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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
FBI Director To Resign Before Trump Takes Office; Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) Says, CEO Murder Is Warning To Insurance Companies; Joe Rogan On CEO Murder, Insurance Industry Dirty; Plenty Of People Angry About Joe Biden's Pardon Of Son, Hunter; Sarah Huckabee Sanders Proposes A Strategy To Make Her State Healthy Again. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired December 11, 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, bowing out, the FBI director says he'll give Donald Trump what he wants, a clean slate to shape the Bureau in his image the moment he takes office.
Plus, Joe Rogan --
JOE ROGAN, HOST, THE JOE ROGAN EXPERIENCE: It's a dirty, dirty business. Business of insurance is (BLEEP) gross.
PHILLIP: And Elizabeth Warren say a CEO murder underlines how Americans feel cheated by big corporations.
Also, friendly fire --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The attack on our judicial system.
PHILLIP: A longtime Biden aide bashes her former boss for how he pardoned his son.
And junk food ban, a surprising state wants to tell you what you can and can't eat if you're on food stamps.
Live at the table, Gretchen Carlson, Geraldo Rivera, Julie Roginsky, Coleman Hughes, and Madison Gessiotto.
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, Wray wrapping up. Tonight, the FBI director, Christopher Wray, is telling the 35,000 men and women of the Bureau that he is quitting.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CHRISTOPHER WRAY, FBI DIRECTOR: After weeks of careful thought, I've decided the right thing for the Bureau is for me to serve until the end of the current administration in January and then step down.
My goal is to keep the focus on our mission, on the indispensable work each of you is doing every single day. And in my view, this is the best way to avoid dragging the Bureau deeper into the fray while reinforcing the values and principles that are so important in how we do our work.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: His exit paves the way for the president elect to pass America's top law enforcement job to his loyalist, Kash Patel, something that Donald Trump says will end what he says is the weaponization of government, which isn't that ironic, don't you think, I mean, especially because Kash Patel, he's literally published an enemies list right here of the people in the so called deep state who he believes should be prosecuted.
Joining us in our fifth seat is Scott Curtis. He's a former FBI agent. Scott, what do you make of the fact that Christopher Wray actually capitulated so early on in this process and gave up this chair to Kash Patel essentially?
SCOTT CURTIS, FORMER FBI AGENT: Well, I think it would have been difficult for him to continue there just for optics sake there because the FBI had been involved to some degree in some of these investigations of former President Trump here. So, the level of trust between the White House and the FBI would have been shaky at best there. So, I think Mr. Wray was doing the right thing in having a clean slate, like he mentioned there, and having a fresh director come in there and take the reins going forward.
PHILLIP: Yes. And so tell us about, I mean, what is the sense inside the FBI among the people you're talking to about what this all means for them to have Kash Patel come on in?
CURTIS: With him specifically, I don't know, but I know that morale in the Bureau is low. And I know that recent polling has shown that the American public's trust in the FBI is at its lowest level in years there. So, I think there needs to be some level of reform and self reflection within the organization there. And I think a lot of what the Bureau should be doing going forward there is to maybe decentralize a lot of what has been going on in the last several years and put more of the autonomy back into the field offices and the case agents that are running these investigations as opposed to micromanaging them from Washington, D.C.
PHILLIP: I want to come back to that in a second, but, Geraldo, I mean, the idea that Kash Patel would be the one to reform the FBI given that, according to a lot of other people who have commented on this, a lot of them don't think that he has the qualifications just sort of -- in the sort of nuts and bolts of the organization to do the job, but also because, as I mentioned, I mean, he has a list of people that he said he wants to go after, which seems like not the definition of the job.
[22:05:01]
GERALDO RIVERA, JOURNALIST: I don't know a lot about Kash Patel. I've never met him, as far as I know. All I know is that he seems to me, from what I read and what I see in here is that he's part of the -- if not the chairman of the lunatic wing, the Steve Bannon, Alex Jones wing of the MAGA movement, you know, throw Matt Gaetz in there if you will. But Kash Patel, if you're looking for an objective of professional, you know, resurrector, or a savior of the FBI, you better not hold your breath waiting for Kash Patel to deliver.
I think the one thing that Scott said that I think is very important is that he mentioned how the FBI got too political. That is true. That wasn't Trump. That was James Comey before it was --
PHILLIP: Chris Wray.
RIVERA: Chris Wray. But James Comey mucked up Hillary Clinton's electoral run, and he went after the president, President Trump, in his first term that, in 2017, President Trump could not -- he was like he stepped in dog crap and he just couldn't get rid of James Comey. He hounded him. Do you need another dog metaphor? But I think the FBI needs a cleansing. And I think Chris Wray was heroic in stepping down, but I also think that the Bureau does need some profound introspection.
PHILLIP: Heroic in stepping down.
GRETCHEN CARLSON, JOURNALIST AND CO-FOUNDER, LIFT OUR VOICES: Oh, yes. I mean, look, are you going to wait for Donald Trump to come in and be humiliated and be fired if you're Chris Wray? No. I mean, he absolutely had to do it this way.
