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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Iran Disputes Trump's Claim It Agreed To Mostly Everything; Trump Says, U.S. Blockade Of Strait Won't End Until Iran Deal Reached; Trump Tests Midterm Message At Event Amid MAGA Criticism; Trump Administration Stages A Photo Op With Door Dash Worker; Elon Musk Advocates Universal High Income. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired April 17, 2026 - 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 VIDEOTAPE)
SARA SIDNER, CNN HOST (voice over): Tonight, the president declares victory, but is a potential deal with Iran costlier than the Obama deal?
Plus, Donald Trump faces a crowd of conservatives as the war faces more friendly fire.
JOE ROGAN, HOST, THE JOE ROGAN EXPERIENCE: What the (BLEEP) are we doing? Like how is this still going on?
SIDNER: Also a DoorDash driver delivers Mickey D's to the White House.
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: To be honest, it was a little tacky.
SIDNER: But did the stunt backfire?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don't we want to live in a country where grandmas don't have to work DoorDash?
SIDNER: And is the future of A.I. terrifying or lucrative? The world's richest man calls for universal high income.
ELON MUSK, CEO, TESLA: We're basically just issue money to people.
SIDNER: Live at the table, Charles Blow, Joe Borelli, Annalyse Keller, Josh Rogan, and Max Boot.
Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here, they do.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIDNER (on camera): Good evening to you. I'm Sara Sidner in New York for Abby Philip.
Tonight, he said, they said, and it didn't match in the middle of a war. Early in the day, Iran said it would open the Strait of Hormuz, a positive welcome development. President Trump began essentially declaring victory, saying, Iran has agreed to all of America's demands. Iran though then said, that's a lie.
Trump says, Iran will forever stop enriching uranium. He says, the U.S. will be getting their nuclear stop spots -- excuse me, stockpile. He also said Iran has agreed not to help groups like Hezbollah. Iran says all that isn't true.
And on the strait, Iran tonight says it will not reopen the waterway if America's blockade continues. Trump says he will not end the blockade until they get a deal. So, after a day of optimism, things are once again on shaky ground as negotiators race to strike an agreement before the current ceasefire expires next week.
And one more thing, the U.S. was considering unfreezing $20 billion in Iranian assets as part of the talks, something he ripped the Obama administration over. Trump indirectly denied that earlier.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: This process should go very quickly, that most of the points are already negotiated and agreed to. You'll be very happy. The USA will get all nuclear dust.
No money will exchange hands in any way, shape or form. Iran will be -- and you know how we're going to get the dust, right?
We're going to go in together with Iran, we're going to get it, and we're going to take it back home to the USA, very simple.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SIDNER: I'm going to start with you, Josh, because you're deeply steeped in international relations. What do you make of what you've seen so far?
JOSH ROGIN, LEAD GLOBAL SECURITY ANALYST, WASHINGTON POST INTELLIGENCE: Right. I think we're witnessing a couple of different things. The jumble of what Trump is saying and the negotiations, he's putting out the U.S. position. No one really thinks we're there, but he's expressing confidence that this is where they're going to get to. Iranians don't think so. It's not likely to happen. That's part of it.
Another part of it is that somebody shorted the oil market today by hundreds of millions of dollars exactly 20 minutes before Trump made his announcement that everything was going to be great. And if you see that once, it could be a coincidence, but that's happened at least three times, if not more, since the war began. That's a pattern. And what that suggests is that there's rampant corruption and insider self-dealing going on with the president's up and down predictions of what's going to happen tomorrow in the negotiations and in the markets.
And I'm sure that's being investigated. We can't prove it, but it seems like the corruption that we're seeing in our government, maybe not the present, but people who are in the know and the markets is having a priority over the actual negotiations to end the war. And that's a crazy thing that our system has never seen before in that we have a lot of time processing and a lot of problem solving.
SIDNER: Joe, how do you respond to that idea that something seems fishy when it comes to what keeps happening with the market?
JOE BORELLI, FORMER REPUBLICAN LEADER, NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL: Look, you know, I consider Josh a friend, but with all due respect that is a baseless accusation based on the way you ended that statement. We have no proof of this. We can't say it actually happened. But because it did happen, it must be --
ROGIN: It's pretty suspicious.
BORELLI: There must be rampant corruption.
ROGIN: No, I'm being careful.
BORELLI: I'm just saying that's a pretty big stretch for an accusation.
ROGIN: You think it's a coincidence?
BORELLI: That's your view.
[22:05:00]
I have no idea. But I'm not going into a news network and say I am 100 percent confident in something. But, look --
ROGIN: I didn't say I am 100 percent confident. I'm saying we should check it out. It seems fishy.
BORELLI: Are we better today on this Friday than we were last Friday? I think the answer is collectively yes, right? The blockade right has been the leverage. There's obviously talk about who controls the straits, whether it's open, whether it's not, that's all fine.
The president has implemented the blockade a couple of days ago that brought Iran back to the negotiating table, and we are in a better position today than we were a few days ago.
