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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Democrats Call Trump Erratic And Unhinged For Storming Off Set; Trump's Baseless Rigged Claims May Be Preview Of Midterms; Trump Blasts False Election Claims After L.A. Mayoral Bet Loses Primary; Israel Briefly Defies Donald Trump As The Strikes With Iran Were Called To A Halt; Crowd Booed President Trump At Game 3 Of The NBA Finals. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired June 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, Donald Trump ducks out.
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: Let's call it quits because I've had enough. Thank you, darling.
PHILLIP: The president storms off when confronted about his claims and conspiracies.
Plus, MAGA's fraud fever rises as California's reality T.V. candidate sinks to third place.
TRUMP: You know that these elections are rigged.
PHILLIP: Also, hold your fire. Israel defies the president as attacks begin again with Iran.
And Donald Trump enters the world's most famous arena and doesn't get a hometown hello.
Live at the table, Charles Blow, Caroline Sunshine, Ana Navarro, Hal Lambert, and L.Z. Granderson.
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 in New York.
Let's get right to what America's talking about, President Trump's monumental meltdown. Tonight, the walls appear to be closing in on the president. His war in Iran is as unpopular as ever, as it stretches into its 100th day, Americans are worried about their finances more than ever before, and he's suffered a series of legal losses that are throwing his priorities for a loop, and his own party is now fiercely pushing back on some of his agenda. It all comes to a head during this interview with NBC's Kristen Welker on Meet the Press this weekend. Welker pressed Trump on a number of conspiracy theories, first, about January 6th rioters, then the lie that California's election is rigged. But instead of responding with evidence or proof of any kind, Trump resorted to insults and smears before he stormed off all together.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: You know that these elections are rigged. Your network knows that they're rigged. Do you know that I won an election in a landslide and I got 94 percent bad press?
KRISTEN WELKER, NBC NEWS HOST: But, Mr. President, you've never presented evidence --
TRUMP: You know why I got that? Because you have no credibility.
WELKER: But you've never presented evidence that it was rigged. Let's keep talking about -- I want to talk about Todd Blanche.
TRUMP: You have more evidence -- there's more evidence than ever presented.
WELKER: Let's talk about --
TRUMP: Your elections in this country -- we're like a third world country. Your elections are crooked, and you're crooked, and Meet the Press is crooked, and so is ABC, and CBS, and CNN.
WELKER: But, Mr. President --
TRUMP: Your one-sided crooked network. So, let's call it quits because I've had enough. Thank you, darling. Have a good day.
WELKER: Mr. President, I traveled all the way to Wisconsin for this interview.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: One of the most revealing things about that exchange is that she kept asking for proof. There was no proof being put on the table. And when the president attacks the media, calling them biased, it's usually because they're correcting him on some very obvious falsehoods, like the one that he tried to repeat in that interview, Charles.
CHARLES BLOW, LANGSTON HUGHES FELLOW, HARVARD UNIVERSITY: Right. The president wants to say this, you have to let me lie without interrupting me. You have to let me lie and not push back on it. And if you don't give me that kind of coverage, then I do not like the media.
And the other thing that the president does is that he substitutes himself for the country all the time. I think people really have to really be careful when they listen to him, because that's an authoritarian thing. When he says that they are the enemy of the country, he really means that they are the enemy of me because they won't let me lie. When he says that people are attacking the country, he really believes -- means that they are attacking him.
The substitution is a very real thing that happens with Donald Trump in the way that he communicates, and I think everybody needs to pay attention to that.
CAROLINE SUNSHINE, DEPUTY COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR, TRUMP'S 2024 CAMPAIGN: I'm sorry --
PHILLIP: Why can't Trump take corrections, tough questions? Why can't he put proof on the table of his assertions?
SUNSHINE: Well, I think you watch the president more than anybody, and I think, I hope everybody at this table would be honest about the fact that the president of the United States takes more tough questions on a daily basis than just about any other president in the modern era.
Certainly, the last one that we had --
PHILLIP: Not in this interview.
SUNSHINE: Oh, no, I think he should do this two to three times a week. This was a great interview.
PHILLIP: Storm out of interviews?
SUNSHINE: Oh, no, absolutely, because the president's base and most of the country still views the mainstream media as very biased against them. They feel very demonized by the media. They feel very misunderstood by the media.
[22:05:01]
They don't feel like the mainstream media --
PHILLIP: But that wasn't the question I asked. I asked, why won't he present actual proof for the thing that he's claiming?
HAL LAMBERT, FOUNDER AND CEO, POINT BRIDGE CAPITAL: Can I talk about that? Because that's always the comeback, Where's the evidence?
PHILLIP: Yes, because if you're going to claim fraud, there should be some evidence. That's why.
LAMBERT: The evidence is this. You have a California system that enables fraud to happen easily. You don't have voter I.D., you have mass mail-out ballots, you have voter harvest --
PHILLIP: That's not --
BLOW: That's not proof.
