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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Trump's Polls Spiral As More Question His Acuity, Competence; Trump To Attend Correspondents' Dinner For First Time In Office; Trump's DOJ Brings Back Firing Squads For Federal Executions; Pentagon Ousts "Stars And Stripes" Ombudsman. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired April 24, 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)
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST (voice over): Tonight, a wellness check. More Americans are questioning the president's mental acuity and competence as his late night rants get more unhinged and his war gets more indefinite.
MEGYN KELLY, HOST, THE MEGYN KELLY SHOW: You got 80 percent of the independents against you. You're Effed.
PHILLIP: Plus --
BARACK OBAMA, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: Donald Trump is here tonight.
PHILLIP: -- 15 years later, will his first appearance while in office at the event honoring the First Amendment be a roast, a toast, or a train wreck.
Also, the Trump administration is bringing back firing squads for federal executions.
And --
REPORTER: Do you feel like you're on a power trip?
PHILLIP: -- Pete Hegseth is confronted about his behavior in war as the Pentagon fires the military papers advocate for independence.
Live at the table, Van Jones, Rob Bluey, Christine Quinn, Tim Parrish and Larry Wilmore.
Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here, they do.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIP (on camera): Good evening. I'm Abby Philip in New York.
The president's polls are spiraling and an alarming number of Americans are questioning his mental acuity, his competence, and his fitness to serve. In the middle of an unpopular war, Donald Trump continues to spend late hours of the night going on rants that are becoming more and more unhinged. He spent nearly three hours after midnight airing his grievances against Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer, and the Southern Poverty Law Center, just to name a few. He took a five-hour break and then returned at 7:30 A.M.
And according to Fox News, a significant majority of Americans say the Trump does not have the judgment, the temperament, and the mental soundness to serve as president. And among independents, all three numbers jump substantially. It's polling like this that has Republicans, like Megyn Kelly, sounding the alarm for the upcoming midterms.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KELLY: When you look at the cross tabs in the all-important independent voters, Trump has cratered. I mean, cratered, not -- it's like not even present tense anymore. It's done. Democrat or Republican, you got 80 percent of the independents against you. You're Effed. You need to adjust something ASAP.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: And she's talking specifically about these polls that ask voters about Trump's -- his judgment, his mental clarity, his temperament. She's right, it's nearing 80 percent for independents. 73 percent say that he doesn't have the judgment. 76 percent say he doesn't have the temperament. 67 percent say he doesn't have the mental soundness. And then when you add on top of that this Fox News poll that, for the first time in 16 years, shows the Democrats have overtaken Republicans in terms of who is better on the economy, that's a double-whammy for this president.
VAN JONES, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Hey, look, I mean, he's got one foot on a banana peel, another peel foot on a skateboard, and he's headed toward the stairs. I mean, he is in deep, deep trouble.
And, you know, the thing about it is, you know, this is about the time in an election year where things start to harden. We are now, you know, four or five, six months away from this actual election and nothing's going the right way for the president. Every single number in every category is bad or worse, and the momentum's picking up. And I don't think that if you had a relative with a job and the job -- he was doing a terrible job at his job and then you found out that all night he's tweeting out nonsense, I think you'd be scared for your relative. I think people are scared for the country.
ROB BLUEY, PRESIDENT AND EXECUTIVE EDITOR, THE DAILY SIGNAL: Abby, this is historically a bad time for incumbent presidents. As we know, George W. Bush suffered losses. Barack Obama suffered losses in the midterm. Joe Biden did.
What Donald Trump needs to do is bring this war in Iran to a swift end. He needs to wrap up and get focused on the domestic issues here at home that those independent voters care about. I mean, it's the cost of living. People drive down the street, they see the price of gasoline, they're concerned about that. We knew the same thing when Joe Biden was president. Those are the things that doomed Kamala Harris and her election, because they attached a lot of those policies that they didn't like to that administration.
And so I think that there is time then to still turn it around over the next six months. But you're right, the clock is certainly ticking.
[22:05:01]
PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, the clock is ticking and the president doesn't seem all that interested in changing course. I mean, he's talked a whole lot about his ballroom and the renovations he wants to do and all kinds of stuff, the Kennedy Center. He seems disinterested, in some ways, and he keeps calling it the affordability thing, a hoax. But he seems disinterested in even pivoting that argument for the midterms.
CHRISTINE QUINN (D), FORMER SPEAKER, NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL: And he's -- and when you're disinterested in that, when Americans hear is that you're disinterested in them. You're disinterested in their daily struggles. They're counting, you know, their money when they're deciding how much gas they can put in the car. You're disinterested in the exact issues that they thought they elected you to take care of.
