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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
GDP And Consumer Confidence Reports Show Two Sides Of Economy; More Than 10 Percent Of Congress Not Seeking Re-Election; Romney Says, Tax The Rich Like Me; Trump Names New Navy Battleships After Him; Nicki Minaj Goes MAGA. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired December 26, 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 HOST (voice over): Tonight, a tale of two economies, a surprisingly strong report, but why don't things feel more affordable for most Americans?
Plus, it's almost the midterm season. Who's getting in and who's getting out? And how closely will Republican candidates tie themselves to Trump?
MANU RAJU, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Do you plan to do that in the next year in 2026, stump alongside President Trump?
BRUCE BLAKEMAN (R), NASSAU COUNTY EXECUTIVE, NEW YORK GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: Absolutely. I have no problem doing that. I support President Trump.
PHILLIP: And what's in a name? The president is putting his on everything, from Navy ships --
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: 100 times more powerful than any battleship ever built.
PHILLIP: -- to the Kennedy Center --
TRUMP: I was surprised by it. I was honored by it. We're saving the building.
PHILLIP: -- how Trump is turning the presidency into a brand.
Also, MAGA embraces Nicki Minaj.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have the utmost respect and admiration for our president.
PHILLIP: But are black and Hispanic voters feeling the same way one year into Trump 2.0?
Live at the table, Tezlyn Figaro, Scott Jennings, Joe Borelli and Trip Yang. 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, a tale of two economies, one that's working wonders for the wealthy and the other where middle and lower Americans are struggling this holiday season. Starting with the good news from this week though, according to the Commerce Department, the U.S. economy expanded at its fastest pace in two years with GDP surging in the third quarter of 2025 to 4.3 percent.
Then comes the bad news for Donald Trump. Much of that growth came from government spending and from wealthy Americans. And less than two hours after the GDP report was released, another report showed that consumer confidence is declining substantially this month, the lowest since April. This week's mixed bag follows the worst unemployment numbers in four years.
Trump is claiming victory, as he often does, he says that this is all due to tariffs, but I definitely think that this indicates a resilience in parts of the economy, but also warning signs in others. Is it too early for Trump to say that this is just an unequivocal victory and that tariffs are responsible for what we're seeing in this report?
JOE BORELLI, FORMER REPUBLICAN LEADER, NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL: Well, let's be specific about tariffs. The GDP number was driven by an 8.8 percent growth in exports, right? That is fundamentally attributable to tariffs. That was a big part of it. It's not just government spending. But how could we talk about something as a mixed bag when you have inflation going down, job numbers going up, and the economic growth of beating the estimate by a full percentage point?
That's not a big -- a mixed bag. That's a full-out win for Donald Trump in his first year in office. It's a justification of Republican governance. It's a justification of President Trump's policies. And, yes, I'm sorry that not every American is feeling it right now, but going into 2026, you'll see some of the tariffs work themselves out. We'll have new trade deals. You'll see the implications of the big beautiful bill actually play out in the tax returns in the first quarter of 2026. You're going to see a great economy for Americans, and that's when you'll see Americans at every level feeling it.
TRIP YANG, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: I would respectfully disagree with my fellow New Yorker. Look, it's a mixed economy at best for President Trump. The wages are slow. The affordability challenges from coast to coast, it's increasing. It was said earlier by Abby, it's the highest unemployment in four years. And, by the way, we just had the Trump shutdown, the longest government shutdown in history, by the way.
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Trump shutdown?
YANG: It is the Trump shutdown. That's what most Americans blame it on.
JENNINGS: Unbelievable.
YANG: So, look, it's simply not a good economic outlook for President Trump.
And one of the final things I'll say is that Republicans love rail former President Biden. But at this point, four years ago, President Biden's approval of ratings are actually higher than Donald Trump's are today. It's not looking good for President Trump.
PHILLIP: Scott, I'm going to give you a lot of credit for interjecting even while your voice makes you sound like the Grim Reaper. But go ahead, Scott.
JENNINGS: Democrats voting to shut down the government 15 times and finally had to come to their senses.
Look, Joe's right. Trump's got good numbers. Everything is moving towards what they predicted, that the economy's going to boom because of low taxes, because of the regulatory changes they've made.
So, right now, you know, it looks pretty good. They need wage growth to outstrip inflation and they're getting there on that too. So, you know, they have predicted this boom, if it does happen, and it continues on, they're going to have something to sell in the midterms.
[22:05:05]
PHILLIP: Well, to your point about wage growth, it did show that inflation adjusted disposable income was flat. And also I think as we put this into perspective, right? These numbers put the Trump economy roughly on par with where the Biden economy was last year. That's true on GDP growth. It's true on inflation.
So, sure, this is good for Trump because the alternative, a downturn would be worse, but it also is not outstripping the performance that Trump himself said as he was running for office last year was dismal for the American people. I mean, it's actually -- when you look at the numbers, he is performing about where Biden was a year ago.