As for Kash Patel, I mean, Trump thinks he's going to end the growing crime epidemic, dismantle criminal gangs, stop human and drug trafficking. He also, though, has said that he's going to get rid of all the conspirators who he calls journalists who were part and parcel to the 2020 election and reporting on what were the facts that Biden won and Trump lost. So, that list I would take very seriously.
PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, the other thing this weekend, he gave this interview on NBC and here's what he was saying about the January 6th committee members who he's been targeting with these kinds of comments for a while now, listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT-ELECT: For what they did, honestly, they should go to jail.
KRISTEN WELKER, NBC NEWS ANCHOR: So, you think Liz Cheney should go to jail?
TRUMP: For what they did.
WELKER: Everyone on the committee, you think should go to jail?
TRUMP: Anybody that voted in favor --
WELKER: Are you going to direct your FBI director and your attorney general to send them to jail?
TRUMP: No, not at all. I think that they'll have to look at that. But I'm not going to -- I'm going to focus on drill, baby, drill.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: It's a classic Trump turn. No, not at all, I'm not going to direct him, but I think they'll have to look at that.
JULIE ROGINSKY, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: He just did, right? I mean, that's what Trump does. He basically just directed them to do exactly what he said he didn't direct them to do.
I'm going to disagree with my friends across the table here, actually, surprisingly, Gretchen, and I don't disagree on much. We do disagree on this. I don't think he should have resigned. Because the reason Trump gave for his resignation, the reason that he said that Wray had to go, was because Wray raided his beautiful home, or I forgot how he termed Mar-a-Lago, but, you know, Wray went and then violated the sanctity of his home.
Well, the FBI did that after requesting that Donald Trump return classified documents over and over and over again, and Trump didn't. So, by resigning effectively, what he did was, he said, implied, in some ways, that Trump was right, that he did something wrong. I would have stood there and said, Mr. President, if you want to fire me for doing my job, the job that federal agents had to do because you would not do yours and return these documents, then that's your prerogative. You can fire me, but I'm not leaving because that looks like I did something wrong and I didn't.
COLEMAN HUGHES, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: It's possible, as David French I think argued in The New York Times today, that this move is purely strategic and not at all on moral principle, because if he resigns now, then Trump requires Senate confirmation to get his pick in. So, it could be purely strategic, we don't know.
But I want to bring it back to the enemies list you held up a few times already. One of the people on his enemies list is the famous radical left nut job, Bill Barr, okay? So, Bill Barr is someone that is too extreme for Kash Patel, and Kash Patel considers a part of the enemy deep state.
PHILLIP: And Bill Barr, glad you brought it up, remember, said when he was in the Trump administration, that Kash Patel would serve as his deputy director over his dead body. So, this is someone who knows his qualifications and thinks not very much.
ROGINSKY: But it's so ironic, Abby, because the revolution always eats its own, right? Bill Barr, who was an extreme attorney general and covered for Trump over and over and over and over again in the first term, now the revolution is eating its own, right?
[22:10:01]
This is like the French Revolution, where the people guillotining people are now guillotining themselves. And that's exactly what's going on here.
I mean, when Bill Barr becomes too much of a, you know, RINO for somebody like Donald Trump, then that means eventually Kash Patel will be too much of a RINO because it's never enough.
PHILLIP: Can I play -- let me just play what Kash Patel has said lately about what he is going to do if he takes control of the FBI.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PATEL: We look forward to a very smooth transition and I'll be ready to go on day one. Senators have been wonderful and I look forward to earning their trust and confidence through the advice and consent process and restoring law and order and integrity of the FBI.
Shut down the FBI Hoover Building on day one and reopening the next day as a museum of the deep state.
We're going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections. We're going to come after you. Whether it's criminally or civilly, we'll figure that out. But, yes, we're putting you all on notice.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: I mean, I don't want you to speak for, you know, the thousands and thousands of people in the FBI, but I mean, when, if you hear that and you're sitting in the FBI's Hoover Building, what are you thinking?
CURTIS: Well, first of all, I don't think we should assume that he's going to get through the nomination process. He's obviously going to have a lot of questions that he's going to have to answer by a lot of people here for those past statements here. But, again, I think what's important here is to get the spotlight away from the FBI director and away from Washington, D.C., and put it back out into the field where FBI agents feel they have the autonomy to do what they're supposed to do in identifying threats and investigating the threats to the to the American public here.
PHILLIP: Can I ask you about that? I mean, what kinds of investigations are FBI agents feeling like they cannot pursue right now?
CURTIS: I think there's a great hesitancy of taking any investigative step because they feel like they have somebody looking over their shoulder and that they need to get directive from this whole chain of command going all the way back to Washington, D.C., whereas the way I ran an investigation is I made the decisions about what was appropriate for my investigation at that time. And if I needed support, resources, or whatever from Washington, D.C., I would request it.
PHILLIP: Do you think that would change under a Trump administration and a Kash Patel?
CURTIS: I would hope that it would. I would hope, again, that things are decentralized, that --
RIVERA: But that's what Kash Patel wants also. He wants to take the 7,000 FBI agents in the Hoover Building and he said, you're cops, get out there and be cops. So, I mean, obviously, you're a different packaging.
