Return to Transcripts main page
CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Democrats Hit All In Panic Button In Redistricting Wars; April Hiring Beats Expectations Amid Frozen Labor Market; Gas Prices Hit New Highs This Week During The Iran War; Economic Pain Persists In America; Obama Suggests Dems To Talk Like Normal People; Rubio Could Just Be Gaining Political Advantage Over Vance. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired May 08, 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, wipe off the map. Virginia deals a blow to Democrats retaliating against Donald Trump's redistricting moves in a consequential twist.
Plus --
KEVIN HASSETT, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL: The golden age is upon us, the Trump policies are working.
PHILLIP: -- despite 81 percent feeling economic pain, is the new jobs report reason for optimism?
Also --
BARACK OBAMA, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: Can you talk plain English to folks and not have a bunch of gobbledygook around it?
PHILLIP: -- 44 gives advice to Democrats hoping to become 48.
And he may be number two, but is J.D. Vance losing his advantage to potentially become number one to America's top diplomat?
Live at the table, Horace Cooper, Leigh McGowan, Stephen Moore, Denver Riggleman, and Franklin Leonard.
Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here, they do.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIP: Good evening, I'm Abby Phillip in New York. America's redistricting battles just became a full-fledged war. Democrats are vowing to go all in tonight after a consequential setback in Virginia. The state Supreme Court striking down the new Congressional map that favors Democrats, ruling that the party began the process of putting the measure on the ballot too late. The new map would have created four new majority blue districts, and it was created in response to President Trump's call for red states to redraw maps to favor Republicans.
Now, last month, voters narrowly passed that referendum, and Democrats are vowing to appeal. The House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, says that the fight is just getting started, and it all comes after the Supreme Court issued a historic ruling that severely weakened the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and it opened the door to new redistricting battles all across the South, like, for example, in Alabama, where Republicans are now asking the Supreme Court to allow the state to revert back to an old map that it had struck down. The Court in 2023 ultimately ordered the officials to redraw its map after it tried to pack black voters into one district.
So, we are, to be frank, in the depths of hell now when it comes to redistricting. I don't think there's a better way to put it. Like there's no bottom officially here. I think between the Supreme Court ruling and Virginia, we have a situation where pretty much every state is going to be looking at their maps and seeing whether they can box out the other political party, and the result is going to be, I think, just terrible -- yes, chaos, terrible for our democracy. But for black voters in particular in the South, they're looking to lose pretty much most if not all of their representation in southern states.
FRANKLIN LEONARD, FOUNDER AND CEO, THE BLACK LIST: Yes, I think that's accurate. I mean, I think, look I think a lot of people have tried to couch these events in terms of the last few years, but I think we have to look at it in terms of the historical context of the entire country. You know, this is part of an ongoing political project that began after the Civil War and was designed to disenfranchise black voters, and then when disenfranchisement required a more sophisticated solution. It was poll taxes and literacy taxes and the grandfather rule. And then when you couldn't actually prevent people from voting, we decided to dilute their collective political force and see if there wasn't a way that you could prevent the entire community from coalescing enough political power to have influence.
And, you know, the Voting Rights Act, the Supreme Court, they were bulwarks against that kind of behavior. But now what we're seeing is a rollback on all of that with Trump's supermajority on the court. And, you know, it's not a coincidence that after Alexander, or because of Alexander in South Carolina, you saw 30,000 black voters moved into a new district to target a 17 percent black voting age population in another district. It's not a coincidence that Tennessee has already carved up the largest or the only majority black district into three separate districts. And, you know, when you're going back to the Alabama map where they explicitly said, we're packing all the black folks into one district.
You know, look, my father used to tell me this thing when I was a kid, and it used to drive me crazy. Like don't tell me your priorities, show me your budget.
[22:05:00]
And the Supreme Court is basically giving people license to say, no, it's about partisanship. But we all know what it is.
HORACE COOPER, CHAIRMAN, PROJECT 21: Okay. So, I disagree, I think, with almost everything that was said.
LEONARD: Let's get into it then.
COOPER: One of the biggest challenges is 75 years ago, it was fair to say that if you looked like me, your voting record would be useful and constructive in supporting other people who look like me.
LEONARD: That's still true.
COOPER: What has happened now is that a far radical left group of people who happen to look like me are holding these spots, and even black Americans aren't agreeing with them. We've seen black Americans say, we want more law enforcement in our communities, not less, but their Washington representatives, we want less law enforcement.
We've seen more black Americans challenge what is clearly a radical left progressive orthodoxy. And the Supreme Court said today that it will not enshrine into the Constitution that radical left orthodoxy is always going to get a seat.
LEONARD: That's nonsense. I mean, directly the court basically said, you can enshrine gerrymandering if you can reasonably claim that it is partisan. If it is -- if you say that it's partisan and it has a racial effect, that's fine. You can do whatever you want. And you want to talk about extreme possible --
COOPER: I don't know what racial effect means, though.
LEONARD: Come on.
