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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
President Biden's Pardon for Son Officially Filed in Court; Biden Accused of Undermining Democratic Defense of Justice System; Report Says, Pete Hegseth Forced Out of Roles Over Misconduct. "NewsNight" Panelists Discuss The Nomination of Pete Hegseth As DOD Secretary; Elton John Announces Losing His Eyesight. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired December 02, 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, above the law, Joe Biden puts being a father before being consistent, leapfrogging the Justice Department to deliver his son, Hunter, a pardon.
Plus, a henchman at the head of the FBI? The president-elect proposes a plan to get rid of Christopher Wray and to turn over the keys to someone who promises to weed out the deep state.
Also, strip clubs, booze, unwanted advances, Islamophobia, the New Yorker uncovers a paper trail of accusations against a top Trump cabinet pick.
And a first person account out of Allentown reveals a Pennsylvania the Harris campaign never found and the deep divisions that drove a Donald Trump win.
Live at the table, Jamaal Bowman, Scott Jennings, Leigh McGowan and Scott Taylor.
Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here, they do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP (on camera): Good evening, I'm Abby Phillip in New York.
Let's get right to what America is talking about, an inconvenient truth. Tonight, Joe Biden says that he's giving it to the American people straight, explaining why he went back on his word and pardoned his son. The president saying in a statement that justice, a verdict, by the way, that a jury rendered of Hunter Biden's guilt, wasn't really justice at all.
For my entire career, Joe Biden says, I have followed a simple principle. Just tell the American people the truth. They'll be fair minded. Here's the truth. I believe the justice system -- I believe in the justice system, but I have wrestled with this. I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice.
Now, that Joe Biden sounds very different from this Joe Biden.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let me ask you, will you accept the jury's outcome, their verdict, no matter what it is?
JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And have you ruled out a pardon for your son?
BIDEN: Yes.
I am satisfied. That I'm not going to do anything. I said I abide by the jury decision, and I will do that, and I will not pardon him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Joining us now in our fifth seat, CNN Legal Analyst Elliot Williams. He was a former deputy assistant attorney general in the Obama administration.
It is surprising to me to hear that statement from Joe Biden got through the White House, where he talks repeatedly about telling the truth. And then as you saw, we played the clip where he categorically said he had ruled it out, and now this?
ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes. You know, Abby, I really think the bigger problem here is the president saying on the record multiple times that he was not going to issue this pardon, having Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, say on the record multiple times that the pardon wasn't going to happen.
Now, look, to step back, the pardon power is probably the least restrained power that presidents of the United States have. They have all pardoned people in an icky way. You know, we can even say it's probably the ickiest of the powers the president has. Literally, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, everybody has issued at least one pardon or two that people on both sides of the aisle have disagreed with. And I think this is now becoming that one.
It's a perfectly plausible and reasonable exercise of the pardon power, if you regard it as this vast power the presidents have. The problem was that he said he wasn't going to do it, and either wasn't candid with the American people, or changed his mind on something that seemed like a no brainer and could have just stayed silent on it.
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: And not only that today, but NBC News reported that the president and his top aides met this summer and decided two things, that they were going to keep this option open, that they were going to publicly maintain that they would not pardon Hunter Biden through statements from Joe Biden and statements from the White House press secretary. They had a meeting, they coordinated the lie, I guess for political purposes, and now that he's leaving office, he is going back on what he told the American people. This isn't simply changing your mind. This is just fulfilling what you always intended to do.
No Republican is shocked that he is doing this. What I am shocked at is the duplicity of the president of the United States and his top aides to come together and form this lie and stick to it this entire time.
[22:05:00]
We all knew it was ridiculous and now the American people are seeing what a disgrace he really is.
LEIGH MCGOWAN, SOCIAL MEDIA HOST AND CONTENT CREATOR, POLITICSGIRL: I think it's incredibly rich to have you say that people got together and they were duplicitous and they created a lie.
JENNINGS: NBC News said it.
MCGOWAN: I'm saying they created a lie because, honestly, what the other side has been saying for years, what you guys ran on for president was multiple lies. I mean, If Eric Holder said it right, I think, he said if Hunter's name was Joe Smith, this case would probably have never even gone to trial, right, that it was always a political witch hunt, and it was always --
PHILLIP: But wasn't it -- to Scott's point, I mean, wasn't it a lie? I mean, you can defend it, but wasn't it a lie that he was not going to pardon his son?
MCGOWAN: No. I believe the circumstances have changed. I think that we have now have a president coming into office who's talking about firing squads, who's talking about running people around the country and making sure that everyone who his enemy is going to be punished. And Hunter Biden he lied about his drug use on a government forum when he was buying a gun. And he failed to file and pay taxes when he was a drug addict. He paid back those taxes with interest. Donald Trump himself was indicted for 17 counts of criminal tax fraud more than Hunter, and he's going to be the president of the United States.
JENNINGS: 11 years blanket pardon?
FMR. REP. SCOTT TAYLOR (R-VA): 11 years full and unconditional pardon. The laptop, on his laptop, there's been studies that showed that allegedly there were hundreds of crimes, drugs, sex -- hold on a second. You didn't do that study, right? That study was done.