PHILLIP: That's not evidence. That's just a description of an electoral system. LAMBERT: Okay. Can I just like finish? It's an electoral system that's ripe for fraud.
BLOW: Ripe for fraud is not fraud. That is not fraud though.
LAMBERT: But -- no. But then you have statistical anomalies where you have Raman, who was third place, was getting 20 percent of the vote, and then the after vote, the vote after the Election Day, she gets 40 percent of the vote.
PHILLIP: Okay. I don't want to --
LAMBERT: That's a total anomaly --
BLOW: Speculation is also not proof. It is so infuriating to watch people try to make speculation into proof.
PHILLIP: I just want people know that we are going to spend a whole segment --
LAMBERT: That's not speculation. That's data.
BLOW: That is not data.
PHILLIP: We're going to spend a whole segment on the California race in just a moment. So, we're going to talk through some of the stuff that you're talking about there.
But I actually think that, look, we can boil it down much more simply than this, Trump falsely believes that he won the 2020 election that he lost. When he is challenged on that, he gets upset and he storms out of an interview. Explain that one.
LAMBERT: No. They were talking about the mayoral race in California, and he was talking about the fraud there, the rigged election there.
PHILLIP: Okay. He was --
LAMBERT: That's what they were talking about.
BLOW: It's rigged? Do you believe it's rigged?
LAMBERT: I do believe it's rigged.
BLOW: Oh, my God.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: He also was talking about his reelection that he lost in 2020.
ANA NAVARRO, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Which is 2020.
LAMBERT: What's that?
PHILLIP: In that exchange, he also was talking about the election that he lost in 2020.
LAMBERT: Well, he talked about 95 percent -- he also got mad because he has 95 percent negative press coverage. He's sitting there in a negative press interview.
PHILLIP: What does press conference have to do with the fact that she asked for proof of fraud?
L.Z. GRANDERSON, OP-ED COLUMNIST, LOS ANGELES TIMES: Here's the thing about the president. When he was candidate Trump and they had the primary and he lost to Ted Cruz, the first thing he said was, it was rigged. And he insisted that the state officials change the actual results of that primary. You remember that. And Ted Cruz was very upset by that because he called Ted Cruz a liar. That was, what, ten years ago.
So, to characterize --
(CROSSTALKS)
GRANDERSON: So to characterize this conversation without an understanding of who he has been I think is unfair to the conversation we're supposed to be having now. He's always done this.
PHILLIP: Caroline also suggested that Trump loves taking tough questions, but here is his very real history of not taking tough questions that he doesn't like. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Your first statement was, are you ready for tough questions?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you?
TRUMP: That's no way to talk. That's no way to talk.
I think we have enough of an interview here, Hope, okay? That's enough. Let's go. Let's go.
TRUMP: The only way it's not going to happen again is you have to solve the problem of the presidential rigged election of 2020.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, if I may --
TRUMP: So, Steve, thank you very much. I appreciate it. Wait, one more question.
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: The woman that you said is a great doctor in that video that you re- tweeted last night said that masks don't work and there is a cure for COVID-19, both of which health experts say is not true. She's also made videos saying that doctors make medicine using DNA from aliens, and that they're trying to create a vaccine to make you immune from becoming religious.
TRUMP: Well, maybe it's the same, maybe it's not. COLLINS: Last week -- well, real quick, last week --
TRUMP: Okay, thank you very much, everybody. Thank you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NAVARRO: Okay.
SUNSHINE: Okay. No --
NAVARRO: There's two -- hold on, because I haven't spoken. There's two different things that I think need to be addressed in the clip that we saw from the Meet the Press interview. The first is him alleging that he didn't lose the 2020 election. Trump and his team filed over 60 challenges in court and lost every single one of them. So, there is no evidence that held up in court. That's number one issue.
The second issue, which to me is just as horrible, and needs to be discussed, is his consistent berating and insulting and ad hominem attacks, particularly against women. Whether it's Kristen --
SUNSHINE: Give me a break.
NAVARRO: What do you mean, give me a break? Kristen Welker this week, Kaitlan Collins last week.
SUNSHINE: I'm sorry, I've worked with Kristen when I worked at the White House.
NAVARRO: The woman he called piggy. Well, you give me a break.
SUNSHINE: So, you wouldn't say that you're going up against a woman?
NAVARRO: Have you no shame as a woman --
SUNSHINE: No.
NAVARRO: -- that we hear him call them ugly, and piggy, and crooked and liars and stupid and bad journalists. Have you absolutely no solidarity with women?
Oh my God, I can't believe you sit here and tell me to give you a break.
(CROSSTALKS)
NAVARRO: How could you tell our journalist that she's not fit to be a journalist because she doesn't smile? How dare you tell me to give you a break? Have some shame.