And, frankly, you know, I know where this conversation's going to go. It's going to go into the he said, she said, about what Trump said versus what the Iranian said, even though there's a lot of discord within the Iranian regime as to what's actually happening.
I'm sick of giving the benefit of the doubt to the experts because I've been sitting at this table long enough listening to, quote/unquote, experts who've said the oil is going to be $2.50 a barrel because of this war, gas prices will be $8 at the pump. We're going to have immediate ground war. There'll be immediate Russian intervention. There's going to be -- I mean, everything.
CHARLES BLOW, SUBSTACK AUTHOR, BLOW THE STACK: Yes, but the question really is --
BORELLI: All of this has been long. So, why are we always -- BLOW: Are you in a better position than we were after --
BORELLI: Why are we giving Trump -- we never give Trump the benefit of the doubt but the experts will always give him the benefit of the doubt.
BLOW: Are we in a better position than we were after the Obama-Iran nuclear deal that Trump tore up in 2018? That's the question. The question is, you know, Trump said, well, they were very close to a nuclear weapon, but we don't know that because the inspectors were kicked out of the country when they tore up the deal. So, we had eight years of not having inspectors on the ground, which we would have had if they had not torn up that deal.
So, now we go into this situation where we have Trump saying they're very close. The Israelis saying they're very close. But the intelligence community here in America under Donald Trump in March of 2025, just last March, were saying they were not developing that and that the ayatollah had told them not -- that had not endorsed this idea of developing a nuclear weapon.
So, we have to now trust either the president is lying or the intelligence community is lying. One of them has a history of lying.
BORELLI: The JCPOA would've sunset anyway by its own provisions. It was a delay tactic, not a solution.
BLOW: But it's not a delay tactic? Are they not --
(CROSSTALKS)
BORELLI: Don't even believe me. Believe the current leader of the Democratic Party in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, who said the JCPOA was a feckless waste of a deal, right? That was his position. That was a number of Democrats in the House. President Trump won the first election in large part because people saw the reality of this deal as not being effective long-term, fact.
BLOW: No. Another fact is that they were able to get, I think it was 97, 98 percent of the nuclear material out of Iran under that deal, and they had inspectors on the ground to monitor whether or not Iran was living up to its end of that deal, which was to not enrich uranium at a large scale. I think they were doing something like able to enrich something like 3, 4 percent of what they had before.
Those are also facts on the ground, provable facts. And now we went from that to having no one there watching, and now we have to watch from across the ocean and listen to the Israelis who have been pushing for a military intervention for over many presidents, but this one fell for it. And now we are in war, not with all of our kind of international colleagues, which what the last deal had.
It had the U.S., U.K., France, China, Russia, the whole European Union was supporting it. So, all that reporting would've come back to everyone. So now we're in by ourselves, start a war by ourselves, and now we're expected to pat this man on the back because he is trying to bring to a close of war that he started.
SIDNER: Let me just quickly go to what Trump said about NATO allies and how he feels about them during all of this. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: And now that the Hormuz Strait is almost over, I received a call from NATO asking if we would like some help. Thank you very much, NATO. And I told them I would have liked your help two months ago, but now I really don't want your help anymore, because they were absolutely useless when we needed them. But, actually, we never needed them. They needed us. They need us. They need us so badly.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SIDNER: That was obviously in front of a friendly crowd. He's at Turning Point and they're cheering. But part of the reason why they're cheering is that for many, many months, he has been -- and years, really, he's been going after NATO. Max, what did you hear him say there? And is this an issue? I think the first time NATO was called since World War II was to help the United States.
MAX BOOT, SENIOR FELLOW, COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS: Well, of course it's an issue. It's part of Trump's continuing attacks on the most successful alliance in history.
[22:10:02]
And, of course, this year, he threatened to attack a NATO country to annex Greenland. He's imposed tariffs on NATO allies, and now he keeps every day trashing our NATO allies for not coming to rescue him in the Persian Gulf, while at the same time he has nothing negative to say about Vladimir Putin providing targeting intelligence and drone support for the Iranians to attack American troops.
Obviously, the disparity is very serious and depressing to see, if not surprising by now. But the larger picture is, you know, Trump blundered into this war with Iran because he thought it would be easy. He thought it would be over in a few days, and it's not. It's more than six weeks later, and he still can't figure out a way to get out of it. And so he's basically trying to scapegoat our NATO allies, trying to blame them for his blunder with Bibi Netanyahu in getting into this war, which they don't know how to get out of it.
And what you were hearing earlier was Trump's happy talk claiming, oh, the Strait of Hormuz is open, the Iranians have agreed to all of our terms, and the Iranians are saying, no, that's not the case. So, clearly, it's not the case and he's just trying to pretend that he's found a way out of this quagmire in which he has ensnared the United States and the entire world for no good reason.
SIDNER: Annalyse, do you see this a as a quagmire? I mean, we had this moment today, early today, this morning, where it was like, okay, the Strait of Hormuz is open, there were ships that started to move and then they moved back because the blockade was in place and Iran said, okay, if you're going to block us, we're going to keep it closed? ANNALYSE KELLER, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Yes. I mean, I'm not necessarily sure that I take the Iranian regime's word over President Trump's word. And I do think --
BOOT: Well, you don't have to take anybody's word. All you have to do is look at the number of ships that moved through the Strait of Hormuz today and the ship tracker's report it was eight. Before the war started. It was about 130 every single day. So, clearly, the Strait of Hormuz is not actually open.