MCGOWAN: But I think this is the problem. You're saying -- I know, but I think this is the problem. You're saying, alleged --
TAYLOR: Let me finish my point.
PHILLIP: Let Scott finish real quick and then you can go ahead. T AYLOR: Let me -- before you, you know, filibuster, that like the reality is a full and unconditional pardon back to what was a January 2014, just when, of course, he joined the board of Burisma.
So, in my opinion, I think you'll see more pardons. I think you'll see more pardons that are actually tied to some of the things that potentially showed that Joe Biden benefited from monies that were coming out of --
PHILLIP: Well, you know, here's where you're losing me. Here's where you're losing me.
TAYLOR: Why would I lose you?
PHILLIP: No. Here's where you're losing me.
TAYLOR: Why would I lose you?
PHILLIP: Because --
TAYLOR: It's established fact.
PHILLIP: The Trump administration had an opportunity to investigate it. They could not verify the things that you're alluding to.
JENNINGS: They tried to, and he got impeached over it. They impeached Donald Trump over the investigation that Hunter Biden has now gotten a pardon for.
PHILLIP: Scott, you don't think you -- you really think that after all this time, James Comer led an investigation, Donald Trump's Justice Department led an investigation, none of the things that you are talking about have been charged. He was charged with things and that's what he was charged with.
REP. JAMAAL BOWMAN (D-NY): So, he was charged because his name is Hunter Biden. Not because his name is Hunter Smith or Hunter Jones. This is the Republican Party targeting the son of the president.
JENNINGS: Who runs the Justice Department?
BOWMAN: Period, end the story.
JENNINGS: Who runs the Justice Department?
BOWMAN: Now, he pardoned his son, one, because it was a witch hunt to begin with. Two --
PHILLIP: I'm so shocked to hear you use the term, witch hunt, Congressman.
JENNINGS: Can we just establish the fact that --
PHILLIP: Hold on, Scott.
BOWMAN: Hold on. Let me finish. It was a witch hunt to begin with. That's why he pardoned, that's why he pardoned his son. Secondly, it's his son, he's his dad. He's going to protect him. Third, we have Donald Trump coming into office nominating people like Kash Patel to lead the FBI. This is an entirely new reality that the American people are dealing with. He needs to protect his son.
Now, let me say this. Let me also add one thing.
PHILLIP: Yes.
BOWMAN: Don't stop at Hunter Biden. Pardon the 40 people who are on death row right now to get them off of death row, number one. Number two, pardon the 3,000 people who are in federal jail for trumped up marijuana charges. Pardon them as well so they can get back to their communities and contribute to their economies. That's what the president should do.
TAYLOR: There's too many facts here, Abby.
PHILLIP: Let me just address this because I think this is one of the central critiques right now of the people defending the president. When you call this a witch hunt undermining the very Justice Department that this president leads, basically using Trump's language, which he has used to malign law enforcement during his presidency and after, two wrongs don't make a right? I mean, is that not a principle anymore?
BOWMAN: That is a principle. But when your son is clearly being targeted by another party for political reasons and they will continue to target him and others, with someone like Kash Patel and this president being in place, the Republican Party and Donald Trump, they -- forget norms, forget rules, they are changing the game as we play it. This is who they are.
(CROSSTALKS)
JENNINGS: Just a quick point of fact. The Department of Justice investigation's, indictment's into Hunter Biden, this has nothing to do with the Republican Party. They don't run the Justice Department. The Justice Department, as you might know, since you had been in the government at one time before you lost your race this year, is an agency of the executive branch. The attorney general is appointed by the president.
[22:10:00]
This is the Biden administration investigating, charging, and ultimately finding conviction of Hunter Biden. The Republican Party runs no investigation. This is an official DOJ action, is it not?
WILLIAMS: Well --
JENNINGS: Just say yes. It's okay.
WILLIAMS: No. Let me finish, please. I think you're both using hyped up rhetoric and I think two things can be true. It's unlawful conduct and charged conduct. I'm not going to call it a witch hunt. Now, based on who is charged for the kind of filing offense that happens here. I mean, you're talking about hundreds of thousands of people who lie on applications or denied their applications and are not charged with crimes.
Now, I'm not going to call that a witch hunt. I'm saying that the high-profile nature of the crime made it far more likely that he was charged here. This was -- we could call them trumped up charges. We can call it aggressive prosecution, but it's true. Just --
JENNINGS: What about the taxes?
BOWMAN: What about the insurrection that Donald Trump incited?
PHILLIP: One at a time, please.
WILLIAMS: I'm telling you all, look at the number of people who are charged for the filing offense that is charged here. And it just, the simple fact is --
TAYLOR: Not named Biden.
PHILLIP: If I Scott --
TAYLOR: One statement and one question, yes. The statement is, I know that people are saying, and, look, and I'm a father as well. I get it. You know, we want to protect our children as much as possible. And if we were in the same position, we may think the same way. That said, the argument is, oh, what's a trumped up charge. It's the gun charge. Hold on a second. There are numerous other things there. And if it was just the gun charge, it wouldn't be a blanket, unconditional pardon that goes back 11 years for anything. That's almost unprecedented. I don't know if --
WILLIAMS: And I'm going to agree with you because it's so almost unprecedented. It puts President Biden in the camp of President Nixon for -- no, I'm serious, Scott --
JENNINGS: I agree with you.