TEZLYN FIGARO, FOUNDER, PUSH THE LINE: And this sounds almost like the Biden reelection campaign. Remember when Joe Biden was saying that, you know, the numbers are great and don't believe what you feel, and Republicans were saying, you know, that it's not about what the numbers are, it's about how people feel. And so J.D. Vance disagrees. He said that it is -- affordability is an issue. He spoke. So, I guess Republicans, I guess, you guys need to kind of get on messaging because, one, you're saying it's great, and then J.D. Vance is saying that affordability is an issue, because, of course, he's planning to run, you know, the next president of the United States. So, I think it's just important for everybody to agree that there is some affordability issues, and more importantly with healthcare reform. I'm looking forward to seeing what that's going to look like in January.
BORELLI: I think Republicans should jump to the pool full cannonball on affordability.
FIGARO: Yes.
BORELLI: You know why? Because, you know, University of California, Berkeley, not exactly known for its conservative-leaning professors, they had a study out this year that talked about affordability in red states versus blue states. The first thing Americans should actually ask themselves when they're struggling with affordability is, who is in charge of my state? Is it Democrats or Republicans? On housing and utilities, the two biggest drivers of affordabilities, University of California, Berkeley says red states are 50 percent less high cost of living as in --
PHILLIP: Why would that be, Joe? Could it be because in states have large population centers where --
BORELLI: It's per capita.
PHILLIP: No. But could it be because --
BORELLI: No, I'll tell you why.
PHILLIP: -- in blue states, some of the largest cities in America where cost of living is higher, I don't care where you are in the world --
BORELLI: I'm glad you asked because the study answered.
PHILLIP: I'm asking you, yes.
BORELLI: I'm glad you asked. It's driven by nonsensical climate policies. It's driven by the inability of free market to build housing, the inability of free market to develop housing in areas where they can't.
PHILLIP: Sure.
BORELLI: It's property taxes, which are a third -- about a third of housing costs.
PHILLIP: Obviously, housing is a supply and demand situation.
BORELLI: It's the largest contributor to cost.
PHILLIP: But there is way more demand in blue states than there is in red states. And, look, I'm not --
BORELLI: So, you're saying there's more demand in blue states where people are actually leaving and less demand in red states, like Tennessee, Florida, where people are move to?
PHILLIP: Here's what I'm saying, Joe, is actually not -- I'm not disputing what the study says. What I'm saying is that I'm not sure you can make that a political statement. I'm just saying that there are some structural differences between a red state like Alabama and a blue state like New York. And one of the biggest structural differences is that Birmingham and New York City are not the same kind of city. New York City is not just expensive because of climate policy. It is expensive because millions of people live here. That's why.
(CROSSTALKS)
BORELLI: I'm not saying this. I didn't make it political. University of California, Berkeley made it political. They actually compared Republican government states versus Democratic government states.
PHILLIP: No. I'm just saying I'm not -- listen, Democrats probably need to address how they address the housing supply issue, right? Regulation does play a role. However, even with all of those things, urban centers all around the globe are more expensive than less urban centers. So, it's just from a basic --
BORELLI: Red states have urban centers, Miami, Houston, Dallas.
PHILLIP: Okay.
BORELLI: I mean, you can go through the list. There's a lot of urban centers in red states.
PHILLIP: Yes, I understand that. The biggest ones are where?
BORELLI: In this country, obviously, it's Chicago, New York and L.A.
PHILLIP: All right.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: The American public here where we are right now is, and I do think that we -- let's set the table for Trump. He has an opportunity to take this and perhaps improve upon it, right, to get into 2026 with a better economy than he left 2025 with. But he's also pushing the Supreme Court to double down on tariffs, double down on tariffs that are a mixed bag in terms of the economy.
In terms of GDP, it actually can help boost the numbers because there's less input coming into the economy, so that helps. But it doesn't help in terms of what it costs for people to actually live, which might be why we're seeing voters saying that they think Trump is responsible for the current economy. They say that they disapprove of how he's handling the economy because they're not -- they don't care about the inflows and outflows of the broader economy. They care about the inflows and outflows of their pocketbook.
YANG: Absolutely. So, the silver lining curve for President Trump is that the only reason his economic numbers right now are mixed at best for him and not an absolute disaster is because he actually reversed course on some of this tariff policy, where he delayed a lot of this tariff policy.
[22:10:08]
A lot of this was a completely unforced error by President Trump earlier in the spring. Maybe he is actually this unwitting genius and he managed his expectations to be so low for him. But tariff policy is one of the reasons why there was a very pessimistic outlook.
And, look, fundamentally, we can all set at this table and agree to disagree on a number of these topics. But in November 2024, President Trump, the most disciplined version of President Trump's campaign, said, if you vote for me, the cost of living is going to go down.
FIGARO: Day one.
YANG: Egg prices are going to go down. Gas prices are going to go down.
JENNINGS: They did.
YANG: And look what happened. A lot of consumer prices have actually gone up, including electricity. In New Jersey. In New Jersey, the Democrats won a massive landslide earlier this year because Mikie Sherrill campaigned on electricity rates. It's gone so high in New Jersey, just as it has gone high in Virginia, New York and places across the country. President Trump, it is mixed at best for him.
PHILLIP: And earlier this week, I mean, we were talking about the windmills, which would affect places like Virginia, where they're trying to add to the power grid. Trump is saying, okay, get rid of windmill energy, just because I don't like windmills.