You know, what is it? The first step is admitting you have a problem. The president is very, very far from that. It almost seems like these rants are throwing spaghetti against the wall to try to create some kind of distraction that people will cleave onto, which is just not going to happen when their daily economic lives are so difficult.
TIM PARRISH, CONSERVATIVE STRATEGIST: Abby, I would just offer that president, if you look back through his time running for office from 2015 on, he's always been a prolific poster on various social media. And I would say that one of his strength is his ability to dominate the social media waves when his opponents aren't. And he runs circles around people. I mean, I don't think it's bad that he only sleeps for five hours and he's back on the waves making comments and being engaged.
Look, I would agree with everybody --
PHILLIP: And appears nodding off in the Oval Office.
PARRISH: What's that? Yes, I don't know about that, Abby. I would agree that I think the president should take his time, his prolific posting and talk about some of his wins, about some of the things he's done and delivered for the country. But he's always been a prolific poster. It's been one of the things that has been a strong suit of his, I think.
PHILLIP: Why is that a strength?
PARRISH: It's been his strength. It's been his strength.
PHILLIP: I mean, what's the evidence that it's been a strength? Because according to all the polling -- well, hold on. First of all, right now, I just read the polls, judgment, temperament, mental soundness, a majority of Americans, a supermajority of independents say that they don't think he has it. Does Trump care about you? Registered voters, 63 percent say no, independents.
It's -- I mean, I'm just saying like the posting is something that I think makes Trump feel better, but I'm asking the question, is it actually responsive to what voters need from him? And I think a lot of Americans say, or even people that vote for Trump say, I wish he would stop posting. He posted this. Let me just show you, like this is a four-page, God knows how many word, transcript bashing India and China, calling India a hellhole. And, basically, it's a transcript of a right wing podcast that a lot of people described as racist. And this is what the president is posting. Why?
LARRY WILMORE, COMEDIAN AND PODCAST HOST, BLACK ON THE AIR: For me, it's not that he's a prolific, you know, poster, which he is of course, but he's a prolific, erratic poster is the problem.
And I think if you look at most independents, they just want a president that's going to do the president's job. We don't want to have to think about it. He's like making them think about how erratic and out of just his mind he is. I mean, from Dr. Jesus to, you know, these insults. Like, you know, he's one of the -- here's what the Republicans do that I really just don't understand.
They had so much wind at their backs in this election, especially with the economy. They have such a talent for fumbling on the one yard line right before they get to the goal line. All Trump had to do is not say anything. There were so many wins the Republicans could have had. We're in the first year, Abby. It's crazy.
JONES: Let me just add to that. What's interesting is this time last year, everyone was terrified of Donald Trump. I mean, you had titans of industry billionaires. Nobody wants to be on his bad side. Today, nobody is afraid of Donald Trump. You have everybody, from Joe Rogan, to Megyn Kelly, just whooping them, just smack them upside the head and he can't fight them back because his -- all the airs come out the tires, all the fizz has come out the soda.
And so now you're seeing weakness. This is weakness. And he has no ability to discipline his party and he has three years left to go.
BLUEY: And you know what Democrats are doing? They're lining up for a day one impeachment vote, because the Democrat --
JONES: And I think that's stupid but I'm --
BLUEY: But you know that they are.
JONES: You can beat us up on that one, yes.
BLUEY: You know they are because they went from not having many co- sponsors to an overwhelming number of co-sponsors.
PHILLIP: Yes. Maybe -- that may be true. I mean, I think it's what Democrats might want to do. But even before they get there, can they clear the bar with voters? And I think the economic piece, which I just showed you, is a big hurdle.
[22:10:01]
It's probably the number one hurdle.
I want to play what James Blair, Trump's sort of political guru. He just left the White House to go run the political shop. This is what he said about the Tuesday referendum in Virginia and what he thinks it means for November.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAMES BLAIR, WHITE HOUSE DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF: So, just as a baseline for all the Democrats crowing this morning, if Republicans perform anywhere near on average the way they did in Virginia last night, we not only add seats to the Senate, but we add seats to the House and we have a historic midterm. It was very close last night. There's a backlash to the fact that they were not honest and the same is going to be true in November.
They don't have policies to run on. They don't have a vision to run on. We're going to make them litigate the question of their policies in November. And, again, if it turns out the way it did last night, Democrats are not going to win the majority in either chamber.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: The reason I think this is super important is it gives you a window of what Trump is hearing from his political shop, right? And he just said it's going to be a referendum on the Democrats. But we actually know that it's the referendum on the president and the party in power. And if you look at the numbers on that, on inflation, 72 percent say that Trump -- that they disapprove of Trump on inflation, on government spending, 67 disapprove. The economy, 66 disapprove. On the Iran war, 63 disapprove. You can read them all down there. The only thing he is positive on is the border.
