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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Sources Say, Trump Allies Urge Him To Kill The $1.8 Billion Fund To Pay Allies; Judge Reopens Trump IRS Deal To Investigate Possible Deception; Trump Buys Dell Stock Before Awarding $9.7 Billion Pentagon Contract; Musicians Back-Out Trump-Funded America 250 Concert; White House Releasse Report On Donald Trump's Physical Exam. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired May 29, 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, if Congress or public opinion isn't stopping Donald Trump, gavels certainly are, judges blocking his name on the Kennedy Center and his fund to pay allies.
Plus, new allegations of corruption, the president keeps buying stock in companies, then promoting, touting, or awarding them government contracts.
Also --
REP. ROBERT GARCIA (D-CA): She continues to push that back onto the acting A.G., Todd Blanche.
PHILLIP: -- Democrats say Pam Bondi is throwing her replacement under the bus as she testifies on the Epstein files.
And it's his party, and they'll cry if they want to. MAGA melts down as more performers bail on Trump's 250 concert.
MEGYN KELLY, HOST, THE MEGYN KELLY SHOW: This has been a disaster from start to finish.
PHILLIP: Live at the table, Harrison Fields, Tara Setmayer, Caroline Downey, Josh Doss, and Paul Mercurio.
Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here, they do.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIP (on camera): Good evening. I'm Abby Phillip.
We begin with breaking news tonight. The president's controversial fund to pay allies, including January 6th rioters, may be on the brink. Sources tell CNN tonight that his allies are urging him to kill the $1.8 billion fund that intends to compensate people that he claims were wrongfully prosecuted. Whether the administration wants something in return for that, like, for example, immigration enforcement money, remains to be seen. But this comes as a federal judge just dropped a big surprise. She is reopening the IRS deal that sparked all of this.
Now, you'll remember that Trump, earlier this year, sued the IRS for $10 billion over the leak of his tax returns. In exchange for dropping that suit, the fund was created, and the agency was forever banned from investigating his family's past taxes.
Now, after a bipartisan group of former judges urged her to investigate, this judge is demanding that Trump's lawyers actually prove that he didn't collude with his own government in order to reach a deal.
It is such a clever arrangement to sue the government that you run in order to maybe get that thrown out and then get something else in exchange. But to me, it says a lot about the politics of the situation, that people in the White House, that Trump's allies are urging him, maybe even pressuring him, to get rid of that whole $1.8 billion fund because it is so politically toxic, and in the words of some Republicans, frankly, immoral.
CAROLINE DOWNEY, COLUMNIST, NATIONAL REVIEW: Yes. As a conservative it made me a bit uneasy, and a lot of common sense conservatives looked at that fund and they said, okay, this is an oddly arbitrary yet specific $1.776 billion that basically asks taxpayers to refund alleged victims of the government over the past. And the other problem is that it wasn't congressionally authorized, which is, in essence, not a -- that's a problem for checks and balances and separation of powers.
But the accusations that this was meant for January 6th rioters or cronies of the president and his allies, well, not necessarily just that, right? I'm not going to sit here and say that there were no victims of the Biden administration because there were, whether it was parents who were branded as domestic terrorists by the FBI, probed, prosecuted potentially for protesting radical curricula in the classroom, or traditionist Catholics who were targeted by the FBI for simply having orthodox views on their religion, those who are praying silently.
You know, there's a lot of potential victims who could ask for recourse from the federal government, and there's something called a judgment fund, which is what this was derived from. And that goes back to early founding America.
So, I agree that the price tag is exorbitant, and the fact that it sunsets in 2028 is suspicious, right, because it's right as Trump is on the way out, which doesn't pass the smell test. But there are victims of the last administration who, yes, I mean, they deserve recourse. They deserve potentially some sort of, you know, appeal.
[22:05:00]
And maybe that's not reparations. PAUL MERCURIO, HOST, INSIDE OUT WITH PAUL MERCURIO: But can I address that? I feel like the sidestep into the Biden administration, it's not a functional equivalent. I mean, this is where Americans -- like this is so easy for you not to do that. Not to pick on you, but these people beat up people, killed people, and beat up cops.
This is -- what this is is loyalty as an asset class. What this is the Founding Fathers were concerned that the king would sort of just, you know, run amok and use anything he could in order to control. What you have here, this isn't derived from the judgment fund because it's a political narrative fund and it's weaponization, and where does it end. So, then it's like, oh, I'm a victim of media misinformation. I want some money, okay? It's also incentivizes people to commit crimes.
So, I mean, I can appreciate your point of view, but, like, we don't always have to try to find the functional equivalent, and this is pretty black and white. But where we are now with criminals are, they used to leave our judicial system and get back on the street with probation, now they leave with a 401(k).