A lot of this economic policy is just driven by what he thinks works, whether or not that's actually true, whether it's because he doesn't like windmills because they look bad or he likes tariffs because he thinks that foreign countries are paying those tariffs, which they are not.
FIGARO: You guys spend a lot of time on windmills. I actually caught that. There's a lot of time on that. And that's kind of confusing because are we for climate change or not? Is he for climate change or not? Because that ties into the windmill.
BORELLI: I like windmills. I don't necessarily like the subsidies that it cost to operate windmills competitively generating kilowatt hours as compared to nuclear, as compared to, you know, hydraulic power, et cetera.
That's the problem that Republicans have with. Not that we don't want more things spinning in the ocean, generating power. I think we would love that if we can make them affordable and actually generate power at a good cost.
PHILLIP: Next, for us, more than 10 percent of Congress is calling it quits. That is the most ever. We will talk about who's in and who's trying to get in for the midterm elections and just how closely they're trying themselves to Trump.
Plus, MAGA is embracing a new celebrity, Nicki Minaj. What she is saying about Donald Trump and how MAGA is doing with black and Hispanic voters one year in. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:15:00]
PHILLIP: Tonight, the United States Congress is a revolving door. More than 10 percent of Congress will not return to their seats after 2026. That is a historic number that includes 19 Democrats and 25 Republicans in the House, plus 11 U.S. Senators, and of those, five Democrats and six Republicans.
Just days away from 2026, a fresh batch of faces are tossing their hats in the ring for all kinds of elected office offices. But on the Republican side, given the historic attrition rate, how closely will the candidates tie themselves to Trump?
Well, here's Bruce Blakeman, the Republican who's running for New York governor.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RAJU: Would you consider yourself a MAGA Republican as President Trump suggests?
BLAKEMAN: Well, I support President Trump and I'm grateful and blessed to have his endorsement.
RAJU: But he says, you're MAGA all the way. Are you MAGA all the way?
BLAKEMAN: Well, yes. Listen, what's wrong with making me America great again?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: And let's spend a minute on that race because Bruce Blakeman now is running for governor. He was going to be in a primary with Elise Stefanik, and I know both of you know these races very well. That was a surprise, I think, of the primary season at least so far, but my question is, is it really going to be more MAGA that works here in New York? I mean, if it were, wouldn't Elise Stefanik be kind of a shoe-in?
BORELLI: Well, look, you had -- four years ago, you had Lee Zeldin, who's someone who was affiliated with President Trump, didn't shy away from supporting Trump, did not go out there and wear a MAGA hat to his rallies, to be clear, but did not shy away from his support for President Trump, and he did better than any of Republican has done in 20 years.
PHILLIP: In one of the best years, I would say, for Republicans.
BORELLI: True, truth be told. However, Trump does motivate low propensity voters. That is the truth about Donald Trump when he's on the ballot. More people who are Republicans tend to vote. If Bruce can tie into that and generate vote in the suburbs, right? He just had a major victory in Nassau County. It's a 2.5 million person county. I mean, it's one of the most competitive in New York States, one of the largest in New York States. He won a Purple County by a pretty big landslide. If he could replicate that anywhere, everywhere, but New York City, he has a chance.
PHILLIP: But I guess this is also kind of a question of like the 2024 electorate that Trump did so well in, where he moved New Jersey, he moved New York, it feels like that is slipping away. That's what some of this attrition seems to signal, that it's just not the same electorate that it once was.
YANG: Yes. It certainly reminds me of 2018 where so many of senior Republican Congress members, they retired because they knew they were going into a blue wave. That is what happened in November 2018.
But just a moment on the New York State governor's race, I feel so bad as a lifelong Democrat for Elise Stefanik. It's rare to see a politician in America give so much of her career to the MAGA movement and yet get insulted by President Trump at every turn, have her ambassadorship to the U.N. taken away. A month ago, there was this bromance with Mamdani in the Oval Office, where Trump said, you know, he's not a jihadist. Stefanik is wrong. He's a swell guy, this Zohran guy is, and he refused to explicitly endorse her when she was rumored to get Bruce Blakeman.
So, she was Republican's number one pick in the governor's race next year, now are left with backup Bruce Blakeman that shares some of the liabilities with Stefanik, but does not have the name recognition or the fundraising.
[22:20:00]
Look, the real reality here and tying it to a national perspective is that New York State Republicans need to win these Congressional races in Long Island and Hudson Valley. I don't know if Bruce Blakeman is their best soldier on the battlefield for Republicans to try to take Congress.
PHILLIP: And the reason that mi that matters even beyond New York is that when you're looking at the map, you know, Republicans are trying to change the maps in Texas and all over. They failed in Indiana. They're not going to move forward with that. They're going to try in Florida. They're going to -- they're trying all over the country. But New York is a big piece of the puzzle.
And, I mean, I does the math work when you have all these folks leaving and you have an electorate that's different, just not that amenable to Trump? And, you know, you have some of the redistricting with really uneven results.
JENNINGS: Yes, the redistricting looks like a bit of awash. Look, candidates have to run the race that suits them and suits their jurisdiction. I think in the case of Blakeman, it would be very inauthentic for him to get an endorsement from Trump and then say, well, I don't like Trump. I mean, that would seem silly to voters. I mean, you are who you are.