ROGINSKY: But it's going to tell him what to do. That's the problem.
I think this is the tension here is that, I mean, if that might -- it may be true that cash Patel wants to give, you know, the field offices, you know, autonomy, but he also has a pretty long laundry list of things that he, it seems, wants to direct those very same people to investigate.
CURTIS: Yes. And I don't think that's appropriate. It needs to be a two-way street. The field offices need to be communicating back about what the threats are in their area of responsibility and prioritizing those threats and determining, you know, the resources that are needed for those.
There is a lot of waste in FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. I think some of that can be disseminated to the field there to give them additional manpower and resources there to address what needs to get addressed in those areas.
PHILLIP: All right. We do have to head out from here. But, Scott Curtis, thank you very much for joining us, interesting perspective. Everyone else, don't go anywhere.
Coming up next, the first evidence connecting that Ivy Leaguer to the murder of a CEO in New York City is revealed. But the discussion across America is about the alleged motive. Is corporate America facing a reckoning? We'll debate that next.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROGAN: It's a dirty, dirty business. The business of insurance is (INAUDIBLE) gross.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:15:00]
PHILLIP: Tonight, a pair of eye-catching warnings to executives in corner offices everywhere. One of them from the most watched podcaster on the planet, and another from a progressive politician synonymous with taking on corporations. Joining us in our fifth seat now is Hadas Gold, CNN's media correspondent. Hadas, I want to play what Joe Rogan had to say about all of this. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROGER AVARY, ACADEMY AWARD-WINNING DIRECTOR, SCREENWRITER AND PRODUCER: I don't think anybody's going to like be crying too hard over that guy.
ROGAN: Yes, maybe his family, but that's about it. It's a dirty, dirty business. The business of insurance is (INAUDIBLE) gross. It's gross, and especially healthcare insurance, just (INAUDIBLE) gross.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: I have to say, I mean, this is so weird. But a man was murdered in the streets of New York. And, I mean, there's a conversation that's happening now about that stuff. But it's so interesting to see how quickly it's turned to health insurance executives are bad, actually, and that's the moral of the story?
HADAS GOLD, CNN MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I mean, two things can be true at once. The healthcare industry can have major problems. It can be, as Joe Rogan was saying, a dirty. dirty business, but also, a human life was taken, a father, a husband also on the streets of New York. You know, I live in New York City, I could have been easily walking by right when that happened. Somebody else could have been killed.
And so these two things can be true at the same time, and I think it is very disrespectful, not only to a human life, to somebody who was killed, to the people of New York City, but also to the debate that we could be having about the healthcare industry when you put it in these terms, when you celebrate something like this.
[22:20:06]
Because, A, I'd like to see Joe Rogan say that to the face of the CEO's wife and his kids and see if you'd have those same tones when he's actually confronted face-to-face with that human life. And also how is that helping, what is a real problem, which is the healthcare industry, which is people desperately wanting to get better healthcare and being able to survive?
PHILLIP: And the other thing that was really -- okay, so there's Joe Rogan. I think he has the ability to sort of like speak to kind of the pulse of what people don't want to talk about or say out loud. But here's Senator Elizabeth Warren. She says, the visceral response from people across the country who feel cheated, ripped off and threatened by the vile practices of their insurance companies should be a warning to everyone in the healthcare system. There should be a warning?
CARLSON: I think that a lot of people are upset when corporate America makes a lot of money and there's so much talk about the disparity between what the executives make and what the regular people make who are working even harder and longer hours. But with healthcare, it's a life and death situation. And that's when you have to involve all of these emotions.
Probably every one of us at this table, I know for sure Geraldo can talk about a medical experience or health insurance experience that was really difficult to get through. And I know personally for me, when I was giving birth to my first daughter, I had an emergency C section and I literally had 30 seconds before they cut me open. And after I had my beautiful baby, I got the insurance bill for $20,000 because the anesthesiologist was out of my network. Like I was going to say at the time, you know, when I was contemplating being having surgery that, oh, are you in my network or not? And I --
PHILLIP: you're the second person I talked to today actually with basically that same story.
ROGINSKY: I'm the third because I haven't talked about it, actually, when it happened, exact identical story, emergency C section after 35 hours of labor. I was like, get this baby out of here immediately. And never did it occur to me that the network who is not covering the anesthesiologist.
And, I mean, you know, and this is not to say that vigilante justice is ever appropriate because it's not, but it is -- this did touch a chord, I think, in people's lives for that reason, because we all know somebody who's been denied care. And sometimes, you know, people who've been denied care enough that they've died. And not everybody has $20 million or the time to spend on the phone fighting with the insurance company that may or may not actually waive that bill. That's why people go bankrupt. That's why people lose their lives.
And so I think this is a discussion that needs to be had. I know this is why the shooter partially did this because he obviously wanted to raise and elevate this, which is no excuse for it. This is not what you do. But, nevertheless, it is a discussion that we need to continue to have because it is out of control.
