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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Trump Calling Senators Directly to Lobby for Gaetz and A.G.; Lawyer Says, Client Witnessed Gaetz Having Sex With a Minor; Trump Confirms Use of Military on U.S. Soil for Deportations. MSNBC's "Morning Joe" Hosts Meet With President-Elect Trump To Restart Communications. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired November 18, 2024 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[22:00:08]
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR (voice over): Tonight, the accusers and the man who wants to be Attorney General.
JOEL LEPPARD, LAWYER FOR WOMAN WHO TESTIFIED AGAINST GAETZ ABOUT SEX ALLEGATIONS: Representative Gaetz paid both of my clients for sexual favors.
BERMAN: Why damning new allegations against Matt Gaetz are not deterring Donald Trump.
Plus, the president-elect's critics warned he would use the American military on American soil. And now Trump confirms it.
Also, ring-kissing and knee bending and who knows what else. Joe and I went to Mar-a-Lago to meet personally with President-elect Trump. Joe Scarborough's efforts to chill the air achieved something rare, bipartisan blowback.
And --
HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: Yes, Trump has won the popular vote, but it ain't all that, my dear friend.
BERMAN: Does size matter when it comes to the MAGA mandate?
Live at the table, Scott Jennings, Julie Roginsky, Marc Lotter and Chuck Rocha.
Americans with different perspectives are not talking to each other, but here, they do.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BERMAN (on camera): All right. Good evening. Abby is out. I'm John Berman. You might know me from a cable morning show, though not the one that might soon have a defense secretary who paid a woman that accused him of sexual assault, nor the one that just sent two anchors to Mar-a- Lago, then talked about it like it was the Yalta summit.
Now, I co-host a morning show here on CNN that starts in like ten minutes. So, let's get right to what America is talking about. Phoning his friends, tonight Donald Trump is dialing for a vote. He wants Senators to support Matt Gaetz to confirm him as the next attorney general, even as they watch and listen to vivid accusations about what Gaetz allegedly did to women, pay for sex, and engage in sex with a minor.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LEPPARD: She was invited to a party in July of 2017. She testified to the house that as she was walking out to the pool area, she turned to her right and she witnessed her client -- I'm sorry her friend having sex with representative Gaetz, and her friend at that time was 17.
ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR: So did -- does your client have any idea as to whether Matt Gaetz knew about the age --
LEPPARD: She testified, yes, so she testified to the house that Representative Gaetz did not know her friend's age at the time they had sexual intercourse. And when he found out about her age that Representative Gaetz stopped having sexual intercourse with her and he only started the sexual intercourse interactions later on once she turned 18.
BURNETT: So, then it continued again?
LEPPARD: That's correct.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: That's on top apparently of testimony from two women who say that Gaetz paid them for sex. You know, if only there were a bipartisan investigation and report from elected officials looking into some of these things that could get to the bottom of it.
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. Well, there is the House Ethics Committee, I guess, and they're going to meet Wednesday and discuss whether the report will come out. My view is whether they vote to release it or not, the information is already coming out. Whatever else is in there is highly likely to come out. And so, you know, that's what happens in a confirmation situation. You get the pre-hearing vetting and investigation, and then he'll have to sit at the table and answer questions about all of this.
And, of course, in the Senate, there's 53 Republicans, so you can only lose three and still maintain your hold on the confirmation. A fourth one would sink it if it comes to that.
JULIE ROGINSKY, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: All right. So, as the woman at the table here, who actually runs a nonprofit dedicated to fighting sexual harassment and sexual misconduct, I will tell you that the fish kind of rots from the top. And all these Republican senators who are aghast, and not just Republican senators, all these Republicans who are aghast, aghast at Matt Gaetz.
I mean, Donald Trump is an adjudicated sexual predator. He is. And he paid off with an NDA an adult film star. And apparently that was okay because they all endorsed him. So, now for them to all get the vapors about Matt Gaetz, what did they expect was going to happen when they all fell in line behind an adjudicated sexual assailant? Of course, he was going to put guys like this in place. Of course he was going to try to make the cabinet in his own image.
And that's exactly what's happening with Gaetz. It's apparently what's happening with Pete Hegseth, my old colleague at Fox News.
[22:05:00]
This is going to happen time and time and time again because Donald Trump just gave the middle finger to everybody who opposed him and said, you know what, the American people elected me anyway, so I'm going to do what I want. And that's what he's doing right now.
CHUCK ROCHA, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST AND FOUNDER, NUESTRO PAC: All I'm going to say is somebody owes Madison Cawthorn an apology because you all ran him out of town. He tried to tell you all about these sex parties, but nobody wanted to believe him. And I'm not making light of this situation, but I remember when I heard the craziness coming from Madison Cawthorn, I was like, now that don't seem quite right. But then hearing it confirmed today, I'm like, he was right all along and nobody wanted to listen.
What I'm thinking about now is I think about hearing all this craziness that we've gotten used to every day. And, look, I'm going to go sit right next to my friend, Scott, and he's going to tell me that Donald Trump won and the American people have spoken. He's right, but I don't think they voted for this. I think they voted for lower gas and groceries. I don't think they voted for this crazy.
ROGINSKY: They did though, because they knew about it. That's the part that kills me. The American people --
ROCHA: But he still won. You can't deny that.
ROGINSKY: I'm not denying that at all. I'm a damn Democrat too. And I'm telling you right now that, unfortunately, people knew what they were getting into. They got into it. And if I'm Donald Trump, I'm looking at these senators right now and kind of rightfully saying you guys all supported me. You're all on my side. All of you bent the knee to me. You all run down to Mar-a-Lago.