So, I mean, I'm asking you as a Republican, if you take what James Blair said to the bank in November, where is the Republican Party going to be?
PARRISH: I don't necessarily agree 100 percent with James. I think that we got to show up and fight in fact every single day leading up to Election Day. But there are a few points I do agree on. My friend made the point earlier the Democrat Party still has no vision for the country. The Democrat Party still has no way forward or a leader. Is it the Mamdani (ph) group with the president reading the kids? Is it the AOC? Who is leading the Democrat Party who is, in fact, going to set the vision and the chart forward? They don't have that.
We do have -- Van, I got to disagree, the president can discipline the party. He can command, and people aren't afraid of President Trump, but they do respect him. And I think that there is a -- we have a leadership here that can chart a path forward for the Republican Party and for the country.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: The voters (INAUDIBLE) clearly disagree with that, Tim.
PARRISH: And I would caution him, I would caution every time Donald Trump has been on the ballot, we look at the polls and we say, oh God, he's in bad trouble, and then he overperforms, and he wins.
JONES: But not in midterms.
PHILLIP: Don't forget that --
PARRISH: So, I would caution my friends at the table, forget looking at polls.
PHILLIP: Let's not forget he lost the 2020 election, okay? He did lose in the midterms. So, he did lose the election twice.
PARRISH: The polls had him down in 15 --
PHILLIP: And on the very issue that led to Joe Biden losing, the president is underwater, deeply underwater.
Let me let Van --
JONES: I just want to say that, you know, those straws that you saw him just grasping at, that's not good counsel the president is getting. That was a single issue vote in one state. Not -- it was not about the economy. It was not about a whole bunch of issues. It was about redistricting. The fact that somebody may be telling the president that this is a sign that you're going to pick up votes in the House, that's literally insane. And if that's the kind of stuff the president's hearing, he's being poorly served.
PARRISH: No, the president's got to be encouraged to show up and fight as a party every single day and run on the wins that I believe the president has given to the American people. So, I agree with you on that point.
WILMORE: Yes. But the president has a talent for turning the wins into losses. That's what I'm saying. These are unforced errors on the economy. Tariffs are unforced errors. He didn't have to do all that. He's destroyed a lot of this himself.
QUINN: And if you look at the special elections that have happened, we are winning them. The Democrats are winning them. The Republicans are not winning the special elections, even ones in Mar-a-Lago's backyard.
PARRISH: Well, we should have a separate conversation about that.
PHILLIP: Next for us, Trump will attend the White House Correspondents' Dinner honoring reporters that he regularly bashes. So, will it be a return to tradition or a train wreck?
Plus, the administration is bringing back firing squads for federal executions. We'll debate.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:15:00]
PHILLIP: Tonight, it's been 15 years since Barack Obama delivered that now infamous White House Correspondents' Dinner speech in which he mocked Donald Trump for his birther lie and made some bold predictions about what Trump would do if elected.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: Now, I know that he's taken some flack lately, but no one is happier, no one is prouder to put this birth certificate matter to rest than the Donald. And that's because he can finally get back to focusing on the issues that matter, like did we fake the moon landing, what really happened in Roswell, and where are Biggie and Tupac.
Say what you will about Mr. Trump. He certainly would bring some change to the White House and see what we've got up there.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: You know, he wasn't all that far off.
QUINN: No, I was just thinking the same thing.
PHILLIP: It's all the same.
All right, according to Chris Christie, Trump was, quote, beside himself with fury over those remarks from Obama. And so this weekend, as he attends the correspondents' dinner for the first time as president, will Donald Trump's speech be a roast of his political enemies, a toast to the journalists who cover the White House or just a train wreck?
[22:20:00]
I mean, I don't know if anybody here is going. Van, are you going?
JONES: I'll be there covering it.
PHILLIP: All right. So, look, I mean, Trump has -- I don't know. I don't know if he sees this as an opportunity to reset or an opportunity to double down.
QUINN: Oh, he's not the king of reset. You know what I mean? And self- control is not his greatest quality. So, I think he is going to go in barrels loaded and just go off and try to do what he does, which he will try to teach that room what is right and teach them how to behave and teach them how to be respectful, and I think it will be a disaster.
