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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Is Trump Winning His Trade Wars as Deadline Looms; Economy Grows at 3 Percent Rate in Q2, Despite Some Red Flags; Democrats Declare War Over GOP's Redistricting Map. Congress Gets One Step Closer To Banning Members From Trading Stock; Kamala Harris Announces She Will Not Run For California Governor In 2028. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired July 30, 2025 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[22:00:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR (voice over): Tonight, Donald Trump's economy keeps defying gravity. So, will the run of yellow bricks continue or is something wicked this way coming?
Plus, a new battle of the Alamo, liberals declare war and accused Republicans of rigging the midterms after MAGA whips out the Sharpie.
Also, should lawmakers be able to trade stocks?
SEN. JOSH HAWLEY (R-MO): We have information that no other people get.
PHILLIP: An 80-20 issue seized bipartisan love, and red on red hate.
SEN. RICK SCOTT (R-FL): Anybody want to be poor? I don't.
PHILLIP: And when one door closes, which one opens? Kamala Harris reveals she won't be going, going, back, back to Cali, Cali, leaving a highway to 2028.
Live at the table, Scott Jennings, Kara Swisher, Shermichael Singleton, Amanda Berman, Chuck Rocha, and Richard Quest.
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's talking about. Is Donald Trump winning his trade wars? Let's take a look at the big picture here. The economy appears to be holding up, at least for now, and here is the good news. The nation's GDP, which is a key economic indicator, grew sharply in the second quarter. Another good sign, people are buying stuff, consumer spending, which powers 70 percent of the economy, also up slightly, combined with steady inflation, a stronger stock market, and tariff revenue, which, according to the White House, is in the billions, and things appear great. But that's even despite those tariffs.
But just today, in true Oprah fashion, Trump basically said you get a tariff and you get a tariff. He's slapping hefty tariffs on everything, from copper to Brazil, and then he threatened India because he's mad about its relationship with Russia over oil.
Now, those new tariff rates, Trump says, will take effect on August 1st. That's the deadline that he keeps delaying. Now, this time he says that date is not going to move.
Joining us in our fifth seat at the table, CNN Business Editor-at- Large and CNN Anchor Richard Quest.
Richard, The Wall Street Journal described this as a weird GDP report because there's a lot of stuff inside the numbers. Headline number is good, but what do you see on the inside?
RICHARD QUEST, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: Oh, the GDP number was weird because the previous number was greatly affected by imports, all those importers trying to get stuff into the United States before the tariff barriers came down. And so the previous number was off, this number. It's called -- don't get me wrong, it is a good number, but it can't be necessarily taken to the bank just yet.
We do not know the full effects of the tariffs yet. We -- to put this in perspective, pre-Donald Trump, the average U.S. tariff was 3 percent. Today, the average U.S. tariff is 17 percent, which is the highest level since Smoot-Hawley in the 1920s and 30s.
Now, we cannot know at this point exactly how that's going to play out, which is why the Fed held interest rates as they -- there are two dissenters, yes, two dissenters, I'll give you that, but they held for the time being simply because, as Jerome Powell says, we just don't know.
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I would just like to go -- I'd like to build a DeLorean and go back to April when everybody here was predicting likely to cause a recession, investment stops when a recession happens. They're not talking about a U.S. recession, they're talking about a global recession.
PHILLIP: What was happening in April, Scott?
JENNINGS: Lead to recession. Eventually, they're being a reception.
(CROSSTALKS)
QUEST: Just a second, Scott.
JENNINGS: You saw -- you called the recession. You called a -- you took your shoe off.
QUEST: You like to see that again?
JENNINGS: You took your shoe off, you brought cookies out.
QUEST: 15 percent.
JENNINGS: You took your shoe off and you said there was going to be a recession.
[22:05:00]
GDP is 3 percent.
QUEST: It's too early to give a final verdict.
PHILLIP: All right. Scott --
QUEST: It's too early -- just a second, Abby. He's basically calling me calling me out here. It's too early to give a final verdict on the tariffs. You may wish to, but at the moment, it can't be said what the long-term effect is going to be.
JENNINGS: I am just a journalist and all I can do is read the economic data.
PHILLIP: It's a bit of a stretch.
JENNINGS: 3 percent GDP, trade deals, record high in the stock, cooling inflation.
QUEST: These trade deals are garbage.
PHILLIP: It's actually much simpler.
JENNIGNS: Garbage?
QUEST: Yes.
PHILLIP: Hold on a second. It's much simpler than this. Just one second, because I think it's super important to understand. Scott, what was happening in April of this year 2025? What was happening then?
JENNINGS: The president --
PHILLIP: What did the president announce on that week, the first week of April? What did he announce?
JENNINGS: The president was implementing --
PHILLIP: What did he announce, Scott?
JENNINGS: -- his tariff agenda.
PHILLIP: And what were those tariff levels?
JENNINGS: And, well, they were different for different countries.
PHILLIP: Okay. So, let me -- JENNINGS: But every single person predicted calamity.
PHILLIP: Scott, you can't skip steps here. And what were those tariff levels?
JENNINGS: They were different. He had a chart.
PHILLIP: They were. Oh, hold -- not just different. They were two to three times higher than the current tariff levels. Did those tariffs go into place, Scott?
JENNINGS: It's different for every country.
PHILLIP: Scott, it's a simple question. Did those tariffs go into place?
JENNINGS: He has delayed or some of the tariffs?