COOPER: I don't. And that's my point.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Let me give a couple of --
LEONARD: The court has established what racial effect has meant on many occasions.
PHILLIP: Let me give a couple of other examples of what we're about to see. So, for example, in South Carolina, the reporting is, as of right now, that the Trump administration is pressuring very heavily South Carolina Republicans to redistrict to get rid of Jim Clyburn's seat. He's the only Democrat representing that state. That state is 25 percent Black. So, it would eliminate all districts in the state that could potentially elect a representative of those voters' choice.
And I want you to hear Lindsey Graham talk about this and why it's kind of a risky gamble in a state like South Carolina, and maybe in other places in the country.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): I would recommend that everybody look at the map and see if it's a net positive. It's up to the state legislature to do this, but in trying to pick up a seat, you don't want to jeopardize other seats.
You know, make sure the map accomplishes the goal. If at the end of the day, we create a map that gives Democrats more competitive opportunity, what have you gained?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So, I mean, two things to me are striking about what he just said. I think he's acknowledging that if you push black voters out of a Clyburn district and into Nancy Mace's district and Joe Wilson's district, you could create more competitive seats. But he's also seemingly just like refuting what you just said, which is this idea that if Republicans thought that black voters were so competitive, they wouldn't have to move them. They would just compete, right?
FMR. REP. DENVER RIGGLEMAN (D-VA): It's a data thing.
COOPER: That's -- okay.
LEONARD: It's redlining.
PHILLIP: Let me let Denver have a word.
RIGGLEMAN: Yes, it's a data thing. So, when you talk about Tennessee specifically, it actually takes apart your argument, because if you're talking about splitting that district up into three districts, that means that actually the voting totals do not favor Republicans in that specific district. It's that simple. That's what gerrymandering is all about.
When you're --
COOPER: Except for the fact that that particular seat is occupied by a white person.
(CROSSTALKS)
COOPER: The whole argument has been that we are diminishing the number of blacks in Congress.
LEONARD: That's not my argument.
LEIGH MCGOWAN, PODCAST HOST, POLITICSGIRL: No, that's not the argument.
LEONARD: That's not the argument. That's not --
MCGOWAN: I think -- can I just say --
PHILLIP: Okay, hold on. Let me just let Denver. Denver was in the middle of finishing his point. Let me just let him finish, and then I'll let you guys on this.
RIGGLEMAN: It's funny, you got a lawyer next to a counterterrorism analyst. This'll be fun. So, anyway, so here's the issue that, as I see it, direct action predicates exactly what the people are thinking. There's not -- I'm not going to try to put words in people's mouth or anything like that, but when you see an immediate, kind of immediate reaction to the VRA from Tennessee or other states in dismembering these districts and actually fragmenting them, that means that those districts are not in favor of the specific ruling party. It's that simple. That's what gerrymandering is.
STEPHEN MOORE, CO-FOUNDER, UNLEASH PROSPERITY: So, the whole thing is such a disgrace, and it's a disgrace both parties are doing it. It's outrageous what's happening. And it's such a simple -- why do we allow the politicians to draw the lines? It's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard of.
So, there's such a simple solution to this, which is just have computers just draw lines that are contiguous and compact so that you don't have snake-like districts.
[22:10:03]
Take politics out of it. Look, I hate racial gerrymandering. I hate gerrymandering. And what you've got right now is an escalation in this war. So, the Democrats are saying, well, we're going to make all our blue states completely blue, and the Republicans say, we're going to make our states completely red.
This is affront to democracy. We hear all this talk about, you know, threats to democracy, this, gerrymandering. And both parties are doing it. I'm not blaming one party or another.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: And, look, I think that that feels like a fairly common sense view, and there have been, you know, sort of computer-generated mock- ups of districts that, by the way, might produce a state with very few, if not no seats allocated to another party, but that's because you're trying to keep communities together, which is part of the role of district drawing.
MOORE: Well, why not?
LEONARD: I think we agree that this is a disaster, but I think where we disagree is that the sort of both sides of it. I think we have to be honest about the fact where this moment started. Prior to Trump's attempt to mid-decade redistrict in Texas, there was a pretty commonly accepted decision that we would do this on an every decade basis that was enshrined in the Constitution, and, you know, we would figure it out at the state level, right? That's where this started to break down. It is a reasonable response from Democrats once that happened to race to the bottom.
So, I think it sounds like we agree.
MOORE: I agree with you. PHILLIP: So, let me ask you, Leigh, Graham Platner says, I'm old enough to remember when Republicans in Ohio just ignored court rulings repeatedly and did it anyway. He's sort of suggesting that maybe Virginia should do the same.
MCGOWAN: Look, I am a big believer in following the law. And if the law says you can't do it, then you can't do it. What I am also a big believer in is fighting fire with fire. So, I don't think Virginia even wanted to do what they did. I think they were very clearly want -- they were pushed to it because they were like, well, what do we do? If one side is cheating and we're not cheating.
