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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Trump Becomes More Unhinged as Election Draws Closer; Trump on Legal Immigrants in Ohio, Get Them the Hell Out; Harris Campaign Weighs Trip to Border Amid Polling Concerns. Janet Jackson Repeats False Claims on Kamala Harris's Race; WNBA's Clark-Reese Rivalry Echoing the Election. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired September 23, 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, Donald Trump grows more unhinged as the election draws closer, and now he and his allies are trying to change the rules of the voting game after kickoff.
Plus, will Kamala Harris make a run for the border? Why her campaign is weighing a visit on a vulnerable issue?
Also, Janet Jackson becomes the latest to prove that a simple Google search can't even cure America's misinformation epidemic.
And why one rivalry's racial framing is a mirror to the presidential race and society.
Live at the table, Scott Jennings, Bakari Sellers, Erin Perrine, and Jemele Hill. With 42 days to go, Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here, they do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Good evening. I'm Abby Phillip in New York.
Let's get right to what America is talking about. The closer the election, the more unhinged Donald Trump is getting. Here is a sampling of just some of his posts in the last 48 hours. He baselessly says that the FBI is purposefully mishandling the second assassination attempt against him. He baselessly says Democrats are rigging votes from Americans overseas. He and his allies are actively working to change election laws in several states. He's making false claims about women. He's saying that Vice President Harris is against Catholics. He's still pushing debunked pet-eating conspiracies. And he posted then deleted a conspiracy about Diddy and Harris. He's attacking Jimmy Kimmel, ABC, even Oprah.
There's a lot going on here with Trump. It seems like the weekend, he's free, he's got a lot of time on his hands, maybe he's golfing, but he has a lot to say, and no character limits on Truth Social, apparently. I mean, some of these posts are like giant paragraphs, and they don't make a lot of sense. You will no longer be thinking about abortion, he says to women, because it is now where it has always had to be, with the states. I mean, that's just one of many things that he had to say this weekend, but almost none of it is to the point of what I think Republicans want this election to be about, presumptively.
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I mean, it's stuff that's in the news. I mean, let's take the assassination issue with the FBI. I have real concerns about why they released this second assassin's letter. I mean, I think a lot of Republicans are like why is this guy's letter and his call for Trump to be assassinated and his, you know, $150,000, whatever. I mean, I think it's legitimate gripe that he has. I mean, there's other shootings that have gone on in this country and the people's manifestos are under lock and key and we can't find it. Somehow this letter is out. I think it's a real gripe.
PHILLIP: The alleged assassin, he had a hearing today. So, that's one of the reasons. But, I mean, I'm not even sure what's the point that Trump is trying to make. And what does that have to do with --
BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: First of all --
PHILLIP: What does that have to do with winning this election?
JENNINGS: I mean, this guy clearly said in his letter, he wanted to assassinate Trump. And because he failed, he wants other people to do it. And I don't know about you, but It's a crazy environment. There's a bunch of crazy people out there, and that could be a clarion call for this.
SELLERS: This is where at 10:03 Scott and I will agree. I do think now we're going to progressively get on and the show goes on.
PHILLIP: We have to start off --
SELLERS: I wish that the FBI and whomever the Florida State Law Enforcement Agency come together and figure out and get to the root of this assassination attempt on Donald Trump. We don't need to see this. Political violence has no place in it. You can say those things. We can also have a conversation about the fact that, you know, the mass shootings we see in the country and the attempts on President Trump's life all include AR-15s. And if you want to have a conversation about gun control, when it comes to Donald Trump and assassination attempts, let's do it. Let's have it here on Abby Phillip's Show. I don't think that's where you all want to go.
But the other point is that, yes, I think you're right. He's becoming unhinged. I mean, he's tweeting like I would tweet late at night after a couple of bottles of Casamigos. He is just sending out paragraph after paragraph. I believe, Scott, that you would much rather him talk about the border, immigration and things that matter to the American people than what he tweets about night in and night out. And I think that is what the American people don't want when they think about him as president of the United States.
[22:05:00]
He is emblematic of chaos, and that's what you see on Truth Social.
PHILLIP: And he's once again claiming that Democrats are going to cheat this time. He says that they're talking about how they're working so hard to get millions of votes from Americans living overseas. Actually, they are getting ready to cheat. They want to dilute the true vote of our beautiful military and their families. There's no evidence of this.
ERIN PERRINE, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST, AXIOM STRATEGIES: I think that's correct. But there's also a really rigorous process, including when you are abroad, to make sure that you can verify not only your voting status in the United States, but the state you live in. And those standards are really important, not only to Donald Trump, but to Republicans writ large when it comes to what they talk about when it comes to election security and integrity.
PHILLIP: Is he trying to sow these seeds, and not just of doubt, but to do what he did the last time, to just say that the whole thing is rigged just because he says so?
PERRINE: I think it's fair to ask questions, and I think it's fair to be able to pursue the legal process in the United States if you have questions regarding the outcome of the election. The problem is when it goes beyond that, when it becomes more than that. There are legal avenues and means to be able to do anything when it comes to the election, to be able to question how it ended up, if it's whether it's the counting or the timing the polls closed or how the ballots were received. There's a million different legal avenues. That's the only thing that should be pursued, which is are the legal avenues to make sure that every legal vote is counted.
PHILLIP: He's saying that they're cheating. And, I mean, they're --
PERRINE: He's saying they're getting ready.
PHILLIP: Okay.