JENNINGS: The trouble with this argument though is there a number of members of the Senate who are unthreatenable, not necessarily huge fans of Trump, and are highly likely to find some pleasure or political use in bucking him on any number of things. It could be a nomination. I'm at the public count six or seven right now. And, again, you can only lose three. So it's different than the House. And, yes, most of them are strong supporters of Trump.
The truth is, there's a handful that just aren't. You know, maybe they're not running again, maybe they're in states where it would behoove them to go against Trump on something, and that's something he's going to have to tangle with.
BERMAN: So, hang on one second, Marc. I want to play Maggie Haberman, who was just on CNN a short while ago, our friend, Maggie, who has a sense of what Trump thinks, or where Trump thinks his nomination is right now. Let's listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAGGIE HABERMAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Privately, he has said in discussions with people that he thinks that Gaetz's chances of getting confirmed are, you know, the odds are less than 50 percent or less than even. But he is still going to push ahead with it and he is digging in and I expect that is going to be the posture for as long as he can hold it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: Why?
MARC LOTTER, FORMER STRATEGIC COMMS DIRECTOR, TRUMP 2020 CAMPAIGN: Well, you still -- you're going to run this out until it becomes very clear. Until you have at least those four senators who come out and say, I'm not voting for him, then you start to move on.
The one thing we know, look, and to Scott's point, I'm not sure the House Ethics Committee will release this report, but Washington leaks worse than the Titanic. It will end up in somebody's hands, maybe here at CNN or somewhere else, before that nomination ever gets to the floor. And I think when that happens, you will start to see the rats jump off the ship and we'll see if he actually gets through.
BERMAN: Just sit back up for a second here. As I may have mentioned, I anchor a morning show occasionally. And, Scott, you all come on it from time to time. And I remember you telling me the day or two after the election that what was different this time about cabinet nominations is everyone wants the job, right? He can have whatever he wants, because all the qualified people want to play this time. So, by that reasoning, roughly half the lawyers in America would be attorney general if he asked, and he's going after the sex party guy?
JENNINGS: Well, look, Gaetz, and he have had a relationship. They've been -- Gaetz has been a loyal supporter of his. And some of these nominations --
BERMAN: Can and should are different things. I'm asking about the difference between can and should here.
JENNINGS: Well, I mean, we'll see if he makes that. I mean, it sounds like he's even admitting privately that he may not make it. But a few of these picks were squarely designed to send a message to Washington D.C., which is I'm just not going to do it the way you want me to do it, whether that's Gaetz, who I put in a soul, a wholly different category, or Gabbard, or Hegseth, who I think is going to make it, by the way, it's my view, even RFK. I mean, some of these picks were designed to thumb his nose at Washington D.C. And to say I was not elected to go along to get along. I was elected to shake things up and to put in different kinds of people.
Now, whether they all make it is a different story, but that's obviously the reach he's going --
ROGINSKY: I think, actually, to use a Generation X reference that I know you will understand, Scott, these were actually designed to kneel before Zod, right? These were designed to make Republicans kneel before Zod. The only reason he's putting up totally unqualified people, aside from the fact that they're going to do everything he says, is to show the Senate and the House that he can do whatever he wants and that they're a co-equal branch of government no more. It is designed to see who the loyalists are. And I guarantee you, maybe they'll throw -- maybe there'll be one --
JENNINGS: But don't they already know? I mean, in the Senate, it's pretty obvious who's for you and against you (ph). I mean, it's not hard math to do.
ROGINSKY: He's going to push and push and push Markwayne Mullin last week, two weeks ago. Matt Gaetz is the worst person on Earth, yesterday or the day before. Well, actually I'm going to let the president make the decision he has to make. I mean, come on, he's basically pushing you guys, not you specifically, but everybody in the Senate and the House, to see how far he can push them in order to show that he has control over a co-equal branch of government.
LOTTER: Generally speaking --
ROGINSKY: That's how authoritarians work.
LOTTER: -- the Senate, regardless of who's in the White House or what party is in the White House or what party is in the Senate, they generally at least send one person packing for every new administration --
[22:10:05]
ROGINSKY: You mean Trump?
LOTTER: Going all the way back, there's usually always one that does not make it through the vetting and going all the way through. It's almost the Senate exercising its constitutional legs going, hey, we're in the Constitution for this and you still have to --
JENNINGS: I would just also -- I know these guys are getting all the headlines. I think most of the people Trump has picked are perfectly fine and they're going to sail, Doug Burgum, Marco Rubio, people like that, they're going to sail.
BERMAN: Because the thing is that when you pick an accused sex trafficker, sometimes it overshadows some of the other things. I mean, that's just what happens. That's the nature of it. And I will say, Zod did get his hand crushed, right?
JENNINGS: He chucked down the -- whatever,
BERMAN: It didn't end well for Zod.
ROGINSKY: It took all of Superman 2 together.
BERMAN: So, Chuck, you know, can Trump -- what happens if he loses Gaetz? Does it leave a stink?
ROCHA: I don't think so. And I also don't think Gaetz doesn't get it because of a sex scandal. I think Gaetz specifically doesn't get this because he's an asshole to people and people in the Senate don't like him. And to Scott's point --
BERMAN: Zod had the same problem.