PHILLIP: Yes or no?
JENNINGS: He has delayed some of the tariffs and he made main deals.
PHILLIP: Did any of the --
JENNINGS: And he's implemented others.
PHILLIP: Did any of the tariff levels that Trump announced on that week, did they ever go into place?
JENNINGS: Some tariffs have been implemented. Some have been delayed, and some deals have been made.
PHILLIP: The answer is they did not. They did not.
JENNINGS: Some tariffs have been implemented.
PHILLIP: All of those quotes?
JENNINGS: That's why we have all this money coming in.
PHILLIP: We actually -- we have them here.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: We have them here.
QUEST: No. Back in April -- I mean, back in April --
JENNINGS: You guys are so mad. Why are you rooting for failure?
QUEST: Because --
JENNINGS: Why does this table root for failure?
QUEST: (INAUDIBLE) please, because you are saying you are taking a number of 40, 50, 60 percent back in April, and you are comparing it to a number of 10, 15 percent now.
JENNINGS: Fine. It's a strategy to negotiate and create leverage and give us the situation there is today.
PHILLIP: It's completely -- okay. Shermichael, I will let you talk, but I just have to say, completely disingenuous to suggest --
JENNINGS: I'm sorry. You were the one calling for a recession in April. Not me.
PHILLIP: Give me one second.
JENNINGS: You called for it.
PHILLIP: Give me one second. Please let me finish. It is completely disingenuous to suggest that what economists said would happen if Trump imposed 50 and 60 percent, oh, let's jump all the way up to 135 percent level tariffs on this economy would have been a recession. Those levels never happened, which is why there has been no recession. It's not that complicated.
SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: The levels haven't happened, but it didn't stop individuals who were antagonistic to the president and his agenda, whether they agree with them or not, from saying that this is still going to lead to significant inflationary rates.
PHILLIP: Okay.
SINGLETON: We have not seen that. And so you would think individuals who were on the negative of this, at a minimum, acknowledge the fact that the president did not implement those high tariff rates that you just stated.
PHILLIP: It is super simple. Did Donald Trump implement the tariff levels that he announced?
SINGLETON: No, I acknowledge that the tariff levels --
(CROSSTALKS)
SINGLETON: My point is --
PHILLIP: Hold on a second. When you evaluate whether or not inflation has resulted from those tariff levels, how are you evaluating it?
SINGLETON: Well, I'll tell you --
PHILLIP: Because they haven't gone into place. So, obviously, inflation hasn't increased to the levels that people projected if they had gone into place.
SINGLETON: We're arguing two different things. The point that I'm making is individuals who said at the time that this would lead to a recession continue to make the same argument despite the fact that those tariff rates were not implemented. That's the point I'm making. And no one here is willing to acknowledge that fact.
PHILLIP: Let me -- hold on. Let me just play Jerome Powell because. I'm not an economist, but this guy is. So, listen to what he has to say about tariff levels and the impact on the economy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEROME POWELL, CHAIRMAN, FEDERAL RESERVE: Higher tariffs have begun to show through more clearly to prices of some goods, but their overall effects on economic activity and inflation remain to be seen.
Effective level of tariffs is not moving around that much at this point, but at the same time, there are many uncertainties left to resolve.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: And, honestly, the main uncertainty that he's talking about is that we just don't know where the -- what the deals are going to end up looking like. And we might know come Friday.
JENNINGS: And that's --
PHILLIP: We might know come Friday, and then in next month, we'll assess the situation. But right now --
QUEST: Can I just say, the deals. Let's talk about the deals, right? So, we've got the deal with the European Union, which somebody has already described as pie in the sky. They simply will not buy that amount of energy and/nor will they invest that amount of money. We have the deal with Japan where nobody knows where the $650 billion worth of investment is going to come from, nobody. The Japanese admit they don't know where it's going to come from. We've got the deal announced today with the South Koreans.
[22:10:00]
What Donald Trump has brilliantly done, brilliantly done, he wanted a headline number, and it's around 15 percent. But the underlying terms of trade deals are garbage.
SINGLETON: So, Richard, what deal would you have preferred?
QUEST: How do you mean?
SINGLETON: Well, what are -- what details of a deal would suffice for you?
QUEST: Well, I would've liked them to have negotiated a proper long- term deal.
SINGLETON: What's proper? Let's focus on the word proper. What's proper to you?
QUEST: Where the details hold up. Where the details -- SINGLETON: You keep saying this, but you're giving no specificity whatsoever. I can sit here and name a whole bunch of random ridiculousness. That means absolutely nothing at all.
QUEST: With respect, no, because they've actually announced the European deal where supposedly $600 billion.
SINGLETON: So, give specifics about what you would like to see in an -- wait a minute, Scott. Give an alternative and give specifics for what would be a deal that would satisfy your critique.
QUEST: A long-term trade relationship deal that doesn't rely on a fictitious amount of investment. The Japan deal, the Japan deal --
SINGLETON: Okay, Richard.
QUEST: No.
SINGLETON: I'm listening.
QUEST: The Japan deal envisages $650 billion worth of investment, but nobody says by whom or how, or the penalty against. It is literally making it up because --
PHILLIP: Let me let some of the other folks onto the conversation. Go ahead, Chuck.