I often use the analogy of cage match fighting. So, if I am a boxer and I get into the ring and I'm doing everything I'm supposed to do to get my points, to get my jab, to get my thing, and the other person starts kicking me in the head over and over again, and the ref doesn't call it, then I either learn to kick back or I get beat. And I think the Democrats are sick of getting beaten, so they did this and they've done it through the voters, which the Republican side never did.
I think at the end of the day what we have to say is, look at Alabama. 34 percent of Alabama voted for Kamala Harris, which you can then extrapolate from that 30 percent, at least, of that state is Democrat. Then 30-odd percent voted for Harris in Tennessee, so you could extrapolate that 30-odd percent of Tennessee is for Democrats.
But now they're going to have zero representation in Congress. That is a travesty to democracy, to the people's voice, and this is all about disenfranchising voters. And we are all voters. We are all voters.
COOPER: Not unlike Massachusetts.
MCGOWAN: But that's not the point.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: No, that's actually not what happened in --
MCGOWAN: (INAUDIBLE) what they're getting from their Democrats.
PHILLIP: It's actually not neither of those things. That is not what happened in Massachusetts.
COOPER: Let's talk about the --
MCGOWAN: I just think people shouldn't think that they are safe if they are not in the original group that's being disenfranchised.
PHILLIP: Down in Florida -- Leigh said she believes in following the law. Down in Florida, Ron DeSantis is pushing through a gerrymandered voting map that directly defies the state's Constitution that was passed by 60-plus percent of the population. How is that allowed?
COOPER: Okay. On this very program, I said the Constitution allows states to gerrymander. Gerrymander comes from Elbridge Gerry from New Jersey at the very early stages of America's history. We have had this phenomena. What I said was what you can't do -- I'm answering your question.
PHILLIP: (INAUDIBLE) which explicitly prohibits partisan gerrymandering.
COOPER: What I said is you can't cheat. Virginia was lazy and didn't do it properly, and it got struck down. If it turns out that Florida didn't do it properly, it too will be struck down. You have the right to do it.
PHILLIP: I mean, even Ron DeSantis is acknowledging that he is defying the state's Constitution because he just doesn't think it applies. And that may get through because the Republicans have pretty much unilateral control down there, but that is also a defiance of the law. And Republicans seem to be totally fine with that.
COOPER: There is a due process argument that could be made to go into a federal court. You get to pick it, by the way, and you could pick a Democrat appointee to raise these particular points. But the issue is --
MOORE: What you have now is look at the big states. Look at Florida, Texas, New York, you know, the biggest states in the country, Illinois, where I'm from. They're all being divided up by the party in power so that it's like 9-1 in one state and 12-1 in another state.
[22:15:03]
And Republicans --
PHILLIP: Yes, I mean, Illinois could go even further. I mean --
MOORE: I know. But to what end? These are some -- these districts are supposed to represent the voters, and they don't do that.
COOPER: The issue isn't whether that's a good policy or not. The issue is whether or not the Constitution bars it. And all that I've been saying is --
MOORE: Well, then we need a constitutional amendment to change it.
COOPER: Okay.
MOORE: You know?
COOPER: Do that. But you can't.
PHILLIP: But you know what? I actually think we're in a place now where people are asking, is this right for our democracy? It's not just, on a technicality, does the law allow it, but do we actually want to live in a society where --
COOPER: Then amend it if it's so overwhelmingly obvious.
PHILLIP: No, I get it. But we're having a discussion at this table about, you know, where the country ought to be, right? And I think that's what -- if you're really talking to Americans about this at home, that's probably what they're talking about, too. Do we want the country to look like this?
COOPER: I want the country to adhere to the existing contract called the Constitution.
MCGOWAN: Oh, we would all love that, but maybe we want to talk to the president about that.
PHILLIP: Let's please let Denver have a word.
RIGGLEMAN: My worry is about the change in the infrastructure of fairness. You know, when you look at 2019, you took away courts' ability to actually stop partisan gerrymandering. You go to 2026, you're looking at racial gerrymandering. And my issue is when you're looking at six states that you've talked about that did mid-decade redistricting at the command of the president, that's what started this.
The other thing, back to Stephen, the fairness thing, and Stephen, actually, what I -- you were compelling because my biggest worry is that people are going to feel disenfranchised at every portion of this. And just like when I was looking at the January 6th wave of violence or people who started to think they're disenfranchised, what this is going to start is a race to the bottom.
And Stephen's talking about -- everybody's talking about it here, but that race to the bottom, for me, my worry is the 2026 and 2028 midterms and when people feel disenfranchised, and they feel like the courts aren't talking with them. They feel like their votes are being taken away. That's my biggest fear because that was the same radical message that was pushed before January 6th that the election was stolen, and now you have this same divide happening in the country based on this race to the bottom on gerrymandering. I think it's the most dangerous thing we've seen in a long time, what's happening today, especially even the phone calls I got today. Democrats, Republicans, there is madness and anger and rage.