WILLIAMS: -- by issuing a point of pardon.
Now, why -- as a practical matter, why the pardon was structured that way is because there's uncharged conduct that is still being investigated, and he could potentially be charged with it.
Now, I'm not saying it's right, I'm just telling you this is why they did it.
TAYLOR: It's an omission of guilt.
MCGOWAN: No, they're going to comb through his life with a fine toothed comb to make him into an example because he's Hunter Biden. And Joe Biden is saying, you know what? That's enough. We've done enough. You're going to look 11 years back into his life. You're going to look into his future. You're going to make sure that you ruin the life of my last and only son.
And we have to remember -- can I just say, we have to remember that Trump's pardon list from his last administration when he was leaving office included literal bank robbers, drug dealers, embezzlers, murderers. You can go to justice.gov and see all the people that Trump --
PHILLIP: Let me ask you this, Scott, because this is a fair point. Donald Trump pardoned Paul Manafort, Roger Stone, George Papadopoulos, Steve Bannon, Michael Flynn. Joe Biden's also not the first person to pardon a family member, Hunter Biden, Charles Kushner, Donald Trump did that one too, Roger Clinton was pardoned, President Clinton's half brother. Emily Todd Helm, Abraham Lincoln's wife's half sister was pardoned. So, are we saying we have a problem with all of those things?
JENNINGS: How many of the Trump children that we were told are corrupt that needed pardons? Zero.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: To your point, Scott, the Trump children did not face federal charges, to your point. I'm going to give you that. But the person on here, Charles Kushner, who was convicted for a crime.
JENNINGS: Did he go to jail?
PHILLIP: Yes.
JENNINGS: He served time?
MCGOWAN: He was in prison. It's completely different crimes.
JENNINGS: It strikes me that one of the arguments against this pardon.
PHILLIP: So, you didn't answer the question. Are those things --
(CROSSTALKS)
JENNINGS: They're not equivalent. They're not equivalent in any way, shape or form. But you're bringing up an issue and you brought it up, so I want to address it, this idea that Hunter Biden is being selectively prosecuted. Now, one of the core criticisms of the Republicans and Trump specifically during the Biden years is that the Department of Justice is engaging in selective prosecution investigations of Republicans.
And today, what I hear Democrats saying is, you know what? You're right. Joe Biden's DOJ does engage in selective prosecutions, which is exactly why we need people to come in and clean it out now. There seems to be bipartisan consensus. Selective prosecutions --
PHILLIP: Does it open that door, Congressman?
BOWMAN: What door? I'm sorry. PHILLIP: The door to say, well, there is corruption in the DOJ. Let's put it out.
JENNINGS: That's what he argues.
PHILLIP: Because, I mean, I think that's the issue with saying there's corruption, there's a witch hunt happening. I mean, it's only directed at the president.
BOWMAN: There's corruption at every level of government in this country. That truth is the truth that led to someone like Donald Trump winning this election. But we have to deal with it honestly and openly.
JENNINGS: You're saying it wasn't fairly elected?
BOWMAN: Not this tit-for-tat, back and forth nonsense where we're using hyperbole. And I even started this conversation with a little hyperbole myself. This is why people turn the channel and disengage from politics.
[22:15:00]
This is why tens of millions of people stay home and we get the wrong person in the White House like Donald Trump.
PHILLIP: Because of hyperbole?
BOWMAN: No, because of governments that have a history of corruption, have big corporations and oligarchy controlling how things work at every level of government. Our government isn't working for the people. That is the major problem. And we're having conversations like this instead of talking about what the people need.
PHILLIP: Wouldn't the intellectually honest way to approach this be, if you're on the left, that when the justice system runs its course, we respect that outcome? We respect that outcome when it happens to Donald Trump. We respect that outcome when it happens to Hunter Biden. Isn't that the correct answer here?
MCGOWAN: That would be the correct answer if that's how things were working. We saw Donald Trump in court a lot this year, and he was able to push his trials, his sentencing, his actual cases. His cases were dismissed by justices that he had put into position. So, we have watched the justice system not work properly.
What we're talking about right now with Hunter is what's going to happen to Hunter in the Donald Trump administration, the second Donald Trump administration. I believe if Kamala Harris had won, Donald Trump -- Joe Biden would never have pardoned his son. I think he would have believed in the faith of the Justice Department, but I do not believe he thinks that it's going to work under the next Trump administration because they are showing us with the people they are putting in charge, that they are not planning to follow the law. It is not planning to be normal. People like Kash Patel in charge, that's going to be the problem. And I think that's what he's saying, the rules have changed because they're changing the rules of the game as they play it.
WILLIAMS: And to me that's All the more reason why President Biden should have just ducked the question over the last six months over what he was going to do with this pardon. If it was subject to making a decision based on who was going to be the next president of the United States, then you should have just not answered the question when asked directly, do you intend to pardon your son?
There were countless ways you could have answered simply by saying, well, you know, I'm just out looking out for the American people.