CHUCK ROCHA, SUBSTACK, THE ROCHA REVOLUTION: Me and Amanda's got some things to say. First of all, I want to go back, but I ain't going back this far. I'm going to go way back. I'm going to go back one more year and tell you how Donald Trump was right. Stay in your seat. He was right because he said when Joe Biden's stock market was at an all-time high, when we were creating jobs, we were full of employment, and things were going great. Donald Trump said to me, but my Republican friends who've been doing laps all day of victories, said to me, Chuck, the stock market is not real people's lives. GDP is not the real people's lives. And I'm here to tell you, as an old boy from East Texas who never went to college, it ain't real people's lives. Folks at home's prices have not went down. Folks lives are still as bad, we can say, to argue about all these trade deals all you want, folks at home care about gas and groceries. The prices of the house is going up.
JENNINGS: Gas is down, by the way.
SINGLETON: But a little more than 51 percent of Americans, we have a 401(k).
JENNINGS: That impacts them.
SINGLETON: That matters in terms of the stock market performance.
PHILLIP: So, you're good with the stock market now?
SINGLETON: Well, I've always been good with stock market. PHILLIP: Well, I don't know. I mean, a few months ago, you were complaining that this was not real life. Listen, let's put the stock market all the way --
SINGLETON: Let's put that to the side.
PHILLIP: All the way to the side, okay? You know, it's interesting because it -- we were talking about the funny numbers. Private domestic investment fell 15 percent, okay? One of the reasons that the GDP was up is because imports basically collapsed, 30 percent decrease in imports. And so there's stuff happening in the economy that are still a result of the tariffs, which is one of the reasons why I think there are a lot of people who are like, hold on a second, we have to see what happens going forward.
QUEST: I just wish that the proper trade deals have been put in place long-term, instead this myopic obsession the president has with tariffs. So, he's got his tariffs. He's got a global tariff rate of between 15 to 20 percent, and he's happy with that, and it will bring in billions of dollars. Not as much as he likes to think, by the way. It'll bring in about $2 trillion over ten years when he's increased the deficit by more than $5 trillion over ten years. But that's another story, which you don't want to (INAUDIBLE).
JENNINGS: We do have a budget surplus, do we not, in June and July?
QUEST: Oh, come on. This is funny numbers because of imports and just the way it was all structured. The ten-year number is quite clear that the tariffs will not bring in the difference on the big, beautiful bill. It's quite simple arithmetic. The trade deals will not -- take this to the bank, the trade deals that he's been announcing long-term will not change the terms --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Scott, let me let Amanda give a word in edgewise here.
AMANDA BERMAN, FOUNDER AND CEO, ZIONESS ACTION FUND: I am not an economist like you, but I am a consumer and I do have friends who run small businesses. And they have had a very difficult time since last fall, since before the April announcement, trying to figure out where to keep their factories, what the costs were going to be, what their margins were going to be, how much staff they could continue to hire and what their product was going to look like.
There are people who are considering marketing shifts because their products are going to be in different categories, I mean, downstream effects for small business owners that they can't predict and they still can't predict. Because, you know, to your point that it's -- you know, you're arguing essentially that what -- where the market is now is an indicator that there's not going to be a problem down the line. But we're talking about a deadline of this Friday. The tariffs have not largely even gone into effect yet, and we haven't even begun the negotiation with China.
So, the idea that where things are now is where they're going to stand, and the idea that business owners are supposed to know how to plan for this, they don't know how to plan for this. They're very clear that they are conflicted, they are confused, they don't know what to do.
I have a friend who actually has a factory that was in China. She moved it last fall before Trump even took office to Southeast Asia thinking that she was going to avoid some kind of, you know, tariff penalty. And then he made his announcement in April, and he was not --
[22:15:00]
JENNINGS: She should bring it to the U.S.
BERMAN: There is no real manufacturing of these types of materials in America. That economy doesn't exist here. There's no labor here. There's no infrastructure for it. That's a ridiculous --
ROCHA: My factory actually got sent overseas. I know what it's like for a whole little small town in East Texas to be (INAUDIBLE) because of NAFTA or PANTR (ph). Like these are real issues we're talking about. And if we could bring all the manufacturing jobs back, I'd be in on day one. Even some of these tariffs on steel in aluminum, count me in. But regular folks right now, when they look at what they're going to do to pay for their babysitter and stuff, we got to get back to helping those.
That's how Donald Trump got elected. I think that's how Republicans are going to losing a midterm.
PHILLIP: We got to go we got to go. I just want to channel our friend, Kevin O'Leary, who was on the show yesterday, and he pointed out that some businesses are saying it's going to be a third, they eat the price. A third, they pass it on to consumers, a third just gets wiped away by A.I. So, let's see what happens when that happens.
Richard Quest, thank you very much for joining us.
Coming up next Democrats say Republicans are trying to rig the midterms as they're on the verge of redrawing the map. We'll debate that.
Plus, tempers flare over whether there should be a ban on lawmakers trading stocks as Trump accuses Nancy Pelosi of insider trading. Kara Swisher is with us. She's going to join us at the table.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:20:00]
PHILLIP: Tonight, a quote, redistricting arms race, that's what one Democratic lawmaker is calling Texas' newly drawn Congressional map. If it's approved, the map would potentially pave the way for Republicans to gain five seats in the House, which could be the difference in their party maintaining control. Now, Democrats plan to challenge the map in court. But Gavin Newsom has other plans, writing on Twitter, Donald Trump asks for five seats and Greg Abbott automatically bends the knee. The 2026 election is being rigged. California won't sit back and watch this happen.