PHILLIP: Why would the president tell a woman that she doesn't smile enough when she's working, asking him a question?
[22:10:00]
SUNSHINE: Because he's an equal opportunity offender. And let's not pretend --
PHILLIP: Okay.
SUNSHINE: Let me explain how the game --
PHILLIP: Give me another example of him telling --
SUNSHINE: Let me explain how the game works.
PHILLIP: Give me an example of him being equal opportunity for that particular insult, Caroline.
SUNSHINE: The president gets a lot out of having combative exchanges with journalists. His base loves it. His poll -- that's why I said he should do two to three more of these a week. His poll numbers go up. But Kaitlan's getting something out of it too.
So many journalists have made their careers in this country off of being combative with President Trump, Kaitlan Collins included, Jim Acosta, many former people. It is all part of the game.
GRANDERSON: It's not a game. But why is it a game to you?
SUNSHINE: But the fact that you guys are going to call this a woman problem, Kristen did one of the toughest interviews I have seen someone do with the president up-to-date --
NAVARRO: And he walked off on us because she couldn't take it.
SUNSHINE: But he wasn't -- he didn't push back because she's a woman.
NAVARRO: She flew all the way to Wisconsin and asked tough question, went to do her job.
No, the guy needs to grow up. He's the president of the United States. He needs to grow up and instead of walking out and having a tantrum --
LAMBERT: How many interviews did Biden do? How many interviews did Biden do last week?
(CROSSTALKS)
BLOW: The Biden is like a reflex. Jesus.
SUNSHINE: It's the truth.
GRANDERSON: And so is the 2020 election.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: L.Z., you were making a point.
GRANDERSON: I get it, you want the president to look good.
LAMBERT: I get it, you want to talk about 2020.
GRANDERSON: No, I'm not bringing up Biden. Trump's the president.
BLOW: You said that --
GRANDERSON: No, I actually brought up 2015 when he started beginning the lies about talking about how elections have been stolen. I was just letting you know there's a pattern here that's been two years long. That's why I brought that up. But to the point I'm trying to say right now is that what do you want this nation to gravitate towards? The behavior that we've seen in which you berate women, or behavior in which you learn how to negotiate with someone that you don't agree with, but you don't need to yell or get up and leave an interview?
NAVARRO: It's a more way that you berate women because, apparently, it's good for your image.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Let me ask you this because I heard you pushing back on L.Z. and Ana and suggesting that maybe this is somehow about Joe Biden, which it's not. Are you comfortable with Trump being challenged on something and rather than defending his point, just simply storming off of an interview?
LAMBERT: Look, he did defend his point. She kept on and on with the same question.
PHILLIP: How did he defend it?
LAMBERT: He said that he thought the election was rigged. He answered the question.
PHILLIP: Well, yes, and she asked for proof and he provided what?
LAMBERT: It goes back -- he talks about -- what I just said, if you look at the whole election system in California --
BLOW: You did -- what you said didn't make any sense.
LAMBERT: Of course it does.
PHILLIP: Well, look, I --
BLOW: No, it does not make any sense, and it's not a fact and it's not proof.
PHILLIP: I just want --
LAMBERT: It is a fact.
PHILLIP: I just want to be clear.
BLOW: It's not proof.
PHILLIP: We are going to tackle what you were saying about California because there is no proof of what you're saying about California. But in this particular segment, I want to deal with the, we know, the long-running Trump obsession, which he also brought up in that interview, with his loss in 2020, which he has now tasked the government with trying to validate even though there's no proof of it. Why is it that when he is challenged on that, he can't answer for it?
LAMBERT: Look we know there were -- look, after the fact, we know there were problems in Arizona, we know there were problems in Georgia.
BLOW: Oh, my God.
LAMBERT: We know after investigations --
PHILLIP: What were they?
LAMBERT: You can't prove that in 45 days.
PHILLIP: What were they, Hal? It's been six years.
LAMBERT: What were they?
PHILLIP: What were the problems?
LAMBERT: There were problems with the voters in Georgia. They found -- the voters that were voters that --
BLOW: Where's the frauds?
GRANDERSON: There were no problems in Arizona.
BLOW: How many fraudulent votes were cast in Georgia, because I live in Georgia? I don't want to hear you lie about it.
GRANDERSON: And I lived in Arizona.
BLOW: Hal, that's a lie. Okay, first of all --
GRANDERSON: And I lived in Arizona --
BLOW: We can't have this conversation. You can't have this conversation. This is so ridiculous, guys. This man just said that there were thousands of false, fraudulent votes.
LAMBERT: The more you guys know there's no fraud, the more likely there was fraud. It's amazing.
BLOW: No, the more that you lie, the more we're going to push back on the fact that you are lying.
LAMBERT: 81 million votes.
(CROSSTALKS)
BLOW: The Heritage Foundation keeps the largest database of voter fraud of anybody.