HUGHES: Everyone has a story. It's like Mean Girls with Regina George. Everyone has been victimized by the healthcare system, everyone. But I think a lot of people are talking about this by saying like, you know, murder is bad, but the guy has a point. But, actually, if you read his manifesto, he doesn't have that much of a point. He actually doesn't understand the problems with the healthcare system. Like, for example, I just looked up today, what is UnitedHealthcare's profit margin the last quarter, 3.6 percent, which puts it on par with grocery stores, okay? The pharma companies have much higher profits.
But actually insurance companies are not making these massive profits that people think. That's not the source of the problem.
PHILLIP: Right. I think the healthcare system writ large is the problem. I think the critique is that health insurance companies are -- because they're publicly traded, they have to make a profit. And the profit can come at the expense of regular people.
RIVERA: But isn't it interesting, Abby, that the fact is Luigi succeeded, and if, indeed, honestly, his goal was to direct attention to the injustices and rally support to reform the healthcare system. There has not been this concentrated a discussion of U.S. healthcare in the last 24, 48 hours. It is remarkable to me how this kid, however, misguided and sick and sadistic or whatever else you want to call it, or however warped and, you know, Ayn Rand Fountainhead, Atlas, Rugby, he was. The fact of the matter is America is having this discussion.
PHILLIP: But I mean, on that point --
CARLSON: Whether or not anything happens from that, though, we have the same discussions after school shootings and does anything ever change?
PHILLIP: Isn't there -- I mean, doesn't it give anybody pause that this guy might have been, maybe probably was actually mentally disturbed? I mean, he clearly had something happen in his life. I mean, he talked about this back injury that he had.
[22:25:02]
HADAS: He wasn't in touch with his family for months.
PHILLIP: He wasn't in touch with his family. His mother reported him missing. This is someone who was obviously in crisis.
So, why are we extrapolating these deep thoughts from somebody who's clearly going through something incredibly traumatic, and I'm not sure that it's that connected to reality?
GOLD: Well, I think because there's a long simmering rage right now amongst Americans, and I think a lot of them see this as sort of a representation of their rage exploding in the most inappropriate fashion. Because what will this actually get us other than, I mean, in the immediate term, probably just more security for more CEOs around the country.
I think that if you want to institute actual change, all of those people who are going on TikTok right now and celebrating him and talking about his looks and all of that, they should be going and doing sit-ins on Capitol Hill. They should be going into their state capitals.
PHILLIP: Or they should learn about the policy. I mean, I just don't know that there's anything, to your point, people are almost sadistically celebrating the murder of this guy, and I'm not sure that it's connected to any real action.
ROGINSKY: Well, this is like, you know, I'm old enough to remember Bernie Goetz back in the eighties here.
RIVERA: I interviewed him.
ROGINSKY: Remember that? And so, you know --
RIVERA: subway vigilante. ROGINSKY: Yes, exactly, and not dissimilar for what happened in the subway here as well, but that was actually planned with Bernie Goetz.
And so the problem is that people tend to hold up some of these vigilantes as heroes of their addressing the issues that people are concerned about. This guy is not a hero, to be clear. As you said, he's either mentally disturbed. He obviously is, but he's also a stone cold killer. He plotted this and he executed a man in cold blood, as you pointed out, on the streets of New York.
Having said that, and this is not a but, but, I mean, having said that there is a discussion that needs to happen, and as you pointed out, Gretchen, I hope this is not another school shooting type situation where we've become so immune to bloodshed in this country that we just move on after a while and don't address underlying issues, which is that the reason people were so crass, Hadas, as you pointed out about this murder, is because people truly are in pain and they're not getting the help they need.
RIVERA: But how does that jive with the CNN poll that I saw today? Have you seen it?
CARLSON: Exactly, yes.
RIVERA: Where Harry Enten was talking about people in their health care and the majority of them, a significant majority of them, said they were satisfied with their healthcare. And it wasn't just the middle class, it was the working class also. It's a terrible business. It's horrible. People are dying, this and that. What do you think about your own? Oh, well, mine's good like mine. (INAUDIBLE).
PHILLIP: I think it's only -- I mean, I think that people are probably fine with their healthcare until they have the moment the Gretchen had or the moment that Julie had.
HUGHES: This whole philosophy is that profit is what causes all of our problems. And yet, if you look at the United Kingdom, which is a profit-free, government-owned system, The New York Times reported two years ago that people regularly wait five hours for an ambulance. So, we pay in money, they pay in time.
It turns out the whole world hasn't really gotten this healthcare issue together. Maybe it's not the profit motive that is to blame here. And we actually have to have experts really analyze the nuts and bolts to improve the American healthcare industry.
PHILLIP: It's a really fair point. I mean, you know, I've lived in a country with socialized medicine. There are costs to that too, including quality of the care, the wait times, access. We have to evaluate all of it. Hadas?
GOLD: Yes. But, I mean, also having lived in London and experienced the NHS, I think that for so many of them, the British are very proud of it. And also, importantly, it provides that safety net where you never have to worry about you going into debt because of a medical procedure. You never hear if somebody saying, I don't want to go to the emergency room, I don't want to go to the hospital because I don't want the bill at the end of the day.