Joining us at the table now is CNN Contributor Kara Swisher, author of Burn Book, a Tech Love Story, and host of the podcast On and Pivot.
He's going to, according to him, call up a, they have to change the Constitution of California to do this. He can't just wave a magic wand. But, I mean, California, if there's going to be partisan redistricting, they've got a lot of terrain to work on. Is that a good idea?
KARA SWISHER, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: I don't think it's a good idea at all, anywhere. I think it's, you know, we're talking about partisanship, the idea of bringing people together. There should be districts that are mixed, as they have been, if you create these red districts and blue districts, you create an impossible situation for a Congress, I think.
And also it's going to be Michigan. It'll be lots of states. It'll be New York and stuff like that. And it's just a race to the bottom.
ROCHA: Look, let's let the guy in the cowboy hat jump in for just a second on the Texas stuff. If it's -- one thing I know is that Donald Trump is somebody who's running against Donald Trump and these Republicans. Like the reason they got elected is there's a lot of people out there who don't like a rigged system and they think the system's being rigged against them. They really don't love Democrats. They really don't love Republicans. They wanted something to break it, and they think Donald Trump will do that.
The rig system argument here goes to the Democrat's favor. This is a softball. Listen to me at home for all you with two master's degrees. Write this down. This is easy. You just look at it. And you run ads that say, these guys are rigging the system. They're putting their hand on the scale because they want more seats, because the big, beautiful bill is so unpopular, they know they're going to get their butt-handed to them in the off-year election, so they're trying to create more seats when it's not supposed to happen. But every ten years.
There's no reason for this to happen except for blatant partisanship, and folks will see right through it. As an example, there are ads running right now in Texas that Democrats are running, telling the voters, guess what? Your Congressional seat's going to run just because Donald Trump wants more seats.
JENNINGS: Now, would you run those ads in Illinois where it's, let me see here, 14-2, Maryland where it's 7-1.
ROCHA: But they did that ten years ago when you were supposed to, Scott.
JENNINGS: Massachusetts where it's -- ROCHA: We regularly did it. Everybody gerrymandered.
JENNINGS: Whatever, 9-0. Would you run those ads in those places where you all already squeezed all of the blood out of this turnip that could possibly be squeezed, or would you leave it out of those, just out of curiosity?
ROCHA: You redistrict every ten years. And in ten years, you all redistrict just as bad as we redistrict.
JENNINGS: I'm just asking. I'm just asking if you're upset about it.
ROCHA: But I'll say this. This thing is just like a guy walking through a club where somebody comes up and sucker punches him and then he gets mad because all of his buddy whoops on his buddy's butt because they started it.
BERMAN: You know what? If this --
ROCHA: Stay with me.
PHILLIP: I think I follow that. I think I follow that. Okay. Go ahead, Amanda.
BERMAN: If this were not so terrifying, it would actually be funny how petrified Republicans are of a Speaker Hakeem Jeffries. They have exploded the debt. They are taking food stamps and Social Security, the social safety net education from American taxpayers, and they're afraid to go home to their districts because their constituents are showing up at their town hall meetings and yelling at them. They're afraid to stay in Washington because they don't want to deal with the consequences of the Epstein scandal. They now control every part of the American government, Republicans, and yet they still feel they need to cheat to stay in power.
So, what is it that they could run on? Because, again, they control every lever of American government and they still haven't delivered anything to the American people that they should be running on. And that's why they're so afraid. What do they have to offer? They control everything. They've got no one to blame.
JENNINGS: How's the cheating?
PHILLIP: Let me show you what the math -- let me show you what the Texas redistricting is going to look like.
JENNINGS: Is it cheating if it's Democrats?
PHILLIP: Let me show you what it's going to look like, because, essentially, if you live in Texas, there's no such thing as a competitive district anymore if this redistricting goes into place. You go from 11 Harris districts to 8 and then Trump districts jump up to 30.
It's essentially saying there's no middle ground anymore. There's no district in Texas where a Democrat and a Republican can be in pretty close competition, even though that state has had some fairly close statewide races.
[22:25:09]
And they're not the only one where this is the case.
SINGLETON: In an ideal world, I actually would like to see more districts where you have Republicans compete for maybe some centrist- leaning Democrats, and maybe there are some conservative-leaning Democrats who could compete for maybe moderate-leaning Republicans. I would love that in an ideal world. But just as some of the states that Scott mentioned, that hasn't been the reality in a long time, Abby. You do have a liberal-leaning or Democratic-controlled states where it's a pretty solid blue state, and it's been that case for a long time.
California, for example, that hand few Republican districts that they do have Congressional districts, those are solid red districts, everything else, solid blue. The same for Illinois, the same for New York.
PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, I take your point about -- I mean, first of all --
SINGLETON: But this has sort of become the norm, unfortunately.
PHILLIP: Gerrymandering, yes, is a bipartisan affair, for sure. But, I mean, there's a sort of third party here that takes a look at this, the Princeton University Gerrymandering Project. And you can look at the map. I mean, you're complaining about California, but they're actually not quite as bad as many of these other states. And Illinois is, to your point, in dark red because it's pretty bad over there. But some of the other places, even New York, they tried to redistrict. They tried to redistrict and they didn't. That's why there are so many Republican seats in the state of New York right now.