ROCHA: Wait. To Scott's point, they only elected, follow you at home every six years. Some of them don't really care. And it's the Senate, all 100 of them, think they should be president, let it be Democrat or Republican. So, I think that's the reason because he has attacked a lot of them personally on Twitter is why he don't get it.
JENNINGS: He had problems apart from this political problems. But, again, I think he's in a totally separate category the rest all still I think have a fight.
ROCHA: Do you think he did this one to make the rest of them look normal? That's my question. Because if they was up against him without us talking about Matt Gaetz, we'd all be going, well --
ROGINSKY: The one we should be worried about is Tulsi Gabbard. The rest are (INAUDIBLE).
BERMAN: Well, look, I mean they had all other kinds of people from Fox News they could have picked for attorney general, and they said, we're on Matt Gaetz.
All right, everyone stick around for a minute here. There is a lot more to discuss. Donald Trump confirms he will use American military on U.S. soil. A special guest will join our fifth seat.
Plus, after spending the better part of a decade saying Trump should be nowhere near the Oval Office, the hosts of Morning Joe, they're suddenly ready to make nice and they're being kind of mocked from all sides.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:15:00]
BERMAN: If I had an early checklist and a Donald Trump promise, the president-elect confirming that he will start deportations on day one and key pieces of his plan to do it. The military on American soil, check. A national emergency declaration, also check. Joining us now in our fifth seat at the table is Iraq war veteran and co-founder of American Veterans for Ukraine, Paul Rieckhoff, Iraq War Veteran. Great to see you, Paul.
PAUL RIECKHOFF, IRAQ WAR VETERAN: You too, sir.
BERMAN: So, what do you think about that, Donald Trump saying, yes, U.S. troops on U.S. soil dealing with immigration?
RIECKHOFF: It's a guardrail moment for America. There's nothing more sacred or more serious that you could ask an American service member to do than deploy opposite American civilians. It is really a sacred and terrifying prospect for anybody who's been in uniform.
I've been to combat. You could send me to Iraq, but to stand me across from American protesters and situations like we've seen across America is wrought with a tremendous burden you're going to put on men and women in uniform.
So, it has to be approached with the utmost seriousness. And, obviously, there's no General Milley there now to stop a deployment like this. So, we'll find out if the secretary of defense is confirmed and how the senior leadership and the Joint Chiefs respond to it. But I think every American should be extremely cautious about anybody who says they want to deploy American troops on U.S. soil.
JENNINGS: Number one, they're not being deployed against American citizens are being deployed against the illegal immigration population, which, by the way, I think most people would agree is a national emergency, a national security emergency. Number two, for years, we've been deploying the National Guard to the --
RIECKHOFF: Wildfires.
JENNINGS: To the border.
RIECKHOFF: Wildfires.
JENNINGS: No, to the border.
RIECKHOFF: In small numbers. This is a very different thing.
JENNINGS: Many state --
RIECKHOFF: You can't deploy them to --
JENNINGS: You got to make your speech.
RIECKHOFF: Is it a debate with you or am I answering questions with the host. Because every time I come on, you want to sidetrack and take me into your talking point.
JENNINGS: By all means, have at it, my friend. You're the expert. Have at it.
RIECKHOFF: No, I'm no expert. I'm just a concerned American. JENNINGS: You act like one. Have we or have we not sent the National --
RIECKHOFF: Have you served in uniform?
JENNINGS: I have served as a United States citizen and have read the --
RIECKHOFF: In this case, I might have a bit of experience that you don't. I'm no expert.
JENNINGS: Have you been to the border?
RIECKHOFF: I have not been to the border.
JENNINGS: Oh, so you're --
RIECKHOFF: (INAUDIBLE) not been deployed to the border.
JENNINGS: Go ahead, by all means, have at it.
BERMAN: Regular military -- is there something different about having regular military at the border? I'm asking.
LOTTER: Well, absolutely. I think we have to remember too, though, he did this in his first term. He declared a national emergency to unlock DOD resources, which could be used then to construct the wall. And so by declaring a national emergency, he can then activate military, not just -- not like personnel, but also resources, whether that is constructing encampments, using military flights, using other means to get these illegal immigrants out of our country.
RIECKHOFF: Yes, the idea that any of that's going to happen in abstract without protesters and other Americans getting involved is delusional. I mean, if you go into any American city and start setting up encampments to put whoever in there you want, there are going to be citizens who are going to protest, there are going to be journalists, there are going to be a multitude of fraught and really daunting challenges for a 19-year-old holding a weapon in an American street. That is something --
JENNINGS: What's the alternative? To let the crisis continue?
ROGINSKY: Wait a second.
RIECKHOFF: It's not deploy the 82nd or let the crisis continue. There are plenty of middle grounds. And, by the way, our military has got plenty of other priorities they need to focus on in addition to these.
JENNINGS: I mean, I would just tell you that the election results tell me the priority that the American people want focused on is illegal immigration.
(CROSSTALKS)
JENNINGS: They want this solved now. RIECKHOFF: They want to solve it. They don't want the 82nd Airborne dropping into New York City (INAUDIBLE) migrants.
JENNINGS: I think you're getting a little dramatic.
RIECKHOFF: Am I?
ROGINSKY: I have a shelter in my neighborhood, actually, right in my neighborhood, on the upper west side of Manhattan.
[22:20:04]
There is a shelter that houses undocumented immigrants. And I can guarantee you, I can promise you with every fiber of my being, because I'll probably be one of those people, that if anybody comes for these people and tries to drag them out by force, there will be protests of people like me, American citizens, who are going to stand there and do everything possible to prevent these women and children, which is all who these people are.
