9 percent.
GESIOTTO: But it's not down to where it was.
BOYKIN: Let me ask you question.
GESIOTTO: And people are still dealing with the realities of that. People are still dealing with those realities.
BOYKIN: Let me ask you question. Have you ever heard Joe Biden or Kamala Harris or anyone in the Democratic Party leadership say that Donald Trump should be locked up in jail?
GESIOTTO: Yes. Actually, a lot of Democrats think he should be locked up in jail all the time. Are you kidding? And, again, that doesn't matter to people across the country who are struggling. That doesn't matter. They don't care. They want to pay for groceries for their kids. They want a (INAUDIBLE).
BOYKIN: Are you going to focus on this subject or are you going to change the topic?
GESIOTTO: I'm going to focus on what matters. When you look at the states like Pennsylvania that are going to decide this election and 80 percent of people say economy is the number one issue. They're not talking about political persecution.
BOYKIN: A minute ago you told me not to interrupt you and now you interrupted me repeatedly. So, you're not consistent.
GESIOTTO: You interrupted me.
BOYKIN: So, you're not consistent. But the point I'm trying to make though Madison is that what David said is that there's a lawfare campaign against President Trump. And he's comparing that to what Ana said about what's going on in Nicaragua, which is not the same at all because there's no leadership.
GESIOTTO: That's not what he said.
BOYKIN: Let me finish my statement. Let me finish my statement. There is no leadership in the top of our government who is encouraging the president, the former president to be locked up. This is happening separately. These are state and local jurisdictions aside, and the two federal jurisdictions are handled by an independent counsel.
PHILLIP: And just to add, I mean, the whole thing that we're seeing as a country is actually the system working completely independently of some sort of, you know, magic hand. I mean, you've got, in Florida a case that's basically stalled against Trump.
STELTER: Yes, exactly. Or look at New York right now. Take Trump out of the picture. Look at New York. Mayor Eric Adams, investigation all around his administration. Governments working as intended to root out possible corruption. If I can just suggest, maybe this is crazy, but can we complain about the economy but also denounce political persecutions?
BOYKIN: Thank you.
STELTER: Can't we do all of the above? Thank you. Can't I be worried about grocery prices? But also be deeply worried about the idea of persecuting and imprisoning political opponents?
PHILLIP: Hold on, Madison.
GESIOTTO: That's the point I was trying to make.
PHILLIP: Madison, hang on one second, because The New York Times poll that we were talking about earlier, here's another interesting stat. It says 47 percent of the country apparently thinks that Harris is too liberal progressive. 32 percent think Trump is too conservative.
STELTER: Fascinating. [22:25:00]
PHILLIP: It is fascinating. The question I have is, there's pocketbook issues and maybe that falls into the liberal progressive frame, but where do voters place this other stuff, the locking up of the political opponents, the things that Democrats used to call the democracy argument against Trump?
NAVARRO: You know, so I've been going around the country, I'm doing a documentary for CNN on the Latino vote, and I've been going to a bunch of little towns and speaking to people. And it's amazing to me that some of the things they tell me that really matters to them are things that are usually not polled. Things like tone really matters to them, particularly to women. Things like the attacks on veterans really matters to people who have served.
And so, you know, I think we try to parse out and, you know, that's what we do for a living, these polls too much. But look I'm sold, I remember when Hillary Clinton had fireworks and balloons ready. Because all the polls say that she was going to win in 2016. And I remember when we were waiting for a red wave in 2022, that it turned out to be a trickle. And so, you know, I would say, folks, let's not obsess about polls. Let's obsess about what we do in the next 56 days, between now and November 5th, to get the outcome each of us wants.
STELTER: And if voters aren't paying attention to these concerns about political imprisonment, then the media should probably pay more attention to these threats. These threats are about the core of our democracy. And I understand some Trump voters think it's already happening. But then it needs to stop. If it is already happening, it needs to stop. Trump shouldn't suggest an eye for an eye.
PHILLIP: All right. Guys, everyone hang on tight. Proof that we're living in strange times? Well, prominent right wing Republicans are suggesting that migrants are stealing and eating the pets in an Ohio city. CNN has a fact-check for you. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:31:03]
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: Vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance is now pushing a bizarre conspiracy theory that is taking the right by storm tonight. CNN's Tom Foreman has fact-checked this claim about Haitian immigrants abducting and eating pets in Springfield, Ohio. Tom?