BERMAN: Which, in Texas, the Republican Party has been so brazen about the fact that their goal -- they put out actually a tweet saying, our goal is to maintain control of Congress. We are trying to get five more seats because we want to take control. We want to keep control of Congress. So, yes, in New York and California, there are independent bipartisan commissions that are doing the redistricting, and that is not the case in terms of that. That's the cheating.
SINGLETON: I know this may make people uncomfortable, but the objective of electoral politics is a maximization of power. Now, we can differ on how you maximize that power, how you get there, how you maintain said power, but that's the process.
Now, to your point, Kara, I think we've gotten into a point where it's not probably good in the long-term, because now you're going to have states that are completely red, completely blue, and no one's going to feel the necessity to try to reach some common ground. I think we have to address that. But this has been a long-term coming -- long time coming, Abby. This isn't a new phenomenon.
SWISHER: That's not an excuse. It's not an excuse. It's usually based on the census. And this is outside that census time period --
SINGLETON: Sure.
SWISHER: -- which where it usually happens. And I think the word she's not looking for is cheating, it's sleazy. It looks sleazy to voters, to all voters, if people are trying to pull all these tricks in order to get elected. And I think most people, and you can see it all over the country are getting tired of this partisanship, and this is just a game to politicians. And I think that's the issue. And you'll get people angry and then you'll see all kinds of different candidates who will never be able to get in there. And that's --
PHILLIP: Yes. It sort of calcifies American politics in a place that is on the partisan extremes. And I take your point. It's bad on the left, it's bad on the right. But in this case, I mean, rarely do you see such sort of, you know, it's right there out on the open.
ROCHA: So, what does that mean when you're governing? What it means is if you have a deep red seat and a deep blue seat, that means there's never a general election for you all at home. We don't have to worry about finding compromise. All they have to worry about in a red seat or a deep blue seat is somebody running to them from their extreme right, if you're a Republican, or the extreme left, if you're a Democrat.
So, you stay beholden to the outside of your parties, because you don't want to be beaten. This is what's wrong with government overall because, to Scott's point, in almost every Congressional district, no matter what the state, they're all gerrymandered. There's 435 Congressional seats and only about 32 of them are truly marginal right now before this redistricting.
PHILLIP: Yes, all right. Next for us, should lawmakers be allowed to trade stocks? Well, most Americans actually support a ban. So, why are Trump and Republicans really mad that a ban is advancing?
Plus, Kamala Harris says that she is not running for governor, but what about the White House?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:30:00]
PHILLIP: Tonight, Congress gets one step closer to banning members from trading stocks. A Senate committee voted eight to seven to advance a bill doing just that. Josh Hawley, a Republican who sponsored it, was one of the only in his party to actually join Democrats to move it forward.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOSH HAWLEY (R-MO): We have an opportunity here today to do something that the public has wanted us to do for decades, and that is to ban members of Congress from profiting on information that frankly, only members of Congress have in the buying and selling of stock. Eighty-six percent of Americans say that members of Congress should not be able to buy and sell shares of stock, individual stock, while they are members of this body, and they are absolutely correct.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Now, if passed, the bill would stop lawmakers from buying and selling stocks and force them to divest their holdings. The same would be true for the president and vice president. But, this is critical, only starting in 2029. So, it wouldn't apply to President Trump.
But still, he was not happy with Josh Hawley, specifically, because Hawley voted down an amendment that would have made Nancy Pelosi disclose all of her trade since 2000. He questioned why Hawley would pass a bill that Pelosi is in absolute love with, and said that Hawley was playing right into the hands of Democrats before calling him a second tier senator. This part, I'm kind of having a hard time understanding because most Americans think --
[22:35:04]
KARA SWISHER, "PIVOT" PODCAST CO-HOST: Right.
PHILLIP: -- think that it's a good idea to --
SWISHER: It is a good idea.
PHILLIP: -- stop this practice right now.
SWISHER: I mean, that they're doing it and no matter what side you're on, this should not happen. They have -- they have information that other people don't have. It also creates distrust with voters. Same thing, it makes voters nervous. If they don't have that information they shouldn't have. Here's an idea, let's just play -- pay people in the Senate and Congress more.
Just give them a better salary and then bar them from doing it from the time they're in office. Maybe they'll leave sooner which would be always a good thing. And so, give them a raise, don't let them trade for the time period they're in, and then they can move on. It's pretty basic. And other people live by that, except for them.
PHILLIP: Yeah, like why would Trump even be upset about that?
SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Yeah, I don't disagree. I mean, I have a problem with members of Congress. Republicans, Democrats have it inside information, which most of them do. That gives them an unfair advantage compared to the regular retail investor out there who may be attempting to sit money aside for their children to go to college or if it's a grandparent, maybe they're trying to invest in a short-term life policy or they're trying to invest to help their kids buy their first home. They don't have that advantage. So, why in the world should members of Congress somehow be --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: You mean the president or vice president, which I think is a wise decision, too. (CROSSTALK)
SINGLETON: The president or vice president, as well. Put them in the same category. Why should those individuals be given a special privilege because of their position? I don't think it's fair at all.
PHILLIP: This is one of those 80-20 issues, Scott, right?
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Oh, I think the politics of it. I think Hawley was right about how he described the politics of it. Genuine curiosity on my part here. Do you think that members ought not to be able to own any stocks or just not trade them?
(CROSSTALK)
SWISHER: No.
PHILLIP: You just can't trade individual stocks.