And that is my fear is that same type of sort of this stochastic awfulness, right, that's starting to come out of people based on all of these decisions I think is going to rear its head.
PHILLIP: All right. Next for us, the jobs report that surprised everyone. So, is there reason for optimism now despite 80 percent of Americans saying that they feel economic pain?
Plus, Barack Obama has some blunt advice for his fellow Democrats. Stop with the, quote, gobbledygook. We'll discuss.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:20:00]
PHILLIP: Tonight, a new reason for optimism and rising economic anxiety -- amid rising economic anxiety, the latest job report out today shows that the U.S. added 115,000 jobs last month, beating expectations almost double. The unemployment rate stayed the same at 4.3 percent. That's a sign that the labor market is resilient as the Iran war and rising gas prices weigh heavily on Americans' pocketbooks, and the White House jumped at the chance to brag.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HASSETT: These are two months in a row of absolutely blockbuster numbers.
The fact is that people still don't have faith that the golden age is upon us, that Trump policies are working, but it keeps showing up in the data. And it's really astonishing like what record-setting numbers we're starting to see.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Despite the job gains, consumer sentiment declined again this month, hitting a new record low, its lowest in decades.
And I do think, look, there are some good -- a lot of good news in this jobs report, especially because what came before it was what a lot of people suggested was a jobs recession. And so there's that. I do think Kevin Hassett, as he has been over the last few days, overstating it a little bit because the job creation levels in the last month and the month before are probably at or below what it was for most of Biden's term.
But I just wonder for you, Stephen, are we seeing, like, a gap between the stock market, between the expectations of the market, which is really what we're talking about here, and what real people are experiencing, how they're feeling, their own anxieties about this economy?
MOORE: Yes. So, it's a paradox. I mean, you're right. Some of these statistics have shown improvement. I remember when I was on this show four or five weeks ago, we were talking about how we're going to have stagflation, you know, rising unemployment and rising inflation at the same time. And it looks like -- I like that word you used, resilient, because the U.S. economy is pretty resilient, and this latest report shows that.
But -- and, look, you're right, we have the NASDAQ, the S&P 500, and the Dow Jones are at or near all-time highs. Now, that's a good thing. We want a good healthy stock market and most Americans are invested in the market.
But -- and the jobs numbers were good but people are angry. People are really angry about gas prices. They're angry about food and grocery prices. And it's going to be really important for Republicans, if they want to be competitive in November, to get this economy moving and get those prices down. And that means, you know, step one is get the Strait of Hormuz open so that oil is flowing, so people aren't paying $4.50 a gallon.
But, remember, by the way, before this all happened, we had the lowest gas prices in 50 years adjusted for inflation. We can get back to that.
MCGOWAN: Can I ask a question? I'm not an economist by any means. [22:25:00]
So, on the surface I can see that the labor market looks stable, right? The unemployment is holding, this kind of thing. But underneath, isn't the market really being reshaped? Like I feel like it's been happening for a long time with the inventions of things like the tractor and the assembly line and computers and the internet and that kind of thing. And now we have this next iteration of A.I. coming in, with things like data centers, and they're going to be replacing human workers with no real plan as to how we're going to give jobs to the humans that are being replaced. So, I feel like we're right at the edge of a real crisis, and we're not dealing with that. Does that seem reasonable?
MOORE: So, this is a very good point you're making. So, we are on the precipice of one of the greatest productivity revolutions in the history of the world, and it's coming very quickly. Robotics is going to change everything. You know, we have 2 million truck drivers in this country. Probably in 15 years, there will be zero truck drivers. It'll all be automated, and people are very nervous about that.
MCGOWAN: Understandably.
MOORE: In fact, if you look at the polling, people are more nervous about this coming revolution than they are optimistic about it. The technology companies have done it. They're investing trillions of dollars in this, and they're not asking the American people what they want. Have you noticed what's going on in these communities, Abby, all over the country? People are saying, no, we don't want the data centers. We don't want them.
PHILLIP: Not only are they're not asking, they don't -- they're like, we don't care.
MCGOWAN: They're not listening.
MOORE: Exactly. So --
PHILLIP: And, I mean, even looking deeply at the job numbers, underemployment is up. I think people -- there's a lot of movement in the economy that is, some of it, due to A.I., but I think people are seeing the writing on the wall. They're experiencing right now their budgets getting stretched, and they feel truly nervous.
RIGGLEMAN: I think there's a couple things. I have an A.I. company, which is so interesting that you asked that question, by the way. So, I've hired about 20 or 30 people in the last four to five months. The scary thing is, when you're talking about A.I., is that you're right, when we're looking at some of the actual development that we're doing, we're able to actually have some shortcuts based on artificial intelligence.
The other thing, though, that we're finding, we're needing to hire more people for certain other trades that we're actually finding out, and we can have a whole conversation about. It's been fascinating for me to run an A.I. company. The other thing, Stephen, I was thinking about what you said about the jobs. 115,000 feels okay. I also own whiskey distilleries, and we got a 50 percent tariff on bottles, and we had to raise our prices by $2 per bottle based on some random tariff.