LOTTER: How about the criminals? How about the terrorists? How about the convicted criminals?
ROGINSKY: Stop. How do you know who it is?
RIECKHOFF: How do you sort through them?
LOTTER: That's the problem. I don't know who it is.
ROGINSKY: Stop. I'm sorry, I live next to these people. I can tell you they are women and they are children. Are there terrorists among them? I don't know. But I can tell you --
LOTTER: And neither does the government, which is why we have to figure this out.
ROGINSKY: Okay. But what I'm telling you right now, practically speaking, is that there will be people, American citizens, who will prevent these little kids from being dragged out of these shelters. There are.
And what's going to happen to these people? What is going to happen to the military when the military opens fire on us?
JENNINGS: But no one's -- can I just say --
BERMAN: Hang on a sec, Chuck.
JENNINGS: We're way down a rabbit hole here.
BERMAN: Because you have ran and won races for some Democrats in some border states or helped run and won some races. What do you think the mandate is?
ROCHA: I think the mandate is that you got to separate some of this. You know, I've been doing campaigns for almost 38 years. My grandparents came here from Mexico. I deal with them. Two of my business partners are immigrants. And, yes, I got to work for Ruben Gallego in Arizona. We talked about the border and I was there from day one with Ruben. Ruben is a Marine combat veteran who saw some stuff in overseas that I never want to comprehend that he fought for me, right?
This morning in my own building, in my own group of -- in my staff meeting, let me put it this way, I'm sorry to get dramatic, but we had to have a meeting this morning because one of my employees, who is an immigrant, she's been here since she was six years old, she doesn't smoke, she doesn't drink, she had no criminal record and she's against her religion to even say anything bad.
We had to figure out what we would do when her TPS expires in March. If she has to self-deport, when she went to school here, she's been educated here. She is the finest human beings I've ever met. That doesn't mean that every single person who comes here, Scott, is perfect but I'm just saying we have to separate some of this and think about this in different ways.
RIECKHOFF: The challenge of sorting through them is mammoth. We had a hard time doing it in Iraq, okay? Our troops have had a hard time doing it in Afghanistan, trying to ask them to sort through who's who and implement a policy like this, hold on, here in the United States is like nothing we've ever seen. I mean, hold on. Maybe the only precedent we have is internment camps during world war two against Japanese-Americans. But there's not a military precedent for sorting through the who on the upper east side is an illegal and who's not.
And you're asking a 19-year-old, right, holding a weapon, who signed up to serve his or her country, to thrust themselves into maybe the most fraught political topic that we've got in this country. People want a solution, but they don't necessarily want that one.
JENNINGS: You've twice now insinuated that Trump's going to send the military to round up American citizens, which is totally false. There are 1.3 to 1.6 million illegal immigrants in this country today who have already received deportation orders from a court. You can start there.
There's another population, as Marc said, that have either committed violent crimes in the United States or committed violent crimes where they came from. You can also do that. That has nothing to do with the people in your neighborhood, has nothing to do with the person in your office, and has nothing to do with whatever the hell you're talking about. It has to do with getting people out of the country who do not belong here.
RIECKHOFF: And how are you going to deploy the military? Give me how exactly you would deploy an active duty military unit to respond to this crisis?
JENNINGS: I would use the military in conjunction with local officials, local law enforcement, county sheriffs, people who know their communities, because I assume a lot of the local sheriffs and jailers are going to be the people who end up housing some of these folks before they are deported. But there has to be some --
RIECKHOFF: So, what's the tasking purpose? What's the mission for that young private? What is actually going to be tasked to guard? A gate? Or is he going to be investigating?
JENNINGS: I don't know. I wasn't elected president.
RIECKHOFF: But you're sitting here on CNN saying we should do it. I mean, you should think out a little bit more about what they actually should required to do, because it sounds real good.
BERMAN: One at a time. One at a time. Scott, quickly,
JENNINGS: There are millions of people who came into the country illegally who have already received deportation orders or who have committed some other crime while they've been here. The fact that you want to leave them in place is mindboggling to me.
RIECKHOFF: That is not what I said. That is not what I said.
BERMAN: Let me ask the same question I asked Chuck. What was the mandate from the election? As much as any issue, immigration was on the ballot. So, what do you think the voters were saying on immigration?
RIECKHOFF: I think the voters were saying, do something about it. I think broadly across partisan lines, there is almost universal need for people to do something about it. What you do about it is a totally different story.
Can I finish before you guys are going to jump in? I know this is like the normal thing around here, but I'm trying to have a conversation without getting cut in half every time. The question becomes, what are you actually going to give them as a military assignment? Are they going to be guards on a gate? Are they going to be M.P.s doing checkpoints? Are they going to be doing crowd control against civilians who are protesting? Are they going to be JAG officers sorting through legal cases?
What they actually are assigned to do is very important. And when that's put before the American people, I think we can find out what they do and don't support.
[22:25:03]
BERMAN: All right, last point?
LOTTER: And that's what my point was, and we use the military all the time on floods, on other kinds of dangerous situations. And I have a feeling, I don't know to be true, but you're going to have the same theory, which is federal support of state and local leadership.
You also have an entire agency in ICE that does this for a living. That's their job. And I could see an area where the military is in a support role, whether it's on the border or in with these agencies or local officials. BERMAN: Does that sound more along the lines of what you're thinking about?