SINGLETON: No, I think they should be able to own.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: The way that this bill works, just to answer your question, is that you could have index funds and you could have just not individual stocks where you're day trading and or even -- or even, frankly, having other people doing that on your behalf.
JENNINGS: Yeah, it seems fair to me that they would be allowed to own equities and own, you know, index funds, maybe even if they were in a blind trust or you know, being managed separately from you. I do think the public is highly skeptical of the information that they have.
You know, I do think when you're trying to do things like this, there's always the temptation from the other party to try to slip in ways to target the other side. That -- I think Holly's description of the politics is pretty right. It's an 80-20 issue.
CHUCK ROCHA, "NEW YORK TIMES" OPINION CONTRIBUTOR: Well, I think that lots of folks -- I can't believe that Donald Trump is not behind this because he normally falls right in line with what's popular with folks. I give him that all the time.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: I think he's mad that the Pelosi part didn't go through.
(CROSSTALK)
ROCHA: Anything that has to do with Pelosi, you're spot on right there.
PHILLIP: Yeah.
ROCHA: Do people know what Congress and Senate make? And do you know that a Senator and a Congressman should make the exact same thing? It's about 174,000 Scott, you think? So, and they have to two houses. I'm not saying, oh, woe is me, the Congress. But what I like to find out is, there's -- it's amazing to me how many Democrats and Republicans have went to Congress poor and ended up very rich when they left and they never got another job.
PHILLIP: Look, I play what Ron Johnson said about this. He claimed that this is going to get in the way of people who are successful wanting to serve. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. RON JOHNSON (R-WI): We do have insider trading laws. We have financial disclosure. So, I don't see the necessity of this. I can imagine all kinds of unintended consequences. You could relabel this law, quite honestly, the Career Politician Protection Act, because it'll make it so unattractive for people to give up their business, sell it, unless the -- some ethics committee says, oh, no, there won't be a conflict of interest.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SINGLETON: I don't --
PHILLIP: Let me -- let me have --
AMANDA BERMAN, FOUNDER AND CEO, ZIONESS ACTION FUND: No, never did I ever think that I would go on live national television and defend the fist-pumping insurrectionist who is Senator Josh Hawley, but he's obviously on the right side of this.
And I think it's pretty shocking that all of the other Republicans in the committee voted against it. We see where the politics are. We see the fact that they just feel the need to fall in line with Donald Trump, who no matter, you know, what sort of impulsive reason he has for not supporting this, we know it's bad for the American people.
And there's really, I mean, the inverse of the argument that Senator Johnson just made is that people are going to go to Congress specifically to get the inside information to do insider training -- insider training -- trading, excuse me. Otherwise, you know, why wouldn't people, there are lots of people with a lot of money who, you know, self-finance their campaigns and go to Congress.
PHILLIP: Can I just note, I mean, on the point of people getting rich off of their public office. I mean, the President literally just got back from a trip to Scotland --
(CROSSTALK)
UNKNOWN: Yes.
PHILLIP: -- where he was advertising his private property. That's just the -- that's just the cherry on top.
(CROSSTALK)
SWISHER: That's the tip off the iceberg.
UNKNOWN: And there's one thing --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: And so --
SWISHER: Crypto is really where they all should be doing this.
PHILLIP: Yes.
SWISHER: Crypto is very shattering.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: But over all, there are no qualms of this president to people make him making money while he is in office. So, but he's very concerned about the Nancy Pelosi of it all which is why he's not behind this version of the bill that Hawley is --
(CROSSTALK)
SWISHER: Well, she didn't shake her finger at him in public so that was an issue.
JENNINGS: She's done quite well, I understand.
BERMAN: Watchdogs have estimated that he made $1.6 billion off of the first presidency and corruption, I think, he's made synonymous with his presidency. And so, the fact that, you know, he imposes his bill makes complete sense for him.
[22:40:01]
But why congressional Republicans would go along with it as an indication of their integrity.
SINGLETON: So, to Ron Johnson's point, I disagree, Abby, because if you're a successful individual, you could obviously put your holdings in a blind trust. That's very easy.
PHILLIP: And you don't have to sell your business. Yeah.
SINGLETON: So, if you're going to serve for two years or for six years, if you own a business, you could clearly appoint a spouse or a child or a close friend or someone else to run the day-to-day operations of said business from a managerial perspective. So, I don't necessarily agree that that would somehow prohibit successful people from wanting to join Congress. There are ways to not create wealth --
(CROSSTALK)
UNKNOWN: Prohibit self from running.
SINGLETON: -- and protect that wealth while still serving publicly.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: And insider trading laws do not apply to this situation, which is the whole reason for this bill.
(CROSSTALK)
ROCHA: It costs so much money to run for Congress now. Back when I was young, you could maybe do it for $500,000. Now you need eight or $10 million. And if you were not already successful at some level, that means there's only certain people that get on either side. This is not a Democrat or Republican thing, that actually get elected because they have a network.
They went to college. They're in a sorority. They whatever -- they have a professional network where they can go raise money and maybe they catch fire online and raise some online money. But when you only elect rich people to go represent rich people, a lot of working folks just get left out. I'm going to keep going back to that. That's what's root of the problem.
PHILLIP: All right, next for us, Kamala Harris says that she is not running for governor of California. So, does that mean that she will run in 2028? We'll discuss.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:45:59]
PHILLIP: New tonight, Kamala Harris has announced that she will not run for California governor in 2026, but she is leaving the door open for a presidential bid in 2028. Harris was considered a heavy favorite for governor in the deep blue State of California, even though she faced some skepticism from within her party.