The same thing's going to be true for Democrats. They're going to wind up nominating a bunch of very liberal progressives. These people are going to have crazy ideas. It will be inauthentic for them to try to present themselves as moderates when deep down that's not what their primary voters want, and it's not who they are.
PHILLIP: Let me play, Tezlyn, what Thomas Massie said about why he thinks his colleagues are leaving.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. THOMAS MASSIE (R-KY): You have a lot of intelligent, hardworking people who gave up a lot of things to be here in Congress only to find out that all they get to do is come here and rubber stamp whatever Donald Trump wants. And, you know, that's kind of humiliating really. I think that's why you have so many people running for statewide office and retirement's being announced because nobody wants to be a rubber stamp. You could get a monkey to do this job.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FIGARO: Wow. Well, you put it on the table. The Democrats kind of feel the same way though, to be quite honest. I will just say I'm for term limits. So, I've always been big on term limits. I think it's an issue when the average person in Congress is in their 80s. So, I'm all about people being --
PHILLIP: Democrats are living with the consequences of that right now with several members dying in their seats.
FIGARO: Literally dying in the seat. So, yes, I'm for term limit, so I think turnover is good. I also think it's good to have some shakeups. You know, when we talk about long shot races. Obviously, New York governor's long shot race, they say the same thing with Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, who's running in Texas. You had said they're trying to change the redistricting. They actually are. You know, they did change it. And one would argue that if Republicans can't win in Texas, they cheat. So, would Congresswoman Jasmine -- yes, let me say it again. If Republicans can't win, they cheat. They cheat. They cheat by changing the maps.
JENNINGS: So, you're saying it was illegal in what they did?
FIGARO: Well, one would argue that. That's why they put the whole lawsuit piece up.
JENNINGS: Is it illegal in Illinois?
FIGARO: It could be too.
JENNINGS: Is it illegal in Democrat states?
FIGARO: It could be, yes. It could be.
JENNINGS: So, you're saying the entire political system is just cheating?
FIGARO: No, that's not what I said. I said if Republicans can't win, they cheat. Not the entire political system, just Republicans. But it's okay.
JENNINGS: What is cheating about it?
FIGARO: Well, we can break it all down. When you're changing the redistricting, you're changing --
JENNINGS: No, you're using the word cheating when you're in legal process.
FIGARO: Well, when you're --
(CROSSTALKS)
FIGARO: And it also -- right. Will it survive court challenge because it was Trump's folks in the court. He runs the court system as well. That's also called cheating. One would also argue that's cheating, which is why they put the lawsuit up and appealed and keep going and going. But it's fine. Democrats will just continue to do what they're doing, continue to try to -- and, by the way, I'm an independent, as you know. So --
JENNINGS: You always say that.
FIGARO: I am. Yes, I actually am.
PHILLIP: I mean Democrats are also doing now the same thing Republicans are doing with these --
FIGARO: What Newsom did, yes.
JENNINGS: Was it cheating in California?
FIGARO: It's fire for fire.
JENNINGS: Is it cheating?
FIGARO: No, it's responding.
JENNINGS: Was it cheating?
FIGARO: It's responding.
JENNINGS: You said he's cheating.
FIGARO: You could call it cheating if that's what you want to call it.
JENNINGS: You call it cheating.
FIGARO: No. I said if Republicans can't win, they cheat. And so what Newsome did is he countered that. He countered it, whatever you want to call it. He countered cheating. No, I said if Republicans can't win, they cheat.
JENNINGS: So, it's cheating for Republicans and it's okay for Democrat.
FIGARO: I didn't say it's okay. I said that if Republicans can't win, they cheat.
JENNINGS: You're talking in circles again. Are you dizzy?
FIGARO: No. Actually, I'm not. I'm going to keep going.
PHILLIP: The issues that are going to be on the table next year for both parties, I mean, we were just talking about the economy. I do think that is going to be -- ultimately, that's really going to be the thing, right? And if it's a wave, it's going to be a wave in one direction and there's almost nothing that can be done about it. History has shown that the party in power is going to have a hard time.
But what an interesting op-ed this past week from Mitt Romney says, tax me. I'm rich, tax me. He says, I believe in free enterprise. I believe all Americans should be able to strive for financial success. But we have reached a point where any mix of solutions to our nation's economic problems is going to involve the wealthiest Americans contributing more. If my party wants to be the one to give working class and middle class Americans greater opportunity to be the party that is trying to restore some sense of confidence in our capitalist system, this would be a start.
[22:25:00]
This is sort of like the unfinished promise of Trump's so-called populism. Mitt Romney is saying, hey, just raise taxes on the rich and start to resolve some of these big structural economic problems that we have and also signal to the working class that you actually care about them.
BORELLI: Well, I can't figure out why Mitt Romney didn't win election that time, you know, advocating for tax hikes.
Look, I think, first of all, Americans of all stripes colors and political persuasions are sick of insufferable rich people trying to say, you know, tax me more, dude, pay more taxes. There's nothing stopping. You pay more taxes. The truth is President Trump enacted a tax cut that affected 95 percent of Americans. That is a fundamental good thing.
Are there wealthy people included that? Yes. Are there poor people included that? Yes. That is fundamentally good for the United States of America. That is a principle position of the Republican Party that low taxes spur growth. We are seeing that live happening now in 2025, set to take off in 2026 as Americans find larger tax refunds. Again, wages are up, jobs are up, inflation is down.