KELLER: Well, certainly, but what I'm saying is they're saying they're not going to reopen it. I think we need to continue to watch to see what happens. I think this is a negotiation and that's what Donald Trump does. And this is sort of, Josh, to your point, he lays down what he wants to have happen and there's going to be a push and pull.
And I do think this has gone on longer than he initially thought. I agree with you, Max, there, you know, but I think that this next round it does feel a little bit different and promising and maybe like there is an off-ramp. And I think that that is what Republicans want. I think there is this end of, you know, this sort of sense that, okay we've gone in, we need to wrap things up and we need to focus on these domestic issues.
BLOW: But here's the problem, right? Here's the problem. You take out the entire leadership, you leave a vacuum there. They said they were going to go in for regime change. The regime change did not happen. The people who are there are still part of the old thinking. And you have people filling the void who may be more hardlined than the people who were killed already.
So, you make it an Iran where it's even more dangerous. You have the Strait of Hormuz that we had never thought of a Iran controlling, even in Trump's tweets or posts on Truth Social today, he was calling it the Straits of Iran instead of the Straits of Hormuz. It is, without a doubt, that they are now controlling it. They're saying, whether or not it's open or not, and that is a change, that is a negative change.
KELLER: Well, I think, well think what's also had change is that they have an entirely decimated navy. I mean, we have obliterated their military capabilities. So, I think if we're talking about what's changed, that is a huge change.
BLOW: We clearly have obliterated their military capabilities. We really haven't done that.
ROGIN: Yes. They still have thousands of missiles, thousands of drones, dozens of ships, and the ability to attack all of our allies and all over our bases in the region. And not only that, the world economy is getting worse and worse. I'm not sure what experts Joe is referring to that we're wrong, but I wish the Trump administration had included a few more experts on this negotiating team because it's pretty clear that they misunderstood the negotiation.
I'm rooting for them. I think not just Republicans, everybody wants this war to end. I want Donald Trump to succeed in ending this war, but I can't ignore the incompetence in which he's prosecuting that negotiation because it's obvious. And the way that we know they don't have a strategy is because the strategy changes every day. So, if the strategy changes every day, that means there's no strategy.
And now they're bumbling through it, as Max said. And, yes, I hope they accidentally solve the problem and get us out of this mess because not only is the world economy getting worse, not only is the prices for Americans going up, but Americans are in harm's way and they're dying and getting injured, and we should not --
BORELLI: Just for the record, the S&P hit 7,100 today. We saw a V- shaped recovery in the economy. The S&P hit 7,100, like I said, today.
I don't think that's indicative -- I don't think the markets were indicative of your outlook on --
ROGIN: No, I --
BLOW: I always think it's a problem to gauge the economy based on the markets. It's a huge problem because it is not dealing with the average person who's out there having a fill up the tank.
ROGIN: And they're manipulating the markets --
BLOW: That's the other part.
ROGIN: -- with their friends who are controlling the markets. So, and then you point to that, like, everything's great, the markets say it's okay. That's a crazy circular logic.
BORELLI: We were sitting here weeks ago saying that this is going to sink the S&P. Oil is going to be --
ROGIN: Who said that?
BLOW: Who said that?
ROGIN: you're quoting a bunch of imaginary people to make a point that nobody made.
[22:15:00]
BORELLI: No.
ROGIN: What I'm saying is that the war is going on and it's going to go on because of the incompetence of the negotiation and the markets are being manipulated, so they go up and down so that Trump and people who support him can pretend that everything is fine.
BORELLI: Are you going to pretend like there was a (INAUDIBLE) of people predicting that literally World War III was going to erupt from this conflict? That was the mainstream talking point.
(CROSSTALKS)
BLOW: Put a name it. For the people, put a name on it. BORELLI: I'm not going to name them.
BLOW: Because you can't a name a name.
(CROSSTALKS)
ROGIN: There are people all over the world suffering from this. There are plenty.
BOOT: What I said was that this would do long-term damage to the U.S.- Israeli relationship, which is true because now a majority of Americans have a negative view of Israel, and you had more than 40 senators voting against aid to Israel. So, clearly, it has damaged the U.S.-Israel relationship, and that's one of many consequences.
BLOW: One of the reasons that they wanted to -- that Iran was giving in on the Strait of Hormuz was because of the deal that was made with Lebanon and Israel. Are we now tied at the hip if Israel now launches a missile into Lebanon or vice versa, are we now back at war?
Like I'm very nervous about this idea that we are hooked, tied at the hip with them about this situation.
BORELLI: For the first time in a generation, you have the Lebanese government acting like a sovereign state and not a hostage to Hezbollah. I'd say, in general, that's --
BOOT: That's wildly optimistic. We've heard that many times before. And, sadly, Hezbollah always survives.