HARRISON FIELDS, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE SPOKESPERSON: Or your party just gives them back into the community because they have cashless bail, letting criminals go back and forth, terrorize communities --
MERCURIO: Those conservatives do as well.
FIELDS: -- in this city --
MERCURIO: It's the system, but that's a broader system that we can fix. This, this is just doling out money. This fund doesn't even have someone to monitor it.
FIELDS: To go to your overall point, you call it clever. I don't think it's clever. I think it's redressing a problem that was unprecedented. You have a situation in which --
PHILLIP: The part that I said was clever was Trump suing his own government and having his own appointed Justice Department determining whether or not to actually oppose a lawsuit against the IRS or just drop the case so that he could get $1.4 billion.
FIELDS: Abby, we had the former Department of Justice under President Biden go after the leading candidate for president on the opposite side, who then happened to win in a landslide victory, who then oversees --
PHILLIP: Go after him for what, Harrison?
FIELDS: -- the Department of Justice.
PHILLIP: What was he gone after for?
FIELDS: And who's the president of the United States today?
PHILLIP: What was he -- in your words, what did --
FIELDS: Did anything stick?
PHILLIP: No. Just let me ask you, what was President Trump prosecuted for?
FIELDS: You spent show after show with the narrative --
PHILLIP: Well, why won't you answer the question?
FIELDS: We all know what the charges were, but we all know --
PHILLIP: Well, why won't you just say it?
FIELDS: It was B.S. It was weaponization to the tenth degree.
PHILLIP: No. But you can't just call it weaponization, you won't even say what it was.
FIELDS: We all know what the charges were. We all know what the B.S. charges were. It was political retribution. It was political prosecution, the likes of which that the American people said absolutely not, not in America.
PHILLIP: What was President -- former President Trump --
FIELDS: Abby, I'm not going to do this with you.
PHILLIP: -- at the time investigated for?
FIELDS: We all know what the FBI did to his home.
PHILLIP: Okay.
FIELDS: We all know what --
PHILLIP: I think it's very telling.
FIELDS: We all know what the Department of Justice did, and the American people have said, absolutely not.
PHILLIP: Hold on a second. Hold on a second, Tara. It's very telling that you won't even name the thing, because it's important what the actual substance of it is.
FIELDS: It's important to know that he's the president of the United States and there was no charges that ever stuck --
PHILLIP: You can't just claim that just because the investigation existed, that it is by definition political targeting. There was a reason he was investigated. It didn't -- and you know what? It didn't -- it really didn't have to be that way. He was given, on the documents cases. He was given many opportunities.
FIELDS: Which was thrown out.
PHILLIP: He was given many opportunities to rectify that before it got to that stage. And on January -- and, Harrison, just a second, on January 6th, on January 6th, it was actually the Republican Party who said -- hold on a second.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Just -- can you let me finish? Can you let me finish my thought? On January 6th, it was the Republican Party who said that a criminal case against Trump was the way to hold him accountable. You know who said that? Mitch McConnell on the Senate floor.
So, now, Trump goes and pardons a bunch of people who were responsible for violence on January 6th. Those people now are eligible for this fund. Many of them say they want tens of millions of dollars from the federal government in exchange for their prosecution, their trial by jury, their conviction, all of that, they want tens of millions of dollars from taxpayers. And even Republicans say this stinks to the high heavens.
JOSHUA DOSS, POLLSTER AND POLITICAL RESEARCHER: I actually kind of respect Republicans, some Republicans, and I heard it a little bit in your voice first, for saying a little bit of that, sticking to what they consider to be those fiscal conservative roots. But, I mean, it just -- it all stinks of what America knows about President Trump, which is that he has been the most corrupt president that America has ever had.
You can look like that and look to the side, the data say so.
FIELDS: What data points?
DOSS: Yes, polling data. I'm a pollster.
FIELDS: We poll on these things.
DOSS: Yes.
FIELDS: Subjective polling data.
DOSS: No, that's not --
MERCURIO: Give him specifics of data points that you raise that he'll give you on.
FIELDS: He's the one that mentioned the data.
MERCURIO: How about that?
DOSS: 54 percent of America think that President Trump is corrupt, and that is from a survey of national -- or a national survey of adults.
[22:10:03]
FIELDS: What was the polling on the Biden family?
DOSS: It was much lower. It was -- I think it was --
FIELDS: Okay.
DOSS: Yes, I think it was like 47 percent. And listen to the --
FIELDS: Did you not listen to the oversight hearings, the web of LLCs?
DOSS: Biden's not in power anymore.
FIELDS: Either way --
DOSS: Let's focus on --Trump
FIELDS: So, we're going to ignore what just happened before the last two years?
PHILLIP: Well, let's just -- let me just put it this way. We'll get into some of the alleged self-dealing that's happening right now with Trump and his family a little bit later in the show, so we'll be able to litigate that a little bit later. But, you know, the courts are speaking up right now about some of these things, and we just talked about this IRS situation, the settlement. There's also Trump slapping his name on the Kennedy Center, which is actually a much more black and white situation. The judge said the statute makes it crystal clear that the center is named for President Kennedy. Congress gave it its name, Congress can change it.