PHILLIP: Nothing's being done about the debt and the deficit. Nothing's going to be -- nothing's being done about entitlement. Nothing is being done about the big structural issues that Republicans have campaigned on for decades.
BORELLI: If we see 4 percent sustained growth in the next four years over the Trump presidency, nothing will reduce the deficit more than actual growth. PHILLIP: Sure. But, I mean, we've seen 4 percent growth under Biden. We've seen 4 percent growth under Trump.
BORELLI: Sustained.
PHILLIP: Yes, I get it but we have not seen that. We have not seen sustained 4 percent growth and we've seen a lot of ups and downs. So, maybe, you know, if that happens, we'll come back here and we'll talk about it.
But either way, what's the plan, right? Like I think that's what Mitt Romney is saying is that he's a Republican who came up in the era of Republicans being like, look, we cannot have this burden of, you know, insolvent entitlements of debt that is just crushing Americans forever. We have to do something about it. He came up in that system. What happened to those Republicans?
YANG: Yes. Most Americans, if you look at poll after poll, state after state, they want a couple commonalities, right? People want good jobs. They want a safe and affordable roof over their heads. They want safe streets. They want to, you know, take their families out to the parks and their communities without worrying about their safety. They want good education, good healthcare. Of course, the specifics get to be debated. But when did Mitt Romney become the conscious Republican Party?
Look, raising taxes on the wealthy, if you actually look at it from studies, whether it's income tax or corporate tax rates that are being increased to pay for some of these social services that all Americans want, it actually is increasingly a bipartisan solution.
Now, most of my party supports it, as we know, but increasingly independents and more and more Republican voters actually --
BORELLI: Why are people leaving? Why are people leaving states governed by your party and going to states governed by my party?
YANG: Joe, we like staying in New York. Like why --
BORELLI: I like New York, don't get me wrong.
YANG: Yes.
BORELLI: But I'm saying if you look at people, people are tax migrants in this country. They're going to states where their dollar goes further, both in cost of living, and where they have to spend less money paying for government services.
The budget of New York is double the state of Florida and there are 2.5 million more people in Florida than New York. People are looking for low tax --
YANG: Look, there's more immigration in states like Florida, but the State of New York, by the way, the population is not really decreasing. That's simply not true.
BORELLI: Less than Florida. We're comparing it to Florida.
YANG: You're debating on increments.
PHILLIP: Yes. All right, coming up next for us --
YANG: New York State has not decreased.
BORELLI: The budget's double.
PHILLIP: -- a nation fit for a king 250 years after America broke from the monarchy. Are we entering a new era of royalty? We'll debate next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:30:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: Donald Trump continues to push the limits of his presidential power by transforming the nation's capital into his image. His latest project? A new class of Navy battleships named after him.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: They'll help maintain American military supremacy, revive the American shipbuilding industry, and inspire fear in America's enemies all over the world. The U.S. Navy will lead the design of these ships, along with me, because I'm a very aesthetic person.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: While he joins a growing list of federal programs and buildings, Trump has rebranded. This week, the Kennedy Center board voted to change the name of its performing arts complex to the Trump Kennedy Center. And Democratic Congresswoman Joyce Beatty is now suing, alleging that that change violates the law. She also says it looks more like something out of an authoritarian regime.
The New York Times' as Peter Baker argues, that Trump has taken America's imperial presidency to a whole new level and that Trump 2.0 is unleashed. He points out other things like Trump's massive ballroom, gold trim on everything, and little resistance from Congress or from the courts.
Trump obviously loves putting his name on everything. And look, presidential names are on things in this country, but it's usually not done by them. It's usually done after they have left office, a lot of times after they have died.
To be honest, that part of it is unseemly, and it seems to be much more reminiscent of, you could call it authoritarians who do this type of thing. Peter Baker argues that it's a sort of imperial type of kind of thing that he's just sort of modeling himself after.
[22:35:05] TEZLYN FIGARO, FOUNDER, PUSH THE LINE: That's exactly what he's doing. Going back to what I said, because we want to run the table back on Scott on what I said, Republicans, if they can't win, they cheat.
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: You're still in the circle.
FIGARO: Yes.
JENNINGS: You're still on the track. Keep going.
(CROSSTALK)
FIGARO: Keep going. Keep following me. We're going to get it. That's why I'm sitting right next to you.
JENNINGS: I'm worn out already.
FIGARO: Oh, well then good. Then that makes this easy. This is light work. So, Joyce Beatty literally tried to vote to go against that and they muted her microphone. Let's not skip over that and talk about, you know, his vanity. We know Trump loves saying his name on things. When in New York, his name is everywhere.
Joyce Beatty -- Congressman Joyce Beatty said that she was against that. They muted her mic during the vote. So, the difference between Scott and I is Nina Turner that was sitting right here with you, Scott, earlier this week. She actually was against what Newsom did with the redistricting. She actually spoke up on it and said Democrats should not go this way.
See, there's something about the Democrat party that at least says what's right and what's wrong. And next, Scott is going to sit here and make all of these excuses --
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: I'm not sure you're Independent.