But here's the thing, I feel like I'm in eighth grade, and I go to my mom, and I'm like, mom, I did so much better on my math test today. And she goes, how'd you do, honey? I said, Look, a C-minus. Look at that. And that's what we're getting right now from the White House, right, because it's better than the D that I would usually got because I didn't go to school. I was a vagrant.
But, anyway, so -- but the thing that -- I'm sorry. But the thing that Stephen said, too, you know, that I was thinking about, I was thinking about the jobs created in the 16 months since Trump was president. It's 420,000, give or take. I wanted to do a real comparison with Biden. The last 16 months of Biden was 2 million jobs. So, that's where I'm almost, I have this, like weird jittery feeling based on sort of the reshaping of the baseline of the American economy, but I'm also looking at the tariffs that our families are still dealing with.
My wife is a CEO. We're dealing with glass tariffs, we're dealing with cork tariffs, we're dealing with supply chain issues. We're still dealing with COVID surcharges, right, on some of the actual things that we're getting in our supply chain. So, my thing is, I don't -- we don't see it at a micro level at our distillery. We were 45 percent down on sales over the last two years, 45 percent in people, but we're up about 38 percent per ticket, but that's because we upped our prices so gosh dang much, people have to spend money. So, that's the issue that I'm talking about. It looks like it's a C-minus when everybody's saying it's an A-plus from the administration.
PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, most Americans, 64 percent, say the economy right now is weak. They blame Trump. They think that he's -- I mean, his approval ratings on handling of the economy and cost of living are really bargain basement right now. And I don't think the American people are stupid. I don't think that they're misguided. I think they're just telling it like it is for them.
LEONARD: Yes. I mean, look, I think more jobs is great. But like you said, when you leave that job and you go put gas in the car so you can go back to work the next day, and then you go buy groceries, and you go home, and the kids need new shoes, and you need a new washing machine, and everything's more expensive because of the war, because of the tariffs, you're not going to be happy.
So, great, there are more jobs. That is undeniably a good thing, even if it's significantly less job growth than we saw during the last 16 months of Biden's term. It was actually more than 2 million. I know it was like 186,000 on average of every month, over the last 12 months of his presidency, but that's not making people's lives better. Their quality of life is down, and they know it.
MCGOWAN: I think we should also remember that foreclosures are up. They're through the roof. They are. That same gentleman that was on talking about the economy being so good, he was the one that was just on a couple days ago talking about how high credit card interest rates are coming in, and I'm like okay, credit card debt levels, yes.
PHILLIP: Let me -- let Horace have a word.
[22:29:46]
HORACE COOPER, PROJECT 21 CHAIRMAN: Okay, one observation is that every American is the best judge of how their financial circumstance is. And it is the job of president, and it is of his political opponents to come to those Americans and say, here is what I offer as a way to address your concerns. At present, all we got is orange man bad from the partisan opponents, and then the President bringing a strategy, some may argue is a mixed bag. The tariffs maybe aren't --
(CROSSTALK)
LEIGH MCGOWAN, "POLITICS GIRL" PODCAST HOST: Sir, I'm not Orange Man bad. There's a war no one wanted. There's health care that no one can get. There's foreclosures that are through the roof. People can't afford homes. It's not Orange Man bad if the economy is terrible --
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: If your solution, if I may, I waited patiently.
(CROSSTALK)
MCGOWAN: -- or in a war, we have no healthcare. Our education is terrible. They're gerrymandering the entire country so our votes are unheard. Data centers are being built everywhere that people don't want them. So, here we go, and I'm saying --
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: Okay.
UNKNOWN: Hold on.
PHILLIP: Go ahead. I'm going to let him finish.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: If I may -- if your solution is the federal government is going to do all of these things to make it better, there has been no -- no example throughout recorded history of that working. In fact, everywhere on the planet where you give free healthcare, where you give all of this assistance
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: -- it doesn't actually work.
(CROSSTALK)
FRANKLIN LEONARD, FOUNDER AND CEO, THE BLACK LIST: Okay, I want to take one step back here because again, I think that's largely nonsense. I'll take it all the way back to the fundamental text of capitalism. Let's look at the wealth of nations, Adam Smith. This is direct quote. "No society can surely be flourishing and happy, for which the greater part of its members are poor and miserable." (CROSSTALK)
STEPHEN MOORE, CO-FOUNDER, UNLEASH PROSPERITY: You mentioned that. Are you really trying to sell the very people that Biden economy was good because it was a disaster?
UNKNOWN: It was terrible.
MOORE: The inflation that people are feeling --
(CROSSTALK)
LEONARD: I said nothing about Biden. I said --
(CROSSTALK)
MOORE: You said all these jobs that he created.
LEONARD: No, no, this is my point.
MOORE: Yes.
LEONARD: It has what's out there saying, oh my God, the jobs are so good. The sentiment is bad.