PARRISH: See, I take a different approach. I think the president's going to go in and actually be funny. I think he's going to laugh at other people's jokes. I think he's going to tell jokes and hope that it's funny. This is a chance for, you know, in the past, at least for the kind of the partisan veils to come down, or barriers to come down and have a good time and actually laugh.
I also think this is a greater issue with comedy, right? Comedy used to just be, you go tell jokes, people aren't getting offended, they just laughed. And I think that's what's going to happen tomorrow. The president does have a sense of humor, and I think that you're going to see that on full display here at the dinner.
WILMORE: I actually do agree with you. I think Trump missed an opportunity to go to earlier correspondents' dinner because Trump's done roast before. And Trump could have given it back to those comedians. And, honestly, it could have been really funny and could have gone a long way to just, you know, either humanizing him or whatever.
But I'll take the opposite approach here. I think Trump would be better served if he did self-deprecating jokes about how he's treated -- about how he's treated journalists. Because I'll never forget the year before I hosted a thing there, but I went to the dinner. And I remember meeting Jason Rezaian, who was the political prisoner in Iran.
And it struck me how important this dinner is to honor journalism, to not forget the value, the gift that we have in this country of free speech and the job, the important job that journalists have. If he does self-deprecating jokes about that, I will be applauding him and say, well done, Mr. President.
JONES: Look, he's a T.V. guy. Trump's a T.V. guy. And I think he's going to recognize he's got some opportunities here. I think the ratings are going to be higher than ever. I think more people are going to tune in to see what the heck he does or doesn't do. And we'll see what he does.
It could be a train wreck, it could be a disaster, but I think he understands this is a T.V. moment and he needs one right now. We'll see what he does.
WILMORE: I'll say this last thing. I mean, I feel sorry for Oz Pearlman, he's the mentalist, because he's going to have to read what's in Trump's mind.
PHILLIP: Yes. That's not going to be easy. There's going to be a lot of stuff.
So, I mean, inside the press, there is a bit of a tug-of-war happening. More than 250 former journalists including people like Dan Rather, Sam Donaldson, they wrote this. We, the undersigned, call upon the Correspondents' Association to use the occasion of the dinner to forcefully demonstrate opposition to President Trump's efforts to trample freedom of the press. These are not normal times, and this cannot be business as usual with the press standing up to applaud the man who attacks them on a daily basis.
I mean, whatever you think of Trump and what -- you know, how funny he is, it's not wrong that he does attack the press on a daily basis. He did it several times just this past week. And, I mean, does it make sense to have the press in the room and they're applauding and they're -- whatever, like he's not really there to honor them.
BLUEY: What President hasn't had a contentious relationship with the press? I mean, you can go back to Barack Obama and using the Espionage Act and going after the Associated Press, and James Risen and James Rosen, you know, over whistleblowers and things like that. You can go all the way back to FDR who created an office of censorship during World War II.
So, yes, there is a contentious relationship between Trump and the press. I also think the two benefit from each other. Trump benefits from having that foil. We saw that in the debates that he's performed exceptionally well in, right, and then we've also seen it in terms of the media and the increase in viewership, subscriptions and all of those other things that come with it.
JONES: Look, I think that there's always this tip to kind of say, oh, well, Trump's just like everybody else. You've never had a president suing news agencies for coverage he didn't like and forcing them to give him money. So, I don't think he's -- I think he's uniquely unfriendly toward the press. And -- but I don't think that it's appropriate for the reporter to say, this is the opportunity for us to do something that we don't always do. It's so unusual. So, now we have to be rude and mean.
Look, it's the White House Correspondents' Dinner. He is the president. You get one president at a time. I think, you know, they should stick up for the First Amendment and they should stick to their principles, but I don't think they have any special obligation to go over the top just because Donald Trump is --
PHILLIP: So, there's this -- I mean, when you -- if you go and listen to past presidents at the Correspondents' Dinner, they -- nearly all of them, there is a clause in their speech that is about the importance of the press at the end and the First Amendment.
[22:25:13]
And that's usually how you go from the roast to the reason why they're there. And I suspect that that's going to be absent. Just my hunch, that's not going to --
PARRISH: I disagree. I think the president does respect the First Amendment but he doesn't respect people who lie and who defame his name. And so you -- I think there's a mischaracterization there, Van, is you said that Donald Trump forced people to pay the money when he sued him. No, the courts forced people to pay money when they've lied about the president.
JONES: No, they settled. They settled.
PHILLIP: Hold on a second, Tim. Trump attacks the media for correcting his lies. He also -- in the case of CBS, he sued them over an edit, which he didn't like, fair enough, but he's been subject to edits before that have benefited him. So, it's -- your characterization of the lawsuits is -- that is not how do this has gone --
PARRISH: Why do they settle, Abby? In several of these cases, why do they settle out?