Trump actually seems to acknowledge this, and just seems to throw his hands up in this Truth Social post saying he's given Congress full responsibility for the operation, maintenance, and management of the Kennedy Center, which I'm not sure they relinquished at any point. But that is -- yes, that's what he says.
TARA SETMAYER, CO-FOUNDER AND CEO, THE SENECA PROJECT: So, a few things here. One, as someone who is a patron of the arts, who loves the Kennedy Center, who was heartbroken to see it destroyed under Donald Trump for this personal vanity project, and for him to desecrate a living memorial to John F. Kennedy the way he did in a tacky way, like he always does.
FIELDS: Do you not see how this was --
SETMAYER: I'm talking now, please, thank you.
PHILLIP: Just let her finish.
SETMAYER: So, I am really glad to see that a judge looked at this and said, absolutely not, because Trump violated the law. You had Congresswoman Joyce Beatty out there, who was the only congressionally person -- Congressional person on the board left over, because Trump fired everyone, and that's by statute, out there fighting for this. I was glad to see my friends over there, Norm Eisen and Katie Phang and those folks taking this to court and winning.
So, you know, I hope that the Kennedy Center is restored to the glory that it deserves to be in, and that's not -- he didn't need to put his name on it to do it illegally. And also there's a lot of other things that they did the grift going on inside, what Richard Grenell did to the Kennedy Center, the permanent art collection that no one knows where that is. I mean, it's a mess and I hope it's restored. Couple of two other things I want to address. One, shame on you for saying January 6th is a date that we don't care about and shouldn't. How dare you, okay? How dare you. How dare you, okay? Don't you -- I mean, really, okay? I hope that -- I mean, I wonder if you would be that arrogant in front of the families whose lives have been ruined by that, and the officers who put their lives on the line.
FIELDS: I was there on January 6th as a Congressional staffer.
SETMAYER: And so --
MERCURIO: If you lost a brother there, what would you do?
SETMAYER: And you should be thankful.
(CROSSTALKS)
FIELDS: I am not going to be gaslit by you or you. As someone who grew up in a house of law enforcement. My mother was a 9/11 first responder --
SETMAYER: And my grandfather was a police officer. My husband's a federal officer.
FIELDS: I'm not going to be gaslit by you on who was harmed that day.
SETMAYER: You're not -- you're gaslighting you?
FIELDS: It was not a good day.
PHILLIP: Guys, just one second.
(CROSSTALKS)
SETMAYER: We'll let the viewers decide.
FIELDS: The nation has moved on from January 6th.
PHILLIP: Just one second, Harrison.
SETMAYER: The nation has not moved on from January 6th.
FIELDS: The nation has. And in real --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Harrison and -- guys -- all right, I'm going to just -- I'm going to just stop it for a second because it, we just can't hear between the two of you yelling at each other.
I just want to ask you a pretty straightforward question, this is getting to her point, about the impact of that day on real Americans and on law enforcement.
FIELDS: I was there. Were you there? PHILLIP: Do you acknowledge that on January 6th, Capitol Police officers were assaulted and brutalized by the rioters who were there that day?
FIELDS: I acknowledge that it was a terrible day for our nation's history. What happened to --
PHILLIP: Do you -- that's not the question that I asked you.
FIELDS: Yes.
PHILLIP: Okay.
FIELDS: I did answer.
PHILLIP: So, you acknowledge that law enforcement officer -- no. Hold on a second.
MERCURIO: Why is it so hard for you?
FIELDS: Do you not acknowledge --
PHILLIP: One second. Let me just -- let's just get through this. So, your -- the answer is --
FIELDS: (INAUDIBLE) in America against ICE agents, against NYPD officers, and you guys completely ignore it.
PHILLIP: Harrison, hey, all I'm asking is that if you --
FIELDS: As someone who defends cops every single day of my life --
PHILLIP: -- care about law enforcement officers, who are ICE officers, who are beat cops, you should also care about Capitol Police officers whose lives were forever changed. I think that's the same -- it's true for you. It is true for everybody at this table --
FIELDS: When was the last you cared, talked about the brutality against our ICE agents or men and women in law enforcement?
PHILLIP: We talk about it all the time on this show. We talk about it all the time on this show. So, let's leave it at that.
MERCURIO: You run from a specific question to something --
FIELDS: I answered the question.
MERCURIO: Hey, let me finish. You run from specifics when people ask you to be held.
FIELDS: And I answered the exact question she said.
MERCURIO: I'm speaking to you.
FIELDS: And I'm letting you know.
MERCURIO: No, you're not.
FIELDS: Okay.