RIECKHOFF: I mean, it's a lot of augmenting and supporting without any specifics around what they'd actually do, right? If ISIS is also designed and has expertise in doing this, what is the military occupational specialty that has expertise in this area? What are we talking about? We're talking about people are going to feed people that they can do well. Are we talking about truck drivers? They can do that.
The military is a very vast organization and we've got to get a lot more specific before we start talking about putting them in any place on American soil.
BERMAN: Maybe some questions that will be answered over the next couple months.
Thank you for helping us, Paul Rieckhoff. I appreciate you being here.
Everyone else, hang on. Next, bipartisan backlash after Morning Joe's hosts told their viewers they met with the president-elect. Another special guest joins us in our fifth seat to discuss.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:30:00]
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: So, tonight, a lesson in eating crow. Think of the person in your life, maybe a former friend, whom you trash-talk nearly non-stop. Now, think of all the things you would have to say to that person to repair that relationship.
That's basically what Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski are in the middle of doing with Donald Trump. The morning talk show co-hosts did kind of the Kevin McCarthy and went to Mar-a-Lago. This is their telling of what happened.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MIKA BRZEZINSKY, "MORNING JOE" CO-HOST: In this meeting, President Trump was tearful, he was upbeat, he seemed interested in finding common ground with Democrats on some of the most divisive issues.
And for those asking why we would go speak to the President-elect during such fraught times, especially between us, I guess I would ask back, why wouldn't we? Joe and I realize it's time to do something different. And that starts with not only talking about Donald Trump but also talking with him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: Joining us now at the table is Jeff Jarvis, a journalism professor and author of "The Guttenberg Parentheses. Jeff, nice to see you.
JEFF JARVIS, JOURNALISM PROFESSOR AND AUTHOR, "THE GUTTENBERG PARENTHESIS": Good to see you, John.
BERMAN: How do you like this healing moment?
JARVIS: You know, it was only two weeks ago today that Joe Scarborough was calling Donald Trump a fascist. And I was grateful for that, because he had the courage to do that, when "The New York Times" and "The Washington Post" and CNN and NPR did not face the fascism at the door.
And now, it's inside and he goes and visits. And what's so upsetting about that is obviously I've identified myself now as a liberal, and NBC was kind of all we had. "The New York Times" and "The Washington Post" has angered liberals tremendously through the coverage.
CNN tries to be balanced and do this. MSNBC was the last liberal outpost of media. And I know you might start laughing at me, "The New York Times", "The Washington Post", the liberal will disagree about that. But MSNBC was that. And there was no good reason to go and pay obeisance in advance.
Nothing journalistic came out of this visit. They came and it was all off the record. Oh, we're going to ask them for an interview. Well, obviously Trump's going to want the airtime. That's fine. No value came. And they went on bended knee. And it was, I think, in the end a betrayal of the staff at MSNBC who do still criticize Donald Trump, who now feel that they are in some jeopardy because of that, because he has threatened the press.
And so, I think that it was a bad moment for Joe and Mika. And I'm going to think that MSNBC for now, for me, starts about 4 P.M.
CHUCK ROCHA, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST AND FOUNDER, NUESTRO PAC: I'm the opposite of the professor at the table in so many ways, start by my accent, but we'll just say that I think it's got a lot more political to it, a lot more common sense. I think Joe and Mika just don't want to be audited, so they showed up down there just like I did the day after the election in a big red town.
CNN, going, look Don, I said a lot of things, but I don't want you looking at my taxes, so maybe we can make up a little bit. So, I'm just saying maybe it's a little more elementary than that, I don't know what on the collegiate level.
JULIE ROGINSKY, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: All right.
MARC LOTTER, FORMER STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR, TRUMP 2020 CAMPAIGN: The thing that makes me, this is so hilarious me is reverse this. You know, if "Fox and Friends" had gone and talked to Joe Biden and said, oh, he's not mentally declined, he's actually a wonderful president, every left would love them. Oh, they finally come to their senses. The right would eviscerate them. I'm just glad the left --
JARVIS: Could you imagine that ever happening in any universe? But that's the thing.
LOTTER: I can't imagine. I can't imagine Mika and Joe or anybody on MSNBC something that's saying anything that's actually journalism and or anything close to it. It's a leftist rag.
ROGINSKY: All right, do you remember Superman two?
UNKNOWN: Oh, here we go.
UNKNOWN: Before Zod.
ROGINSKY: When he showed up -- when Zod showed up to the White House and the president knelt before Zod to save humanity.
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, the first one didn't. The first one wasn't --
ROGINSKY: The first one wasn't the real president.
JENNINGS: No one who would kneel so quickly could possibly lead so many.
ROGINSKY: Exactly. Thank you very much. Thank you. But the real president did --
UNKNOWN: This is not what I expected --
ROGINSKY: Because he said, because he said, I will do it to save humanity. These guys aren't doing it to save humanity. They preemptively went to Krypton and knelt before Zod. Why are you doing this?
UNKNOWN: Ratings?
ROGINSKY: You know why. I know why.
UNKNOWN: That's not how to get your ratings.
ROGINSKY: It's not about ratings.
JENNINGS: I'm amazed. I did not expect Hitler to get so many meeting requests. First from Joe Biden, now from Mika and Joe. It's amazing that literally, Hitler is getting all these meeting requests. And what it tells me, Professor, is that all the rhetoric that came from the left, from the Democrats, from the White House, from Kamala Harris and everyone else before the election.