PHILLIP: That's a good question.
PARRISH: Why don't they fight?
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: When the person suing you has regulatory power over you, that changes the dynamic.
PARRISH: You have, for example -- I mean there, this is a legitimate conversation to have when you have, like the Southern Poverty Law Center, where the president's talking about that, and when you have the press engaging in things like that and then not covering it, but they'll fame the president --
(CROSSTALKS)
PARRISH: I don't think it's about attacking the press. I think it's about holding them accountable. And if their feelings get hurt in the process, I'm sorry, but, you know, you can't lie blatantly. You can't defame just people --
(CROSSTALKS)
WILMORE: Wait, are you talking about Trump now or?
JONES: Exactly.
QUINN: Yes.
JONES: I just want to just correct record on a couple things.
PARRISH: I'm glad it's funny, but it's really not. And the people at home that are watching the news want real, substantive news.
JONES: I just want to just correct the record. CBS settled not because they agreed that they had done something wrong. They were in the middle of the big regulatory moment, and they had to do that in order to get their business done, which is called crony capitalism, which you guys are usually opposed to.
The other thing I would say --
PARRISH: I'm strictly -- I'm strongly opposed --
JONES: Exactly. The other thing I would say is that with the Southern Poverty Law Center, that's not a news organization, and what they got in trouble for doing was paying informants to go into hate groups to figure out who's going to get killed. And now that's been turned around against them. That has nothing to do with the press.
So, I just wanted to make sure that we aren't mixing apples --
PARRISH: What I talked about is press not getting fair cover -- PHILLIP: Also, let's not forget that the president has sued -- he had sued The Wall Street Journal about a true story and had that lawsuit thrown out. So, there are many attempts by this president to intimidate the media when they publish the truth. And he gets upset when people question things that he said that are not true. All of that happens.
I mean, I'm not saying that he doesn't think he's being treated unfairly. I'm just saying that he doesn't like it when the media asks him questions about things that he does --
JONES: And Obama never sued anybody. Obama didn't like some of the stuff, he never sued anybody. He is doing things that are unusual. You would admit yourself that he's an unusual pugilist.
PARRISH: Absolutely. He's unusually accessible like no other president has been. He's unusually able to answer questions better and more often than any other president has been. So, I would agree with you. There is some unusual characteristics about Donald Trump character and his accessibility to the media. He's the most accessible president. He calls and shows.
JONES: He's good at his job.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: All right. Joey, you wanted the last one.
BLUEY: Oh, I just wanted to say compared to his predecessor and the biased coverage that I think Trump feels that there was not, we talked -- you talked -- started the show talking about mental acuity. Where was the press? Jake Tapper revealed how everyone was absent in terms of covering that monumental story about how Biden, over the last couple of years of his presidency, didn't get the scrutiny that he deserved. I think Trump looks at that and says, why are you scrutinizing me to this degree?
PARRISH: They would call that, attacking the president. We call that accountability, very simple.
PHILLIP: Okay. All right, we're going to leave it there.
Next for us, the Trump administration is bringing back the firing squad as a method of execution for federal inmates on death row. We'll discuss that next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:30:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: Tonight, a change to the federal death penalty could soon be happening. The Justice Department announced that it is bringing back firing squads for federal executions. The administration is also clearing the way to expedite federal death penalty cases after a Biden administration moratorium. And now, the DOJ says that it's seeking the death penalty for 44 defendants.
Just for context, federal executions are pretty rare. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, since 1977, just 16 people have been executed on the federal level, and 13 of them were during President Trump's first term. But on the state level, more than 1600 people have been executed since 1977, according to the Center. And last year, three of them were killed by a firing squad in South Carolina.
[22:35:00]
Rob, why is the Trump administration so keen on bringing back the death penalty just in general? Because 13 out of 16 death penalty cases since the '70s in one presidential term is incredible to think about. But the reason I'm asking that is because here's what the stats say. Since 1973, 202 former death row prisoners have been exonerated of all charges related to the wrongful convictions that have put them on death row in the first place. There is a great degree of error here. Why are they so obsessed with the death penalty?
ROB BLUEY, PRESIDENT AND EXECUTIVE EDITOR, "THE DAILY SIGNAL": Oh, Abby, you came to me first on this one. I'm a newly confirmed Catholic as of Easter Sunday. So, you've got me in a tough spot here.
PHILLIP: That's awesome.