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Abby, even in the toxic political climate of our times, this is a wild claim. Republican vice- presidential candidate J.D. Vance, who has railed about a large influx of Haitian immigrants into the rather middle-sized town of Springfield, Ohio, posted, "Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn't be in this country."
And this claim, which focuses on kittens and ducks, has exploded in the far-right echo chamber, amplified by the Trump campaign, conservative commentator, Senator Ted Cruz, Donald Trump Jr., Elon Musk, and more.
They are saying and or implying, if you elect Vice President Kamala Harris, her immigration policies will put your pets at risk. But to be clear, this allegation against these immigrants is patently false, a far-right fever dream which could easily prey upon racist and xenophobic fears.
According to Springfield city officials, there is no foundation for any of this. In a statement they said, "We wish to clarify that there have been no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured, or abused by individuals within the immigrant community. Additionally, there have been no verified instances of immigrants engaging in illegal activities such as squatting or littering in front of residents' homes. Furthermore, no reports have been made regarding members of the immigrant community deliberately disrupting traffic."
Yet, when CNN asked Vance's office why he is pushing such a blatant lie, they said, "Senator Vance has received a high volume of calls and emails over the past several weeks from concerned citizens in Springfield. His tweet is based on what he is hearing from them." But again, there is no truth to what he is hearing. And that is easy to check. Abby?
PHILLIP: Tom Foreman, thank you for that. I mean, it's amazing because those citizens are hearing conspiracies, and then they're calling J.D. Vance's office. And instead of telling them, Sir, Ma'am, this isn't true, he's tweeting that it's true and it's not? One other thing.
ANA NAVARRO, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: We finally found cat ladies that J.D. Vance does not hate.
PHILLIP: Yeah. Well, I mean, I guess it all just comes from the small side.
NAVARRO: It's kind of ridiculous the amount of time we have spent in the last eight weeks with this campaign since J.D. Vance got elected talking about cats.
KEITH BOYKIN, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Not to mention RFK's bear cubs or whatever you got.
NAVARRO: And the worm.
PHILLIP: I was reading a story in NPR about this town, and yes, they've received, you know, a couple thousand, you know, many thousands of migrants into a town that's been losing population. But the story talks about the migrants attending mass, you know, because they're devout Catholics. I mean, and then you have this kind of conspiracy. I mean, it is racist.
BOYKIN: Of course, it's racist and that's what's so problematic about it because, you know, the way Tom Foreman's story is set up, it's kind of light-hearted, but I mean, this is really problematic because you're putting people's lives in danger. The Haitian immigrants in the community and Haitian immigrants throughout the country who may now be targeted because of these things that are considered jokes.
Remember the whole, what was it, the Comet Pizza scandal, whatever, that Hillary Clinton was supposedly involved with? She was running a child sex pornography ring out of a pizza joint. That's the kind of stuff that they promote. Then you have, on top of that, what happened to Ruby Freeman.
NAVARRO: Do you remember what happened? Do you remember a guy showed up with a gun --
BOYKIN: Exactly my point.
NAVARRO: -- to rescue the victims of the sex ring being run out of a basement of a pizza shop -- the pizza shop that did not have a basement.
BOYKIN: And this is worse.
[22:35:00]
PHILLIP: And Brian, I mean, look at some of these -- I guess now they're memes, but you can see that this has been, you know, Elon Musk, Stephen Miller, Ted Cruz, official, you know, congressional committees are tweeting this stuff out. Has it become a meme or is it just spreading a conspiracy?
BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA ANALYST: Yes, it's a meme and a conspiracy. These people can always say, oh, I'm just joking. We're just having fun. But they're also pushing a racist lie. And what they're doing is they're shouting the lie so loudly that they're hoping that their feelings will only be heard and the facts will never catch up. Right.
The local reporting, the local police, the reality will never catch up to the lie that's being shown in the meme. And, you know, I find this is what happens when you put your feelings over facts. People feel something's happening, there's no evidence for it, but the feelings are winning out over the fact.
MADISON GESIOTTO, FORMER RNC NATIONAL SPOKESPERSON: And for some background for viewers out there, there was an actual video going around of someone eating a cat, which was actually two weeks ago in my hometown of Kent, Ohio, not a Haitian migrant, not in Springfield, Ohio, that got posted on the internet and obviously, people were saying it was something it was not. And that's what started this whole firestorm on Twitter and across the web.