All of the rhetoric, the fascism, the Hitler, the Nazi rally, it was all a bunch of BS. They didn't mean any of it. And if I were in the Democrat sort of rabble's shoes, I would be looking at all my leaders and going, did you just BS me for an entire six weeks before the election?
JARVIS: I just reread -- I just reread Hannah Arendt's "The Origins of Totalitarianism" and I cannot tell you how relevant it is to today. What has gone on in totalitarian regimes before is what is happening in this country right now. It is fascism.
His generals called him fascist. Joe Scarborough called him fascist. And now, the fascist is in charge. And it is journalism's job to cover it that way, not to back off and say, okay, well, that's it. We lost. Let the fascism happen. No.
ROGINSKY: It says a lot more actually, Scott, about them than it does about their beliefs because they believe it. They just don't care because they believe in their own careers more and that's the part that's disgusting to me.
BERMAN: So, I was joking during the break that I'm going to recuse myself from this discussion because I may have mentioned, I do host a morning show, a cable morning show that competes with Joe Scarborough. So, I don't want to seem like this is sour grapes.
But I'm going to quote from broadcast news and say, you know, let's never forget, this is about us, not them. There was an element of that from them going down there. And then to treat it, I called it the Yalta Conference, to treat it like it was the Yalta Summit somehow, more like Reykjavik, like there's somehow these exalted high elected officials. Again, I'm recusing myself, so I'm not commenting on it. I'm just noting it, Professor, it's noted.
JARVIS: Yes, and they acted as if they were doing us a big favor and nothing of value came out of it. They acted a little bit like they were kind of caught and had to confess it going in. And again, I think that they didn't really think about their colleagues.
One colleague, I think very bravely, sub-tweeted and said that one should not normalize, even though Joe said he was normalizing. Katie Phang did that, and I respect her immensely for the courage to do that. I wonder what all the other MSNBC hosts must have been saying as they sat at home and did a spit take trying to figure out what to do now.
And it puts, I think, them all in a difficult position. Yes, the ratings are down on MSNBC. The ratings, I think, here are down, too. I don't think that's because it was liberal or conservative. I think it's because we're all exhausted. We're terribly tired. But we also need journalists to be able to represent our interests and to cover what's happening and not kiss the ring.
JENNINGS: Is it -- can I go back to that something you started. Is it your view that MSNBC is the only correct journalism of Donald Trump until this moment? Because you cast aspersions on "The Times", "The Post", CNN. You seem to indicate that they gave Trump more coverage or normalized coverage than he was due. Is it your belief that MSNBC was the only people doing it right?
JARVIS: No, I didn't say that. What I will say, what I've written in the Columbia Journalism Review, is that "The New York Times" engaged in both sides in insane washing and I think trying to prove to their liberal readers that you don't own us. So, if we piss you off enough, then we prove that we're not liberal.
JENNINGS: You mean in journalism or on the opinion page?
JARVIS: Both. Both.
LOTTER: I just have a real hard time, you know, with an entire liberal media outlet that ran cover for Joe Biden and his mental and cognitive decline for four years to suddenly now try to say that, you know, they are the bastions of journalism. They hid a commander in chief. You cast your card in, you're not a journalist.
JARVIS: He did a pretty darn good job those four years.
LOTTER: You come out as a liberal or a conservative, you're not a journalist, you're an opinion host.
ROCHA: I think it's really important that we draw a contrast, and as one of those liberal rabble rousers Democrats, I will be running campaigns against Republicans for as long as they'll keep hiring me. And I've done it for a long time. And what we've done is we draw a contrast.
And I can have a debate with somebody. I'll have a debate with my friend Scott about our different philosophies to get to an endpoint where that's, say, is making America great again or doing something that we want to do to help workers, whatever that thing is.
You've got to have journalism left, right, or in the middle who calls people out, whether we were saying Joe Biden was too old or whether we're saying somebody shouldn't do this, whether Matt Gaetz should be an attorney general.
I think that's what we really are losing here is that a lot of people are taking information from so many different places now that we need folks accountable on both sides. And I think what we're saying here is that we never expected that side to be running down to the other side.
BERMAN: Well, journalists always do have a choice, right? Which is to report, right? I mean, I don't, you know, not to make it too simple, but journalists after any election, no matter what, can just go do journalism.
JARVIS: But there was no journalism by that business.
BERMAN: That's what I'm saying.
JARVIS: That's the problem with it. Nothing came out of it. They didn't inform us at all. Scarborough said, well, we're going to invite him on for an interview. Well, as if that's going to be hard, of course he'll take airtime again. They helped make him in the first place because he was on their air so often.
BERMAN: Let me just ask, how much do you think Trump liked it?
ROGINSKY: He loved it.
JENNINGS: And then when he put out his message afterward, humiliating them, it was absolutely perfect. So good job, Joe.
[22:40:01]
LOTTER: Although I think there is one good thing. Maybe we can start all talking together and not just talking at each other. Maybe listening is not a bad thing.
BERMAN: Do you see, well, look, you guys are all sitting here right now doing that conversation talking about Superman two. Do you think --
ROGINSKY: I got more.
BERMAN: Do you think there's any chance that Trump will start picking cabinet members from MSNBC instead of Fox News when he runs out of cabinet members to pick from Fox News?
ROGINSKY: Joy Reid.
JARVIS: Well, one possibility is Joe Scarborough. Maybe he wants a job.