NAVARRO: This is so ridiculous. I want to walk off here for a minute. (CROSSTALKS)
BLOW: No. I got to finish this point.
PHILLIP: Hold on a second.
BLOW: They keep 30 years, they've tracked 32 elections, 100 million votes. They have found 39 total cases of voter fraud.
LAMBERT: That's so absurd.
BLOW: Oh, well, you tell --
LAMBERT: That's absurd.
BLOW: So, look, the Heritage Foundation is absurd. Where's your proof?
LAMBERT: Where's your proof?
BLOW: I just cited my source. What is your source?
LAMBERT: I got a question for you.
BLOW: I just cited -- no, because I want to --
PHILLIP: Wait, hold on, Hal.
BLOW: I want to know what your source is.
PHILLIP: Hold on, Hal. You said it's absurd. Why is it absurd?
BLOW: What is your source? Mine is the Heritage Foundation.
LAMBERT: Do you think there's no H-1B visa fraud?
BLOW: Where is your source?
LAMBERT: Do you think there's no Medicare fraud?
BLOW: You don't, because you don't have a source.
LAMBERT: Do you think there's no home health care fraud?
BLOW: And this is --
LAMBERT: Can you let me finish the statement?
BLOW: You are not saying a source.
PHILLIP: Guys.
BLOW: You are not saying a source.
LAMBERT: There is fraud all over the federal government.
BLOW: Where is your source? LAMBERT: There's fraud all over the states --
BLOW: Where is your source?
LAMBERT: -- with federal funding, and yet there's no voter fraud? Are you kidding?
BLOW: You --
(CROSSTALKS)
BLOW: The idea that you are sitting here trying to convince us based on no source, whatsoever, to trust your word and trust the president's word when we know he is lying. And I want to know if you think that was rigged because I don't know if we're sitting here with two election deniers.
PHILLIP: Just a second.
BLOW: Do you think it's rigged as well?
LAMBERT: I'm telling you, there's no fraud in anything, Medicare, Medicaid, H-1B visas, nothing.
BLOW: You have no source, and you're going to get louder and louder and it's still not going to work.
LAMBERT: California won when all the federal government took money from them.
BLOW: Louder and louder, and it's still not going to work because you don't have a single source to go home about it.
[22:15:02]
LAMBERT: They won't even let him audit. They won't let him audit the polls.
PHILLIP: Stop talking. Guys, stop talking because you all are talking so loud. But to be honest, Hal, you're not saying anything of substance in this conversation.
LAMBERT: No, let's see what the viewers think.
BLOW: Where's your source?
PHILLIP: Caroline --
LAMBERT: They won't let the president audit the polls.
PHILLIP: hold on a second. Caroline wants to have a quick word and then we're going to go to a break.
SUNSHINE: By the way, I would just add, the president has agreed to do a second interview with Kristen Welker, which doesn't surprise me at all. BLOW: We want no election denier.
SUNSHINE: So, Kristen will have her own time.
GRANDERSON: You better stop with that.
SUNSHINE: So, I'm sure ask him for further evidence.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: We're going to leave that right there.
Next for us, the president and MAGA are pushing false conspiracies about the California elections being rigged as reality T.V. star Spencer Pratt loses the mayor's race. Is this a preview of the midterms?
Plus, tonight marks 100 days since the start of the war with Iran, and Trump is issuing a warning to Israel. We'll discuss.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:20:00]
PHILLIP: Tonight, CNN projects that Spencer Pratt, the Trump-backed candidate running for mayor of Los Angeles, will lose out on a chance to face the incumbent, Karen Bass. Over the weekend, the former reality T.V. star lost ground to progressive City Council Member Nithya Raman as more votes were counted over the weekend.
Across all votes reported since election night, Raman has outperformed both Bass and Pratt, erasing a 40,000-vote deficit to Pratt and emerging more than 20,000 ahead.
Now, before CNN's projection that Raman would advance, and with zero evidence to support this claim, today Trump said the election was rigged. On Fox tonight, J.D. Vance also offered his skepticism.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
J.D. VANCE, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: Somehow, we find ourselves in a situation where, number one, they're still receiving ballots, not just counting ballots, Jesse, they're still receiving ballots, and, number two, the way that they're coming in just so happens to work out such that the Republican is getting kicked out of the final two, so it's a Democrat versus Democrat runoff. That seems pretty shady to me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Everything's about vibes. You know, no, no proof, no substantiation just vibes. And, you know, we just came off a pretty heated conversation in the last segment. This time, I want to start with some basic facts about where this race stood when voters went to the ballot.
So, before these -- the votes really were starting to be counted, Karen Bass was in the lead, Nithya Raman was within the margin of error, but right behind her, and Spencer Pratt was in third, but he was actually outside of the margin of error. He was losing, okay?