SIDNER: Having lived in the region, what Max is saying is true.
All right, next, Donald Trump tested out his midterm message before a conservative crowd tonight. You heard some of the reaction to some of the things you were saying earlier, but are they buying everything?
Plus, one Trump voter says his stunt involving the DoorDash grandma backfired. We'll discuss, coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:20:00]
SIDNER: President Trump is sounding the alarm about the midterms as he makes his pitch to young voters in the battleground state of Arizona.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: If you want a rich and strong and a country that you're going to be proud of America, you must go out in the midterms and vote Republican.
For some reason, a president, Republican, Democrat, the party does poorly in the midterms. It doesn't make sense. I'm still trying to figure it out. We'll go out, I think, probably hire a couple of psychiatrists. What the hell is going on in your mind, how does that happen?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SIDNER: A portion of Trump's space has grown skeptical as things like affordability and the war in Iran test the MAGA movement. And yet another sign of the widening fractures, here's podcaster Joe Rogan, who did help get Trump elected, calling out the president for breaking a campaign promise.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROGAN: It's (BLEEP) terrifying. Yes, all of it's terrifying. Anytime you're involved with -- you're shooting missiles into towns and blowing things up, blowing up infrastructure, blowing up bridges, you know, and Israel's blowing up Lebanon now, it's like, what the (BLEEP) are we doing? Like how is this still going on?
Most people that voted for Trump or wanted Trump to be in office, one of the things that was attractive was this no more wars.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sure, of course.
ROGAN: And now we're in one of the craziest ones.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SIDNER: This is at least the second time that he's sort of spoken out against the war in Iran.
So, Annalyse, to you, should Republicans be worried about the midterms. I mean, certainly, Republicans should be worried about the midterms. As President Trump himself said, every time that, you know, you get the administration in power, the midterms roll around and it becomes difficult for that party to remain in power. So that's just a tale as old as time. They should be worried.
KELLER: I don't think the Iran conflict, war right now is going to be the thing that really divides the MAGA base. There's always something like month-to-month that people think are going to just eviscerate MAGA and it doesn't really seem to happen. We had Epstein with the initial Iranian strikes. We had Venezuela. So, I don't really look at this as something that I think is going to divide MAGA.
The thing that is a little bit more concerning is that. Republicans don't perform as well when Trump is not on the ballot and Trump is not going to be on the ballot in the midterm. So, that is the challenge that faces Republicans.
SIDNER: When it comes to MAGA, there is a lot of support still behind Donald Trump. There is no doubt about that. Poll after poll shows that. But independents is a whole different thing. Is that something that you all really have to think about?
KELLER: I think it is -- I mean, independents are growing a much larger number of Americans than they were previously. So, I think it is a group of people that, you know, whether they're self-selecting, you know, they were a Republican or a Democrat, and now they're -- they see themselves as more independent, it certainly is.
And Republicans, I think, need to stay focused on the domestic issues and affordability and getting gas prices down and winding down things in Iran, like all of those things, and Trump's message too, talking about securing the border and figuring out, you know, the murder rate he mentioned on his Turning Point speech is down, the lowest rate that it's been in 125 years.
BLOW: Yes. But that's has nothing to do with him. It has nothing to do -- literally nothing to do with him.
SIDNER: It's been dropping for the past 35 years.
BLOW: Yes, it has literally nothing to do with him.
SIDNER: But it's something he can tell --
KELLER: Well, I think those are things that -- he (INAUDIBLE) things that he needs to be talking about.
BLOW: He can say as much as he wants, but it had nothing to do with him. And many of those cities that are seeing the biggest drops, he's been demonizing those cities and those mayors in those cities. And those are still the people who are getting the results.
And the bigger problem here is not whether or not something is fracturing MAGA. It's whether or not they have the enthusiasm to get out to the polls. It's not crossing over. It's staying home that is the biggest problem that MAGA is going to face.
[22:25:02]
And that is a real issue, when people are getting disenchanted with the president and the direction he's taking, they may say the Democrats are still not my flavor, but I'm still not going to go out and vote for this guy. I just don't feel into it. And I think that that is a real problem that they're going to face.
SIDNER: We saw the Democrats do that. We saw the Democrats do that.
BLOW: I'm not wrong, sometimes. Sometimes, I'm not wrong.
SIDNER: So, what -- go ahead, Joe.
BORELLI: Trump -- and I don't say this to attack the president, right, but Trump is a wildly polarizing figure. People really, really like him and people really, really hate him. Democrats in their stump speech, they're out in-person, they're campaigning. They're getting the benefit of running against Trump. As Annalyse said, President Trump is a proven vote-getter when he's on the ballot.
So, the solution for Republicans, and this always drives Democrats crazy when I say this, is actually more Trump on the campaign trail. Republicans have to be convinced that this is a referendum on President Trump. Independents have to be convinced it's referendum on President Trump. And that once the Democrats, if they take the House, it will be the end of essentially, you know, any possibility of the Trump agenda going forward.