PERRINE: Let's be fair, let's be fair.
PHILLIP: He's saying they're getting ready to cheat with no evidence of that, whatsoever. What is also happening is, all across the country we're seeing this battle starting to play out, the fight over how people vote in Georgia, in Nebraska, in Arizona. Republicans in those states, especially the ones that are aligned with Trump, they are trying to change how, you know, the counting works change, how ballots are going to be evaluated in Georgia. They're changing how many times they have to hand count the votes in that state, hand count.
JEMELE HILL, CONTRIBUTING WRITER, THE ATLANTIC: I know. I mean, why don't they just say they're going to use an abacus? Like what are we doing here? Look, I think, Bakari, you said it perfectly, all of this nonsense. Because Donald Trump over and over just keeps proving he's not a serious person, and even when he has a serious point, I agree with you, is that it's not a good idea to probably publish an assassin's letter. Because especially given that he's inviting other people to a call to violence. But I can't even take that seriously because of what all this other nonsense is about it.
And so now what he's doing is level-setting. All he's doing is saying like, hey, they're trying to cheat, hey, they're trying to cheat, which is so funny to me, because in some of these same in the last election and some of these same races where Republicans won. So, let me get this right. They're only trying to cheat when you lose. But when Republicans win, that's when the cheating doesn't happen. So, I'm just trying to keep up.
And so, thankfully, he's not on Twitter. He's not on some of these other platforms that I follow because I find this constant barrage of just complete stupidity to be something that just wears you down. Like at some point I want him to present a hopeful vision for the country, right, to just say, hey, this is what we can do here, this is how we can do things together. And that's the biggest difference that I see between him and Kamala Harris.
Like I actually feel like there's hope out there. I listened to Donald Trump for five minutes and it just makes me want to leave and move somewhere else because why would I subject myself to this?
PERRINE: I love the hope argument because listen, everybody loves the feel goods. Everybody loves the vibe. Everybody wants to feel that the country's heading in the better direction and right direction, wrong direction is something that is polled consistently in this country, but vibes don't win election. And you know what actually motivates motors the most are negative T.V. ads. When it comes to be able to drive -- I'd tell you voters tell focus groups all the time, they hate negative T.V. ads, but that emotion, emotion is really what drives a lot of politics. Do I feel my family's going to be safer? Do I feel like I'm going to get more in my paycheck? Do I feel that this country --
PHILLIP: Well, that part makes sense. Those are to me legitimate questions. There's a big difference between that and trying to actually inspire people to help solve the problem, and he's not going to do that.
SELLERS: Neither one of you all have addressed whether or not they're eating your cats or dogs, and they're eating your pets.
PERRINE: I can report my 95-pound dog is still doing very well and actually ate a pumpkin today.
SELLERS: But, I mean, it's --
JENNINGS: Feeding on him for a week?
PHILLIP: Oh my God, wait a second.
PERRINE: So, real quick on Georgia. I'm voting counting in Georgia. I've talked to a lot of operatives in Georgia. I've been trying to figure out what's going on there. The Board of Elections removed the only elected official from the Board of Elections and it's now purely appointed. They have no legal authority to change the rules. From what I'm hearing from Georgia operatives, if they want to try and force a full hand count the ballots, they don't have the means to it, the Board of Elections. Should this be challenged in court, which there's a full anticipation of, this likely wouldn't hold up.
And so for them at this point, they don't see anything changing. And a lot of counties already do the hand count after it runs through the machine, anyways.
SELLERS: I want to give a shout out to a Republican while we're here in this Kumbaya first segment, but State Senator Mike McDonnell, he is a GOP senator from the great city of Omaha, Nebraska, and he is someone who stood up and said, I guess Tom Osborne probably appreciates this, but you can't change the rules in the fourth quarter.
[22:10:03]
He's probably going to be the huge mayor of Omaha, I mean, somebody who was a Democrat, had different issues on social issues, I understand it, left the Democratic Party, is now a Republican, but at least he put democracy over -- why are you mad about that? Because he didn't change the rules?
JENNINGS: I'm just waiting for you to finish.
SELLERS: No, I'm just saying. But he didn't change the rules.
JENNINGS: I'm waiting patiently.
SELLERS: You gave me my wife's side eye.
JENNINGS: I'm just wondering, you know, it's after Labor Day.
SELLERS: This is sultry great. I've had this conversation with you.
HILL: This is not white. I can tell you this. This is not white. It's not gray.
SELLERS: It's sultry great. But Senator McDonnell put -- he put country over party and we don't have enough of that to the point about changing the rules and all these other things and democracy matters.
JENNINGS: Well, so you can't change the rules in the fourth quarter, but you can change the candidate. Look, Democrats have been trying to change the rules all year. They try to get Trump thrown off the ballot earlier this year. That didn't work. Then they changed out their candidate well past the point he had already won the primary.
I mean, look, both parties are constantly scraping and clawing for an advantage. I don't particularly care what they do in Nebraska. It doesn't sound like it's going to happen to me, but why is it offensive for one party to try to get an advantage while the other party's been trying to do the same thing on --
SELLERS: Can I debunk this notion that a lot of Republicans have come on this air and said that we have changed the rules or all of a sudden Kamala Harris didn't win the primary? I mean, have we beat that horse dead? Can I beat it one more time?
JENNINGS: I'm sorry, the president won the primary.
PHILLIP: The rules are set by the majority.
SELLERS: Billionaires and Pelosi showed up and threw a match.