FIGARO: I am but I'm showing the difference between the party that you oppose.
JENNINGS: Oh, I got it.
FIGARO: But see, Scott's going to sit here next, Abby. Let's just watch it all for everybody to see. And make an excuse how Trump literally did not say that the vote was unanimous, and it absolutely was not.
(CROSSTALK)
FIGARO: So I'd love to know what Scott has to say about it.
PHILLIP: So, what happens, you know, what happens when the next Democratic president, you know, just decides, you know, we're going to call it the Obama-Lincoln Memorial. We're just going to slap, you know, Bill Clinton's name on you know, something, anything arbitrarily. Are you guys going to be cool with that?
JENNINGS: So you're saying a Democrat would put Obama's name on a statue that isn't of him. That would make them look like the stupidest person that ever lived.
PHILLIP: Well, I'm glad you said that because --
JENNINGS: I mean --
PHILLIP: -- the Kennedy Center is literally a Congressional named
JENNINGS: It's a building.
PHILLIP: -- a Congressionally named memorial. It is --
JENNINGS: It's not a statue.
PHILLIP: It's not a statue but it is a memorial to President John F. Kennedy in the same way that The Lincoln Memorial is a memorial to President Lincoln. But it's a statue.
PHILLIP: So are you ready?
JENNINGS: It has a likeness.
PHILLIP: Are you ready for a Democratic president to slap their name on --
JENNINGS: Yes, I am.
PHILLIP: -- arbitrarily on any old memorial?
JENNINGS: I'm ready for Democrats to misname every statue in America. I think to prove your point, I think that would be great for their party.
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: -- would change all the names on the statue.
(CROSSTALK)
JOE BORELLI, MANAGING DIRECTOR, CHARTWELL STRATEGY: This is the party that's famous for tearing down Thomas Jefferson
FIGARO: Yes, got it. So, I know you guys want to skip over that.
BORELLI: -- for pulling down Christopher Columbus, for pulling down this statue and that statue. If they want to put a statue up for Barack Obama, that's a great.
(CROSSTALK)
FIGARO: Let's not skip over this though. Why did they mute her mic? I really want to know why --
(CROSSTALK)
BORELLI: Because she is a non-voting member. She doesn't have a vote. She's a non-voting member of the committee.
(CROSSTALK)
FIGARO: Why did they mute her mic?
BORELLI: She's a non-voting member of the committee.
FIGARO: She disagrees. She disagrees. She said it was unanimous and it wasn't --
(CROSSTALK)
BORELLI: They have a committee, and then they let other people watch. She is one of those people who's a non-voting committee member. She doesn't have a vote, period.
FIGARO: But why did they mute the mic?
TRIP YANG, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: I wonder how President Trump has all this time to rename the institutions. Doesn't this guy have an economy to fix? Doesn't he have the 2026 midterms to prepare for? I mean, he just said he would personally be involved in designing these warships. I mean, that's for-- does the president not have a USC fight to plan on the White House lawn? You know, somebody's got to get his priorities straight.
PHILLIP: And also, I mean, just not for nothing, but I mean, are the aesthetics of these warships really the most important part of this whole thing?
BORELLI: I'm going to agree with you there. Probably lower in the priority.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Simple question.
JENNINGS: What's wrong with looking cool --
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: You know? Shouldn't we look cool?
PHILLIP: I would argue --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Because I would argue that the only thing --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: -- the only thing that we should care about when it comes to worships is their ability to do their job and their lethality, and their ability to resist lethal attack. I don't get it. But you know, look, here's what more of more of what Peter Baker says.
He says, "In his first year, Trump has unabashedly adopted those trappings of royalty as he's asserted virtually unbridled power to transform the American government and society to his liking. In both pageantry and policy, Trump has established a new, more audacious version of the imperial presidency that goes far beyond even the one associated with Nixon, for whom the term was popularized a half century ago."
And it's hard to disagree with that because it's not just the aesthetics, as we've been discussing. He's also created a system in this country where everything goes through him. You want to merge two companies in America? Well, you've got to go to the White House and ask President Trump if it's okay. You have to do you have to make decisions that he is going to like.
Do you want to do -- trade overseas? Well, you have to go ask the President if you can do it or if you can get a carve out for your business. If you are Saudi Arabia and you're coming to the United States, it's a -- it's a flyover. It's a red carpet. He wants to basically emulate what he received when he went to the U.K. and was sitting with King Charles. That's what the imperial presidency really means. It's not so much just the naming of things.
BORELLI: Why is the metaphor of royalty something that's a negative when it's connotated with Republicans, but when it's John Kennedy and Camelot, it's always treated as this mystique and magic. And --
[22:40:05]
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Well, I think it has -- I think it has to do with power, right?
FIGARO: Maybe because Kennedy didn't behave like Trump?
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: But in all seriousness, in all seriousness, I think that's an interesting question. I think it has to do with power. Because, because here's --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Because, hold on a second.
BORELLI: When did Mussolini put his name on something? Do we have any record of that?
PHILLIP: Let me just answer your question. The Camelot reference when it came to the Kennedy family had to do with the sort of appearance of the family. It had much less to do with --
(CROSSTALK)
BORELLI: Four beautiful children. Five beautiful children.