In a statement, Harris said that she looks forward to helping elect Democrats across the nation and sharing more details about her political future in the months to come. I don't know, how do we feel about this?
SWISHER: I wasn't surprised.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Right decision. Wrong decision?
SWISHER: I've spoken to her right after the election. I didn't think she was going to run.
PHILLIP: Yeah.
SWISHER: She had the fire about her and --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: It's kind a lot to do after you've just run a, you know --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: -- against the president.
SWISHER: Especially if she was thinking of running for president. I don't even know if she'll do that, actually. I have to, I'd wonder if she feels like she is the right person for it. But now it opens up the California race in a really interesting way because Rick Caruso is very --
PHILLIP: Right.
SWISHER: -- popular -- has been popular. Then there's Katie Porter. There's Xavier Beccera, and also the Lieutenant Governor is also really interesting.
SINGLETON: Caruso is a self-fund.
PHILLIP: Yeah.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: I want to read a little bit. This is what she said more of her statement because this is why people are wondering whether she's going to run for president. She said, "-- we must recognize that our politics, our government, our institutions have far too often failed the American people, culminating in this moment of crisis. As we look ahead, we must be willing to pursue change through new methods and fresh thinking, committed to our same values and principles, but not bound by the same playbook."
ROCHA: So, there's a political reason why this is happening. And the thing is, it's almost a no win situation for her. If she runs and she loses, oh my God, her career is already over if it's not already over now. If she runs and she wins by a little, she underperformed again. No need to do that. If she won and she won by a decent amount and then stepped down here later and won for president, you think folks would be in line to get in line for that?
No, there was almost no good reason for her to run. Plus, there's going to be a ton of people running. She -- in her announcement, said there's something big coming that's not an announcement about President. So, me and Scott were pontificating on that in the break room earlier. It could be anything. Think tanks, packs, there are packs out there.
PHILLIP: But can she -- but can she run on the government failing Americans and the need for a new path forward after just being in the White House just now?
ROCHA: A bigger question is, is Xavier Becerra? Because Javier Becerra is running and he comes from the administration.
PHILLIP: Yeah, but she's talking about -- what she's diagnosing there as being a problem of Americans thinking the government is failing them. One of the reasons is the four years that she was in the White House. BERMAN: Well, it may be why she's decided not to do it. But I think
it will be, to Kara's point, really interesting to see how the Democratic Party manages this race. California, course, is a blue state. Rick Caruso will be a very interesting addition to the landscape. And when I look at the major races that are getting a lot of attention inside the Democratic Party, we have the New York City Mayor's race and we have the Governor's races in New Jersey and Virginia with Mikey Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger.
I certainly hope that Democratic Party in California will move, I mean, I'm a progressive, but I want to see policies that actually people can vote for. And you know, I think that there's been a real problem inside the left that we've seen over and over again with the normalization of anti-Semitism and it is a major party, a major problem inside the Democratic Party.
It is, you know, feeding the beast. It's an insatiable beast. We saw AOC's office this week vandalized. She was accused of supporting Israel, even though she's, you know, extraordinarily outspoken about Israel. We saw Bernie Sanders, who just today introduced another piece of legislation to stop supporting Israel and stop sending weapons to Israel, who, you know, just two weeks ago was in Ireland, and he was kind of mowed down by protesters accusing him of being a genocide- denying Zionist.
So, there's a lesson to be learned from the party on this and I really hope that we'll see in California something, you know, much more aggressive from the party in terms of standing with the Jewish community, which has a big market share in California of the vote.
SINGLETON: I'm not convinced that she will run in 2020 either. And I think as a party, Democrats have been trying to figure out what they represent, what they stand for, what moving forward looks like for them.
[22:50:04]
And I've seen from a lot of leaders the recognition that you need to move somewhat to the center. They haven't done it completely, probably not fast enough on certain issues like Israel, for example. But I don't know if you would look back to the former vice president if you're trying to move to the center.
JENNINGS: Shermichael --
SINGLETON: I just don't see that.
JENNINGS: Shermichael, you need to will this into existence. My friend, my brother, I pray every day that these Democrats nominate Kamala Harris in 2028 again, and you're here down talking. I don't understand.
SINGLETON: I just don't see it, Scott.
JENNINGS: I need you to help me will this into existence. It would be the best for America. UNKNOWN: I don't know.
(CROSSTALK)
JENNNGS: Democrats, if you -- if you, whatever.
(CROSSTALK)
SWISHER: But Scott, be careful for what -- be careful for what you ask for because I think what's interesting about a lot of these races is the genuine person where they are and I think that's what's interesting to me. Daniel Lurie in San Francisco would be considered in San Francisco as centrist, right? He's having a lot of -- he's having a lot of acceleration there. The city is looking amazing right now. And - or Spanberger or Sherrill.
They're genuine to where they are and I think if Democrats decide to be genuine where they are, if they are centrist here or they're more liberal here, that's kind of a winning thing. And that'll be interesting to see who gets --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Can I just put a plug in--
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Can I put the plug in -- can I just put a plug in for there being other things in life that are more important --
(CROSSTALK)
SWISHER: That's right.
PHILLIP: -- and maybe more fulfilling --
(CROSSTALK)
SWISHER: Agree.
PHILLIP: -- than running for office?
SWISHER: Like a podcast.