MERCURIO: No, you're not.
FIELDS: Go ahead.
MERCURIO: Don't run from it, man.
FIELDS: I'm not running from it.
MERCURIO: This is what people are upset about at home.
FIELDS: No, they're not.
MERCURIO: Sir, Harrison, stop interrupting me.
PHILLIP: Just let him finish, please.
MERCURIO: Stop. It doesn't work this way. Ask my wife. Don't interrupt me.
FIELDS: What is it, misogynistic?
MERCURIO: Stop.
FIELDS: Extremely misogynistic, okay.
[22:15:00]
PHILLIP: Just finish your point, Paul.
MERCURIO: When you say and dodge whether or not cops got hurt, whether or not it was a bad day, the plumber sitting at home goes, I don't even know what country I'm living in. If you can't say white is white and black is black. Again, it's not going to work. I'll just keep talking and I'll talk louder. So, we can do it this way or do good T.V. and let one person talk and then you respond, because that's the definition of good T.V.
PHILLIP: Go ahead and finish.
MERCURIO: So the point is, answer the questions. You asked Josh for specifics. Okay, here's the problem. Your president is obsessed with being --
FIELDS: Our president.
MERCURIO: Your -- fine, our, is obsessed with being great. That's the one word he cares about. So, why is he putting his name on everything? Because he has the inability to be great through substance, like Eisenhower and Reagan, okay? Those are two Republicans I'm giving you, okay? So, what does he do? He window dresses. He puts his face on everything in gold and this and that, and it's bold.
Let me tell you something, Harrison. If the definition of a great leader is bold and flamboyant, then Liberace is the greatest leader the world has ever seen.
FIELDS: I appreciate your TED Talk.
PHILLIP: All right. We're going to move on.
Next for us, questionable stock trades and defense contracts, there's new evidence that Donald Trump may be profiting off the presidency.
Plus, more performers are bailing on this 250th concert, and it's making MAGA angry. We'll discuss.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:20:00]
PHILLIP: President Trump faces new corruption allegations as companies that he invests in and promotes land major government contracts. Trump's federal disclosure form shows that the president invested in Dell Technologies several times in recent months, including in February, when he bought between $1 and $5 million in its stock. Then, just this week, the Pentagon awarded the tech giant a more than $9 billion contract.
Last year, Dell's CEO and his wife donated more than $6 billion to fund Trump invested -- Trump's investment accounts for kids, while Trump has repeatedly urged his supporters in the interim time to buy Dell, including just a few days after that first February transaction.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We have a new thing, and it was Michael and Susan Dell, Dell computer. Go out and buy a Dell computer, they're great. Because he put up $6 billion, $250 million into Trump accounts, and it's for children.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Trump also recently bought thousands of dollars worth of stock in the parent company of UFC, which is set to hold an event at the White House for Trump's 80th birthday, something the president has been touting for months.
All of this is just a very interesting co-inky-dink, perhaps. But it really does -- actually, I think what it shows is two things. One, perhaps the limitations of our ethics rules, which don't cover the president at all, so, in some ways, he could do whatever he wanted to do. But it also just points to how easy it can be to profit off of the presidency potentially.
SETMAYER: Yes, interesting. Co-inky-dink is not the term I would use. I would use that it's absolutely corrupt. He is the corrupter-in- chief. This is outrageous. No other president would ever get away with this level of conflict of interest.
Now, not only Trump himself, but also his entire freaking family, his sons, his daughter's husband, his other daughter's husband, you know, they are making billions and billions of dollars. Don Jr.'s net worth went from $50 million to $300 million in one year. Between him and his brother, they're on the boards of ten corporations, and oh, all of a sudden those corporations are getting government contracts.
For Donald Trump, it's not just Dell, it's Palantir. It's Micron. It's -- what's the other one? Oh, NVidia. Robinhood, oh, Polymarket, Kalshi. The Trump sons have -- Trump Jr. has his capital fund is investing in World Liberty Financial. You've got that right.
PHILLIP: The latest deal involving a Trump son-invested business, the reporting actually from ProPublica is that the White House intervened to help get a $620 million deal for this company tied to Don Jr.
Let me just play what the reporter who'd worked on that story said about how this all went down.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERT FATURECHI, REPORTER, PROPUBLICA: Peter Navarro originally pushed this deal to the Pentagon. And the thinking within the division of the Pentagon that handles these kinds of loans was, the call came from the White House, we have to get this done.
And what we learned is that three months after Don Jr.'s firm invested in this small North Carolina startup, you know, the Defense Department went in and gave this company a record-breaking loan. We're talking about potentially hundreds of millions of dollars if all conditions are met.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So, just two quick things, and then, Harrison, I'd like you to explain not just how this looks, but what it is. The president's eldest son says that he wasn't involved. The Pentagon says that they had no role in setting the deal. And then Peter Navarro has denied this. He calls it fake news on steroids, just total B.S.