JENNINGS: But why would he have answered?
WILLIAMS: What do you mean?
JENNINGS: Why would he have given such an oddly specific denial numerous times? What could it have possibly been?
WILLIAMS: Scott, I have no idea.
JENNINGS: Politics, corruption, partisanship, grifting. That's the answer.
PHILLIP: Would it have been less corrupt in your mind if Biden had just said, yes, I'm going to pardon my son?
JENNINGS: Yes. Here's the thing. He had two choices. He could have done it in June before the gun case and said, you know what, he's my son. And you can hate me if you want, but I'm doing it, or he could have done it today and just said out of one sentence thing and said, look, I'm not letting my kid go to jail. And people might've said, you know what, it's honest.
WILLIAMS: And I still --
PHILLIP: But this statement is garbage.
WILLIAMS: But I still think a perfectly plausible thing to do would be to say, I'm running the country and my son is trying to get his life back together. I'll answer that question one day, and then come December 2nd, issue the pardon, and he would have had an intellectually honest answer. He's allowed to do it. It's --
JENNINGS: Of course he is.
WILLIAMS: Yes. No, the pardon -- blame Alexander Hamilton for writing this into the Constitution.
JENNINGS: I'm for pardons.
WILLIAMS: Yes. It's --
BOWMAN: Yes, but why are we saying he's lying when the context has changed?
JENNINGS: He did lie. BOWMAN: This is a new context.
PHILLIP: I don't understand.
BOWMAN: President Trump.
TAYLOR: So what?
BOWMAN: Second -- what do you mean, so what?
JENNINGS: He's already convicted. The trials have already occurred.
TAYLOR: President Trump has nothing to do with it.
BOWMAN: Multiple times indicted, convicted, insurrectionist, wants to destroy the FBI, President Trump, that's the new context.
TAYLOR: That's a nice story, but it has nothing to do with what we're talking about. Just today, the special prosecutor in Hunter Biden's case came out and refuted the allegations in President Biden saying that it's a political witch hunt. He said there's no evidence whatsoever of that, of a political witch hunt. This is the special prosecutor in Hunter Biden's case. He came out and said that today.
In my opinion, like I said, I'm a father. I understand why he did it, but he absolutely lied numerous times. He had a lot of folks from your side of the aisle. Hold on a second.
BOWMAN: You don't change your perspective based on new context?
PHILLIP: Let's let him finish his sentence.
BOWMAN: What are we talking about?
TAYLOR: There's nothing new here. But one of the things that he did do, to say, was he had folks from your side of the aisle come on this program, not this program, excuse me, on CNN, this network many, many times saying he's not going to do it, he's not going to do it. And they look pretty bad today, of course.
And I think, let me just let me just finish that point. One of the biggest things that this does, the country is already -- and you mentioned a little bit of this, the country's already skeptical of the integrity of government. And all this does is undermine it even more.
PHILLIP: Okay. I sort of take that point. I mean, here's the thing. I think there's a critique about how President Biden did this. I think the idea that suddenly he was the one to abuse the pardon power does not pass the smell test. But on this question of what has really changed, I mean, haven't we known all along that Donald Trump was going to put in place people at the Justice Department if he won, which we always knew was a possibility, who would go after Trump's political enemies, who would go after the so called deep state?
[22:20:00]
That was a known thing. So, I don't see how that context has really changed.
TAYLOR: I think you're conflating a little bit of retribution with accountability. That's what you're conflating here. That's what continues to be conflated.
PHILLIP: I'm just saying, Scott, seeing it from, you know, Congressman Bowman's perspective, if the concern is all these people are going to go after Hunter Biden, it was a known thing that that could happen if Donald Trump was elected. Nothing has changed.
JENNINGS: Can I ask a question? Do you all think that Merrick Garland should be fired because of this corruption at the DOJ?
MCGOWAN: Again, I don't think there's corruption at the DOJ. I think the concern is the future DOJ is going to be corrupted.
JENNINGS: You think there's corruption there. You think this was a politicized witch hunt, but the attorney general should be held accountable. No?
BOWMAN: These charges were trumped up because his name is Hunter Biden.
JENNINGS: But wouldn't you -- if you were the president --
BOWMAN: Let's consult our legal expert at the desk. Please repeat what you said earlier.
JENNINGS: You thought there was corruption --
BOWMAN: I'm not talking about corruption at the Justice Department.
(CROSSTALKS)
WILLIAMS: Don't pull me into your fight about --
BOWMAN: Hundreds of thousands of people have misrepresented themselves on these applications, never charged. Hunter Biden does.
WILLIAMS: No. I think, I think that is an unassailable fact. Well, pardon me. I know it is an unassailable fact that hundreds of thousands of people misrepresent information on gun applications and are not charged.
MCGOWAN: No. How many individuals --
TAYLOR: You're the expert here, right? Why wouldn't he just pardon them just for that then?
WILLIAMS: The question was, how legitimate are the charges? It is unlawful conduct. We can all agree to that. He was convicted -- duly convicted. However, I have a hard time seeing how that gun charge would have been brought were he not Hunter Biden. Just look at the data and look at the numbers.