ROGIN: I think that's going to be a really tough case to make considering Trump's polls are in the toilet, you know? And he spent the last two weeks attacking the pope, pretending to be Jesus, pretending he didn't pretend to be Jesus, and then telling Americans that they couldn't have childcare because we had to fight more wars. And if that's the Trump you want to focus on, I don't know think that's going to work out for Republican very well at all.
What did we see this week in New Jersey? New Jersey 11, a progressive Democrat who won a primary against the center left Democrat, won by 20 points in what has, for as long as I can remember, been in even 50-50 district, 20 points.
BORELLI: No, but Mikie Sherrill won.
ROGIN: So, it's not just the lack of --
BORELLI: Republicans got 40 percent, 42 percent and 40 percent in that race, the last three elections. It's not a 50-50 district. I do not think NJ 11 is indicative of any -- look, there are --
(CROSSTALKS)
BORELLI: The latest poll out today had -- the latest poll out this week had Trump still at 88 percent in his base. That's better than President Biden was. It's better than a lot of presidents before him. Other poll out this week, economists, YouGov, and Emerson College both had his approval rating on the Iran war actually ticking up.
So, I think there is some light coming for the Trump administration looking towards the midterm.
BLOW: That's an impossible sell when you're talking about the House.
BORELLI: I'm reading polls.
BLOW: But it's an impossible sale because these are districts. So, it really doesn't matter what the president's approval rating is among MAGA voters. It really matters about --
BORELLI: It does if he's on the campaign trail.
BLOW: Yes, but he can't be everywhere. Because that's the thing about the House, he can't be everywhere. And the House is really districts within states and a lot of them in many of these states, and you can't be everywhere. And what matters to those voters is whether or not my life is getting better, whether or not they're spending money on me or on other things, and those metrics are going against the president.
(CROSSTALKS)
SIDNER: Hold on a second. I want to go -- let's listen to some Trump supporters at Turning Point at the event talking about their concerns.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JEREMIAH BROSOWSKE, TRUMP SUPPORTER: I mean, I think you are starting to see concerns.
We're okay with mean tweets as long as we get low gas prices.
AMANDA BAIRD, TRUMP SUPPORTER: I just trust him. So, I know it kind of hurts right now with the gas and all that, but I see it coming down.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I voted for him like this is kind of what I expected. But, look, after like the Easter though, it's kind of like, what is going on here?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLOW: Those are so sad. I mean --
BOOT: I think this really has implications for the war that Trump is waging against Iran. Remember, he went into this conflict without making any attempt to get American support. He didn't go to Congress. He didn't give speeches explaining why he needed to go to war with Iran. And now, of course, the war is very unpopular because it's led to higher gasoline prices.
You know, you can argue about whether the base is going to discern them or not, but the reality is something like 60 percent of the country as opposed to the war. This is a major problem for him, and that makes it harder for him to conclude the war on a satisfactory footing because he understands there is huge impatience.
And the Iranians, they're not stupid. They're watching our politics. They understand there is huge impatience on the part of the American public. They want us to get out. And so this is -- he's kind of engaged in the staring contest with Iran over the Strait of Hormuz.
And, unfortunately, Iran is this evil, vile dictatorship that can repress their own popular dissent, whereas Trump has to pay attention to his dissent, whether he likes it or not. And so this is a major problem in launching this unpopular war of choice. It makes it very hard to continue fighting until you prevail over this dictatorship.
SIDNER: All right. We are going to move on.
Next, did Trump's DoorDash stunt actually sort of backfire on him? You heard him speak about it a little bit. Another special guest is going to join the table for us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:30:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SIDNER: Tonight, even some Trump supporters say the President's Door Dash stunt earlier this week fell flat. On Monday, the administration staged a photo op with a Door Dash worker delivering McDonald's to the White House. It was all to promote Trump's no tax on tips policy ahead of tax day. But critics called the appearance forced and just a bit awkward. Trump himself isn't completely convinced it was a good idea.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Sharon delivered McDonald's to the Oval Office. It was a little bit of a, you know, I mean, to be honest, it was a little tacky.
(LAUGHTER)
You know, they come up with these crazy ideas. I mean, we do these things in politics. They're a little embarrassing. They're a little tiny embarrassing, but we do them and you win by landslides, you know.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SIDNER: But while he propped up one of his tax policies, Trump may have highlighted a failure of his first term in this one.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARK GAGNON, "FLAGRANT" CO-HOST: Why would you bring a grandma that needs to work Door Dash?
ANDREW SCHULTZ, "FLAGRANT" CO-HOST: Because they're talking about taxation on tips.
Yes, but like don't want to live in a country where grandmas don't have to work Door Dash, but grandmas get to be retired.
(CROSSTALK)
SCHULTZ: Like, what kind of delusional reality are we living in where he's parading around the grandma that's working Door Dash so she can afford to pay her husband's cancer bills. And he's like, see we're not doing tips. Like there's a whole lot of issue at hand that you need to be focused on.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SIDNER: All right. Investopedia editor-in-chief, Caleb Silver is joining us now at the table as a special guest. Thank you for being here. When you -- when you heard the response to that, and when you saw the actual event if you will, staged Door Dash to the White House, what came to mind for you?