HUGHES: And here, people are dying because an ambulance didn't come soon enough.
GOLD: Sure.
PHILLIP: 41 percent of American adults have debt caused by medical or dental bills. It's $220 billion dollars.
GOLD: Yes.
CARLSON: And over time, I mean, 20 years ago when I had my daughter, I had 100 percent coverage, right, probably for the same amount of premium that I'm paying now with cost of living increases. But the best insurance you can get now is 75 to 80, and most people are out of network, most physicians, and in big places like New York City and L.A. and Chicago, they don't take insurance.
So, you know, you're paying more and you're getting less back. And I think therein lies the frustration.
GOLD: There's a recent Gallup poll just this week. 62 percent of adults, they want the government to get involved into their healthcare.
PHILLIP: Interesting. All right, Hadas, thank you very much for joining us. Everyone else, hang tight.
Coming up next, a longtime Biden adviser is blasting the president's pardon of his own son. We'll tell you why.
Plus, would Hillary Clinton accept a preemptive pardon from Joe Biden? Well, Bill Clinton has entered the chat. He's going to weigh in. We'll tell you what he said next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:34:17]
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: Tonight, there are plenty of people angry about Joe Biden's pardon of his son Hunter, and you can count among them long-time Biden adviser Anita Dunn.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANITA DUNN, FORMER WH BIDEN SENIOR ADVISER: As we were in the midst of the president-elect rolling out his nominees, and in particular in the middle of a Kash Patel weekend, kind of throwing this into the middle of it was exceptionally poor timing and that the argument is one that I think many observers are concerned about a president who ran to restore the rule of law, who has upheld the rule of law, who has really defended the rule of law, kind of saying, well, maybe not right now. So, you know, Maggie, as I say, I agree with the decision to pardon.
[23:35:01] I absolutely think that Hunter deserves a pardon here, but I disagreed on the timing, the argument, and sort of the rationale.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Former RNC spokeswoman Madison Gesiotto is in our fifth seat. That's a lot of parts of this to disagree with while also agree with the pardon itself. The timing, the rationale, but the pardon itself is fine.
MADISON GESIOTTO, FORMER RNC NATIONAL SPOKESPERSON: Yes and I think she goes on a little bit more to talk about the fact that if this were a compassion pardon issued at the end of the administration in January, she would have felt a little bit differently about it. But she really ripped Biden a new one on this one.
And I think she's really in line with most of the American people. You look, only 20 percent of people really support the pardon. I don't think there are many things right now in this country that 80 percent of us agree on. It's the most sweeping pardon since Ford pardoned Nixon and the closest one ever familial relationship-wise in presidential history.
PHILLIP: Yes, let me show what you're talking about here. I mean, this is our poll -- CNN's poll. Sixty-eight percent disapprove of this decision. It's not really very close.
ROGINSKY: You know, I agree with the substance of what she said, but I have worked for, I don't know how many politicians in my life, and there's only one I've ever been critical of publicly because I don't like him.
CARLSON: But you also want to work again to put it mildly.
ROGINSKY: But bottom line is, you know, I have a problem, I guess, as somebody who's a political consultant with somebody giving you this opportunity which Joe Biden gave Anita Dunn. It's not to say that she wasn't an established person before, but look, she was in his inner sanctum. You don't need to beat up on the guy on his way out the door. Even if you privately feel that what he did was wrong, you don't need to go before the world's press and tell them what he did. And you know --
PHILLIP: But points for honesty?
ROGINSKY: Points for -- points for --
GESIOTTO: When people do it to Trump, everybody loves it.
ROGINSKY: But no, wait a second. Look, everybody did it to Trump after Trump. On your side, everybody -- many people did it to Trump after Trump lost. And that's the part that drives me crazy because if Joe Biden had won re-election, I don't know. But first of all, he wouldn't be giving Hunter a pardon. But second, I don't know that Anita Dunn would go out there and criticize him. And that's the part that I can't stand. I couldn't stand -- RIVERA: I don't -- I don't buy it.
ROGINSKY: I can't stand when Republicans did it to Trump who worked for him and were loyal to him until the day he'll walk out the door.
RIVERA: Ninety-nine percent of parents would give their kid up for it.
ROGINSKY: I agree with you.
G. CARLSON: But I think what she's saying as a communications specialist, two things. She should not have done that as a communications specialist, but they ended not well in July, so there's bad blood there. But I do think that from a communications point of view, the timing of this, Geraldo, was horrible because it was the single pardon. He should have just stuffed it in there at the end.
And to use your word, a compassion pardon. But at the end of his term, where it wouldn't have gotten as much attention and be singled out, it didn't help also that Joe Biden for years said that he was not going to give his son a pardon.
GESIOTTO: And she spoke to saying that as staff, they asked repeatedly and they were issued a wondered response, no, no, when they asked, are you going to pardon him? Are you going to pardon him?
PHILLIP: It sounds like she's so frustrated also with the idea that Hunter's, you know, interests -- his attorneys were in the room for a decision that should have been made at the White House level.