Now, two things can be true at the same time, that it is not likely that an individual would have been charged were it not a high-profile case and it's still unlawful conduct that is worthy of a pardon. So, there's a lot going on here. And it's a perfectly lawful action (ph).
TAYLOR: What are your thoughts though -- what are your thoughts on my question?
WILLIAMS: Which one?
TAYLOR: Okay, if let's say, for example, it's a witch hunt, and let's give you that.
WILLIAMS: Well, I don't like the term.
MCGOWAN: We've all taken that away.
TAYLOR: Hold on a second. Let's say he would not have been prosecuted if it wasn't Hunter Biden for that specific charge. Why wasn't he just pardoned for that? Then why did the pardoning go --
BOWMAN: You know the answer.
TAYLOR: -- completely back to 2014?
BOWMAN: You know the answer.
TAYLOR: No, I don't.
BOWMAN: Because the Trump administration --
(CROSSTALKS)
BOWMAN: I told you I'll answer first and then we'll go to him. The Trump administration's going to comb through every aspect of Hunter Biden's life for 11 years, 20 years, and they're going to attack the Biden name by extension attack the Democratic Party to keep themselves and others like them in power in perpetuity. That's why.
WILLIAMS: No. The congressman's not going to like my answer. It's what I said a little bit earlier.
TAYLOR: I'd like to hear it from your expert legal --
WILLIAMS: Thank you. I appreciate you. No, it's the Richard Nixon point, which is that there is uncharged conduct that could still be investigated that because of the fact that the Justice Department is still looking at it.
TAYLOR: And bipartisan, right, which is why he made it from --
(CROSSTALKS)
BOWMAN: But we can't dig through Donald Trump because he's the president, so he's been pardoned already by the Supreme Court.
PHILLIP: Or you could say by the American people. Everyone, stick around. Coming up next, Trump's pick for the Pentagon faces some new allegations of booze, strippers, and mismanagement of a nonprofit veterans group. But will senators on Capitol Hill care?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:25:00]
PHILLIP: It is a pretty straightforward question. Would you be able to get a job if you had these things lingering on your permanent record? Getting drunk at work events, taking team members to a strip club, pursuing relationships with female staffers, chanting, kill all Muslims, in public, those are all allegedly things that Pete Hegseth, who's Donald Trump's pick to run the Pentagon, did. And they got him pushed out of two previous jobs, according to The New Yorker, who got their hands on a whistleblower report.
Now, on top of all of that, the reporter uncovered all of this, Jane Mayer. She said that Pete Hegseth struggled with the basics of just good management.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JANE MAYER, CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORKER: In both of these organizations, they're nonprofits that Pete Hegseth was the leader of. And both of them eventually took control away from him. They pushed him out.
They felt that he couldn't manage this organization. And it's an organization of just between five and ten people with a budget of between $5 and $10 million. So, I mean, what she wondered was how on Earth is he going to be able to manage the Pentagon with an organization that has a budget of something like between, you know, $750 billion.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Scott Taylor. I mean, you're a vet. What do you make of all of this?
TAYLOR: Honestly, like you would think that journalists would learn that you can't write these hit pieces long. I read her whole hit piece on Pete. And nobody's on the record. No veterans on the record that are corroborating this stuff. It's all unnamed sources again. Let me finish, please, because I'm a little upset.
PHILLIP: Hold on, I'm going to stop for a second. The only reason I'm stopping you is because you're saying that this is all blind sources, you're saying that this is not legitimate. Here's a part that's just numbers, math, okay? In January 2009, Hegseth sent a letter to donors admitting that as of that day, the group had less than $1,000 in the bank, $434,833 in unpaid bills.
[22:30:01]
The group had run up credit card debts as much as $75,000. He took full responsibility for the mess, but he begged donors for more money. That's a management issue. That's a math issue.
SCOTT TAYLOR (R) FORMER U.S. REPRESENTATIVE, VIRGINIA: It's a math issue. That doesn't mean it's a management issue. But let me finish.
PHILLIP: How's that not a management issue?
TAYLOR: Would you like me to finish and answer your question, your first question that you asked me? I know Pete Hegseth. I've known him since 2009. I helped with Vets for Freedom on Capitol Hill. A lot of -- I'm offended by her -- by her article.
I'm offended because she's got all these unnamed sources who own this hit piece who are attacking him, which seems to only happen to one side of the aisle for some reason. She didn't write, hold on.
LEIGH MCGOWAN, SOCIAL MEDIA HOST & CONTENT CREATOR, POLITICS GIRL: What, oh my God, bro.
TAYLOR: Let me finish, let me finish.
PHILLIP: But you can't -- you can't claim that it's -- OK, it's a recent blow report.
TAYLOR: Pete Hegseth -- Pete Hegseth.
PHILLIP: She talked to the people who wrote it.
TAYLOR: She talked to the people but their names aren't there. There's a gentleman called Sean Parnell. You should get him on this program. You should get her on this program. He worked with Pete, as well, just like I did with Veteran Freedom. He was at Concerned Veterans for America. And let them talk.
MCGOWAN: Why don't we just --
TAYLOR: Let me finish. He's an on --
PHILLIP: Okay, go ahead.