So, you take that then let's look at this, Karen Bass in head-to-heads against Spencer Pratt would have beat him by 18 points. Karen Bass in a head-to-head against Nithya Raman would beat her by just four points. So, that's a competitive race.
So, when you have people like Trump and Vance and others saying, oh, there's a conspiracy here, there's no conspiracy. It's just math. It's just counting ballots. Why can't they just lose gracefully?
SUNSHINE: Well, if the Knicks win tonight and they say, oh, we're not going to know the score for three more weeks, I mean, people would riot in this city, and perception is reality. So --
PHILLIP: No, it's not.
SUNSHINE: -- if the Knicks win tonight and we say, we don't know, that creates the reality and we don't want that. Why would we ever want to create a perception --
PHILLIP: Reality is reality. Reality is reality, okay? A Knicks game and voting are not the same thing. We know that.
So, voting, people get to cast their ballots, and those ballots get to count. So, do you want to count the ballots or you don't want to count the ballots?
LAMBERT: Well, you want to --
SUNSHINE: We want to count them on Election Day.
LAMBERT: You want to count them -- if you're a Democrat, you want to count them until you pull ahead, and then you stop. But I just want to say this. You have a system in California where you don't need a voter I.D., you don't even need a voter I.D. to -- you don't need an I.D. to register either. You count ballots at long after the election is over. You don't have election results the evening of like you do all over the country and in other countries with many more population sizes. You can harvest ballots.
So, you set up a system where you can create doubt with the voters because you --
PHILLIP: Oh, doubt just gets created out of thin air.
LAMBERT: And then all of a sudden, the candidate that conceded election night, all of a sudden gets double the outperformance after the election --
PHILLIP: What about Steve Hilton?
LAMBERT: -- and pulls ahead.
PHILLIP: He's receiving votes in California. He's a Republican. Let's play what he said tonight. He agrees with you on some -- on the problems with the system but he's probably going to be in the runoff. So, let's hear what he says.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEVE HILTON (R), CALIFORNIA GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: There's so many things wrong with the system.
I've been saying all along that we take it very seriously because we don't want to let people down, and we've been very vigilant on it. We're keeping an eye on it. We've got teams standing by, lawyers standing by, and actually it's the same answer that actually I've been giving for a few days now.
We've seen nothing that would give us cause to intervene in that way. But more importantly than that, Bill Esaly, the U.S. attorney, who's actually got the full weight -- we're just a campaign. He's got the full weight of the Justice Department, and he's there and he's taking a look at it. And I trust that if there is anything that needs to be investigated, that he will make sure it happens.
But I think the real point is that this whole system needs to be improved.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: No question, California should count votes faster. But Steve Hilton is getting votes just in the same system, the very same system that Karen Bass and Nithya Raman and Spencer Pratt are getting votes in.
[22:25:09]
And he's doing fine, and he's not crying foul because he's winning. Spencer Pratt just happens to be losing. And, actually, if you look at the numbers, there's a lot of reason that it would make sense for him to be losing.
NAVARRO: Well, okay, let's understand a few things that happened in California. And let's remember that in the United States, each state has their own set of election laws. That's just how our system works. In California, most of -- every voter, every eligible voter, every active eligible voter in California receives an absentee ballot. There are some people that do early voting. There are some people that vote in person. Most of the people that do those are Republicans. And most of the Democrats vote by mail-in ballot.
Now, what happens in California? If your ballot is postmarked on Election Day, they count it, and they allow for seven days for that ballot that could have been mailed in on Election Day to get there. That's why they are still receiving ballots, and they will be receiving ballots until tomorrow. There is a phenomenon in California known as the Red Mirage. Because Republicans vote early voting and vote day of the election, those votes are counted first. And so there's a disproportionate representation of Republican votes. I think Steve Hilton is receiving -- if you look at California, California is, what, 25, 26 percent Republican? And I think Donald Trump's endorsement of Steve Hilton helped him consolidate that Republican vote, and he is number two in a roster of 61 candidates running for California governor. So, there is nothing in that race that's indicating any fraud.
You can take an issue with how they do it. You can take an issue with the fact that they allow seven days. You can take an issue with all of that. But it is a giant state with over 20 million voters where everybody is allowed to vote by mail.
In Florida, most of us vote early voting or vote day of. So, that's why we in Florida can count quickly. So, it's not about counting quickly. It's if they're still waiting for election ballots to come in because the law allows them to come in until a week after the election.
PHILLIP: Florida is also a good example of just --
NAVARRO: Oh, we've had our issues.
PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, Florida's had their issues, but I would also say like prior to the whole Trump kind of, quote/unquote, sowing doubt, okay, in all of this, in Florida, Republicans used to rely on older voters voting by mail.
NAVARRO: Yes.