CALEB SILVER, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, INVESTOPEDIA: Tacky, just as the President said because that's what it is, and I don't think Americans care too much about whether that was tacky or not. They care about high gas prices. They care about long lines at TSA. They care about the rising cost of just about everything. So, this was a distraction. It was a tacky distraction and a P.R. disaster not just for the White House but also for Door Dash and pretty much everyone involved.
SIDNER: Was it no tax on tips though kind of popular with a lot of people? SILVER: It is popular but it doesn't impact that many people. It impacts about four million workers, about two -- two and a half percent of the workforce and that's a very good thing. No taxes on tips can be very effective for people that rely on tips. Take a bartender that's making forty or $50,000 a year who relies mostly on tips. Well, if they don't have taxes on tips, that could definitely increase their take-home pay. That's useful.
Stunts like this aren't useful. They are part of the clown show. And I think everybody kind of sees through that. And the media made a lot about this. But the fact is, this doesn't impact that many people in trying to do a stunt like this. They try to highlight the fact that it is helping out a lot of people, especially this woman, with what they is true, 58 years old, 10 grandkids supporting her husband through his cancer treatment. That is very tacky.
SIDNER: Is this something that's hard? Oh, you shaking your head.
(LAUGHTER)
SIDNER: I'm going to let you go, Charles.
CHARLES BLOW, THE LANGSTON HUGHES FELLOW, HARVARD UNIVERSITY: You can't in the same week pull this stunt with someone who is working Door Dash to pay for healthcare when you have cut a, what is it, a trillion dollars from Medicaid and other health programs over 10 years. And in that same week, asked to increase the defense budget for the next year to $1.5 trillion.
It has never been over a trillion dollars, by the way, to like shift the entire paradigm of how we finance the military by asking for that much money. In the same week, you have this woman showing up, taking $100 from you as a tip to go back and try to put that in a pot to pay for her husband's --
(CROSSTALK)
ANNALYSE KELLER, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: I want to go back to this -- I want to go back to this being tacky because, I mean, having worked for a lot of politicians, this is, I mean, this is very much par for the course. And I think this is what he needs to be doing because these are the issues that he needs to be talking about. All the context around this is the foreign policy and he needs to be cutting through that noise and talking about what he's doing.
I mean it was tax day. This is something that makes a lot of sense to be talking about this, to be talking about -- he had Treasury -- Treasury Secretary Bessent talking about the 20-something million who filed for no tax on overtime, which is helping people. These are regular Americans who are being helped by these things. It may feel forced and awkward, but it makes people talk about it, and that's the goal.
(CROSSTALK)
JOE BORELLI, FORMER REPUBLICAN LEADER, NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL: -- (inaudible) in the campaign was going to work at McDonald's. I mean, that was --
(CROSSTALK)
UNKNOWN: You can't cut healthcare.
(CROSSTALK)
BLOW: I think it's a good idea to have a woman's job to pay for healthcare.
(CROSSTALK)
BORELLI: Immitation is the best for a flattery.
BLOW: That's crazy.
BORELLI: The reality is that whether it's four million, I think it's six million people filed no tax on TIBS this year. But imitation is the best form of flattery. You have people that we look towards -- as progressives. You have Mamdani. Hochul included in her budget this year. You have Jackie Rosen in Nevada who actually pushed for unanimous consent on this.
This is a wildly positive thing and a wildly popular thing. And I think as tacky as it was -- and by the way, when Trump called it tacky, I don't know why even Democrats can't admit, the guy's just funny. He's just funny sometimes. But when he told us --
(CROSSTALK)
BLOW: You know what's not funny?
BORELLI: Come on.
BLOW: You know what's not funny?
(CROSSTALK)
BLOW: You know what's not funny? Having to drive Door Dash to pay for cancer --
(CROSSTALK)
BORELLI: There's dignity in work and if you have to work Door Dash --
(CROSSTALK)
BLOW: -- to pay for something that should be covered.
(CROSSTALK)
UNKNOWN: (inaudible) dignity in that.
BLOW: She shouldn't have to do that.
BORELLI: I value people who have to work for a living and I think there's dignity in that. Putting her down because she works --
(CROSSTALK)
BLOW: No, we're not putting her down. We're not putting her down. We're putting down the system that requires her to do that in order to pay for her husband's cancer treatment.
(CROSSTALK)
SIDNER: Let's just look at what has happened. Because there were these huge cuts to Medicaid and unfortunately, the tax on tips, which as you said is popular, got overshadowed because of the situation that she finds herself in which is dire.