But even if the White House had no role in this, it's a very bad look for a company that was just invested in by the president's son to then turn around and get a massive Pentagon contract while the president is in office.
[22:25:03]
FIELDS: These are accounts that are handed -- handled by independent money managers.
PHILLIP: Not this one.
FIELDS: I'm talking about his overall --
PHILLIP: I'm talking about the Don Jr. thing. That's not --
FIELDS: I don't know enough about that.
PHILLIP: That's not managed by an independent anything. It's Don Jr.'s investment fund investing in a business, and then a few months later, that business getting a major Pentagon contract.
FIELDS: If you look -- the contract process in Washington is a complicated one. This company probably offers a service in which no other company can, which is sometimes why people get contracts --
SETMAYER: They're brand new. They've never done anything like this before.
MERCURIO: No, they didn't bid out.
FIELDS: The overall claim in which you made, which the Trump family somehow is enriching themselves off of --
SETMAYER: Not somehow, they are.
FIELDS: -- off of office.
SETMAYER: They are.
FIELDS: This is a family that has almost witnessed their father get shot in the face.
PHILLIP: Oh, that doesn't have anything to do with it.
FIELDS: This is a family that just uncovered a plot to kill Ivanka Trump.
PHILLIP: That doesn't have anything to do with it.
FIELDS: This is a family who's over --
PHILLIP: Harrison, let me just say, you just -- in the earlier segment, you pretty broadly claimed that, you know, the Biden family was enriching themselves.
FIELDS: They did, 10 percent to the big guy. Did you not forget that?
PHILLIP: This is -- what we're talking about here -- hold on a second.
FIELDS: 10 percent to the big guy was found in the emails from the overseas --
PHILLIP: Harrison, what we're talking about here is right now the president's son investing in a company that gets a direct benefit from the United States government. What we are talking about here is the president or people on his behalf actively investing in stocks, in corporations that the federal government then gives contracts and Dell stock -- let's just take a look at these charts because you don't even need to know anything about stocks to see what's going on here. From January to today, Dell's stock has basically skyrocketed. And in that interim period -- in that -- no. In that interim period, Donald Trump has on three separate occasions urged people to buy Dell. The Pentagon then gave Dell a contract. You see it there, that last bubble, and then the stock the stock goes up even more.
If any of this happened under Joe Biden's administration, and we're talking about a couple of hundred dollars, it would've been a scandal. We're talking here about millions of dollars.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: So, how do they explain this?
DOWNEY: So, I think the Dell situation is a little bit different from Vulcan, which involves Don Jr. That's the rare earth minerals company. And even in that case, you could argue that they're trying to compete with China's dominion over rare earths, which we're very much dependent on, and --
PHILLIP: But why is Don Jr. involved? You know, because I think that even if it's --
DOWNEY: He's involved in a lot of businesses.
PHILLIP: Yes. But, listen --
DOWNEY: Yes. But I hear you.
PHILLIP: Why is the president's son involved in businesses that have direct business with the federal government that his father runs?
DOWNEY: I don't like the appearance of cronyism either, which is why I think they should have explained to the public why Vulcan got the bid.
Now, with Dell, it's a little different though, because Dell has had an existing relationship with the Pentagon for decades, because they are probably the best manager of government systems. That's why the Pentagon keeps hiring them, repeatedly keeps handing them contracts.
I understand that the optics are not ideal for President Trump, given that he's friends with the Dells and he did help them with the Trump investment account. But, again --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Hold on. Let her finish.
DOWNEY: But, again, the contract that they were awarded actually is projected to save the taxpayers $400 million because they are so efficient at what they do.
SETMAYER: That's wonderful.
DOWNEY: They're so good at what they do.
SETMAYER: But the president of the United States should not be enriched by it. That's why he's supposed to put his things in a blind trust.
Yes, but every president before this one has put their financial interest. No, it's not. It's handled by his sons. Why is Donald Trump so scared of being transparent about his finances?
FIELDS: Transparent? We're talking about it because there's a public disclosure.
SETMAYER: Well, 3,700 trades later. So, again --
(CROSSTALKS)
FIELDS: You can't argue it's not transparent and then talk to me about the transparency of this report.
MERCURIO: If it were Hunter Biden, you would be going berserk right now.
FIELDS: And it was.
MERCURIO: No, it's not.
FIELDS: It literally was.
MERCURIO: No. What this is a change in the incentive structure of our democracy. It used to be you had money to gain power. I'm not done. You see my lips moving? I'm not done. Now, it's gain power to make money.