TAYLOR: He'll be an on the record source and rebut this stuff. I'm totally offended by her thing because I know Pete, I've known him for a long time. He's a good man. He'll do a great job at the DOD.
I'm glad that he was nominated. The DOD needs a lot of reforming. And I'm saying this as a former Navy SEAL combat veteran. DOD, the military, they need massive reformation and Pete is the guy to do it. This is -- this is ridiculous trash.
PHILLIP: Well, one thing to note that Pete Hegseth has actually not denied these things. He's just avoiding questions about them.
TAYLOR: Really?
MCGOWAN: If I may, that is a very long article. I agree with you. There's a lot of things that Pete has allegedly done. And whether it is that he's stolen from the organizations he's run, or he has endless drug escapades, or he has white nationalist tattoos, or he's raped women --
TAYLOR: Oh, my God.
MCGOWAN: -- whatever it is that he says or he has allegedly done --
TAYLOR: I'm just going to sit here and defend the dude? Really?
MCGOWAN: No, I'm saying --
BOWMAN: That was all reported. That was all reported.
MCGOWAN: Hold on. That's all reported. But here's what I'm saying.
TAYLOR: Ridiculous. Ridiculous.
MCGOWAN: The biggest thing people need to understand is, if I may --
TAYLOR: You should be ashamed of yourself.
PHILLIP: Let me just correct one thing. I don't think there were allegations that.
TAYLOR: White nationalist tattoos? You mean Christian tattoos?
PHILLIP: Hold on. He didn't -- the allegation was not that he stole from the organizations, but that he mismanaged the allegations.
MCGOWAN: Mismanaged the money. So, I would say the biggest thing to remember is that the Secretary of Defense is involved in every issue of our national security. Involved in -- I don't know why you're laughing -- involved in the use of nuclear weapons, sending our troops into combat, approving drone strikes.
There are little life and death issues in the hands of the U.S. Secretary of Defense every day. And on the alcohol alone, you cannot give someone a job like that who has a drinking problem. Someone who might be incapacitated for multiple reasons at any moment.
TAYLOR: You're going to continue to defame the guy. You don't know him. You don't know he has a drinking problem. What he said, what he said.
MCGOWAN: I'm not his best friend, which you apparently are. But what I'm saying is, this is a huge job.
TAYLOR: Let me finish it. Let's finish. You are not part of this.
PHILLIP: Hold on a second.
MCGOWAN: I am not done.
PHILLIP: Please stop.
MCGOWAN: I am not done.
PHILLIP: Hold on. Hold on. Leigh, just stop for just a second. MCGOWAN: No.
PHILLIP: Just stop. No, no, no. I want to just --let's clear the decks for one second.
MCGOWAN: Oh, yes, please. Absolutely.
PHILLIP: So that we can all stop talking at the same time, and then you can continue. Go ahead.
MCGOWAN: It is not partisan to say that Pete can't do this job. It is practical. It is about keeping the country safe. It is about the safety of our troops. He is being hired -- he has been potentially hired to run the world's largest and most lethal military force. You cannot play games with that. And this man has too many skeletons in his closet to put him in charge of such a large organization.
PHILLIP: OK. OK. Let me deal with one thing that is not in dispute. There is a police report that accuses him of sexual assault. He paid the accuser and her family as a result of that. That's not a disputed thing, Scott Jennings. So -- and the reporting is that the Trump campaign did not know about it.
And so, there are things in his history that are being reported based on people who have known him. Maybe your friends know differently. But people who have known him, that talk about a pattern of behavior, there's a letter from his mother.
TAYLOR: Name -- name a person.
PHILLIP: There's a letter from his mother that called him an abuser of women. And let me just -- I'll give all the context. His mother, Mrs. Hegseth, after she wrote that letter to her son, told "The New York Times" that she apologized for writing it. She said she sent it in anger. But in the letter, she did call him an abuser of women.
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: A couple things stand out to me today. Number one, I actually do believe his attorney, Tim Parlatore has denied it. I think he called the allegations in the article outlandish, I think is the word.
PHILLIP: He did not call them false, Scott.
JENNINGS: He called them outlandish. I don't know what --
UNKNOWN: Which basically means it's BS.
PHILLIP: OK. But he can also say these are not true. That was not -- I'm reading the statement., "We are not going to comment on outlandish claims laundered through "The New Yorker" by petty and jealous, disgruntled former associate of Mr. Hegseth." Nowhere in there does it say these claims are false.
[22:35:00]
JENNINGS: Well, I think it's important to get his attorney's statement on the record. That's number one. Number two, my view of Hegseth hasn't changed much since the night it came out. He is a hero. He served for 20 years. He's decorated by our country for his military service. He has done important work on behalf of veterans. He is an educated man at the Ivy League level.
And he, like every other nominee going through this process deserves a chance to answer the questions. And he will, I guess, if he goes through with it, get a chance to answer questions. And on top of that, the people who made these allegations may get called to come forward and make them in person in front of him or they won't.
And so, I guess what I'm thinking today is we got some reporting some of its anonymous a lot of its anonymous, Parlatore says it's outlandish. One way to sort this out is to put people under oath, and that's what hearings do.