(CROSSTALK)
MOORE: One uh point. Eighty-six percent of the rise in prices since COVID happened -- happened under Biden. So people should be angry about rising prices.
(CROSSTALK)
MCGOWAN: We are two years on to this administration. We maybe not be talking about Biden. We're in a war that Biden didn't start
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: It's interesting about -- between what you, Horace, was saying, what Leigh was saying. I'm not sure what Leigh was saying was that the government should do a bunch of things. In fact, maybe the argument here is that if Trump had not done a bunch of things, he might be dealing with a much better economy. I mean, had he not done tariffs, had he not pursued the war, there's a lot of -- there are a lot of options that would have involved the President.
(CROSSTALK)
MOORE: We did with tax cut and that helped Americans.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: That would -- that helped Americans. He chose to do a lot of things that created some of the headwinds that the economy is facing right now.
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: So, the opponents are just going to say, elect us and we won't do any more of that.
MCGOWAN: No, that's not about what saying, man.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: If you're Denver Riggleman and you've got a business that is being tariffed so much that you have to raise your prices by $2, then yes, not doing tariffs would actually be great for the American people.
All right, Barack Obama has some advice for the Democrats and the next election. Stop acting like college professors and start speaking plainly. Will they start to listen? We'll debate next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:37:53]
PHILLIP: Tonight, from a soon to be open presidential library in the South Side of Chicago, Barack Obama has a message for Democrats. Stop doing too much and speak plainly.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I'm not as worried about this so-called rift between the left and liberals as you describe it. What I'm more interested in for Democrats is, do you know how to just talk to regular people like we're not in a college seminar, right? You know, can you talk plain English to folks about --
STEPHEN COLBERT, "THE LATE SHOW WITH STEPHEN COLBERT" HOST: I think that's one of the powers that Mamdani has.
OBAMA: That's correct.
COLBERT: Is that he also, not only does he talk like a normal person, but he lives a normal life. But he also, he names what is obviously wrong.
OBAMA: Yes.
COLBERT: And he goes, we should change that thing.
OBAMA: That doesn't make any sense, and not have a bunch of gobbledygook around it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Without mentioning Donald Trump by name, Obama also suggested that the standards for seeking the highest office in the land aren't so high anymore.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COLBERT: How dumb do you think it is for people to say that I should run for president?
OBAMA: Well, you know, the bar has changed.
COLBERT: That is true. At times subterranean.
OBAMA: So, so --
COLBERT: I don't have to limbo so low.
OBAMA: I put it this way. I think that you could perform significantly better than some folks that we've seen.
COLBERT: All right.
OBAMA: Yes. I have great confidence in that.
COLBERT: Thank you very much. Is that an endorsement?
OBAMA: It was not.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: No endorsement for Colbert. But Denver, is he right about how Democrats talk to voters?
DENVER RIGGLEMAN (R) FORMER U.S. CONGRESSMAN, VIRGINIA: Oh gosh, you're going to ask me first because I'm a former Republican. Is that what this is all about? I mean --
PHILLIP: Somebody who's actually run for office.
RIGGLEMAN: Yes, it's true. I mean, to be able to communicate, you know, specifically on where you're at, and I don't even know what you would call it, but it's actually just speaking to people in a way that they feel like you actually care about them. I am not a seminar guy. I don't know. I know it's very surprising to everybody here that I don't speak in a college seminar type of manner. But I do think that we're not -- oh, that wasn't --
[22:40:00]
COOPER: It's okay.
RIGGLEMAN: But no, but I think that -- I think when he's talking about that, I actually have run against somebody and I'm not going to say who she was, but every time we were in a debate, seemed like I was, I'm like, don't do that. You're, you're going to get beat because everybody there actually, they don't know what you're talking about, because you're using a specific litany of things that have nothing to do with what they're actually worried about. And I think it's a, I think it's a very fair statement by Obama.
PHILLIP: What do you think, Franklin? I mean, have Democrats gotten into this professorial -- I think, to be honest, let me just be plain about what I think Obama's talking about. I think he's talking about the way in which the Democratic Party talks about inclusion, talks about those types of things, and basically draws these lines around who is allowed to talk in certain ways about certain groups of people in our politics.
LEONARD: I think that's some of it. I mean, I think it's not like Joe Biden was running around giving lectures on Haber-Bachs. So, I don't -- I'm loathe to say that all Democrats have this problem. I do think, and like, Barack Obama is probably the best political communicator of at least two generations, so what do I know?
I think that it's a partial diagnosis. I think that it is good political communication to be able to walk into any bar in America and have a conversation with people and events, a care about what concerns them and talk plainly about how you're going to provide solutions. I think that's one of Mamdani's great gifts.
I think he can walk into any gathering in the city of New York and have a conversation and people will leave and say, maybe I underestimated him. He may be interested in what my life is like, right? I think the other part of that diagnosis though is it's not just how you talk about things, it's where you talk about things.