BLUEY: Wow. No, I'll try to answer from the perspective that maybe the Trump administration is approaching this. So, I think a couple of factors. Number one, we know that during the Biden administration, that President moved away from the death penalty at the federal level. And so, Donald Trump, as you showed in the numbers, obviously believes that the death penalty is an effective deterrence when it comes to some crimes.
I think secondarily, what the DOJ has said in this particular case of bringing back these other types of executions is that pharmaceutical companies aren't supplying the drugs for lethal injections. And those lethal injections sometimes result in more suffering for those who are on death row. And so, these other forms of execution may be a better --
PHILLIP: A firing squad?
TIM PARRISH, CONSERVATIVE STRATEGIST: Yes, the merciful like, you know, shot in your stomach with a big bullet.
PHILLIP: Yes, shot by several bullets.
CHRISTINE QUINN (D) FORMER SPEAKER, NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL: There's no way to say that's more kind, that it's more merciful. There's just no way.
PHILLIP: Van, sorry, I don't want to interrupt.
VAN JONES, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I've been a criminal justice guy for 30 plus years and I think Americans would be shocked by how much error there is in these death penalty convictions. If you are in the wrong neighborhood, if you don't have a lot of money, you're going to get very bad counsel and then you're going to get a sentence that's very hard to get out of, and it can take years and years.
And sometimes the clock runs out and people put to death that the entire system knows are innocent. It's just a system, once you get that bad outcome early on, it's almost impossible to roll it back. So, what you don't want to do is to rush more people into a situation where they're going to be killed.
I don't care if it's with a needle or with a rifle, because they can't come back. And so, I just think when Americans look at the system and they realize how fragile it is, how many people wind up in -- if you're rich and guilty, you're better off than if you're poor and innocent in our system. And that's a problem.
LARRY WILMORE, COMEDIAN AND PODCAST HOST, "BLACK ON THE AIR": I've been Catholic all my life, pretty much, and it is a religion that was founded on capital punishment, when you think about it, crucifixion, which is ironic of all things, you know. But this is a symptom of what I like to call MAGA masculinity, you know. And MAGA masculinity has to express itself in the amount of kills you make, you know, the disses, the owns, you know.
The way that you have to slam people, you have to deal with forestry, shithole countries, words like that, you know. It's not a display of leadership, which is a good sign of masculinity, it's a good trait, you know. It's a sign of tearing down and using force and destruction and all these things. Even his tweet about destroying an entire civilization, there's no reason to tweet something like that. But it's -- I call that MAGA masculinity, that kind of (inaudible) --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Well, to, perhaps to your point, I mean, take a look at this tweet from Congressman Tim Burchett. He says, "Now do hanging," in response to the firing squad.
(CROSSTALK)
UNKNOWN: Yes.
QUINN: I mean, is that supposed to be funny?
PHILLIP: I don't think he's joking. I think he's being actually quite serious.
UNKNOWN: Yes, I agree.
PHILLIP: Public hangings, look, he doesn't have the power to do this, but the idea that that would be brought back into the public sphere given the history --
TIM PARRISH, CONSERVATIVE STRATEGIST: Yes, Abby, I think that tweets like that and even this is a story are way off base. And I'm just going to echo some of my colleagues about the faith piece. Like, I'm a pro-life guy from the womb to the tomb. The last capital punishment on earth that was the payment for the sins of the world was Jesus Christ on the cross.
And so, I don't think that we should be doing these types of things anyway. I think that if people commit bad crimes, they should spend the rest of their life in jail, if that's what the court levies against them. But, I wish the President -- this is a time where I wish the President and his communications team would lean into the winds.
The working family tax cut bill, some of the peace negotiations the president's done around the world, some of the domestic policy wins, even though you all might disagree, we're getting ready to come into a midterm that's going to be rough.
And I wish that this White House would lean into those wins, would sell those wins to the American people and make those known, instead of focusing on a firing squad thing. So, this is one of the things I have to go back to and say, why is this the story when you have a president who, frankly, I think, has been quite successful?
[22:40:01]
I think millions of Americans agree. Let's galvanize those Americans, get them to the polls, get them excited about going and get involved in these midterms. I'm not talking about a firing squad issue here. I just, don't know why this is a story.
PHILLIP: Well, personally, Trump has been a fan of the death penalty publicly,
QUINN: Oh, absolutely.
PHILLIP: -- at least since the 1980s when we called for it with the Central Park Five, as you know. And they were exonerated.
(CROSSTALK)
QUINN: Who were completely exonerated.
PHILLIP: So, another example of how this can work or not work.