PHILLIP: Republicans relied on those votes. It was Jeb Bush and my husband, Al Cardenas, who was the chair of the Republican Party of Florida, that invested tremendously in building a mail -- a vote by mail operation amongst Republicans in Florida. And it used to be that the absentee ballots used to benefit Republicans. It was the inverse of what's happening in California.
GRANDERSON: President Trump mails in his ballot. This isn't about the election results, as much as it is about having confusion and chaos, so when it's election time, you can have opportunity to better shape the narrative in your favor. This is about November. This is not about now. This is about continuing to plant seeds of doubt. So, if there is a blue wave, which -- you know, that's debatable, he'll be able to say, it was rigged. We need to investigate. These results shouldn't count, et cetera. So this is just planting more seeds of doubt and confusion.
NAVARRO: And it's also about depressing and suppressing the vote, casting doubt in the integrity of the election system, and making people doubt, why do I even vote at all? Does it even matter?
GRANDERSON: Yes. And, technically, all the candidates are non- partisan. They're not --
NAVARRO: In California.
GRANDERSON: In California. NAVARRO: Yes.
SUNSHINE: I think perception is reality, and I think it's exactly the inverse. Mail-in voting, fine, but why can't it all be counted on Election Day? You have this -- it's creating this perception --
NAVARRO: Because that's the law.
GRANDERSON: Because it's mail.
SUNSHINE: -- among people -- mail in your ballot, but get it in on Election Day. Because it's creating this perception among people, correctly so, like, why don't we know the result on Election Day?
GRANDERSON: No. President Trump inserting doubt is creating perception.
SUNSHINE: I live outside of Los Angeles County, but I knew people who voted in Los Angeles who did not have to show an I.D. to vote. So, the combination of not having to show an I.D. and the fact that we don't know the winner on Election Day creates a lot of doubt. Any common sense person feels that way.
GRANDERSON: You know one of the first things, oh, I'll ask, do you remember one of the first things that Vice President Pence was tasked with when they first came to the White House?
SUNSHINE: I don't know anything about Vice President Pence.
GRANDERSON: But I will tell you, it was asked to investigate voter fraud. It was one of the first things that President Trump in his first term set out to do was to investigate voter fraud. And you know what they found? Nothing.
PHILLIP: Charles?
GRANDERSON: They found nothing.
[22:29:43]
BLOW: I just believe that this is a news show on a news channel. I have an ethical responsibility to say that you are lying.
HAL LAMBERT, TRUMP DONOR AND FUNDRAISER, FORMER DESANTIS DONOR AND POINT BRIDGE CAPITAL FOUNDER AND CEO: No, you are lying. I have an ethical responsibility.
BLOW: I didn't interrupt you, and you will not attack me.
PHILLIP: Hold on--
LAMBERT: You don't call me a liar on national T.V.?
PHILLIP: Hal, I'm going to have to let you respond in just a minute. Charles, finish your point. BLOW: I can spell it too. I have an ethical responsibility if people
are going to come over here and poison voters' views of an election system that has no proof that it is rigged in any way, spouting the same lie that the President is spouting.
We have an ethical responsibility at this table in a news show, on a news channel, to call that out. And I'm going to do that. You can huff and puff and be mad all you want, and I don't care.
PHILLIP: Hal, you can respond to that.
LAMBERT: You keep ignoring what I've said.
BLOW: I'm going to keep ignoring it.
PHILLIP: Let me let him finish. Let me let him respond.
LAMBERT: We didn't know there was mass Medicare fraud until the federal government investigated Minnesota, investigated these other states.
L.Z. GRANDERSON, OP-ED COLUMNIST, "LOS ANGELES TIMES", AND HOST, "L.Z. GRANDERSON SHOW": That's not true. That is not true. She was in jail already.
PHILLIP; Let me just ask you to do two things. First of all, let us try to be tethered in facts. Second of all, let's respond to what he said about your claims on the election.
I don't want to hear about Medicare fraud. I don't want to hear about any kind of other fraud other than your claims of voter fraud and what proof you have of them.
LAMBERT: Because California will not allow the federal government to review their voter rolls.
PHILLIP: A majority of other states in this country, including many Republican-led states, also will not allow the federal government to inspect their voter rolls. Why?
Because it is not legal for them to do that. And all the cases in which they have been challenged, Hal, all of them so far have been thrown out by judges because there is no legal basis for the federal government to inspect their state voter rolls. So what else do you have?
LAMBERT: My point is that he's saying there's no evidence. They won't allow evidence to be gathered.
BLOW: The absurdity of your point is that you don't have proof. I can prove that I don't have proof because they won't let us investigate. So you don't have proof and you just proved that you don't have it.
PHILLIP: Hal, let me just give you some more information on this. The federal government has received, I think it's millions of voter registrations from some Republican-led states that have given them access to it. Do you know what percentage of those votes or those registrations where they found actual fraud of any kind?
LAMBERT: Do you?
PHILLIP: Yes.
LAMBERT: What is it?