PHILLIP: Like a podcast.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: I guess I'm just saying like, I do think that there is a part of that. I mean, you spoke to her.
SWISHER: I did, and what I jokingly said --
PHILLIP: And there is at some point, every person has to have that talk with themselves in the mirror --
SWISHER: Right.
PHILLIP: -- like, what is my life going to be like?
SWISHER: Right. Right. Exactly.
PHILLIP: Is politics the most important thing, or are there other ways to contribute.
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: When you've gotten that close to the sun, it's hard, it's hard.
(CROSSTALK)
SWISHER: I don't agree with you. I jokingly told her she should do a podcast called "Recently Unemployed with Kamala Harris", which I thought was really funny going around talking to people about it. And so, it would, I don't know, you're right. I think she may have thought she has better ways to contribute, and maybe wants to make money, wants to, like, have another thing, and she's not old. She's has, like, another career in her. So who knows?
SINGLETON: I just wonder, even if she were to try to run again, can she win considering the swirly weather candidates she was going to beat?
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: I think the secret is she was going to get beat in California and she knew it.
PHILLIP: You don't know until you know. And we may never know about California, but TBD on the rest of it. Up next for us, the panel will give us their nightcaps inspired by a recall related to vodka.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:57:14]
PHILLIP: We're back and it's time for the news nightcap, Wrong Label Edition. Some people who think they're drinking Celsius energy drinks may actually be getting a little boozy vodka seltzer. So, High Noon is now recalling some of their mislabeled cases. And so, you guys have 30 seconds to tell us what product mistake you would welcome. Shermichael, you're up.
SINGLETON: I would welcome Rockstar Games accidentally releasing Grand Theft Auto 6. I mean, I'm a big Grand Theft Auto fan, I don't get to play video games as much as I would like, being older now with real responsibilities. But people are waiting. Rockstar, hurry it up.
PHILLIP: Like a leak?
SINGLETON: Yes, yes, just a leak. Just a leak.
PHILLIP: Just -- okay. All right.
ROCHA: I want some vodka, but go ahead.
(LAUGHTER)
PHILLIP: Go ahead, Amanda.
BERMAN: I would not complain if my foundation happened to have Botox in it by accident.
(LAUGHTER)
BERMAN: So, I think it would be okay. You know, I think that there are a lot of women who would just, you know, have to deal with the consequences of that.
PHILLIP: Yeah, I think everybody would take that.
BERMAN: We would take it. If we had to take it, we would take it.
PHILLIP: Yeah.
SWISHER: I want to help Elon Musk, as you know, because I'm really a big fan. And I want to come out that the Cybertruck is the box that the actually good next Tesla vehicle came in to compete with BYD. So, it's a box holding an adorable, inexpensive little E.V. that Tesla will run away with the market with. I would love that to happen, but they're getting run over by BYD and they're adorable cars.
PHILLIP: Kara, this is America and Americans like the big old cars --
SWISHER: It's the box.
PHILLIP: -- not little -- they don't want cute little tinker cars.
SWISHER: Not that one. That one did not sell well at all.
PHILLIP: That's true.
SWISHER: So, it's the box. It came in.
PHILLIP: The box -- all right.
ROCHA: So, I read this and this is things that happened at the factory that get mixed together like the vodka and the energy thing. So, I was thinking what are the things that the factory I'd like to see get mixed together? I like a hot Cheeto, that's the Mexican in me. But I also know -- my wife knows this -- I love mixed nuts. I eat too many nuts that's why I'm fat. But I want to see the hot Cheetos and the mixed nuts in the factory line get mixed together and my life would be happy.
PHILLIP: Hear me out here. Hot Cheetos trail mix M and M's?
ROCHA: Oh, the chocolate, the sweet and salty is always good. Yeah, just throw all of it in there. PHILLIP: What kind of trail mix you're talking about?
SWISHER: You can do that yourself.
(LAUGHTER)
ROCHA: I want somebody to do it for me. That's my point.
PHILLIP: All right, Scott.
ROCHA: I could put the vodka in my energy drink, but I know, well, maybe.
JENNINGS: Very simple. I'm taking all the fluoride out of the water. I'm replacing it with Ozempic. And in 18 months, I will have the birth rate crisis in this country solved. We'll all be hot. There'll be lots of coronal activity.
(LAUHGTER)
JENNINGS: And we tell no one, by the way. We do this. We tell no one we're having babies again. It's going to be amazing. Morning in America. Eighteen months. Give me a start today. Eighteen months from today.
(LAUGHTER)
BERMAN: So many more vanity caucuses.
SINGLETON: That's how it ended.
BERMAN: Yeah, we got the vanity caucus right here.
[23:00:00]
PHILLIP: I think the truth of the matter is that we're all more vain than we'd like to let on.
UNKNOWN: Yeah, it is what it is.
(CROSSTALK)
SINGLETON: Zanac, Botox, better cars.
PHILLIP: I mean, you got it all tonight. It'll all be good.
UNKNOWN: Absolutely.
BERMAN: Mix the Ozempic with the Cheetos.
PHILLIP: That's right. Okay, everybody, thank you very much. But first, a special programming note. This summer, we are taking our show on the road for little field trips. We'll be broadcasting this roundtable debate from the Food Network kitchen. We will have food and drinks, maybe some Celsius, I don't know, and some lively conversation. You don't want to miss it. Up next for us, thank you for watching "NewsNight". "Laura Coates Live" is right now.