PARRISH: Yes, these types of tweets, I'll also say, are dangerous. We shouldn't be even having a conversation about bringing back public hangings. I think tweets like this are dangerous. The one where the senator said, you know, he celebrated the idea that the Strait of Hormuz Navy ships were being destroyed. All these types of tweets are dangerous, and they're below the office that these gentlemen and ladies hold. So, this is not the right conversation we should (inaudible) --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: You know where we've been hearing about public executions lately? In Iran --
QUINN: Yes. Oh, yes. JONES: Yes.
PHILLIP: -- hangings, firing squads. If that were to suddenly become part of American life, where do we end up?
JONES: Yes, I mean, I think that's a very good point. I hadn't thought about it but, I mean, that part of the reason that people want the Islamic Republic of Iran to go away and let the Iranian people and the Persian people actually have, you know, real freedom because they hang people for fun in Iran. They hang them off of cranes. I mean, it's a part of their kind of despotic rule. I think America should be going in the opposite direction from the Islamic Republic of Iran.
WILMORE: I agree with this. And it's more than Trump just not saying something bad. He needs to lead. He should point out those types of distinctions of what makes this civilization more important and better. He should point those out and be -- have some gravitas and seriousness with it. I'm telling you, in terms of independence, you have so many more people understanding why are people possibly dying in this war? We need to know some really good reasons, not just obliterate people dropping mines, you know.
QUINN: But I think what you said about the machoness is right. He can't -- he gets so drawn into it and loses any of what the presidency is really about, which is about lifting a country up, lifting people up to higher ground, not dragging them down. But he gets so unfortunately sucked into that.
WILMORE: Yes.
PHILLIP: All right, next for us. The Pentagon has fired the Ombudsman for the military newspaper as Pete Hegseth is confronted about whether he's on a power trip in this war. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:47:09]
PHILLIP: The woman in charge of making sure that the military's newspaper "Stars and Stripes" was independently covering the Pentagon has now been fired. Jacqueline Smith is a journalist of 40 years and a long time ombudsman, and she was fired after she spoke out about the Defense Department's interference in that publication. Here she is on CNN earlier tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JACQUELINE SMITH, "STARS AND STRIPES" NEWSPAPER: I think the Pentagon is taking steps to try to control the message through various ways to have more public affairs content, for example, to remove the requirement that the publisher is a civilian, so they could put, you know, perhaps a military person in there. There's many ways. And also, they're limiting, not limiting, they're eliminating, prohibiting use of syndicated material, which directly affects what readers can get.
(END VIDEO CLIP) PHILLIP: This is just one of several fights Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has picked with the media. After attempting to ban news outlets from the Pentagon, a court ruled against him. Then it ruled against him again after Hegseth attempted to restrict media access in other ways. In the Pentagon briefing today, the newly invited outlet TMZ was called on for a question or two, and you can listen to it. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNKNOWN: I've heard you talk a lot about bombing people and places. When you give these orders to carry out this extreme level of violence, what's going through your mind and your body? Do you have like an adrenaline rush? Are you scared? Do you feel like you're on a power trip? Just walk us through and paint us a picture of what it feels like mentally and physically.
PETE HEGSETH, DEFENSE SECRETARY: It's a very TMZ question. My only thought process is to ensure that our war fighters have everything they need to be successful, defeat and destroy the enemy, and they come home. I want them to feel empowered, to have every authority they need within our rules and within our law to bring maximum violence to the enemy because war is violent, war requires doing difficult things, but I want our people to feel empowered so it's our guys that come home and their guys that do not.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So Tim, I want to start with the issue with "Stars and Stripes" because the ombudsman is basically saying that they fired her because she criticized their attempts to essentially make the newspaper a propaganda arm of the military. What do you think?
PARRISH: Look, I was a young Marine reading "Stars and Stripes" on military bases from Quantico to Camp Lejeune, here and there, between. I think they're a great publication and I don't know the specific details. I do know that this Pentagon has said they want the media to be focused on telling truthful, honest, substantive stories.
And I would say I would caution the Pentagon against limiting the media if they're telling stories, they're telling the whole story. Even if it makes people look bad and there's accountability, the media, that's a First Amendment principle that I stand up for, I think everybody at this table stands up for, and the whole story should be allowed to be told.
It would send a chilling effect throughout the media pool there at the Pentagon if that was the case. I don't know the details of this if that were the case, but I do know that this Pentagon is focused on telling substantive, true stories about military operations and what's going on in that building.
JONES: This is an important publication.
PARRISH: It is. JONES: And you know, there's a reason that Congress passed the bill to put an ombudsman in there because they did not want for the Pentagon to turn it into a propaganda rag. This is something that a co-equal branch of government, the Congress said, we want somebody in there to make sure that our men and women uniform are getting good information.