PHILLIP: Okay, I want to play one more thing. This is from Trump actually tonight. We were talking earlier about Springfield. This is the story that he won't let it go. And here's what he said tonight in Pennsylvania.
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DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Do you think Springfield will ever be the same? I don't think. The fact is, and I'll say it now, you have to get him the hell out. You have to get them out. I'm sorry.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: He won't let it go.
HILL: No, that's embarrassing. Really, that's embarrassing that him as a presidential candidate would say that. And it's more -- it's equally as embarrassing that the people there would pick up on that chant.
And so as we're having this conversation about political language and how that's inciting people, I'm looking at this and it makes it that much harder for when the Republicans especially want to have a conversation about political language when something happens to Trump but don't want to have a conversation about that. He effectively put a target on a fine community's back, a community that has done nothing but contribute and do all the things that you say that you want legal immigrants or legal immigrants to do.
They've done all these things. They work hard. They've contributed. They're held up, you know, as bastions of their community. And to put that target on their back, again, not a serious person.
PHILLIP: You're talking about legal immigrants in this country. I was watching a piece earlier tonight on CNN. They were evangelical Christians. They're in church. They've got families. They've got kids in school. They own businesses. They are working. They're paying taxes.
JENNINGS: Yes.
PHILLIP: So, why the send them back chance? And then also, why say you got to get them the hell out?
JENNINGS: Yes they are here under a current legal process. I do think there's a legitimate debate to be had about that process versus the normal way that immigrants come into the country.
PHILLIP: That's one of the normal ways that immigrants have come into this country for decades.
JENNINGS: But I think it's a legitimate policy debate about whether the executive branch should just grant this kind of status to large populations, and when you do drop large populations into communities. There is a debate about the societal, cultural, and governance impacts of it that is perfectly legitimate to be had.
That having been said, these people are here legally and there's a difference between those people right now and the people that have come in here illegally by the millions during the Biden-Harris administration. And so there is an appetite in the country to deal with illegal immigration, the people who've come here, and Trump right now is winning on that. And I think most Americans see it his way when it comes to mass deportation.
PHILLIP: That's not what he was doing tonight. I mean, what he was doing tonight was really dark. And it had nothing to do with people coming across the border, the southern border. He wasn't making any kind of nuance -- even remotely nuanced argument about that. He was just saying, they're not like us, send them back.
SELLERS: He's not capable of doing that. And the problem is that we're less than 50 days out from this election cycle. And so the playbook has changed a little bit. When he was running against Joe Biden, he was very disciplined, he was on message. And now the playbook is back to the normal isms that Donald Trump uses. I mean, he uses xenophobia and racism as political currency. It's us versus them. Do you want your country to become browner or not?
I mean, we're not having a conversation about Irish migrants. We're not having a conversation --
PHILLIP: Or Ukrainian.
SELLERS: Or Ukrainian.
PERRINE: I mean, to be fair, he does say paddy wagon. And that is actually considered, like, an offense to the Irish-American community.
SELLERS: First of all, I haven't heard that in a long period of time, and I have not heard --
PERRINE: And we know that's not what he's talking about.
SELLERS: And I haven't heard him put a target on the back of those individuals. And so like --
PERRINE: Let's also be clear here at rallies with Democrats, you have heard them chant, lock him up, about Donald Trump.
[22:15:04]
This is a rhetoric problem on both sides. SELLERS: No, it's not. But it's not the same.
PERRINE: No, I'm not even trying to do a whataboutism here. I'm not trying to say these --
SELLERS: But that's what you effectively did.
PERRINE: No. What I said was this happens -- political discourse like this happens on both sides. I didn't say one was better than the other.
SELLERS: No, but let me just -- I don't think that's -- I think that's a level of intellectual dishonesty.
PERRINE: No, I don't think it is.
SELLERS: And let me explain why.
PERRINE: No, I think it's actually a completely fair argument to talk about what both sides are doing when it comes to the conversation in this country toward political rallying (ph).
SELLERS: But when you have someone who's been convicted of 34 felony counts, convicted of, right, and someone says, lock them up, and then the person on the stage says, no, we're not going to lock them up. We're going to vote them out, right? That's what Kamala Harris says. We're going to shift the language. That's one thing. But when you have these people who are of color, right, who are brown and black, who come from a country, which has been decimated through natural disaster, through political corruption, who are only coming here to contribute to this American society, the way they do, and the people who they work for say they're good citizens, the people who they pay taxes to say they're good citizens, you're not -- and then you bastardize them by saying that they are the least amount of human being by saying they eat our dogs and eat our cats, that is not the intellectual equivalence.
And so, yes, I have a problem with lock them up chants at our rallies. I do. So does Kamala Harris. She puts her foot in the ground. I also have a problem with him bastardizing black and brown people and saying, get them out the country, because if something happens to a little brown boy or girl who is Haitian in Ohio, that's on his hands and they have a bullet or a bull's eye is probably the better term on their back.
HILL: And it won't just happen to Haitian immigrants in that city. That becomes then the wider scope of how people see Haitian immigrants, period, which is why it's a problem.
PHILLIP: All right, guys, everyone stick around. Coming up, next violent crime in the United States is down, that is despite Trump using it to attack Harris.
Plus, Janet Jackson, she repeatedly made some false claims about Harris' race, but is it too late to control the damage?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:20:00]
PHILLIP: Breaking tonight, the Harris campaign is considering a last- minute trip to the border on Friday during her trip to Arizona. She's hoping to change the narrative that she's soft on immigration. A new poll shows that more than half of Americans believe that Trump would be better on the issue.