RIVERA: I don't think that that's the -- I mean, personally, I remember living through forward pardoning Nixon. I mean, there was real substance that he kept the nation together by pardoning Nixon for the Watergate crimes. And Nixon pardoned Jimmy Hoffa. You talk about controversial. I mean, that was crazy. Did I say Jimmy Carter?
HUGHES: But this is different. This is self-interest rather than interest of the nation. But I do agree with you in the sense that I really don't like virtue signaling, meaning when someone does something wrong, that everyone agrees is wrong, but if you were in their situation, you probably would have done it, too.
ROGINSKY: You know what?
HUGHES: And that's what this is.
UNKNOWN: It's the time of year.
HUGHES: What parent can really say, no, if I could, you know, get my son a jail -- get out of jail free card, totally constitutional, no, I wouldn't do it just because I'm that great a person. That's a liar.
ROGINSKY: Why is that?
GESIOTTO: I agree with you, but I think people expected more honesty.
ROGINSKY: From who? I'm sorry. I'm sorry, can I just say this? GESIOTTO: And I think people wish that they would have been honest up
front when repeatedly asking, and people say, oh, why don't you trust Democrats, or why don't you trust government officials? This is why people don't trust them.
HUGHES: Trump would have done the same thing.
ROGINSKY: Donald Trump is a pathological liar who pardoned every crony that he possibly could.
GESIOTTO: Joe Biden specifically said he wouldn't pardon Hunter. Donald Trump never said, I'm not going to pardon this specific person, and then went and did it.
ROGINSKY: No, Donald Trump was just honest -- Donald Trump was just honest in pardoning every crony he ever had.
GESIOTTO: So, he is more honest in this case, on this specific thing.
ROGINSKY: So, here's the bottom line, I'm so tired of Democrats being held double standard that Republicans are never held to. Nobody holds Donald Trump to this kind of standard. Donald Trump wanted to pardon, preemptively pardon all, I don't know how many, five of his kids, however many he has, for crimes that we might not even know about.
GESIOTTO: He doesn't have to pardon any of his kids for crimes. There's a difference.
ROGINSKY: You know what, for all we know -- oh, so, he had to pardon Steve Bannon. He had to pardon -- I mean, I can go down the list.
GESIOTTO: Steve Bannon is not his kid.
ROGINSKY: Doesn't matter -- crony.
PHILLIP: Julie, don't you think, I mean, we just put up the poll, 68 percent of Americans disapprove.
[22:40:00]
Don't you think this has damaged President Biden's legacy?
ROGINSKY: I don't think --
PHILLIP: -- that he --and this is the other point Anita was making. You have been, she says to her former boss, you have been a person of integrity. You have upheld the rule of law. Why then attack the rule of law as one of your final acts as president?
ROGINSKY: So, I would say there's -- I'm going to separate that into two things. One is he should not have talked about how Hunter was persecuted and prosecuted unfairly, right? That was, he should never have done that. In terms of the pardon itself, and let me preface by saying I hate the fact that we have pardons in the Constitution. I think it is this monarchical, crazy thing that should not exist, but it does exist. So, people and presidents on both sides have given them.
But I will also say from Joe Biden's perspective, I don't think he gives a damn about his legacy. This is his kid we're talking about who he's worried is going to fall off the wagon again if he has to go to prison, who's being, even now, even after the pardon's been issued, Republicans like Comer are going out and saying they're going to come after him anyway.
I think if you're Joe Biden, you're so disheartened and you're so disgusted with everything that's happened to you in the last year that you probably are on your way out the door saying, I'm going to protect my family. Because by the way, a lot of these people didn't look out for me, so I'm going to look out for myself.
G. CARLSON: And history's going to look at this and not remember this pardon as much as --
ROGINSKY: Right.
HUGHES: I agree.
G. CARLSON: -- they're going to remember that Joe Biden did not get out of this election when he said he was only going to be a one term.
ROGINSKY: Yes.
G. CARLSON: It's going to be much more about the fact
ROGINSKY: Exactly right.
G. CARLSON: -- that he left Kamala Harris with three months to try and become president.
RIVERA: I wanted to pardon Liz Cheney and Kissinger -- Kissinger. I mean, pardon people who really need protection.
PHILLIP: We were going to talk about this when we ran out of time. But Bill Clinton says, talk to me, Mr. President, about a potential pardon of his wife. So, that could be on the table, too.
ROGINSKY: We'll see. We'll see.
PHILLIP: Everyone --
RIVERA: I remember when Clinton did Mark Rich, the fugitive.
ROGINSKY: Also wrong. Also wrong.