[22:40:03]
And if you look at the historic cuts to Medicaid, they're expected to leave 7.5 million more people uninsured over the next decade. That is a lot of Americans who are watching this and understand because they are sitting at home worrying about being able to pay for their health care. And I think that's where you heard the podcasters say, I don't think this is the message they wanted to send. Do you don't see that? Annalyse and Joe, do you see --
JOSH ROGIN, AUTHOR, "CHAOS UNDER HEAVEN": And who benefited from all those cuts, tax cuts for billionaires and corporations, and the amount of money that they received in tax cuts is -- or several orders might be larger than anything that the gig workers are going to get back from that. So, it's a distraction to throw scraps at the poor people and then say ignore the fact that we just keep trillions of dollars to the rich people. And that's epiphany that Andrew Schultz seems to have finally had. It's amazing when these --
(LAUGHTER)
ROGIN: Oh my God. This is just a show and actually gutting the social safety net and then throwing scraps at the gig workers and pretending that they're on the side of the gig workers and it's a complete hypocrisy. And of course, we already knew that, but for lot of MAGA people, they just realized it. So maybe that Door Dash thing was good because it was a -- painted a pretty clear picture of the hypocrisy.
(CROSSTALK)
BORELLI: If her husband's fighting Medicaid, say in 2025, what cuts actually made -- what costs were given to actual cancer care?
UNKNOWN: Sara?
BORELLI: How much were given to cancer care?
SIDNER: If you look at -- children's cancer care was actually cut. And you know how I know? Because I was in a hospital interviewing a family where the doctors were worried about the cuts to children's cancer care. It's a real issue that --
(CROSSTALK)
BORELLI: They were worried about something in the future.
(CROSSTALK)
BORELLI: This person is saying they're going through this now. If we're talking about Medicare cuts that are coming, are you asking what cuts do these women face and why aren't they attributed to the last administration?
SIDNER: Because the Big Beautiful Bill is the thing that made the major cuts to Medicaid. People were literally looking at their -- what is Obamacare, and saying, it is now doubling. You guys got to do something about this. And if you don't, like Obamacare, come up with another plan. Do you have another plan? Have Republicans put that out for -- to -- for a vote?
(CROSSTALK)
ROGIN: And the cuts to cancer research and cancer -- research and development at universities and facilities and our whole health infrastructure. And, you know, there's just an amazing amount of reporting on the decimation of the CDC and the FDA, the Department of Health, National Institutes of Health, and that's a generational problem. So, you're right. Ninety-nine percent of the horrendousness that comes from cutting American's healthcare is in the future, but the one percent that we're seeing is already affecting many more people --
(CROSSTALK)
BORELLI: I'm just saying that this person is affected by cuts that probably were not caused by --
(CROSSTALK)
ROGIN: That's not accurate as Sara just explained.
SIDNER: If you look across the number of people that have come forward to say, these cuts are hurting us, they're real. And the Medicaid cuts in particular have been pretty devastating for families who --
(CROSSTALK)
ROGIN: She did the reporting. I trust her reporting.
BLOW: And also -- and also, it's kind of red herring to say, oh, what of the things that is -- needs is -- being cut already? That's -- what the contrast here is she's showing up doing the work now. Wouldn't it be good if you were supporting policies that wouldn't let -- make people like her have to do this now and in the future, right? So, the contrast is that she's doing this now, and you have cut those funds now at the same time and at the same time asking for much, much more money in military spending.
(CROSSTALK) ROGIN: And then using her as prop which is --
(CROSSTALK)
SIDNER: Annalyse?
KELLER: I was just going to say the One Big Beautiful Bill, just to quickly go back to the Medicaid adjustments, because those are future adjustments and they're talking about work requirements specifically. The enhanced premium tax credit is a tax credit that has expired now and that is certainly impacting some people.
But I think it's important when we're talking about the One Big Beautiful Bill is they timed it and this was -- there's a lot of reporting about this at the time that they timed it to be after the midterms for a lot of those cuts to go into effect. So again, you know, I'm not going --
(CROSSTALK)
BLOW: That's not going to happen, either.
(CROSSTALK)
KELLER: There are certainly adjustments --
(CROSSTALK)
ROGIN: -- admission on its own.
BORELLI: But we should be factual about where the cuts came from, that affected --
(CROSSTALK)
ROGIN: But there are broad cuts imposed.
BORELLI: If we're talking about this woman, I think we should be factual about it.
ROGIN: I trust Sara's reporting. I think you --
(CROSSTALK)
SIDNER: It's already happening and we've talked to several families who are just -- who are seeing the rise in their premiums, and they don't know what to do about it, right? I mean, Congress is trying to fix it here and there, but ultimately, I think overarchingly, Americans are looking at any administration, Democrat or Republican, saying, you've got to get health care right. And so far, is there a Republican bill that's been voted on to deal with the problems with health care?
BORELLI: No, we'll see. We'll see what happens before the end of the year. SIDNER: We've been waiting. I think that's the problem you hear from
Americans is, we've been waiting, give us something that we can chew on.
SILVER: Do you think most people draw the through line from this stunt -- P.R. stunt-gone-wrong at the White House to what we're all talking about here?
[22:45:05]
I mean, these are the important issues --
ROGIN: Now that we've had this conversation.
BLOW: But also, I think you feel your -- the belt tightening. You may not necessarily -- I think a lot of voting is about a sense you get. You don't necessarily draw your higher gas price from the tankers and the Strait of Hormuz. You know where that is. But it's a sense you get that things are the belt is tightening.
And I think that people are seeing that on the medical end, as well, that the belt is tightening, the premiums go up a little bit. Research or hospitals start to close and that belt tightens. So, people start to feel the tightening and that sense is what drives politics, not the specifics.