A trip to the border, good idea, bad idea?
SELLERS: Good idea. Do it all. I mean, I don't have any objection to that. But I think that at the end of the day, I think that people, when they have a question about substantive policy, when it comes to immigration, I mean, there's only one person who's actually serious about passing immigration law.
And what I have to remind people is like conjunction junction. You remember how a building came along, conjunction junction. That's your approach? Yes. And so, like, of course, she had a policy position on immigration. But Senator Lankford, I do believe, was the senator who put up one of the toughest immigration bills that we've seen. It went through conjunction junction in the United States House of Representatives and Senate, and the person that killed it was Donald Trump.
Is it what Kamala Harris wishes? No.
JENNINGS: Whoa.
PERRINE: That's not completely accurate. That bill was never brought up in the House. That bill was only brought up in the --
SELLERS: Why was it not brought up in the House is the question.
PERRINE: Because that focused more on the process to bring people into the United States versus securing the border.
SELLERS: And who made the phone calls to the members of the United States House of Representatives?
PHILLIP: Hold on, hold on. Okay. The bill addressed border security, it actually had a proposal to, quote/unquote, shut down the border --
PERRINE: When they hit a certain number of thousands a day.
PHILLIP: That was a Republican idea that the White House adopted. So, it addressed. But, I mean, it addressed both sides of it. A lot of Democrats hated it, but Republicans hated it more. And here we are. So, Scott?
JENNINGS: We argue about this bill all the time. We are where we are. We showed the poll. She's down on this issue. Going to the border is not going to fix that. There's -- I don't know if you all have seen the video. There's this amazing video of her from a couple of years ago out chanting, you know, down with mass deportation. Doug was right behind her chanting along. I mean, her views on this are so obvious. Going to rallies and chanting, running on it in 2019, 2020.
I mean, we know where she is on immigration vis-a-vis Donald Trump. Going to the border is not going to change that. The American people are going to see him as tough on it, tougher than she will ever want to be on it. They don't trust Democrats on this issue because of the last three and a half years, the day one executive orders, and then waiting until the shadow of an election to try to pay some lip service to it, it's not going to work.
SELLERS: I don't -- I mean, Scott, I don't disagree with some of the things you said about lip service or how it's going to play out, but I do want you to understand the simple fact is that Kamala Harris is the person who's actually saying that she will sign a piece of legislation. The Republican Party bastardized people, such as Marco Rubio, the gang of eight. Have we not been here before? That they literally excommunicated from their party for trying to come together on comprehensive immigration reform.
PHILLIP: I think that this is --
JENNINGS: Joe Biden (INAUDIBLE) she's going to be tougher.
PHILLIP: One of the things about this moment, I mean, the Harris campaign has just been trying to kind of float above it all, to float above the immigration arguments, float above, you know, some of the nitty-gritty details on some of this policy. But this shows that they realize they have to do something.
One of the other things that happened today, though, is that we got some crime statistics showing crime is down. Again, this was also going to be something that Trump wanted to run on Harris against. But the statistics are what they are.
HILL: Yes, I think you said in the last segment, even though you said vibes don't necessarily win election, I do think that vibes very much contribute to how people feel about issues, whether it be real or whether it be imagined.
[22:25:02]
And the reality is, in most people's minds, they feel like crime is out of control. Like I'll take my city where I'm from, Detroit, as an example. When I was growing up, the level of crime in Detroit, I mean, Detroit was always in the top three as being one of the most murderous cities in America, 600, 700 murders a year, easy. It's maybe half that now, okay?
And I realized, though, the population has decreased and that's part of it, but the approach to safety is so much better than it used to be. But, unfortunately, between social media and people passing around violent videos all the time, no matter what those statistics say, I still think it roots in people's minds that crime is just out of control. And I think we're much safer as a society today than we were when I was growing up.
PERRINE: So, I think to your point regarding social media, it's very easy to share a violent video, those things move very quickly across the internet. But these FBI statistics leave room for questions because there are a lot of cities, major cities, like Los Angeles, that are not providing that information.
PHILLIP: I'm sorry to interrupt you again, but I just -- we looked this up, I've heard this before. The FBI addressed this today. Those major cities now are reporting their crime statistics. So, the numbers --
PERRINE: But they didn't in '23 on these numbers. When you go to the FBI website, they're not there, especially for homicides in L.A.
PHILLIP: Let me answer what you're saying. So, now they do. Los Angeles, New York, all the major cities, any city with over a million people, those police departments reporting to these statistics. In some past years, they reported them, but the FBI did not include them because of a reporting issue. But if you look in the report, they talk about the past trends. They include that data now from those past years, the trend is still going down. So, crime is going down.
PERRINE: But in a city like D.C., the most recent crime data from D.C., there have been 274 murders. It's up 35 percent. Robbery, you're looking at up 67 percent. You know, in some of these major cities, crime is still an issue, and people are still seeing the videos because the end line is happening.
PHILLIP: I was a longtime D.C. resident, so I understand what you're saying, but overall, for the country and for most major cities, it's --
SELLERS: I have two points. I actually think you're, yes, like hammer me, nail on head. I think you're right. And I think Scott's right. I think Jemele is right as well. I think that Democrats, for a long period of time, we put our head in the sand when it came to issues of crime, right? We talked about it in the way that you should being smart about crime, but we didn't necessarily address the way that people feel about it.