PHILLIP: It is a fraction of a percentage.
LAMBERT: Fraction?
PHILLIP: And in some cases, when they double-checked, those flags that they thought were fraud were actually not fraud.
LAMBERT: So what you're saying is there's all kinds of fraud all over the place, but not in voting.
PHILLIP: Well, here's what my point is.
LAMBERT: Not in voting.
PHILLIP: You're claiming that it's never been looked at. That's false. You're claiming that this administration hasn't been able to look at it. That's also false.
LAMBERT: Not in California.
PHILLIP: You are claiming that just the fact that the federal government hasn't looked at all the state voter rolls as proof that there is fraud is not true. But there's data. Again, I'll ask you again. What else do you have?
LAMBERT: I just said earlier, when you have a candidate who's in third place, this is a Democrat and Democrat, Bass and Nanya. She's in third place. She was getting 20 percent of the vote on pre-election day, on voter mail-in, on election day, and then after election day, she doubles her count.
PHILLIP: Did you listen to anything that Ana said when she laid it out?
LAMBERT: I did. She doubled her count.
PHILLIP: Do you understand?
LAMBERT: She only won two districts.
PHILLIP: Do you understand that the votes that come in by mail, that they're coming from mostly Democratic voters because they intend to vote for them?
CAROLINE SUNSHINE, DEPUTY COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR, TRUMP'S 2024 CAMPAIGN: Why did she concede?
LAMBERT: How did she beat Karen Bass?
SUNSHINE: Why did she concede?
PHILLIP: How does she beat Karen Bass? Because people are voting.
LAMBERT: Why did she concede? Maybe she wrote the data better than the other way.
ANA NAVARRO, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: She's not beating Karen Bass.
SUNSHINE: Hold on. On election night--
NAVARRO: She's not beating Karen Bass.
PHILLIP: Hold on a second. Hold on.
SUNSHINE: Nithya Raman conceded.
PHILLIP: Hold on a second.
LAMBERT: She did concede.
PHILLIP: Yes, because she's not number one. But this is an election in which it's a top two finisher.
LAMBERT: Right. She didn't think she was going to be top two.
PHILLIP: Okay, but how? Votes are being counted, okay? Votes are being counted. Campaigns can make projections. They can do polls.
LAMBERT: Wouldn't she know better than us? Statistically, she thought she was done.
PHILLIP: She might know better than us, but she doesn't know better than what's in those ballots.
SUNSHINE: But she knew they were going to be counted for another week and another ten days after that. So why concede that night?
BLOW: Are you an election denier, too?
SUNSHINE: Because if you know--
BLOW: We want to know.
SUNSHINE: Let me lay out election law and how it works.
BLOW: No, I want to know if you deny elections.
SUNSHINE: Because in California, like you said, if your vote isn't in on election day, you've got seven days to count it, and then you have another ten days after that to verify that it's in here.
BLOW: Yes, you are.
SUNSHINE: If I know that, then Nithya Raman knows that.
BLOW: Yes, you are.
SUNSHINE: So why would she concede on election night if she knew there was more time for the votes to be counted?
[22:35:02]
PHILLIP; What proof do you have that Spencer Pratt was winning this race?
GRANDERSON: He was in second place by a statistical--
SUNSHINE: She was on stage, crying, saying, I lost.
PHILLIP: Before we go, let's put up the last poll that we can--
LAMBERT: No, you don't. No, you don't.
PHILLIP: Let me just have Hal and Caroline take another look at this poll. Because polls are not everything, but since we don't have a-- You just said that he was up in a poll. I'm showing you he's down in this poll.
LAMBERT: He was up in the vote.
PHILLIP: So look, we don't know what's going to happen until Election Day, until voters vote. And right now, voters have voted, and those votes are being counted, and that's what we go on.
And unless you guys can come to this table with something other than a bunch of speculation, the idea that there is rampant fraud, there is no proof of it. There's no proof of it in California, there was no proof of it in Georgia, there was no proof of it in Arizona.
And you all have had six years on the Trump front to prove it. Why can't you prove it?
SUNSHINE: Because I just want to know why she--
BLOW: You can't prove it is not true.
NAVARRO: I just want to know why she did not concede. That is not accurate.
SUNSHINE: She was onstage crying.
NAVARRO: She might have been onstage crying.
BLOW: She was elected a liar, and she was not going to say it, but she said it all the same.
NAVARRO: She said there was still a lot of ballots to be counted and that the race was not going to be called that night.
SUNSHINE: Why is she crying?
PHILLIP: All right, next for us, the President says that he calls the shots when it comes to Iran and that he'll declare total victory over the country in the next two weeks. What's different this time? Well, we'll discuss that next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:40:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (on the phone): We're negotiating now, and they want to make a very good deal. I think we are winning that battle, but you're really going to win it over the next two weeks when we declare total victory, it'll be a total victory.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Two weeks. Does that timeline sound familiar to you? Well, it's because Donald Trump has used it for health care, for infrastructure, for taxes, for conspiracy evidence, TikTok, tariffs, trusting Putin. I could go on and on. It's historically a tell that he has no idea what the timeline is or how to proceed on something.