But when you talk about Springfield specifically, I spoke earlier this evening with Lieutenant Governor John Husted in Ohio. who visited Springfield, who talked to a lot of the residents. And a lot of people now are saying, hey, like these people hate Haitians, there's a lot of animosity, and that's simply not the case.
There's actually a lot of empathy for these people that have come and that have immigrated to Springfield. They're talking about the fact that they have concerns and I think serious ones about immigration without assimilation. A lot of the people can't read the traffic signs. A young 11-year-old boy was killed as a result of it.
BOYKIN: I'm not worried about that.
STELTER: - post about that.
BOYKIN: Thank you.
GESIOTTO: I'm not here to defend Elon Musk, but the point that I'm making is -
STELTER: I know you're not.
PHILLIP: Madisson is making an extremely reasonable argument. Okay, let's have that conversation. That is not what is happening.
BOYKIN: I'm not worried about the people in Springfield, Ohio, because they don't seem to be the problem. I'm worried about Elon Musk with his platform of 100 million people, however many people he reaches.
I'm worried about J.D. Vance, a presidential candidate in the United States. I'm worried about Ted Cruz, a senator from Texas, these are powerful people, all associated with the Republican Party spreading a racist lie, using their power to potentially hurt other people of color. PHILLIP: David, why hasn't J.D. Vance taken that tweet down?
DAVID URBAN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I don't know. I mean, he shouldn't do it. Obviously, it's something you can check pretty quickly, right? I mean --
PHILLIP: It's been hours. I mean, many, many hours.
URBAN: Listen, it's a lesson that everybody should learn and everybody knows around this table. You know, before you forward an email or a tweet, you know, maybe look at it, peel it back a little bit, see if it's true. The crazier they are, the less likely they are to be true. \
PHILLIP: Would it be cynical to say that he and the Trump campaign -- they don't care that this isn't true?
URBAN: No, I don't think it's -- I think at this point, it's kind of moved down to the meme form, like Brian's saying where they have little ducks and fuzzy kittens.
NAVARRO: Has anybody ever seen Donald Trump hold a pet with any level of affection. Oh, sure.
PHILLIP: I mean, that's neither here nor there, but --
NAVARRO: Who thinks that Donald Trump would cuddle with a kitten?
URBAN: I've seen him cuddle kittens. And I've seen him cuddle kittens. Come on.
NAVARRO: Please, he doesn't even cuddle Tiffany.
URBAN: Come on, I've seen him cuddle cats.
PHILLIP: Okay, all right everybody, hold on. Coming up next, we've got some breaking news about RFK Jr. and his impact on this election. Stand by for that.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:42:32]
PHILLIP: We've got some breaking news on the election front. The Michigan Supreme Court is ruling that RFK Jr. will stay on the ballot. That's despite his efforts to get off the ballot since he backed Donald Trump. And in another battleground state, North Carolina, his name will be removed from the ballot. Mixed bag here, David.
URBAN: I think it is mixed bag. Look, presumably you like him off the ballot, right? I don't know if it helps to be on the ballot or off the ballot, to tell you the truth, right? Does it help you being on the ballot? Does he take votes away from Kamala Harris being on the ballot, just taking votes away from Trump?
PHILLIP: I think he wants to get off the ballot because he and perhaps the Trump campaign believe that at this point, he's only pulling votes that could potentially go to Trump.
URBAN: Yeah, I mean, I don't know if that's true or not. You know, maybe they have data that shows that. But look, I mean, it'll be minuscule. I think that he's obviously out there, you know, and working hard for former President Trump in the campaign. And so, it's kind of a net-net there, right? You have one on, one off, and we'll just have to wait and see.
NAVARRO: I lived in Florida in 2000 when a minuscule amount of votes decided the election.
URBAN: A minuscule amount is important. This is because in these states, especially like, you know, in Michigan, in Wisconsin, in Pennsylvania. We're talking probably 50,000 votes will decide each of these states. We can probably even lessen some states.
PHILLIP: A lot more of this coming in the next couple of months.
NAVARRO: Georgia got decided by 11,000.
URBAN: The game of inches.