Like my mom would always say that I don't want less police officers. That's why people chose Joe Biden in the 2020 primary because nobody wanted to defund the police, not Democratic voters. They just wanted better police, right? It wasn't about taking police off the street or defunding them. They just wanted -- they wanted me to be able to come home safely while police were out there patrolling the neighborhoods.
And so I think everybody at this table is correct, that this is a serious issue that you can no longer put your head in the sand about. But, I think that there are different ways in which you go about doing it. Like for example, Kamala Harris being smart on crime, being a prosecutor, prosecuting drug rings, human trafficking is one thing. Donald Trump abusing the law and then saying he wants to give law enforcement, particularly to black men watching this, all right? Donald Trump is somebody who says he wants to give immunity to law enforcement officers regardless of the act that they commit. Do you know how patently absurd that is? And so you have differences on policy, but the fact is, and this is a good question, and I'm glad I think we all agree, crime is a very serious issue. It's who do you want to challenge that serious issue?
JENNINGS: I think this is multifaceted.
SELLERS: Can you agree to this? I'm going to agree.
JENNINGS: No, we're well past that.
PERRINE: That was a block. You're right.
JENNINGS: Harris has some holes in her record. I mean, I think she tried to bail violent people out of jail before. She raised money for that. That's number one. Number two, she called for police to be taken out of schools. Number three, she has advocated in the past for decriminalizing illegal immigration when people come across. And so, she has a -- once again, we're back to the same conversation. What is her record? What are her public statements? What actions has she taken? And then what is she running towards in the shadow of an election? Which just makes me suspect that she wants to be tough on --
SELLERS: And I hear you. And I hear you. And if I was Kamala Harris standing on stage besides Scott Jennings, what I would say is --
JENNINGS: You'd be worried.
SELLERS: I'm definitely worried. Some light weight you don't worry about.
So, what I would simply say is you have to look at her record as district attorney. You have to look at her record as attorney general. This isn't someone who hasn't prosecuted these people and locked these people up. This is a serious candidate with a serious law enforcement record.
And as for sheriffs in schools right now, we're at a point we have to have that because we have mental health issues. We also have a gun problem. And so until Republicans want to come to the table and talk about the fact that every single school shooting we've had that we talk about involves a semiautomatic rifle, and we should put a ban on those weapons, then we don't really -- we can't meet in the middle.
JENNINGS: But you admit that her past rhetoric would call into question how tough she wants to be. I mean, people are weighing this, like here she was, here she is, like what am I supposed to believe?
PERRINE: That's the 25 percent of voters right now who are saying, I don't know where she stands, and so I can't make a decision. Because what they've seen before, what she's saying now, and what her past is, whether it's on crime, the economy, immigration, whatever.
[22:25:00]
They've seen what she said before, they've seen where she's trying to say she is now, and that's why they're saying, I don't know which Kamala Harris to believe.
PHILLIP: All right, guys, hang tight, a lot more ahead.
Janet Jackson, she's repeating false claims about Kamala Harris' race, so we will have a special guest joining us in our fifth seat to talk about the danger behind that kind of misinformation.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: Janet Jackson is not backing down on the false claims that she made about Vice President Harris. In a wide-ranging interview, Jackson claimed that Harris quote, "wasn't black" and that the VP's father "was white." Here is a picture of Harris's father.
[22:35:00]
Jackson's camp tells CNN tonight that they have no public comment on this disagreement. Joining us now in our fifth seat is Cari Champion, host of the "Naked Podcast." I didn't see this one coming. I have to say. I don't know about you, but I was not expecting Janet Jackson to enter the chat quite in this way.
CARI CHAMPION, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: With such a huge platform, which is so disturbing, because you think people -- and I think when I say huge platform, Janet Jackson is an icon in many ways. And for me to see someone that I remember from childhood who narrated so many important moments of my life, and we -- we actually had an opportunity to meet her at a girlfriend's--
JEMELE HILL, CONTRIBUTING WRITER, THE ATLANTIC: We sure did, yeah.
CHAMPION: Jemele and I had an opportunity to meet her at a girlfriend's bridal shower and we thought what a lovely lady. Not that she's not lovely, but it's so surprising that she -- in this day and age, does not know that Kamala Harris is black and I don't know if that was personal or not.
PHILLIP: I mean, I'm of two minds about this because she's a human being and human beings are subject to misinformation. And that's really what this is about. I told Scott I would come to him on this because this is really --
(CROSSTALK)
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Are you all just not coming around to the notion that Hollywood celebrities sometimes say stupid things?
PHILLIP: No, no, no.
(CROSSTALK) (LAUGHTER)
PHILLIP: Scott, this goes back to Trump because Trump was the one --
JENNINGS: Of course it does. PHILLIP: -- who put this up. That she's not really black. I mean, I think some people thought that there was some strategy here to make this a wedge issue. But it's also, I mean, when Trump said it --
JENNINGS: You know what I mean about it.
PHILLIP: It was just a lie.
JENNINGS: You know what I think about it? She's black. And that's what she is. That's her identity. And she's allowed to be that. And it doesn't matter what some Hollywood celebrity says. It doesn't matter what Donald Trump says. She gets to be her identity and people ought to leave her. I don't understand why people keep talking about this. I mean, it's a settled matter, is it not?
PHILLIP: It is settled, but it's still out there.
BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It's not Donald Trump's fault either. And so I have to push back on that framing because there are corners of my barbershop every single day.