PHILLIP: Which is fine. If he wants to --
(CROSSTALK)
BORELLI: Beautiful family.
UNKNOWN: Knock it off.
BORELLI: Grandchildren bouncing on his knee at White House.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Joe, if he wants to describe himself as a --
(CROSSTALK)
BORELLI: For someone who's not blinded by partisanship, I look favorably on the way Trump and his family act on the White House, the same way the Kennedy kids or Sasha and William Obama.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Fine, nobody's disputing. I think if Trump wants to be Camelot of 2025 with his family, go for it. But I think the comparisons to the imperial presidency is about power. It's about how he uses power and how that contrasts with the principles of how this country was founded, was actually against kings who had unilateral power.
BORELLI: You said it before. Everything you said before was, given his power by Article two of the Constitution, everything you just discussed --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Oh, wait, wait, what about the tariffs? Is that actually --
(CROSSTALK)
BORELLI: Article two of the Constitution.
PHILLIP: What about the part where Congress said that tariffs are explicitly a professional thing?
(CROSSTALK)
BORELLI: You want to trade overseas, you have to go to the President. Do you want to this, you have to go to the President.
PHILLIP: Listen.
BORELLI: Those are all things that are empowered under Article two by the President.
PHILLIP: Joe. BORELLI: The fact that this President is personally engaged and not passing it off on bureaucrats is a step in the right direction, unlike President Biden who just slept through it --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Joe, I think that is highly -- that is highly in dispute. I think that that's -- to your point, that is highly in dispute, okay? We either are a free market or we're an economy that looks a lot like China or looks a lot like Russia, where you have to go to one guy and get answers on everything.
You want to conduct commerce in this country, you got to go to one guy to get answers about whether or not you're going to be able to do that. If that's the kind of economy and country you want, get ready for the next President who does not wear your shirt color to do the same thing. Are you going to be okay with that?
BORELLI: Executive powers are vested in the President of the United States of America.
PHILLIP: Okay.
BORELLI: That's the Constitution, period.
PHILLIP: All right.
BORELLI: The fact that we have this bureaucracy --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Give me an example of Democratic presidents doing what Trump has done -- mergers -- when it came to mergers --
(CROSSTALK)
BORELLI: No, I just said President Biden slipped through it. He actually empowered his little leftist staff.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Just give me an example. I'm legitimately curious. An example. Give me an example.
BORELLI: I'm giving you the opposite example. I'm giving you a problem. I'm giving you a problem here.
PHILLIP: So in other words, it has --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: In other words --
(CROSSTALK)
YANG: It didn't end well -- (CROSSTALK)
YANG: -- President Nixon, by the way.
BORELLI: President Biden wasn't involved. I think having a president that at least knows where he is, knows what people are doing, and having control over the decisions that the administration is making is a positive thing. Call me crazy.
YANG: And yet President Trump is less popular than President Biden was at this point.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: All right. Next for us, a new musical member of the MAGA party. Who and why now? Next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:47:34]
PHILLIP: Tonight, Minaj goes MAGA. Rapper Nicki Minaj shocked her fans with a surprise appearance at Turning Point USA's annual conference, where she didn't hold back her praise for Donald Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NICKI MINAJ, RAPPER AND SONGWRITER: I have the utmost respect and admiration for our President.
(APPLAUSE)
MINAJ: He has, I don't know if he even knows this, but he's given so many people hope that there's a chance to beat the bad guys, and to win, and to do it with your head held high, and your integrity intact.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: The music mogul also lit up the internet with these comments about J.D. Vance during her sit down with Erika Kirk.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MINAJ: You have amazing role models like our handsome dashing president. And you have amazing role models like the assassin, J.D. Vance, our vice president. And when I say that --
ERIKA KIRK, CEO OF TURNING POINT USA: Trust me, there's nothing new under the sun that I have not heard, so you're fine.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Well, I guess it's a bit of a double-edged sword, if you will, having Nicki Minaj up on that stage. But I mean, I think it's interesting the way she's been so fully embraced suddenly by MAGA. And yet, to be honest, I have no idea what she believes about anything except that she loves Donald Trump.
FIGARO: Well, she said she wasn't with Trump several years ago, but where do I start? There's so many things I could start with. Number one, so interesting that she's talking about role models and how important role models are. Charlie Kirk, who's the founder of Turning Point, said that Nicki Minaj was a terrible role model, said that she should not be hoisted in front of young girls, that that is not somebody that should be looked up to.
So, to have her walk hand in hand -- but again, it's the picking and choosing of it all for me -- to have her walk hand in hand with Mrs. Kirk as if all of a sudden, the people in the audience were barbs and new their lyrics, which I guarantee they don't, that now all of a sudden she's this, you know, great moral figure.
And then, J.D. Vance even went further last week to call Jasmine Crockett -- Attorney Jasmine --Congresswoman Crockett, a street girl. Perhaps he's not familiar with Nicki Minaj's lyrics, who talks about her being from the streets, who talks about those things. So, since I'm probably guessing, I'm probably the only Barb or former Barb at the table --
PHILLIP: Are you a former now?
YANG: "Super Bass" is a great song.
FIGARO: And I love, and I love --
BORELLI: I don't even know what that means.
FIGARO: Yes, exactly. And neither did the people in the audience.