MCGOWAN: Scott, can I ask you though, if you're going to be putting people under oath, why is it that Donald Trump is asking to confirm his picks during a Senate recess, and he's talking about not doing FBI background checks on any of his people? So, you're talking about these people, fine, if he did these things, he should answer to the American people.
He should be put under oath, except Donald Trump is talking about not putting any of these people under oath, not confirming them through the regular channels in the Senate. They are trying to push all these people who are inappropriate through without these things that you're talking about.
JENNINGS: They aren't. There will be hearings for all these jobs. And the truth is, some will make it and maybe some won't. And I don't know where Hegseth's going to fall, but there are going to be hearings. The United States Senate's already made clear they're not exceeding their power.
PHILLIP: All right, very last word. Last word --
BOWMAN: You know, I think there are credible questions about his character and his competence as it relates to running the DOD, number one. Number two, I'm very concerned with how we seem to continue to normalize sexism, misogyny and sexual assault and abuse in our country.
We just elected for the second time a person convicted in civil court of sexual abuse, a person that we have on tape bragging about sexually assaulting a woman. Now, we just diminish or dismiss the allegations against this gentleman because people didn't come forward with their names. Well, his mom came forward and wrote an entire letter discussing his continued abuse of women.
TAYLOR: It's a private letter. Crazy.
BOWMAN: We have to stop normalizing sexual assault, sexual abuse and misogyny in this country. It's not normal and it should be completely unacceptable. PHILLLIP: We got to leave it there on this one. Everyone, hang on.
Coming up next, here what Kamala Harris -- a canvasser of Kamala Harris encountered when she knocked on the doors of Trump supporters in Pennsylvania. We're going to have another special guest joining us in our fifth seat. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:42:10]
PHILLIP: Tonight, a crash course on the Great Divide -- an on-the- ground account from battleground, Pennsylvania, that captured what Democrats may have missed. Now, part of the problem, according to a life-long journalist who quit her job to canvas door-to-door in Allentown for the Harris campaign, was that the vice president's operation thought --what they thought would work, didn't mesh with the lived experiences of people that they were trying to persuade.
Quote, "Trump was broadcasting on some direct wavelength with his followers and he had drawn them into his alternative universe of looming economic disaster, menacing migrants and outrages perpetrated by Democrats against their children, which only he was visionary enough to see and strong enough to combat."
Joining us in our fifth seat is that journalist Julia Preston. Julia, what did surprise you the most when you were there on the ground in Pennsylvania? You talk about the disconnect between this sort of, like, celebrity-fueled campaign and what you were seeing when you were knocking on these doors.
JULIA PRESTON, "THE NEW YORKER" CONTRIBUTOR: Well, first of all, the severity of the hardship for working people in the United States these days, it was really eye-opening. I report about immigration, so I have been on the ground with working people quite a bit in my career, but it wasn't just the price of groceries. It wasn't just -- it's the whole structure of work.
People are doing contract work. They're working night shifts, day shifts. And also, the... The way that people are communicating now, very often the only source of information that people had in Allentown was through their mobile phones. They're not -- they don't have time to watch television.
There was just a tremendous gap of communication with working people that I encountered. And most of the canvassing that I was doing was with Latino people -- Spanish speaking people.
PHILLIP: Yes. So, the Harris campaign, it sounds like just missed it. I mean, even the Biden campaign leading up to it, they had to be dragged in a way to address the reality that people were feeling extreme economic hardship.
BOWMAN: Yes, we lost this race in 2021when Joe Manchin and Kirsten Sinema did not support Build Back Better. That was our economic populist plan. It was universal childcare, universal pre-K, affordable housing, jobs, jobs, jobs. Something to help people tangibly. Inflation happened, prices went up. They never came back down.
Republicans were moving as a well-oiled machine. It's the Democrats' fault. Democrats, Democrats. Democrats. We never had a response. We never recovered.
[22:45:00]
Biden, in my opinion, should have decided in 2022 not to run for re- election. We needed an open primary. Whoever won that open primary was going to be the person. And we get behind that person and we ride or die with that person. But this goes back to two moderate Democrats. And I'm going to say this explicitly because everyone wanted to jump off a cliff.
Oh, she ran too far to the left. No, she did not. She never criticized corporations, never called them out for their price gouging because it wasn't Democrats' corporate price gouging. She didn't run to the left. It was two moderates, Sinema and Manchin killed Bill Back Better, killed our economic agenda.
PHILLIP: Julia, did you know when you were on the doors that she wasn't going to win?
PRESTON: No, I did not. Again, partly because we did actually win in the place where I chose -- I made a strategic decision to go to Allentown because I'm a Spanish speaker. Allentown is the third largest city in Pennsylvania and it is a majority Latino city, which many people don't know.
And so, I -- my theory of the case was, we're going to run up the vote with Latinos in Allentown, Pennsylvania. And I feel like that campaign was just getting going to full cruising speed by election day.
MCGOWAN: But it also seemed like reading your article, it also seemed like you adjusted your message after meeting a bunch of people. You were like, these people are having trouble with dental insurance. These people can't afford enough food. These people are struggling with this. We are told to miss this entire block of housing because we don't have a message for them.