HILL: It's being said.
SELLERS: They question whether or not she's black or I don't trust it because she's not black.
CHAMPION: Yes. Yes.
(CROSSTALK)
SELLERS: Donald Trump says something very ignorant about her race.
PHILLIP: Hang on, Bakari. I hear what you're saying. But Trump's elevation of this conversation.
UNKNOWN: No, this is important. This is important.
SELLERS: But we were having this conversation about her ethnicity and what she is wrongfully so in the corners of black America for a long period of time. Now we have to disabuse that notion and extinguish it. And yes, Trump does go to the darkest corners of whatever conversation may be and elevate it and he was ignorant for doing so. And as former president of the United States, you should not do that. And I'm glad you push back on it.
But I can't say that this conversation or Janet Jackson's conversation is because of Donald Trump because I'm having these conversations, particularly with black men every day, about whether or not Carmel Harris is black.
CHAMPION: Yeah. Here's the fair point. My friend called me yesterday and she -- or a couple of days ago, and she was with -- this was before this was even an issue, before Janet Jackson was even an issue, she was with her 18-year-old nephew who's a freshman in college, and he was like, I just read that she's not black. She's not black, is she? And I was like, get off the phone. What are you saying? HILL: Wait, but there's a difference though Cari.
CHAMPION: It's a normal conversation that you're having.
HILL: It is a conversation that unfortunately we have had, and we've had for a long time as a people. Whenever we get into this conversation of trying to define who's black, it always leads to an ignorant place. What the wrinkle was with Janet Jackson is when she said Kamala Harris's father was white. And where did that come from?
CHAMPION: And then she was like, I haven't checked the news. That was the last thing.
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: Is that what they -- is that what people believe is that her father was white?
SELLERS: No.
CHAMPION: No.
HILL: No, one believes it.
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: That is (inaudible).
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Actually, hang on, because I think that this is a distinction, though, because there is Kamala Harris's father is white, which is just not true. And then there's the conversation that you all are saying are happening in the corners of the black community, which is about what constitutes being black.
CHAMPION: Okay, but this is a ridiculous conversation to be having in the first place period, about someone running for the president of the United States. She's a black woman.
PHILLIP: Hundred percent.
CHAMPION: And another black woman knows what a black woman looks like.
HILL: I've never once doubted the camera has layers. I thought she's not black.
CHAMPION: And not once. If her father was white, she's still black and considered.
SELLERS: And it's another layer to this. It's a conversation about what it means to be of mixed race in this country. And for Janet Jackson to be that level of ignorance surrounded by this many mixed race individuals, it's also concerning. And so --
PHILLIP: But okay, but to be -- I don't want to defend Janet's misinformation.
SELLERS: There you go.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: See, here's the thing. She believed that there was actually no blackness in Kamala Harris, which is so -- it's so incorrect. Whereas there are some Black people who believe that because she is both Indian and Black --
HILL: That she's not Black enough.
PHILLIP: She's black enough. Right.
CHAMPION: And by the way, this country is built on the Black and the White dynamic, which is really disgusting and sad. And this is why this is even a conversation. This is even why we are talking about Donald Trump, a white man going up against a Black woman in Kamala Harris. And we are fascinated with race in this country. It's the only country where we have to have this conversation over and over again based on what you're -- the color of your skin tone, how much melanin you have.
[22:40:00]
I find it disappointing that someone of Janet Jackson's caliber, who is black, who is black, I don't care --
SELLERS: And beautiful.
CHAMPION: And beautiful.
HILL: And beautiful.
CHAMPION: And beautiful.
(CROSSTALK)
HILL: And has mixed race family.
CHAMPION: And has mixed race family and enough money to have the information at her fingertips. But the question that we came up with during our group chat was this. Do you report that? After the reporter corrects her, do you report that? Because the reporter --
PERRINE: Of course.
CHAMPION: -- knows full well. Well, really, is it an of course?
PERRINE: Yes, because she said it was on the record.
CHAMPION: Because she doubled downs on it?
PHILLIP: I think -- I think.
PERRINE: No, because it was on the record. It was on the record freewheeling conversation.
PHILLIP: I think -- I mean, I think that it would be --
PERRINE: That is a very newsy bit. Of course they're going to report it.
PHILLIP: I think it was justified.
HILL: It's newsworthy.
PHILLIP: It was newsworthy.
HILL: Because of who she is.
PHILLIP: But what you just said about that conversation about race in America and what it looks like, we're going to keep talking about that. Coming up next, how the Black versus White undertones in the Caitlin Clark-Angel Reese rivalry are similar to the dynamics in this election and in our broader society. We're gonna discuss it next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:45:00]
PHILLIP: Rivalries are the big reason that we love sports. The Yankees and the Red Sox, the Lakers, the Celtics, and now we've got Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese. But what's different about this one are the storylines. And they seem to focus much more on racism and sexism and the politics of their fan bases, more than the basketball. Now, does that mirror our broader society? Does it mirror this very presidential race? Well, Cari is here and she raised that very question in her podcast. So you say that this is a mirror of what we're living in our broader society.
CHAMPION: I feel like sports, politics, and culture always intersect. I think the story of Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese, the rivalry, which really isn't a bad rivalry or a true rivalry on the court, is a good thing. I understand that both of these young ladies, and I'll relate it to the race in just one moment, both of these young ladies were already defined and they already had to play roles before they even stepped on the court. just based on where they come from, how they were raised, and how they conduct themselves.