PHILLIP: All right, everyone. Separately, another of Trump's rivals, turned supporters now, is telling him that he needs to change the way that he talks about women. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) NIKKI HALEY (R) FORMER GOVERNOR OF SOUTH CAROLINA: I think it's because Donald Trump and J.D. Vance need to change the way they speak about women. You don't need to call Kamala dumb. She didn't get this far, you know. just by accident.
She's here. That's what it is. She's a prosecutor. You don't need to go and talk about intelligence or looks or anything else. Just focus on the policies. When you call even a Democrat woman dumb, Republican women get their backs up, too.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: It's so interesting because Nikki Haley has not been in many places since the RNC where she spoke. But when she has come out, it's been kind of to criticize Trump and his campaign. That's quite the surrogate.
URBAN: That's constructive criticism. That was constructive criticism.
GESIOTTO: Well, and it's not something that hasn't been said before. I mean, I think when you go across the country, and I am last Saturday sitting in Ohio at a women's lunch and talking to women that I know that do feel the way that she said, and they've been saying it for years, that, you know, they like his policies on X, Y, and Z, but they don't love the tone. I mean, even relatives of mine say that sometimes.
[22:45:00]
They're not thrilled with the tone. So, it really comes down to, at the end of the day, what will sway their votes? Is it going to be tone or is it going to be policy? And I would argue that in most cases it would be policy. Some it may be tone, but in most I think it's policy.
URBAN: Yeah, but that's the tough part about this, is going to be this debate, right? He's going to have to find a way to attack Kamala Harris' policies without attacking Kamala Harris, right? He'll be able to attack the vice president. The Harris, the Biden-Harris, the Harris --
NAVARRO: You are like an eternal optimist. Good luck with that.
URBAN: But there lies the challenge, right? You have to be able to attack her policies without looking like you're attacking her personally. Say, listen, I think your policies stink, you're a nice person. I think, you know, you almost have to -- that almost has to be the subtext to all this, right? And so, it's a very tough needle for him to thread.
NAVARRO: Well, let me tell you how I think it's more likely to go. You're a comrade Kamala, you're a Marxist, you're not even black, you're dumb and you're a laughing hyena. Other than that. How was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?
URBAN: Let's hope it doesn't go, let's hope it's like, tell me about your positions, you know, on the border and guns and fracking, let's explain that. Let's hope we have more debate discussion about those.
PHILLIP: I think that the message from a lot of his surrogates is exactly that. As far as Nikki Haley's concerned, she keeps implying that even though she's endorsed Trump, he's really not the candidate that she wants him to be.
STELTER: Yes, yeah, because she's thinking about 2028, right? Or even 2032, for all we know. She's trying to maintain, to mend fences, thinking ahead of four years. I think we know Trump's not going to change.
I'm more interested in what is it about Trump's behavior, the way he talks about women, that appeals to some people? What is it about the misogyny that appeals to voters? Or why do they accept it?
PHILLIP: I mean, does it?
STELTER: There are many millions of men. They're not just okay with the way he talks about women.
PHILLIP: It appeals to men.
STELTER: And that's more interesting. Like that's what we have to deal with as a country beyond the election.
URBAN: I don't know. I don't know any.
BOYKIN: You should follow my Twitter feed. All the people, every time I post anything, all the races and sexes and all the other bigots come out and attack me. And I know those are the people who support Donald Trump. So, I know that --
URBAN: I'll swap Twitter for Facebook.
BOYKIN: I know that they love that.
PHILLIP: David, you talk to a lot of Trump people. I mean, and Brian, you can weigh in. Do you -- the Trump case has been, they're just going to bring out new people. They're going to bring more white men out of the woodwork. And that's why this is all going to add up.
URBAN: It's not new people. I mean, you get the base, you have the set, you know, there's that 47 percent, 48 percent ceiling, right, where Trump is. And you know, maybe that's enough. I mean, here's what I reflect on, right?
Despite knowing all this, despite the guy's flaws, his warts, all these terrible things, he's in a dead heat. He's in a dead heat. He may be the president again because that's how terrible this administration is. It's how terrible they are.
BOYKIN: Can I say something about this? Because this is what really bothers me when we have this discussion. I never really talk about this because it's not politically correct to say it, but he's in a dead heat because of white people. I mean, the majority of white people support Donald Trump, and they
have supported him in 2016, they supported him in 2020, and they'll probably support him in 2024. If it were up to black people, Latinos, and Asian Americans and other people of color, he would lose in a landslide.