PHILLIP: Lots of historical pardons here. Everyone, stand by for us. Coming up next, Republican Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders is saying the food stamp recipients should not be used to buy junk food, except that's a different tune from decades of Republican talking points on a very similar issue. We'll discuss that next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:46:28]
PHILLIP: Tonight, big government, junk food -- and the governor who wants to tell you what you can and can't eat. Sarah Huckabee Sanders has a strategy to make her state healthy again, barring people who use food assistance to spend it on junk.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS (R-ARKANSAS): SNAP is critical for struggling families but it's also a huge taxpayer subsidy for things like soda, candy, and dessert. I just sent a letter to President Trump's nominee for HHS, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and his nominee to lead the USDA, Brooke Rollins, asking them to prohibit SNAP purchases of junk food. And with obesity as high as ever, this would be a massive benefit to our health and our taxpayers.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: I have to say, not a bad idea.
UNKNOWN: It's a great idea.
PHILLIP: Right? Not a bad idea. However, over the last couple decades, here is the reception that right-wing media in particular has had. This was when they were talking about the nanny state, for example, Bloomberg trying to do very similar things.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TUCKER CARLSON, FOX NEWS HOST: If the government of New York can tell you how much soda you can drink, it's a pretty short trip from there to getting you to raise your hand before you go to the bathroom.
SARAH PALIN (R) FORMER ALASKA GOVERNOR: Oh, Bloomberg's not around. Our Big Gulp's safe.
MEGHAN MCCAIN, DAUGHTER OF SEN. JOHN MCCAIN: Emperor Bloomberg of New York City has banned soda. Get the government out of my life.
PAUL RYAN (R) FORMER SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: Hey look, I gave up pop for Lent three years ago. I haven't had one since, but that's up to you. We don't want a nanny state.
JEANINE PIRRO, FOX NEWS HOST: It's the ultimate nanny state. The same nanny state that says you can't drink 32 ounces of a soda drink is not good for you. Well, who are you to tell me that?
MIKE HUCKABEE (R) FORMER ARKANSAS GOVERNOR: I always thought the whole soda tax idea was a little bit foolish and absurd and punitive. Soft drinks are a choice people make and it just seems like that this is one more government grab.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: I'm so sorry. I don't know how that Mike Huckabee by -- got in at the end. But -- G. CARLSON: The father of the governor who now wants to get rid of it.
Look, I mean, I guess everyone can change. I think this is a fantastic idea. Did you know that 23 percent of all food stamp dollars are spent on junk food?
And we're talking about kids' obesity, we're talking about adult obesity, we're talking about diabetes being a huge problem in this country. And the solution to this is not just that they're not going to pay for junk food. She wants to replace it with fresh food. Imagine that.
ROGINSKY: But wait.
G. CARLSON: Usually, that's too expensive.
ROGINSKY: But wait a second.
GESIOTTO: People can't afford it. I mean, you're going to have to increase the amount of dollars going to the SNAP because I don't know if anyone here has been to the grocery store recently. Healthy food is so expensive and I looked up the numbers. I'm like, I can't be the only one that goes to the store and is like griping at the price of healthy foods.
PHILLIP: Yes.
GESIOTTO: Since COVID-19 to 2022, healthy foods went up 18 percent whereas unhealthy foods in your traditional diet went up only nine percent. So, not only are they more expensive to begin with, they're going up at a substantially higher rate. And so, I think there's concerns about this.
Of course, we see a lot of waste fraud and abuse in the program that could potentially be cut to cover some of the increases but when we're talking about cutting government spending, making this might be difficult.
PHILLIP: Do you see Republicans raising the subsidy for SNAP anytime soon?
ROGINSKY: But that's exactly right I mean you make a great point Madison because There are food deserts all over this country where you truly cannot find a supermarket to buy food and they're typically in places where lower-income people live who rely on SNAP. And so, if you don't have access to fresh food and fresh fruit or vegetables that cost, as we point out, to rightly cost more money, are Republicans going to now address the food desert issue, which I hope they do.
[22:50:08]
ROGINSKY: I mean, God, I hope Robert F. Kennedy, if he does commit to doing this, he does get in there, which I pray for our country if he does, but I hope this is something that they look at. I also hope very strongly that they do something to make fresh fruit and vegetable much more affordable because right now, it's not.
G. CARLSON: That's the key.
ROGINSKY: But that's the key. And raise SNAP.
G. CARLSON: Why is it so expensive?
RIVERA: SNAP bars, booze. You can't buy booze. So, I think that's a good idea, even though it's the nanny state, poor people should have the right to buy a six-pack if they want, along with their carrots. But the --
PHILLIP: I don't know if booze counts as like a food group.
ROGINSKY: Yes. I guess if it were all of us, it would be.
RIVERA: It has forever, but that's very insightful of you.
G. CARLSON: But this is always what happens with -- if you go to fast food, the most expensive thing is the salad.
PJHILLIP: Is the salad.
G. CARLSON: OK, and that's not true if you - a head of lettuce does not cost that much. But they jack up the prices.
PHILLIP: But it is perishable. I think this is the issue.
UNKNOWN: OK.
PHILLIP: I mean, no, Gretchen, I'm agreeing with you. I think that there is a premium placed on healthy food, but it is also because it is -- it's something that -- that goes bad. And to -- and the fast food model is to have things that stay on the shelf as long as possible so that they can sell more of it.
HUGHES: Yes, I mean, I think in other places in the world, the poorest people in society are too thin and they don't eat enough.