And I think that one of Mamdani's great gifts, in addition to being incredibly charismatic and speaking plainly, is that he went to where the people are. He's not in the editorial section of "The New York Times." He's in people's feeds. He's in digital video. He's on podcasts.
And I think that that, in addition to how Democrats talk, is maybe the bigger, more important problem that they have not been able to figure out how to solve, in part because it's a harder problem to solve. And credit where due, think the Republicans have been incredibly effective at having a distribution layer for whatever talking they're doing that gets to people where they are.
MCGOWAN: It also could be top down. So like, on the Republican side, you have Donald Trump at the top and he speaks in a very specific way that everybody can understand. Our leadership tends to speak in a very professorial kind of way. They speak too much of it for me. I often see things coming from congressional leaders that are from the Democrats. I'm like, this is 17 paragraphs too long. No one is reading this.
I think the reason that Democrats come off sometimes like they're being higher, high and mighty is that we come off a little bit like hall monitors. Like we're making sure everybody is doing the right thing and saying the right thing. And what we end up doing is being unlikable. I think that there are a fair amount of Democrats who actually speak exactly like the people. I think that's why people like Mallory McMorrow and Graham Platner are leading in their polls, because they speak the way the people speak.
STEPHEN MOORE, CO-FOUNDER, UNLEASH PROSPERITY: So, I hope what Barack Obama meant with what he was saying is the Democrat message is not appealing to the probably 60 percent of the American voters. So look, defund the police, that's a stupid idea.
MCGOWAN: That wasn't the Democrat message though. It was just stuck on them.
MOORE: Raise taxes through the roof. You know, women and men play sports.
MCGOWAN: Again, not a democratic message. None of those are Democratic messages.
MOORE: Here's the thing, Bernie Frank said something really interesting the other day. You know, he's dying and he was a pretty liberal congressman. He said, it's not enough for Democrats when like, one of the Democrats says, defund the police. It's not enough to say, well, I didn't say that. They have to start denouncing these things.
I really believe, Abby, you know what the Democrats need right now is a Sister Soul Jump moment. And remember, that's what happened under Bill Clinton, and it really revived him. And who in the Democratic Party is standing up to the crazies?
LEONARD: I would like you explain exactly what you mean by that, but first I'd love to hear you denounce any of the many things that Republican leadership have said that
MOORE: Okay, like what?
(CROSSTALK)
LEONARD: I mean, we should scroll through Donald Trump's Twitter feed. Like, come on.
MOORE: Give me one example because I'm not a rah-rah Republican. I'm not going to stand there and say, oh, Republicans are wonderful.
LEONARD: This is my point, though. You're claiming that Democrats are saying all of these things that fundamentally, as a matter policy, they are not. Second of all, the idea that Republicans are not out there saying things that are --
MOORE: They do. They do. They say crazy things, too. I agree with that.
LEONARD: Where is your demand that Republicans say those things?
MOORE: Okay, they should. I think both parties really need to --
LEONARD: Back to both parties. We'll, you'll have to weigh in on the next segment. Next for us. Did Donald Trump's number two lose his chance to be number one? Secretary of State Marco Rubio, is making the most of his time in the spotlight these days. We'll discuss.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:49:36] PHILLIP: Who will be Donald Trump's MAGA successor? In an interesting split screen of the likely leading candidates this week, it reignited that debate. Vice President J.D. Vance was in Iowa talking to voters and promoting the administration's tax and tariff policies and making the case for Republicans in the midterms. Meanwhile, Marco Rubio was fielding questions from reporters in the White House briefing room, and making an overseas trip to meet the first American-born Pope.
[22:50:06]
Horace, what do you think? Where do think the ledger is right now between Vance and Rubio?
COOPER: The Republican Party, like the Democrats, often let the former vice president have the first shot when that position becomes open for president. In this particular case, the 80 million voters for Donald Trump, two-thirds of whom are Republicans, are going to have to be sold on who it is that best reflects their values and their views. And that's going to decide it. And that's good, because competition is always --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: So, are you suggesting that they're not going to take Vance as the default, just hook, line, and sinker?
(CROSSTALK)
COOPER: I think that there's likely going to be a real competition.
PHILLIP: What do you think? I mean, Denver, Rubio has really been trying to raise his profile lately. And frankly, I mean, it seems like Vance has been doing the opposite just because the war, for example, is really not one of his core issues.
RIGGLEMAN: I think Trump loves when people climb over each other to get to him. I think that's what you're looking at right now. I also think I can't imagine Rubio subsuming to Vance. I just can't imagine Rubio being a V.P. under Vance. I just don't get it. I just don't think it's going to happen. I really think it's going to be Rubio and Don Jr. or something like that. I think you're going to have something a little bit different. I think there's a lot going on behind the scenes.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Like the two top candidates or a vice president --
(CROSSTALK)
RIGGLEMAN: I think it's -- it might be president and V.P. I Don Jr. is really eyeing this really hard, you know. And when I was at the 2020 Republican convention, I actually thought it was going to be Ivanka, right? When she was actually talking --
(CROSSTALK) RIGGLEMAN: Right. And I don't even know if that's still going to be Ivanka, but I do believe, I think that, I don't think Vance will be the nominee. I'm just going to put it out there right now.