So, personally, Harrison, I'd be better with you just going, yes, it kind of smells bad, I'm with you, instead of trying to tell me that this cup isn't blue. And so --
FIELDS: When you actually care about members enriching themselves and utter the words Nancy Pelosi, who entered Congress in the '80s, not a billionaire, worth now $500 million --
MERCURIO: You go back to like Andrew Jackson for references --
FIELDS: Ilhan Omar, not a billionaire before she entered Congress. Now, she's about $13 million richer today.
[22:30:03]
MERCURIO: I use him as a reference.
PHILLIP: Okay.
FIELDS: So if there's going to be a double standard here, fine.
CAROLINE DOWNEY, "NATIONAL REVIEW" COLUMNIST: I think we apply it across the board.
FIELDS: We want to have agreement at the table.
PHILLIP: But hang on a second. If you're going to, you're suggesting that we should have agreement, but you have to actually acknowledge that what's going on. Are you acknowledging it?
But Harrison, hang on a second, Harrison. Are you acknowledging that there's a problem? Because if there's a problem with Nancy Pelosi, there would be a problem here too.
FIELDS: Any appearance of impropriety is always going to have a problem.
PHILLIP: So that's a no.
FIELDS: But if the answer is the Trump family needs to shutter all business operations and not be able to engage in any form of business, then just say that.
TARA SETMAYER, CO-FOUNDER AND CEO, THE SENECA PROJECT, AND SUBSTACK AUTHOR, "UNCOMPROMISED WITH TARA SETMAYER": How about no one business that their father is involved in? $1.4 billion.
PHILLIP: That is where -- wait, hold on a second, $1.4 billion.
That is what the "New York Times" puts how much Trump has profited thus far from the presidency. There's no question. You can look at his net worth, how much it has increased dramatically --
JOSHUA DOSS, POLLSTER AND POLITICAL RESEARCHER: And decreased over time. Just in the last --
Don't even talk about the decrease.
PHILLIP: Yes, because it has increased.
SETMAYER: Yes.
DOSS: In the last year alone, President Trump has made more money than he made in his entire life.
DOWNEY: That's right.
DOSS: And look, I hear a lot of people talk the way that you're talking right now in focus groups. And it honestly kind of, it brings me back to how broken our politics are because you're navigating around very obvious things to be at the behest of a very obviously corrupt President.
And I think the team basketball that we do in our politics is very much on display here. And you're not the only one that's doing it.
FIELDS: I'll just say that. You don't need to try to psychoanalyze me.
DOSS: You're doing it on national television.
DOSS: One thing I will say, though.
FIELDS: Have analysis of your own.
DOSS: I will. I do.
FIELDS: Let's do that. What's the point?
DOSS: My analysis is that we are currently in the middle of the biggest upward transition of wealth from the working class to the 1 percent that the country is -- hold on, one second.
FIELDS: The largest tax return in history for the American people-
DOSS: -- that we've ever seen. And those things don't happen on accident. Those things happen specifically because of what we're talking about at this table right now.
FIELDS: Your tax return this year was probably the highest --
SETMAYER: Wait, are you saying that you don't have an impoverishment by Trump's tariff?
DOWNEY: I will say, it's a bit of a bold claim to say that Trump impoverished people because he didn't.
SETMAYER: Well, you know what?
DOWNEY: He actually unleashed prosperity with tax cuts.
SETMAYER: The conservative, you know what Trump did do? He's responsible for 27.7 percent of our overall national debt out of all Presidents. He's increased our debt by $12 million -- trillion.
He's been spending money like water because he doesn't give a damn, because it's other people's money, and enriching himself at the same time. Listen, the American people are suffering every single day, and he said he doesn't care.
DOWNEY: Two things can be true at the same time. The national debt is runaway, and most fiscal conservatives agree it's disgusting, but tax cuts do unleash household growth and income.
SETMAYER: But that's not happening when Donald Trump's economic policies are hurting the American people.
DOWNEY: No, that's the economic policy.
PHILLIP: We're going to leave it there for now. Next for us, more performers have bailed on Donald Trump's 250th concert, and MAGA is livid about it. We'll discuss that next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:35:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: Tonight the show must go on, or does it? The majority of the headliners have now dropped out of the D.C. concert series to celebrate America's 250th birthday.
The reason? A number of them say that they were misled about the event being nonpartisan and not political. Megyn Kelly says it's not just the left making fun of the embarrassing rollout.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MEGYN KELLY, CONSERVATIVE PODCASTER: This has been a disaster from start to finish. Everyone responded by laughing at it. I couldn't find, I tried to find somebody defending it, like I went to the Republicans who I follow on X, and trust me, I follow thousands of them.
They were all ripping it too. No one was impressed. It may sound mean, but it's true.
No one was impressed.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So they started with a list of artists that frankly were not the A-list of stars, but most of them are now out. I mean, here are the ones who have canceled, Bret Michaels, C&C Music Factory, one of the founders at least, The Commodores, Martina McBride, Milli Vanilli, Morris Day, Young M.C.