PHILLIP: Yes.
HUGHES: In America, we've flipped into this modern, brand new problem in human history, where the lowest income people are actually the most obese and suffer all of the health consequences that come along with that.
So, while I hear you that the healthy foods are more expensive, I actually don't think that our big picture problem is that SNAP doesn't have enough money to fill someone's diet. It's that a lot of people are choosing the wrong foods or they're in food deserts. Or they didn't grow up knowing the difference between healthy and unhealthy foods.
And so, to have a nudge in the direction of this huge problem, which is at the core of Americans, lack of health compared to all our peer countries, seems like a good idea. And if you're against it, I'd like you to propose something else. PHILLIP: OK, well, here's the thing. The one last thing I'll say about
this, and I want to play the bite. It would be -- it would have been so much better, I think, for the country if, you know, a decade ago, when Michelle Obama was talking about this, we took it seriously.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEAN HANNITY, "HANNITY" HOST: An Obama government, obesity task force.
UNKNOWN: Get your damn hands off my fries, lady. If I want to be a fat, fat, fatty and shovel French fries all-day-long, that is my choice.
SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TEXAS): If Heidi Cruz becomes the next first lady, French fries are coming back to the cafeteria.
UNKNOWN: Coming up straight ahead, all this talk about the government taking salt away from you because it's so bad for you, but aren't there good things about salt?
UNKNOWN: I hate the government getting involved and telling me what to eat and not to eat.
UNKNOWN: Food police.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
G. CARLSON: You're giving Julia and I, like, PTSD here with all of this Fox talk.
PHILLIP: All Michelle Obama said was giving kids pizza at lunch does not constitute giving them vegetables because there's tomato sauce on the pizza. And I think that we're -- OK, great, we're at a place now where that's recognized, but it's wild that it took R.F.K. Jr. and his vaccine denialism to get us here.
GESIOTTO: Yes, I think parents across the country --
RIVERA: And what about the food companies -- I'm sorry.
GESIOTTO: I think parents across the country want to see healthier options for their children. They want to see these disease epidemics go down. I mean, when you compare us, like he said, to the rest of the world in so many ways, we're just not keeping up.
RIVERA: But talking about the rest of the world, is it --
GESIOTTO: And on education, as well, is a whole other issue for --
RIVERA: Is it not true that different countries have different ingredients for the same product?
GESIOTTO: Oh, they have different standards. You compare ketchup here to ketchup in Europe, I mean it's not the same thing at all. It's unacceptable.
ROGINSKY: We have additives and preservatives here to make them last longer and that's part of the problem.
PHILLIP: Everyone, stay with me. Coming up next, it sparked violence and chaos and now one lawmaker wants to make it a felony for rivals to plant their flags on the opponent's football field. Is this really a concern or is this just a sore loser talking? We'll discuss that.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(22:58:48)
PHILLIP: Tonight, new video of a brawl that one Ohio lawmaker wants to make, a felony. This is body camera footage of Michigan trying to plant a flag midfield following last month's shock win over the Buckeyes. Well, state Representative Josh Williams has introduced a bill that would make it a felony to plant a flagpole at, quote, "the center of the football field at Ohio Stadium".
He says, "Behavior that incites violence, brawls and puts law enforcement officers in danger has no place on the football field. Well, we have an Ohio State fan at the table. What is going on here? It sounds like he's just a little salty.
GESIOTTO: Well, last time I checked, everywhere in the state of Ohio, it is illegal to charge and assault people. I think this is totally unnecessary. And as my husband, who is a two-time national champion, would tell you, winning solves everything.
G. CARLSON: And go Blue, by the way. Go, Blue. I have a son at Michigan.
RIVERA: Oh, Michigan. Oh, oh, yes.
G. CARLSON: And my husband graduated from Michigan. So, yes, it was an intense rivalry. They shouldn't have necessarily planted the flag, but this is ridiculous.
PHILLIP: I mean --
GESIOTTO: Last word real quick for me. Go, Bucks. Go, Gators.
G. CARLSON: Go, Blue.
PHILLIP: We don't want any brawls at this table.
RIVERA: But it's impossible to understate how frenetic, you know it is between Ohio and Michigan.
[23:00:00]
I mean, Ohio State.
PHILLIP: Yes.
RIVERA: It's crazy how intense the fans get.
GESIOTTO: Yes, it's incredible. RIVERA: And when that unfolded, it seemed so wacky to watch it.
ROGINSKY: I thought you make that illegal.
RIVERA: You can't use mace. You can use mace to break them up.
PHILLIP: Make what illegal? Oh, the fighting?
ROGINSKY: The fighting. How about that? I mean --
RIVERA: Yes, it's illegal.
ROGINSKY: But that's my point.
RIVERA: It is illegal.
ROGINSKY: Like, you don't need to worry about it. By the way, this is inciting. Planting a flag is inciting these poor kids to violence. They would never have gotten violent. Were they not looking at a flag that offended them? Like, what? Are you kidding me?
PHILLIP: Yes, it makes no sense. Everyone, thank you very much and thanks for watching "NewsNight". "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