UNKNOWN: But he's gaining. He's gaining.
URBAN: The men are Hispanics. But it's still about white dominance.
BOYKIN: I understand that.
STELTER: It's still about white dominance.
BOYKIN: He's in the lead because he protects and projects the idea of protecting white supremacy. And that's what they're, People were talking about economic anxiety in 2016, and then Trump went off and he let a camel play the voice.
URBAN: He's not even serious.
BOYKIN: I'm a hundred percent serious.
PHILLIP: And that's your theory, Keith.
BOYKIN: Yes.
PHILLIP: Then to answer what Urban is asking, why then is Trump improving with voters of color?
BOYKIN: He's not improving with voters.
GESIOTTO: He is.
BOYKIN: No, I'm sorry. He's not improving with the PO. No.
STELTER: I think he is.
UNKNOWN: Keith, you're delusional.
GESIOTTO: We have more support than Republicans in the past with both Hispanics and Black people right now.
BOYKIN: I understand that he has done better than other candidates have done.
GESIOTTO: But he's improving.
PHILLIP: Okay, let's put it this way. He improved on his 2016 performance in 2020, and the polls suggest that he's improving now.
BOYKIN: "The Washington Post"-Ipsos poll that came out today --
PHILLIP: So, even if you go by 2016 or 2020, then why --
BOYKIN: "The Washington Post"-Ipsos poll that came out today said that he's actually losing support in the black vote.
GESIOTTO: "New York Times"-Siena said the opposite.
BOYKIN: And he's actually -- and Kamala Harris is gaining support. The third-party candidates are declining in their support. So, you know, Brian's disagreeing with me.
STELTER: He's clearly growing support.
BOYKIN: No, no --
STELTER: And this is not just about white dominance. It's about male dominance.
PHILLIP: Hold on, hold on, guys. Brian --
NAVARRO: I don't think any of us -- I don't think most people will be surprised if Donald Trump does better with Latinos and blacks than he did in 2016, than he did in 2020. Listen, what do I hear? I hear people tell me that they like how -- they like his mouth. Some people -- what turns me off, turns some people on. They think he's being authentic. They think he's being unfiltered. They think he's tough.
UNKNOWN: True.
NAVARRO: They think, you know, he stands up for what he believes. So, it antagonizes most Latinos. It antagonizes most African Americans. But certainly, there are some people for whom it appeals.
[22:50:01]
BOYKIN: That's exactly my point though. What I was trying to get at is that, yes, there are there are a significant number of people of color who support Donald Trump, but that's still a small, small minority.
Especially in the black community, you're talking about 85 to 90 percent of black people will support Kamala Harris. Thar -- even among black men, you know. So, the idea that somehow Donald Trump is winning in large numbers.
NAVARRO: It's the same issue we were talking about with RFK.
BOYKIN: No, no.
NAVARRO: When you're talking about the Latinos --
BOYKIN: Yeah, I agree with you on that. The margins are very important.
NAVARRO: At the swing states where Latinos are, you know, five, six percent in Georgia. There are five, six percent in Pennsylvania.
BOYKIN: I totally understand. I get that. I'm not saying that that can't make the difference. I'm just saying that we're misrepresenting who these communities are. To pick a few unrepresentative black men and say, oh, well, black men are supporting Donald Trump when 85 to 90 percent of black men are supporting Kamala Harris, obviously it's completely misleading.
GESIOTTO: I think that's very displeasing of black men.
PHILLIP: To be clear, we didn't say that at this table.
BOYKIN: No, I'm not saying you, I'm just saying in general.
PHILLIP: But I think Ana's point is correct, that there is, even if it's a slight move --
BOYKIN: It only takes a few to make a huge difference.
PHILLIP: It only takes a few.
BOYKIN: Yes, yes.
STELTER: I just want to say, in addition to white dominance, it's also about preserving the status of men. And we should interrogate, what is it that appeals? I'm not perfect. I learned some of this stuff since I was five or six years old. Men in this society are in a very interesting place right now with what the messaging is from the Trump campaign, and I just think that's worth interrogating.