BERMAN: All right, everyone, thank you. Jeff, thank you for coming and sitting here at this table and having a discussion. Coming up, Trump said it was huge, but his margin of election victory is shrinking. If it's smaller than other presidential margins, is it still a mandate? Let me put it this way. If it's smaller than Hillary Clinton's popular vote victory, is it still a mandate? That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:45:14]
BERMAN: It is the new Republican mantra on Capitol Hill.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R) HOUSE SPEAKER: What they've delivered with the mandate in this election is demand that we shake up the status quo.
REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): This is a mandate.
SEN. MARCO RUBIO (R-FL): Got a mandate.
UNKNOWN: Carry out the mandate that's been delivered.
SEN. MARK WAYNE MULLIN (R-OK): The American people gave us that mandate.
SEN. TED CRUZ (R- TX): Results on election day were a mandate.
REP. NANCY MACE (R-SC): I mean, this is a man who received a mandate last week. He overwhelmingly won the popular vote.
UNKNOWN: A mandate like we haven't seen, as you mentioned, in 36 years.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: But is Donald Trump's mandate really as big as they all say it is? Our Harry Enten says it's below average. Harry? HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: John, A.B., it looks like you
got your nighttime groove going on. Let's talk about Donald Trump and his recent popular vote victory over Kamala Harris.
Well, Donald Trump is now under 50 percent. And when you compare his margin in terms of percentage points against Kamala Harris to every single popular vote winner dating back the last 200 years, his victory isn't so hot to trot. Trump's rate's 44th out of 51. Dare I say, it's a little bit weak and quite a bit shallow.
But if Donald Trump's victory was shallow, it's also a bit wide when talking about the electoral map because get this, Donald Trump compared to four years ago gained in all 50 states plus the District of Columbia. No party has gained in so many places versus the prior election and presidential elections getting back all the way since Jimmy Carter's win back in 1976.
So, the bottom line is this, yes, Donald Trump's victory was a bit shallow but it was also quite wide, as well. So, a little yin and a little yang. Back to you and your wonderful panel, Mr. Berman.
BERMAN: Mr. Enten, I thank you very much. So, what do we think about this shallow wide mandate?
ROGINSKY: Listen, if he had lost the popular vote, he'd still say he had a mandate. When he lost it back in 2016, he said he had a mandate. When he lost the whole thing in 2020, he said he had a mandate and he won the election.
So, it doesn't really matter what the numbers say. He will always believe he had lost the election, he still would have said he had a mandate. He does not accept numbers and facts so he says he has a mandate, he's going to govern like he has a mandate.
LOTTER: I think it's different for one reason. We have only one Republican this century, George W. Bush in 2004 post 9-11, won the popular vote as well as the electoral college. So, I think the fact that he is doing both is a victory. And also, the 70 -- I think he's a what, 76 million votes right now is the most for a Republican president ever.
BERMAN: Why great and a curve? Why just Republicans? Aren't there Democratic presidents who sometimes get more votes and sometimes get a bigger popular vote victory?
LOTTER: Well, they do not win the -- they do not win the electoral college and lose the popular vote because you've got the People's Republic of California and here in New York they run up the score.
BERMAN: I get it. I get it. It sounds like you're --
ROGINSKY: Do we not count?
UNKNOWN: What?
ROGINSKY: Do we not count? BERMAN: Obama won more popular vote and more electoral votes and it's Republicans act like it didn't happen, like it never happened.
LOTTER: Oh, I'm not saying it didn't happen. I'm just saying when you look at Republicans because we -- the popular vote is weighted against Republicans because of California, because of New England. And they're overwhelming just blueness.
ROGINSKY: You guys used to have California, used to be a Republican state. We elect Republican governors --
LOTTER: Used to have this --
ROGINSKY: Wait a second. Republicans get elected governor of New York and governor of Massachusetts all the time. If you guys can't compete here, doesn't mean our votes are nullified or somehow not as important as anybody else's.
ROCHA: I like to say something. I brought some numbers, Scott, and my numbers are this. You all need to pay attention. Trump won 74 percent of the counties in America that have a cracker barrel, and he got 22 percent of the vote in places that have a Whole Foods. That probably checks out with me and Scott the way we think about demographics in America.
The fact is that Donald Trump swept all the battleground states. You can't deny that.
UNKNOWN: No, no, he wasn't.
ROCHA: But as he performed nationwide, our country is divided. But if I was running Donald Trump's race and if I had just won this, I would also be saying, I got a mandate.
BERMAN: I will tell you, I covered Scott's old boss, George W. Bush, when he won his first presidential election in 2000 by 500 votes in Florida. And Bush and Karl Rove got into the White House and what did they say? We have a mandate. It's what you do. It's a smart move. I don't question that for a second. I just question when you sort of make-up numbers and you make up history. Listen to Donald Trump on Thursday night.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (R): But the American people have just delivered really something very, very amazing. The biggest political victory in 129 years. My first term, they said he won the election, but they always followed by he didn't win the popular vote. And we won the popular vote by records now. Nobody can say that anymore about us. Nobody can say that.
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: He literally did not win the popular vote by records. Full screen three, if you can put this up on the screen and you can see where it ranks among popular vote victories.
[22:50:00]
In 2004, George W. Bush won by three million. In 2008, Obama won by nine million. In 2012, Obama won by 4.9 million. In 2016, we say Trump there, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by more than Donald Trump just won the popular vote. Biden won by seven million and Trump won by 2.6. So, he literally did not win it by record margins. I don't know, does it matter to you? No, he can get it wrong, it's okay, facts don't matter?