So when we see Angel Reese doing the, you can't see me ring finger to Caitlin Clark, the optics of this black girl really taunting this white girl was hard for all of America to see. They're like, how dare? How dare? But that is a rite of passage. When you win, that's how you play sports. You have the right to trash talk.
But the reason why this relationship, this rivalry is so compelling is because it's what this country is built on. It's black and white. And if you want the people want to be interested in black and white take a look at the race When did the race get really interesting when a black woman entered the race? And then now we have all of these conversations about whether or not kamala is black enough. Is she too black? Was she doing things she wasn't supposed to be and
there are all of these racial issues that are coming up that have nothing to do with the election and that is exactly what's happening with this?
PHILLIP: And mind you, I don't think people even know what Caitlin Clark's politics are.
(CROSSTALK)
CHAMPION: By the way, no, I don't even think sort of liking a post suggests that she's endorsing Kamala.
PHILLIP: So, let me just explain, because I think if anybody missed it, Taylor Swift did her post endorsing Kamala Harris and encouraging people to vote. Caitlin Clark liked this post, which caused a huge uproar, because I think people assumed that she was -- because she's white, that she is conservative or Republican. I don't know.
HILL: But it wasn't just though. I think the issue is that there were a lot of people who called themselves fans of Caitlin Clarks. And frankly, and I know you found this, Cari, that the reason that they became so vocal about their fandom of her was because they were using her as a wedge and a weapon against the black women in the league.
CHAMPION: And they co-opted the narrative.
HILL: Right.
CHAMPION: Because the league, the WNBA is a league of LGBTQIA. Like, you just don't want to --
HILL: A third of the league is.
CHAMPION: A third of the league is, and they're black women.
HILL: They represent women.
CHAMPION: And you can't really market that to America. So here you have this woman from Iowa who they think is hetero and living the life that she is supposed to live in accordingly and doing all the things that represents basketball. And now --
PHILLIP: So we've just projected all of those --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: -- on to these basketball players.
JENNINGS: Couldn't it just be that Caitlin Clark is like one of the most talented --
CHAMPION: She is talented.
JENNINGS: -- women basketball player --
CHAMPION: There's no question about it.
JENNINGS: -- in the history of the country. Come on, she does amazing things and then people say all --
CHAMPION: But Scott, you're not being honest.
JENNINGS: Well, people say all of a sudden, I'm now interested in something I wasn't before. Look at the attendance, look at the viewership. And then they watch the games, and she's constantly being abused. She was stabbed in the eye last night.
HILL: She was not stabbed.
SELLERS: She was not stabbed in the eye.
(CROSSTALK)
HILL: And by the way, why don't you bring up that elbow that she gave another play on the court? It was physical.
PERRINE: There's one thing I think we can all agree upon.
JENNINGS: She got stabbed in the eye, I'm sorry.
PERRINE: Even if people believe that this is a reflection and a microcosm of where the country is, there are really rarely two young women who are doing a better job than the adults in this country --
CHAMPION: Correct.
PERRINE: -- than Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark. They are standing, like Caitlin Clark, she had to stand there and not, what was it? She didn't get MVP -- she didn't get something and they were like, all these cameras in her face and she's a young 20-something woman and she's like, it makes me want to be better. I want to be a better player. This is -- our political leaders could learn more from these two women being able to stand, oh, I think so, because you know what --
JENNINGS: I don't know. I want our political leaders to make more --
(CROSSTALK)
PERRINE: Come on, they put it aside and they focus on the win.
SELLERS: One more layer to this discussion because Caitlin Clark just -- she burns my soul.
PHILLIP: Does she now?
SELLERS: And I have to admit that because of the simple fact that I'm --
(CROSSTALK)
SELLERS: I'm a huge South Carolina Game Girl fan and Don Staley is like Jesus, Martin Luther King and Don Staley in my household. But I will say this, Caitlin Clark has done an amazing job at handling the scrutiny and handling the press.
[22:50:02]
And one of the layers that I will add on to this, and it's a little bit different from the way we discuss race in American politics, is that the men who discuss the WNBA, specifically Shannon Sharp and Stephen A. Smith, just don't know shit about women's basketball. And when you have that layer of anti-intellectual debate that manifests itself within this discussion, it makes it a cancer.
And so yeah, we're having these debates, and so it's not just Scott talking about that she got scratched in the eye or what did you say?
CHAMPION: Stabbed. She was stabbed.
(CROSSTALK)
SELLERS: Stabbed in the eye.
(CROSSTALK)
SELLERS: But when you're having these robust discussions about who was the best player in the WNBA or WNBA MVP voting or who should be in the WNBA finals, and you have these people who just don't know about it but are inserting themselves in the conversation, it provides for a more cancerous narrative than we deserve.
HILL: And to add on to that, Bakari, we also should mention that Angel Reese has -- had to be subjected to an incredible amount of racist abuse because of this rivalry.
CHAMPION: Yes. Yes.
(CROSSTALK)
SELLERS: Now I got to defend Kim Mulkey and Angel Reese.
(CROSSTALK)
HILL: I didn't say Kim Mulkey.
CHAMPION: I think both of these ladies, I think both of the camps, I think camps that love Angel Reese and camps that love Caitlin Clark have been especially nasty to both of these young ladies while trying to defend them.
HILL: Yes. It's disgusting.