Only a few are still on there, Flo Rida, Vanilla Ice, and Freedom Williams.
DOWNEY: That's the C&C.
MERCURIO: Yes, Vanilla Ice made a video, he's really excited about it.
PHILLIP: It seems like people just weren't aware that there was this partisan element to it, and when they found out, they bailed, and now there's kind of not much of a concert.
MERCURIO: Yes, it's kind of exhausting. Everything's so politicized now, and it's ironic that it's for the 250-year anniversary of the founding of the country, because sort of the point of the founding of the country was to sort of bring a group of people together and move on, and we can't even get together and agree on a birthday party.
Can we just have a cookout, watch fireworks, eat hot dogs, get drunk and argue with our family? Isn't that what everybody wants to do on the Fourth of July?
[22:40:04]
DOSS: No. I mean, I truly, I think it is that serious. I think some of the things that we've seen come from President Trump have literally killed people.
There was a Harvard report that said that there's going to be an extra 16,000 deaths just from the cuts to Medicaid. I mean, these are serious issues that people carry with them every single day.
So President Trump is deeply unpopular. He's very popular online among his groups, but in surveys, the data tell us that President Trump is extremely unpopular. People don't want to connect themselves to his brand. I'm not surprised by it.
DOWNEY: I think sometimes, though, to your point, it's hard to congregate everyone today of both sides of the political aisle to celebrate America's 250th birthday, because we can't all agree that the Founding Fathers were actually brilliant visionaries. There's a lot of people on the left.
DOSS: Slaves.
DOWNEY: Yes.
DOSS: I just want to make sure that we're acknowledging that.
DOWNEY: That's fair, but then embedded in the founding documents was essentially the blueprint to undo that historical grave evil, which happened with the Civil War, which we prosecuted. It was such a bloody conflict. By the way, we fixed that.
A lot of countries and humans, we fought it. We killed each other.
DOSS: Wait, who's we? I'm just curious.
DOWNEY: Americans killed each other. Brothers killed brothers, so that they could end that horrific abuse and remove that.
SETMAYER: It took 100 years for people of color, for black folks to get equal rights in the country and be able to vote.
DOWNEY: I'm just pointing out, though, that it works.
PHILLIP: I think that Caroline is making a fair point, which is that what's supposed to make the United States different from other countries is an ability to self-correct, that the Constitution can be amended, that it can be fixed, that we can take things that were part of the flaws of the founding documents and fix them down the road.
But none of that is really center stage in some of the planning for this 250th. It's become, in a lot of ways, about Trump's vanity in terms of the physical space of the White House and Washington.
There's this UFC fight that he's planning set for his birthday. It's supposed to be celebrating the 250th.
One of the details we learned today was that they want troops there, but according to our reporting, one defense official said the selection requirements for those soldiers send a very clear message, no fatties.
SETMAYER: I guess Trump can't get invited then. I mean, the double standard? It's absurd.
PHILLIP: There are military standards, for sure, about physical fitness, but I don't know. I think that kind of messaging just seems to be just such a distraction.
SETMAYER: But, Abby, it's on brand. It's tacky. It's low-class.
It's, you know, obviously hypocritical. Donald Trump isn't exactly a paragon of health here. Like, you've got to be kidding me. And for them to denigrate our men and women who are serving this country, saying that, oh, well, thank you for serving, but, you know, you have to look the part if you want to be invited to celebrate the 250th on my birthday that the American taxpayers are paying for.
I mean, it's just so obnoxious that Trump continues to use our military as political props. You think, you know, this guy's a draft dodger who thinks they're suckers and losers and doesn't get the point anyway. So it's just a shame.
DOWNEY: Well, I think Dana White is paying for the first thing. I think Dana White is paying for --
SETMAYER: -- General John Kelly's greatest hit, so, you know, take it up with him.
DOWNEY: Are the taxpayers paying for the UFC fight or is Dana White paying for it? I thought Dana White was paying $35 million.
SETMAYER: So do you think that's the security that goes into it?
DOWNEY: I agree.
FIELDS: Jamal Simmons was on the previous show, Kaitlan Collins show, and he said this is the President has the right to do this, host any event. The previous President had topless trans on the South Lawn and now we've got UFC guys.
Are we going to ignore the topless trans?
SETMAYER: Unfortunately, that is true.
FIELDS: Are we going to ignore the topless trans on the South Lawn?
MERCURIO: Abby made a great point. I just want to say one thing.
You made a great point about co-opting the 250. And I feel as an American, it's been co-opted for political reasons. I'll give you both sides do it, but this side is in power right now.
So the spotlight is on them. A face on a $250 bill, 250 this, 250 that. This concert.
Josh, I kind of agree with you, but at the end of the day, are we not going to literally look at each other anymore if we don't agree politically?
Let people go, let people listen to the music they want to listen to and let the people play. But I feel like every single thing is so politicized. And I feel like this beautiful celebration is being co- opted by the politicians.