JENNINGS: Look, the discourse around the shrinking victory of Trump here is just Democrats, I think, trying to cope with what just happened in the election. He did something remarkable. He lost the popular vote twice and then he won it, which means it's rare in politics, but he was an improving commodity over a long period of time. It's very rare. So, what he did was remarkable.
I looked at the "A.P." vote cast and his job approval today, his retrospective job approval from his first term today versus what it was when he was on the ballot in 2020 went up nationally by 11 points and it went up in every single swing state. And to your point, he won every single swing state.
So, whether he wins by 2.5, 2.6, whatever, this, a little bit of that, it doesn't matter. He won the popular vote. He won the popular vote, he won the electoral college and on top of that, Republicans won the Senate and they won the House, and they do, therefore, have a legislative mandate to enact his program, and then the people will get to decide again.
ROGINSKY: The pottery barn rule. You're breaking on it, buddy.
ROCHA: I would just say not all Democrats are talking about these numbers to go just cope with what just happened. I went fishing last week, that's how I decided I would cope about it. This is what's going to happen, Democrats, they're going to overreach, they're going to try to do everything they've done, pay attention, let's draw a contrast.
BERMAN: You don't presume who I guess is a future cabinet secretary of fact -- Fox News says today. He actually said that there is a risk here of Republicans overreaching as happens in every incoming administration.
JENNINGS: Oh, I lived through the second term of George W. Bush. I mean our social security reform push, you know, fell on its face after several months. It does happen. But you can't deny he ran a campaign on a couple of issues. The economy and immigration, people voted for, now he's got a chance to perform.
BERMAN: Say you won, Say the numbers, don't make them up. That's a choice. It's a choice. All right, everyone, stay around. Next, the panel gives their night caps, including what used to be shut up and dribble is now shut up and dance.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [22:56:58]
BERMAN: All right, we're back and it's time for the "NewsNight" cap. You each have 30 seconds to say your piece. Julie you're up first.
ROGINSKY: All right my fellow Democrats, listen to me. Politics is a zero sum game. The Democrats have fallen prey to a rigid mindset that produces virtue at the expense of victory. We need to acknowledge that winning often means holding your nose and electing the lesser of two evils.
Yes, even if he or she is terrible. And my one thing, Rashida Tlaib, because I don't just have one thing I care about. I have many things I care about, some more than others. At the end, elections are not about rewarding or punishing politicians. They're about rewarding or punishing yourself. So please, please get off that couch and vote next time.
BERMAN: Chuck.
ROCHA: That's a little different. I'm going to make a bold prediction that Donald Trump gets in the way of the TikTok ban because I think that's why he won. And hear me out here, I make TV advertisements for a living.
There was billions of dollars spent on TV that nobody was watching. And every time I did a focus group, especially with young Latino men, I said, where are you getting your information? And most of them would say TikTok.
And he was, what his campaign did was very masterful in getting a message out there and doing the things I disagree with everything the man does. I disagree with his presidency. But I am a strategist, and this is what I think he does, is giving away that bam because that's how Republicans get re-elected in four years.
BERMAN: Marc?
LOTTER: Well, I'm going to-- I'm going to give an homage to my home state of Indiana - Indiana University -- horrible football program, historically. Their coach Kurt Cignetti who they hired from JMU just over the weekend gave him an eight-year, $9 million a year contract.
I looked it up, he made $677,000 a year at JMU. You talk about a guy who took a flyer on himself and said, I can go to this historically bad football program, turn it around. He does it, goes from $700,000 a year to now $9 million a year. And go Hoosiers this weekend.
BERMAN: Is he the highest paid public official in Indiana? He might be the number one public official.
LOTTER: I mean, we're a basketball state, so I'm not going to go that far.
BERMAN: That's a good point. Point taken, point taken. All right, Scott Jennings. JENNINGS: Well, I said on this network at the Republican National
Convention that the Republican Party was now the fun party. And lo and behold, I was right and apparently many pro athletes agree. From the Raiders' Brock Bowers, to the Lions' Adaria Smith, to the Titans' Calvin Ridley, to UFC fighter John Jones, to soccer's Christian Pulisic just moments ago, athletes are doing the Trump dance to celebrate their scores and wins.
And why shouldn't they? Trump is back. America is back. And once again --
UNKNOWN: Oh, we don't need to see that.
JENNINGS: It's cool to be a Republican.
UNKNOWN: We need to stand up.
JENNINGS: Chuck, Julie, I invite you to get in on it.
ROGINSKY: It is true.
JENNINGS: We're back, baby. We're back, baby.
ROGINSKY: It is true that you guys have sex parties that we cannot compete with. You definitely are the much more fun parties.
JENNINGS: I can hear the jealousy in your voice.
ROGINSKY: Oh, yes. I don't want to go to those Matt Gaetz sex parties. You're so right.
JENNINGS: It's pretty fun, right, these athletes?
BERMAN: You feel like athletes should get political, Scott? Are you saying now -- now at this point?
JENNINGS: I think -- I think it's perfectly fine that when you do something amazing like score a touchdown, that you send your signal that, hey, this is fun and we're going to have fun and you know, it's okay to show your patriotism out on the field. Why not?
[23:00:10]
BERMAN: I think dance is always appropriate. One thing I learned from Maria Von Trapp, song and dance, always appropriate.
LOTTER: At least we're not talking about kneeling during the national anthem.
ROGINSKY: Or before Zod.
BERMAN: On that note, everyone, thank you so much. And thank you for watching "NewsNight". Don't miss me tomorrow morning in 17 minutes, but before that, "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