The fact that this was a person who was doing the job that Congress wanted her to do, and did it so well she got fired is not a good sign. What is Pete Hegseth so afraid of? Why is he chasing reporters out? Why does he rather have TMZ in there than like, actual reporters. Why is this guy so afraid of the truth? Why is he afraid of people using their First Amendment rights as reporters to cover the Pentagon the way it's been covered for 250 years? You've never seen this type of activity. It makes a lot of people very uncomfortable.
QUINN: And you know, her term runs out in like six months. So, what was the rush to get her out? What was the wrong thing that she had done that was so significant? We don't know that because I don't believe there was one. I think this tracks what the Secretary's behavior of trying to limit and control the media's coverage all across the board.
(CROSSTALK)
PARRISH: There should be an investigation to answer that question.
PHILLIP: So, I guess, you know, part of the question that Van is asking, what is Pete Hegseth afraid of, it isn't just the media. There's also been a purge inside Pentagon, dozens of senior officials and generals and senior officers. Criticism came from interesting place. Greg Kelly, who's a pretty big MAGA supporter. He's a media guy.
He says, "What a despicable guy Hegseth is." He says, instead of this -- he's criticizing the firing of the Navy secretary. He says it was not the decent thing to do. Blow up someone else's life because he can't handle his own.
Look, there are lot of reasons the Navy secretary was fired. Trump also wanted him fired according to the reporting. But the pattern of Hegseth in conflict with all these officials, and then just getting rid of them is there for sure.
BLUEY: I won't disagree. He has remade the Joint Chiefs of Staff. No doubt about that. And I think he wants a team in place that believes in the vision that he has for operating the Department of War. When it comes to the press, I do have to correct both of you. He did not ban any reporters from the White House, and he didn't chase them out. It was those reporters, and there's photographic evidence of them walking out of the Pentagon because they refused to sign --
JONES: Yes.
BLUEY: -- the new policy --
(CROSSTALK) JONES: It says you can't do your job.
BLUEY: No, it said you can't disclose classified information and then I noticed --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Okay, I'm glad you disclosed that.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: I'm glad you disclosed that because that document did not say you won't disclose classified information. It basically says you cannot do reporting in the halls of Congress --
(CROSSTALK)
BLUEY: You can't walk around other companies and government --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: There were many news outlets, including conservative news outlets, Fox News and others, that refused to sign it because the intent was to handicap independent journalism. Now, I'm sorry that you all signed it and that you thought that it was okay for the Pentagon to have a veto power over your ability to report but that is not what journalism is.
BLUEY: So, is CNN not going to the briefings with Secretary Hegseth now?
PHILLIP: He has lost the lawsuit.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: He has lost the lawsuit.
BLUEY: The -- all of those news organizations have been back. Since the operation started in Iran, those news organizations have showed up at 8 A.M. to ask questions that --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: You know, and my point is, he lost -- they were sued over that prohibition and they lost (inaudible) --
(CROSSTALK)
JONES: And you can't possibly -- you can't possibly feel good about brand new, never before used after 250 years of having the press have one relationship totally changed because a former Fox News host thinks that he's got a better idea than a 250 year tradition. It's terrible. I don't know why he's so afraid of the truth, but he's definitely afraid of it.
BLUEY: You know what? A good idea is to have the taxpayers stop funding state-owned media. Let's have "Stars and Stripes," I agree with you, but it's a good publication, it should not be bankrolled by me and you, and all of us. Let's go the same route as NPR and PBS and get the government out of here.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Well, look. Hold on a second. Well, I mean, look. That's a decision for Congress to make.
[22:55:00]
But I also think that "Stars and Stripes" serves our service members. And what Congress has essentially said is that they deserve independent -- they deserve independent journalism as a service to them. That is what we owe them as a nation. It's not like some random group of people. These are people who are fighting on the behalf of American people. That's what taxpayers are paying for.
(CROSSTALK)
WILMORE: I think it's so important for them to get the right type of information. I think there's a conflation between patriotism and propaganda. You know, soldiers are absolutely patriotic. They want a patriotic paper to read. They want to feel good about the country, support the country. They don't want propaganda. They don't want reasons that fit a certain narrative that are in a narrow corridor that they're supposed to read at the expense of the truth and at the expense of everything else. That's the difference.
PHILLIP: All right, everyone, thank you very much for joining us tonight. We'll be back in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[23:00:37]
PHILLIP: Catch our Saturday morning "Table for Five" show at 10 A.M. Eastern. A CNN political comedy special starts right now.