CHAMPION: And what they're doing is co-opting their own issues and their beliefs and they're putting them on these young ladies. And that's when I said, they were all -- it was already decided that Caitlin was gonna be America's darling and that villain -- and that Angel Reese was gonna be a villain based on how she conducts herself and based on the way she -- SELLERS: Until she ran (inaudible) game clocks last year than Raven Johnson.
PHILLIP: It's a typecast that fits very conveniently into how society wants to see.
CHAMPION: Of course. It's the same thing with Larry Bird and Magic Johnson.
PERRINE: I think your point about projection is right.
CHAMPION: But it helps the sport.
PERRINE: You need the inertia.
CHAMPION: You need the competitive.
PERRINE: You need the story.
CHAMPION: You need the storyline. You need people to fight (ph).
HILL: I just -- can come with toxicity.
CHAMPION: But that's what this country is built on, young friend.
HILL: It is built on toxicity.
PERRINE: I think your point about projection is right. People are looking at this as a projection of themselves, and they support one side or the other. The WNBA is having one of their most successful seasons. Women's sport is on the rise, whether it's basketball or soccer.
CHAMPION: Yes. Yes.
PERRINE: And there are two young women in this country who are standing up and facing the most scrutiny.
CHAMPION: And they like each other.
PERRINE: And they like each other.
CHAMPION: And you know what's going to happen?
PERRINE: Let's celebrate women's sports and women's success.
CHAMPION: They live at the intersection of unity and also peace because they do enjoy one another.
PERRINE: They like each other.
JENNINGS: We're going to get chaos and goggles. That's all I'm saying.
(LAUGHTER) (CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: The chaos agents.
(LAUGHTER)
JENNINGS: There are real dangers out there.
PHILLIP: Everybody hold on. Coming up next, our panel's gonna give us their nightcaps, including a couple of provocative takes on dudes in this election.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:55:00]
PHILLIP: We are back and it's time for the NewsNight Cap. You each have 30 seconds to say your piece. Bakari, you're up.
SELLERS: Oh, this is a natural segue. Shout out to my girl, Aja Wilson, who is the WNBA MVP, aka is a winning right now. So that may bode well for another AKA going into the White House. I know you all know that might not make sense, but let me believe what I want to believe.
(LAUGHTER)
PHILLIP: Okay. I know that they're related to this. Go ahead, Scott.
JENNINGS: I wanted to take this opportunity as a spokesperson for white dudes to address the white dudes for Harris guys. It's not great. The video they put out, you ever seen the office where prison Mike comes out?
SELLERS: Oh yes.
JENNINGS: So the guy narrating the white dudes for Harris video sounds like what he thinks like a white dude might sound like, but he's not -- he not actually doesn't know. Just like Michael Scott was never in prison. I just wanted to give them some advice. It's not working. The guy you put on CNN today, Lord have mercy. I just -- look, I'm not for Harris, but I'm gonna give you some advice. Go back to the drawing board.
(LAUGHTER)
PHILLIP: White dudes can come to Scott Jennings for lessons.
SELLERS: Seems to me he wasn't white enough. I've never heard that before.
PHILLIP: Okay, all right.
HILL: Well, speaking of calls on behalf of Kamala Harris, there was one that Cari and I were on today. It was Athletes for Kamala Harris. And one thing that I have written about for "The Atlantic" is what happened to all the athlete activism that we saw in 2020 after the unfortunate murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery. You had athletes out there on the front lines. You had them picketing, you had them very engaged, very involved.
LeBron James started more than a vote, and now it's 2024, and I would argue this election is even more important than that last one, and they are crickets. It was great to be amongst them on the call. We had Magic Johnson, Steve Kerr, Greg Popovich. But it would be great if some younger athletes --
PHILLIP: Interesting.
HILL: -- and a lot of young --
PHILLIP: To be fair, Stephen Curry --
HILL: He did come out and endorsed her.
PHILLIP: -- he came out and make an endorsement, so, facts.
HILL: And Draymond Green, who is not normally politically -- somebody who speaks up, he has also given his endorsement.
PERRINE: But you want to see more.
HILL: But it needs to be a lot more to get other young people engaged in this election.
PHILLIP: Point taken. All right. Erin?
PERRINE: My hot take is that dudes are the battleground of the election. And it seems weird, but when you look at it, Kamala is performing roughly about 30 points ahead of Donald Trump nationally when it comes to women, and 20, 30 points. When you look at that, she's only just a few points ahead on men. She needs to -- what Donald Trump is able to do right now is bring in more male voters, and it's clear that they're both doing it, not only with white dudes for Harris or dudes for Harris, but also, you're seeing her put ads up on TV on MLB games and NFL games.
[22:59:59]
You're seeing Donald Trump do these podcasts. You're seeing him go to a Bitcoin bar. There is a concerted effort because at the end of the day, that little demographic there of guys, that could be the shift that makes this election.
PHILLIP: I think that's a very important point. Cari?
CHAMPION: I want to talk about one dude by the name of Woj. He gives out Woj bombs. He just announced that he was leaving ESPN, Adrian Wojnarowski. He left $20 million on the table. He said time is not an endless supply. He wants to spend time with his family. I don't know many people in our business and or this discipline that will leave $20 million dollars on the table.
He was burnt out, a lesson in leaving. You love what you do but when we do it to the point where we give so much every single day it can burn you out and I think it's incredibly insightful. SELLERS: He also ain't married to my wife.
CHAMPION: Oh, cause you got to say!
PHILLIP: Thank you so much. Thanks for watching "CNN NewsNight: State of the Race." "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