And I think that, with all due respect and admiration to the Democratic leadership, things really truly need to change. And I'm going to say that right out front. We absolutely lost the messaging war. If people in America did not know that the Democrats were the party that wanted to help them, we blew it.
If they didn't know that we were the party that would support unions, we made a mistake. If they didn't know that paid family leave was in Build Back Better and would have been part of Harris' campaign --
PHILLIP: You had the rap sheet of the policies. I mean, was that responsive to what people were experiencing?
PRESTON: It was, and you know, and it was just the, I do fault not the Biden campaign, but the Biden White House for a complete failure of communication of what they were doing. You know, we got out there and there really was no -- no knowledge at all about what the -- what Biden administration had done.
And interestingly enough, so people would say, well, you know, Biden, my grocery prices have gone up. And I would say, well, actually Joe Biden is not on the ballot. And they would go, oh, oh. Oh, all right, Kamala Harris. So, whether she was the vice president or -- none of that was at a level of communication for these folks.
PHILLIP: Yes, real quick, Scott and then we got to go.
JENNINGS: There was a huge movement of Hispanic voters nationally, from Democrat to Republican in this election, particularly among men. Just out of curiosity, as an old campaign operative, when you went to the doors, were you having most of your conversations with men or women? Who was answering the door, and what were most of your substantive conversations? Who was it with?
PRESTON: Well, first of all, I want to correct that in terms of Pennsylvania, what happened in Pennsylvania, the Latino vote.
JENNINGS: Nationally.
PRESTON: I know. I know what happened. But one of the things that I learned from this is that the lived experience of a Puerto Rican American citizen voter in Allentown, Pennsylvania has very little in common with the lived experience of a Mexican American voter who lives in Hidalgo, Texas, right by the border, right when people were coming across the border, when there was kind of chaos at the border.
From the lived experience of a Cuban American who lives in South Florida. These experiences, there's nothing -- there's very little in common in the lived experience of a Latino in Las Vegas, Nevada also.
TAYLOR: As part of the problem, people like they put all Latinos together, but they're very diverse.
PRESTON: Yes, it's very diverse.
TAYLOR: Very diverse.
PRESTON: This is very diverse. And so that would be the first point that I would make. The second point is that it varied a lot, but the people who came to the doors, the stress of working life in -- for working class people and even middle-class people, it's really extraordinary what's happened in this country. The economic --
JENNINGS: It's been four years.
UNKNOWN: Holy.
UNKNOWN: It's been four years.
PHILLIP: We're going to talk about this for quite some time.
PRESTON: The structure of work, contract work.
PHILLIP: What an important conversation, Julia Preston. PRESTON: No childcare.
PHILLIP: Yes, thank you very much for bringing it to us. Everyone else, stay with me. Coming up next, the panel will give us their night caps including why Trump is warning of hell to pay.
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[22:54:05]
PHILLIP: We're back and it's time for the "NewsNight" cap. You each have 30 seconds to say your piece. Scott Jennings, you're up.
JENNINGS: The U.S. House Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic released its final report today and the findings would have gotten you canceled a mere three years ago, had you suggested them then. Things like the NIH did fund gain-of-function research in Wuhan, and there was widespread cover-up of the origins.
Most likely, the report says, a leak from the Wuhan lab. Also, the teachers' unions enabled school closures that had an enduring and negative impact on millions of kids. My hat's off to Ohio CongressmanBrad Winstrup, who chaired the Committee. Everyone should read this report.
PHILLIP: All right, Scott Taylor.
TAYLOR: Mine was President Donald Trump said all hell is -- there's going to be all hell to pay because there are still hostages in Gaza. Most Americans probably don't realize that there are still American hostages there.
And President Trump is one who has promises made, promises kept. That's the ethos that he runs on. He said those hostages better be released by his inauguration or they'll be all hell to pay.
[22:55:05]
And I think the clock is ticking.
PHILLIP: Leigh.
MCGOWAN: I think that we should send the Equal Rights Amendment to the Archivist to certify because I think it should become the 28th Amendment. Yes, the Republicans are going to fight it in court, but it is well past time women were considered equal in this country and we're going right into the kind of sexual assault administration with their anti-abortion policies. And I think the ERA would go a long way to protecting the women of this country.
PHILLIP: All right, Congressman.
BOWMAN: Democrats better hit the ground and talk to working class people and listen to what they have to say, learn from them and figure out what we're going to do 2025, 2026 and beyond. We've been in an ivory tower for too long. We better talk to and listen to working class people across the country.
PHILLIP: All right, everyone. Thank you very much. We'll be back in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[23:00:02]
PHILLIP: Breaking tonight, an unfortunate development for one of the world's legendary pop stars. Elton John has announced that he can no longer see.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ELTON JOHN, GRAMMY AWARD-WINNING ARTIST: I haven't been able to come to many of the previews because, you know, I've lost my eyesight, so, it's hard for me to see it but I'd love to hear it. And boy, you sounded good tonight.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: The 77-year-old who retired from performing last year blamed the development on an infection he contracted over the summer. Well, thank you very much for watching "NewsNight". "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