PHILLIP: All right, everyone. Stick with us because coming up next, the panel will give us their nightcaps, including a tribute to the man who gave CNN its voice.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:56:07]
TYREEK HILL, MIAMI DOLPHINS PLAYER DETAINED BY POLICE: If I wasn't Tyreek Hill, worst case scenario, we would have had a different article, you know. Tyreek Hill, you know, got shot in front of Hard Rock Stadium.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: We're back and our first take tonight involves the incident that is fueling so much chatter. NFL star Tyreek Hill -- you each have 30 seconds to say your piece. Ana, you're up.
NAVARRO: You know, I never speak about football, but this is my hometown and to me this was about racism and abuse of power. I am outraged. I want a full investigation. I want these police officers held accountable.
And I think what we saw last night in Miami, right before the Dolphins game as this athlete, this black athlete was in his luxury car was frankly, racism, and it cannot be tolerated by the Miami Police Department.
As a Miami-Dade resident, I am demanding full accountability and I am incredibly hurt that it was Latino officers who did this to Tyreek Hill. I just, you know, I think it's outrageous. I think it's embarrassing. I think it's hurtful. And I think there need to be very strong consequences.
PHILLIP: The video is really shocking.
NAVARRO: And you're left feeling, if it can happen to him --
PHILLIP: And he said that tonight in the interview.
URBAN: So, it is pretty baffling. Look, the stadium is right around the corner. The guy couldn't have been going. I mean, it's congested traffic. He wasn't going 110 miles an hour. I'm not quite sure, you know, he says -- I watched him earlier with Kaitlan. He said, you know, I put up my window, I was embarrassed. I don't want the fans going by to take pictures of me seeing me sit there.
PHILLIP: Yeah, he just wanted his ticket.
URBAN: Yeah, he said, I just wanted to get my ticket and go home. I would put my window back up because people would snap photos of me getting a ticket.
PHILLIP: Yeah.
URBAN: And so, there's an explanation.
NAVARRO: And he said that to the cop. He said, bro, just give me the ticket and let me go.
PHILLIP: All right David, your take, as well.
URBAN: On?
NAVARRO: Your nightcap.
URBAN: Oh, so my hot take is, no, so Kamala Harris is in my hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for this whole week, kind of holed up in the hotel, and she makes a decision to go out. So, it's a conscious decision to go out into the community.
And we do those kind of things, we do these off the record kind of stops, or go to visit a place in the community. It's usually a place that celebrates the community, some place that's hometown muffin shop or a pizza place.
Well, Kamala Harris chose to go to a place that's not only -- it's -- the owners posted anti-Semitic remarks on Twitter, but it's a place that, you know, they've had a huge amount of controversy regarding race.
The owner had a -- all Republicans are racists to blast it out to his customers. And if you're Kamala Harris, you know, she said while she's standing in the store, you know, we have to end this, the this and this in the country. We have to end this.
So, why do you choose that store to go to if you're going to end the business? A store that divides people in the city of Pittsburgh, you Google it. You could figure out that's not the place to go. Why did she go there?
PHILLIP: Interesting. All right, Keith, your turn.
BOYKIN: I guess like Nick Fuentes is having lunch or dinner with Donald Trump. Anyway, this ain't Texas and I ain't Beyonce, but Beyonce got snubbed at the Country Music Awards this year because she had one of the top-selling albums of the year. She's obviously a black woman artist.
And unfortunately, the Country Music Awards, the CMAs, don't seem to respect black women that way, in part because if you look back at the history just last year, it was the first time a black woman ever won anything.
That was Tracy Chapman for a song that she wrote 35 years ago that just won a reward because a white man, Luke Combs, made a cover of it. So, I think it's a reflection of how black people who are responsible for creating country music and brought the banjo to the United States from Africa have our history ignored.
PHILLIP: All right, Madison.
GESIOTTO: NFL is back, but potentially the biggest snub of the century. Lil Wayne was not chosen for the Super Bowl halftime show this year. They chose Kendrick Lamar, Holly Grove's own, best rapper alive.
[23:00:00]
Lil Wayne needs to be included in that performance.
PHILLIP: All right, Brian.
STELTER: James Earl Jones died today. He was an EGOT winner. He played a king, a president, Mufasa, Darth Vader, and he was our voice.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAMES EARL JONES, AWARD-WINNING ACTOR (voice-over): This is CNN. A network of Turner Broadcasting System.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STELTER: There was nothing like the authority of that voice, Abby. So, rest in peace, James.
PHILLIP: Nothing like James Earl Jones -- rest in peace. Everyone, thank you very much. "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