LEONARD: I'm personally shocked that the most charismatic person in America, J.D. Vance, is not on everybody's thought running list to be the president of the United States. I mean, the guy who famously said, if I have to lie to convince people to do what I want, then I'm just going to do it -- about the cats and dogs thing. He's -- there's very little compelling about J.D. Vance and I've always believed that is part of why Donald Trump chose him as his vice president.
MCGOWAN: I think J.D. Vance is Peter Thiel's boy and I think that Peter Thiel is pretty much owning half the government at this point. And I think if Peter Thiel wants J.D. Vance in that position, he'll be in that position. I think we have to watch out for Tucker Carlson. I think he's the one that wants to run.
UNKNOWN: Tucker Carlson?
MCGOWAN: Tucker.
UNKNOWN: Tucker. Yes.
MCGOWAN: I think he's the heir apparent.
(CROSSTALK)
MOORE: So, if you look at the two of the last three presidents, who would have thought that Barack Obama was going to be president? And who would have ever thought that Donald Trump was going to be president?
(CROSSTALK)
MOORE: So, you know, people are going to be ready, and I'm a big Donald Trump fan, I've worked with them, but probably people are going to be ready for a bit of a change after eight years of Trump. Although, Abby, if you look at what's happening in these primaries around the country, whoever Donald Trump is tapping on the shoulder for these races is winning them. So, he has a tremendous impact on who was winning.
PHILLIP: But you know, as you know, sometimes, he chickens out and he's like, I like them both. Yes, you know, and that's part of the problem is that if you don't get the clear cut, you know, endorsement. sometimes he does that a lot.
MOORE: Yes, but look at Indiana where he took out a bunch of incumbent Republicans.
PHILLIP: That's true. Right. That's because he hated them and wanted them out of office. But it's different when he's not sure where the winds are blowing. Sometimes he just doesn't make a decision. So, we have to leave it there, Franklin, unfortunately, because next for us, the panel is going to give us their nightcaps, Mystery Edition. But first, a programming note for you. Journey Across France with Eva
Longoria in the CNN original series, two new episodes air on Sunday at 9 P.M. on CNN and the next day on the CNN app.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:58:24]
PHILLIP: Today, the Pentagon released what it called new never-before- seen files on UFOs. And as you can see, it's just a lot of murky images and dots in the sky. So, for tonight's News Nightcap, what mystery do you need answers to urgently? Stephen, you're up.
MOORE: I want to find out whether E.T. ever did at home. But no, actually, if there are extra-terrestrials and there are UFOs, that means they found us before we found them. So, they're probably smarter than we are.
PHILLIP: Totally. No, that's the whole story.
(CROSSTALK)
MOORE: They are 100 percent smarter than we are. We are dumb-dumb species.
MCGOWAN: I would say I want to know more about the ocean. We know 80 percent of the ocean is unexplored. And we've explored more of space than we have explored of our own ocean. So, as far as I'm concerned, we could have aliens already. They could just be living in the Mariana Trench.
PHILLIP: Yes, I would have to say, I think oceans to me are way scarier than --
MCGOWAN: So scary.
PHILLIP: There's a lot of like creepy stuff down there that we don't know about. Anyway.
LEONARD: In honor of the upcoming World Cup, I'm a degenerate soccer fan. I would like to know what Marco Materrazi told Zinedine Zidane before the infamous headbutt in 2006.
MCGOWAN: Oh, Sir.
LEONARD: Something that set him off in a way that nothing ever had before and I would like to know what it is.
PHILLIP: I can't believe all these years we still don't know.
MCGOWAN: We still wonder.
PHILLIP: That's crazy.
LEONARD: That's my desire to know.
PHILLIP: All right, Denver.
RIGGLEMAN: You know with the UFO mystery, I think I'm the only one here who's actually interviewed Bigfoot believers and UFO believers, and there is a mystery here. And the mystery is why do these idiots still believe this --
UNKNOWN: Yes.
RIGGLEMAN: I think that's something that's going to be very difficult for us to overcome.
[23:00:00]
And I think the other thing, the mystery is why is there a UFO caucus and idiots in Congress that believe this stuff? And I think once we actually get around that, I think we're going to be okay as a country.
PHILLIP: All right, Horace.
COOPER: Well, my issue is a little bit more practical. I don't have a Keurig. I make coffee every morning and I can't seem to figure out how many scoops of coffee to put in to get that perfect cup of coffee.
PHILLIP: I have the answer for you. Get a scale. The ratio is 1 to 17, okay? Just remember that. A scale. That's what you need.
COOPER: You're solving my mystery.
PHILLIP: Everyone, thank you very much for being here and thanks for watching "NewsNight." Catch our Saturday show, "Table for Five," tomorrow at 10 A.M. Eastern. "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