PHILLIP: We're going to hit pause for a second and we'll continue on the other side of a very quick break. We'll be right back. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:45:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: Just in, the White House has released a summary of Donald Trump's latest physical exam at Walter Reed Medical Center. A reminder, Trump is the oldest President to ever be inaugurated, and he is weeks away from his 80th birthday.
With us now is Dr. Jonathan Reiner. Dr. Reiner, I know you just looked at this relatively short document, but tell us what you saw.
DR. JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST, AND PROF. OF MEDICINE, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY: Well, I saw what I expected to see, which is basically just essentially superlatives.
[22:50:00]
First of all, one thing that stands out is that he was evaluated by 22 specialists. And I don't see the work of 22 specialists here, I see a sort of cherry-picked list of findings.
One thing that's very curious to me is that Dr. Barbara Bellop says that once again, his patient underwent a C.T. scan of the heart, which we were told he underwent back in October. So why is he getting C.T. scans of the heart every six months? That's not standard practice.
PHILLIP: There's also, Dr. Reiner, to that point, there's a detail that just kind of struck out to me that his cardiovascular health was that of somebody 14 years younger. Can you explain that?
REINER: That's using an unvalidated tool from a single paper, using A.I., looking at just an EKG to try and calculate someone's, quote, "cardiac age." That is not a clinically used or useful tool right now. They stated that in his exam last year.
The other thing that they mentioned, once again, is this nonsense about the bruising on his hand related to vigorous handshaking. Okay, maybe that's why his right hand is bruising. Why is his left hand bruising as well?
So they have to really stop it, trying to write off the bruising to that.
PHILLIP: Is the aspirin consumption that they also mentioned that, you know, we know the President takes a fairly high dose of aspirin. Is that a rationale that makes sense to you to explain some of the bruising?
REINER: Well, it might explain the bruising in the right hand, but it wouldn't explain, it might explain bruising, but what they haven't been able to explain is why he's taking so much aspirin. So again, there are bits and pieces of facts here. The labs that they present appear to be, you know, all sort of within range, which is good. Look, I want the President to be well. Every American should want the
President to be well. But again, there remain significant questions about his health.
And again, as I scan the note, you know, I'm looking for evidence on his physical exam. His physical exam is mostly benign. They note that he has slight lower legs swelling with improvement from last year.
The issue is that last year when he had his exam, they noted that he had no swelling. So that's an inconsistency.
Perhaps they missed it last year, or perhaps he had it and they just decided not to list it. So this is a, you know, this is overall a very benign document. And it speaks, you know, it speaks to, you know, at least on paper, stability from last year.
I'll note again that it looks like they once again tested the President with the MoCA test. That's really not that useful when you take it over and over and over again, because the questions don't really change that much.
PHILLIP: This is the cognitive test that you're referring to?
REINER: Yes, the Montreal Cognitive Assessment Test, the 30 questions.
It begins with sort of connect the dots. They ask you to draw a clock at a certain time. They ask you to sketch a cube, copy a cube.
They show you three animals and they ask you to count backwards from 100 by 7. And then, you know, the test ends essentially with asking you to name the day, date, month and place. So it's not a difficult test.
And once you've taken it now four times, it's probably not that difficult to pretty easily get through it.
PHILLIP: And we all know --
REINER: It shouldn't be hard to get through it anyway, because it's a dementia screening test, not an I.Q. test.
PHILLIP: Yes, the President is one to regularly brag that he aces that test. So we see that he's taken it yet again in this latest physical.
Dr. Jonathan Reiner, thank you very much for breaking that breaking news down for us. We'll be right back in just a moment.
[22:55:02]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: Comedian Craig Ferguson hits the road going coast to coast to uncover what it really means to be an American today. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNKNOWN: We're sitting in the movie theater and we were playing a quiz.
What did he say? You know, when Arnold says, I'll be back.
CRAIG FERGUSON, COMEDIAN, AND HOST, "AMERICAN ON PURPOSE": Because, of course, you don't speak English.
UNKNOWN: We did not. That's how we learned it.
[23:00:00]
FERGUSON: Is that the first idea of you want to come to America was these movies, these guys?
UNKNOWN: That is where the window cracked open. I want to go there.
FERGUSON: So you learned English from Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger? You speak English a lot better than Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
UNKNOWN: Don't I? Don't I? Yes.
FERGUSON: Better than both of those guys.
UNKNOWN: I agree. But the good thing is, like, they spoke. They said a few words.
FERGUSON: Right. So there's a little bit of time. Yes.
UNKNOWN: Exactly.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: "Craig Ferguson, American on Purpose," premieres tomorrow at 9:00 p.m. on CNN. And you can catch our "Table for Five" show tomorrow morning at 10:00 a.m. Eastern. "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