SILVER: Right, but when you're putting more money in people's pockets which is what they were trying to do, that actually gets people's attention when you put a stunt like this together and it doesn't work, it kind of ruins that messaging.
SIDNER: That's fair. All right, next experts say A.I. will wipe out so many jobs around the world, but Elon Musk says he has a solution, a universal income for everyone with high dollars. We'll debate.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:50:45]
SIDNER: Tonight, is the A.I. revolution terrifying or potentially lucrative with artificial intelligence expected to replace a significant portion of the workforce? Elon Musk is floating universal high income as a possible solution. Musk says checks issued by the federal government would alleviate the issue of unemployment caused by A.I. And given A.I. would produce goods and services in excess of the increase in the money supply, there would not be inflation.
Wow. Caleb, let me -- Caleb, you come from Investopedia, what do you think about this idea? Because let me tell you, when you float this to just anyone out there, you know, you're on the subway, you're on the street, you're in the grocery store, you say, how would you like to have a salary, a high-income where it's guaranteed by the federal government you're going to get it because A.I. is going to take jobs. And you know what they say?
SILVER: Make it rain. SIDNER: Sounds good.
SILVER: Make it rain. This is a crazy idea and it doesn't exist. Universal high income doesn't even exist. It's not on the elemental chart. It never landed. It just doesn't exist at all in any country. It's never happened before.
You might be talking about universal basic income where we've had countries, even states like Alaska, who give residents a little oil kicker every year because of all the oil they produce that could help people and that could lift a lot of people out of poverty.
And A.I. will definitely have productivity gains, and it could cheapen money, and could impact inflation. But when you're talking about giving every family a sizable amount of money, you're talking about an increase in government spending where we were just talking about the fact that all the money is going to defense and the military and not to social services. This just doesn't work and it's not going to work.
Now we did see Andrew Yang propose a version of this, universal basic income, when he was running for president at one point in time, and Elon Musk backed him on that. But the notion of a universal high income, that just can't happen.
ROGIN: I find the whole idea of these tech billionaires that they're just going to have the technology run the world in a (inaudible). Well, l'll just sit around and watch TV or paint or something.
BLOW: And get checked.
ROGIN: It's not utopian, it's dystopian. And work is not just about money. Work is purpose and dignity and a lifestyle and tradition. And Elon Musk doesn't care about any of that. He just thought, let me figure that out. I'll rule the world (inaudible) and the technology will solve all of our problems and you guys can just paint or sing, or watch TV all day.
That sounds like hell to me. That's the future that I don't want, and not for my children and not for my country. And luckily, it's not going to happen anyway. But if it did happen, I think it would be a calamity.
SIDNER: I'm curious what -- I don't know if this has been floated at all in Republican circles, but Republicans have always sort of said, let's have smaller government. We do not now have smaller government as far as the money that is spent. But this would be huge government. This is the government (inaudible) to sit--
(CROSSTALK)
KELLER: I know, yes.
SIDNER: Thoughts?
KELLER: Yes, I mean, this, I don't know, like what he was thinking when he cooked this up. But I think that this is an insane idea. I completely agree, it's dystopian. I think Americans want to have dignity in their work. And I understand that there's stress and anxiety around A.I. and the technology and people being displaced.
I, you know, I don't want to like gloss over that, but every time that we have a new technology, there is also, you know, new industries that come up and there's new opportunities that come up. And so, I think the idea that we need to just like move so quickly and just make everybody sit around and paint is an insane idea. We need to figure out how to make the A.I. integrate into our economy and grow with the times.
SIDNER: I'm curious if this tells you a little bit of something of a fear of those who are in the tech space, tech billionaires, who can see that if A.I. starts taking too many jobs, there's going to be hell to pay.
BORELLI: Yes, maybe. Look. Would I like to play golf an extra day a week and go boating and stuff like that? Sure, but I think, as we've all kind of come to the agreement, I don't think this is a future that any of us want to live in, this purposeless future. I will say this. Take the politics of Elon Musk out of it and just reflect on why he became the richest man in the world.
[22:55:03]
I mean, he is someone who has an ability to see things in the future that a lot of us don't see. He's putting people into space, you know, every day. But, so, I'm not willing to bet against him that he's wrong on this. And that's scary. It is scary.
BLOW: But being rich makes you right?
BORELLI: No, I think being extremely accurate in predictions of what the future scenario will be like and then adjusting companies to meet those needs.
(CROSSTALK)
BLOW: And adjusting boards to give you ridiculous payback.
SIDNER: All right, we got to go. We're going let people chew on that in their own minds and figure it out for themselves. We'll see what happens. Everyone, thank you so much for being here. President Trump just spoke aboard Air Force One, including a new threat against Iran. We will be back in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[23:00:18]
SIDNER: A quick programming note. This weekend, two new episodes of the CNN original series 'Eva Longoria Searching for France," Sunday at 9 P.M. And tomorrow morning, catch our Saturday "Table for Five" show at 10 A.M. Eastern. "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