PHILLIP: It's like the beehive except for Nicki Minaj.
(CROSSTALK)
FIGARO: And so in the words of Cardi B, we see who stuck to the code and who forgot it. And so, this is a real issue that's happening in the culture. And again, she has every right to believe in whatever she wants to believe.
PHILLIP: Charlie Kirk also infamously said rap music is terrible. You have some of these very same people trashing the genre --
FIGARO: Yes.
PHILLIP: -- and what it represents, and certainly would say that if they went through the lyrics of Nicki Minaj's songs probably don't represent the kinds of family values that they espouse. But it doesn't matter because I guess when the currency is Trump everything is fine. Everything is fine.
YANG: Yes, Nicki Minaj spent years attacking Trump. She said in 2015 when Trump first ran for president, she came up with a rap song a couple years ago attacking Trump. During Trump's first term, she criticized him endlessly for separating children from families, treatment of immigrants. Look, to quote or paraphrase our friend from Staten Island, Diane Savino, Nicki Minaj right now, she's got more baggage than the carousel at LaGuardia and JFK combined.
PHILLIP: Trump's improvement with Brown -- black and brown voters in the last election, we've seen that really shift. I mean, this is just a snapshot in CNN polling from February to October. Latino voters, he's down by 20 percent. Black voters, he's down by slightly less, but it's already a pretty low percentage point. I just want to note about 10 percent margin of error here.
So I don't think you should take these numbers literally. But the trend line is what I want to talk about, because Trump, think, did something really interesting when it came to black voters and Hispanic voters in particular, but there are some signs that that is going away, that it's not working the same way.
BORELLI: Extend the trend line out a little further and you can see pre-Trump the Republican Party had a very significant problem attracting Latinos and attracting black voters. I think Trump actually made significant inroads and significant progress. I helped organize that big rally we had, you know, not less some of the summer before that one in the Bronx.
PHILLIP: Oh, the one in the Bronx, I'm sorry.
BORELLI: And I have to say, as a firsthand witness, I had never seen this many black and Hispanic people show up for Donald Trump anywhere else I've ever been involved in any rally on earth. And it was actually amazing.
And I had one of a college, and you know this college, and I mention his names, a person of color from the Bronx who came up to me and said, Joe, they're going to need more cops. There's going to be so many damn people at this rally. It's going to be incredible.
And he was right. They had too many people. They couldn't even let them in. People out in the streets celebrating. So, that would not have happened under, you know, Republican President Bush. That wouldn't happen under Mitt Romney.
PHILLIP: But will it happen again? Will it happen again? Because I'm seeing that the erosion just happened. I mean, I don't know that you're going to go back to that.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Go ahead.
YANG: Yes, look, I'll say it real briefly. Trump has to thank Latino men in November 2024 because that demographic group more than any other community of color really switched to him. Trump's campaign, unfortunately for my party, did an effective job exploiting voters' fears about the anxiety last year.
However, to Abby's point, it's going away. Black voters, Latino voters, and I'll say this crucially, Asian
American voters, my community, which is the fastest API, fastest growing demographic in the country, all these groups, you saw some shifts. Black and Asian, a little bit incremental towards Trump. Latino men, significantly. It's eroded for Trump. You just look at Virginia and New Jersey last month, it's going away.
PHILLIP: Next, the panel is going to give us their nightcaps New Year's edition, but first a quick programming note, a CNN film, "I'm Chevy Chase and You're Not" premieres on New Year's Day at 8 P.M. Eastern on CNN and on the CNN app.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:58:51]
PHILLIP: We're back and it's time for the NewsNightcap. As 2025 winds down, we are looking far into the New Year. So Joe, what is your 2026 prediction?
BORELLI: So, the Trump-Mamdani bromance will split, not going to be over Gaza or ICE or deportation. It's going to be over like a bike lane on Fifth Avenue or some, you know, statue to Che Guevara in front of a golf course or something.
PHILLIP: Oh, okay. Go ahead, Trip.
YANG: That's a take. So, let me get the political stuff out of the way. House Democrats, we're going to retake the House. Hakeem Jeffries will be speaker. But also on a societal level, New York Knicks are going to win the NBA Championship. All you have to do is walk the streets of New York these days. We are very optimistic and positive. And I'll fill this one in there. The New York Mets are going to win the World Series as well in 2026.
PHILLIP: All right, okay, Tezlyn.
FIGARO: I'll follow your lead quickly on the politics. The purge will continue. More people will be exposed. More Nickies, more Trumps, more Vances. But on the cultural side, the Cowboys will not be going to the Super Bowl. That's the safest pick that we can go on based on the last 30 years that Jerry Jones will still be running the Cowboys.
PHILLIP: All right, Scott.
JENNINGS: That's pretty safe (inaudible).
[23:00:00]
FIGARO: Yes.
JENNINGS: Okay. All right. Trump's going to win the Nobel Prize. Everybody's going to go crazy. He is going to come to a resolution on Russia-Ukraine. They'll give him the Nobel Prize.
PHILLIP: All right, we'll see if that one comes through, everybody. And thank you for watching "NewsNight". You can catch me anytime on your favorite social media -- X, Instagram, and on TikTok. CNN's coverage continues next.