And that fits, since today marks 100 days since the start of the Iran war. And once again, there is no end in sight. After Iran attacked Israel for continued strikes on Hezbollah in Lebanon, Israel briefly defied the President's demand not to respond and escalate the situation.
Now, Trump told "Axios" reporter and CNN contributor Barak Ravid that he warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, you better be careful or you'll be on your own very soon. Trump also told the "Financial Times" that he, and not Netanyahu, calls the shots. It echoed what Trump said nearly three weeks ago.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: What have you said to Prime Minister Netanyahu about Iran and how long to hold off on strikes?
TRUMP: He's fine. He'll do whatever I want him to do. He's a very good man.
He'll do whatever I want him to do, and he's a great guy. To me, he's a great guy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: And it appears Trump's call to Netanyahu worked. CNN has learned that Israel was preparing for a significant attack on Tehran, but Trump convinced Netanyahu to stand down.
Now this is a moment, I think, Hal, of division between Israel and the President. And I actually think that this idea that Trump told Netanyahu, you're going to be on your own if you keep doing X, Y, and Z, is something that if we'd heard that from another President, people would be hair on fire.
And in fact, to be fair, some people, Mark Levin has said, why are we turning on Israel and Netanyahu tonight? Wow, he adds. What is going on here? Is Trump taking up too much for the Iranians to try to get them to the negotiation table?
LAMBERT: Well, I think Israel would like to destroy Iran. And I think President Trump is holding them back from doing that. So I think he's wanting Iran to cut a deal, Iran to cut a deal. And he's saying, look, I'm holding Israel back. Let's cut a deal. I think that's what's going on here.
And Netanyahu is just ready to move forward with this. President Trump wants to cut a deal, and I think that's really what's going on here. And when people say, you know, they're saying, well, Trump said no new wars. Look, Iran started this. They've attacked us for years.
He took out Soleimani in his first term. So Trump's been aggressive with Iran. I don't think it's all that surprising what's happening here. And I think he wants to end this the way he wants to end it and not the way Netanyahu wants to end it.
BLOW: But he did say no new wars over and over.
LAMBERT: But he didn't start this one. People say he started it. Look, Iran's been at war with us for a long time and he did take out Soleimani.
SUNSHINE: Iran's been at war with us. How many U.S. citizens has Iran killed on U.S. soil?
LAMBERT: Well, how many soldiers have they killed?
SUNSHINE: And why were our soldiers in the Middle East to begin with? How many Americans have they killed on U.S. soil?
LAMBERT: So that's allowed? They're allowed to kill soldiers in the Middle East?
SUNSHINE: For the people who chant death to America for 47 years, how many U.S. citizens have they killed on U.S. soil? How many on U.S. soil, Hal?
It's an easy answer. You should know it.
Or is it like Ted Cruz? We don't know the population of Iran. How many U.S. citizens have they killed on U.S. soil?
LAMBERT: You know, I don't know the answer to that. I would guess it's low.
SUNSHINE: It's zero.
LAMBERT: But I don't think that's the telltale test, I don't think you have to kill us on our soil. If you're killing us overseas, you're killing our citizens.
SUNSHINE: Why are we overseas to begin with?
LAMBERT: Are we really going to global politics on why we're overseas?
BLOW: You're talking about Iran.
NAVARRO: Don't interrupt him.
SUNSHINE: Why are we overseas to begin with? Why were they in the Middle East to begin with? You want to know why?
LAMBERT: Because of oil. We know why we're there. It's because of oil.
[22:45:06]
GRANDERSON: What do you mean because of oil?
LAMBERT: We need to protect our interests in oil, period.
SUNSHINE: Then maybe we should open the Strait of Hormuz, which was open before this war started. And we could open right now if we just left. Which is in our interest.
I think Israel has shown a remarkable-- Oh, Iran doesn't need a nuclear weapon now because they have learned that they don't need one. They've now learned through this war--
By the way, Iran, a nuclear weapon... Let me just dismantle that talking point really quick. The 18 U.S. intelligence agencies in our country--
LAMBERT: Back to those.
SUNSHINE: What is that supposed to mean?
LAMBERT: Because they told us that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.
SUNSHINE: A lie.
LAMBERT: Well, they were the 18 intelligence agencies you're about to quote. Go ahead.
SUNSHINE: No. That's no.
That is-- It wasn't the intelligence agencies. It was the politicians.
PHILLIP: What were you going to say about the intelligence agencies?
SUNSHINE: It wasn't the intelligence agencies that lied about that.
It was the politicians like your old friend Ted Cruz that believed those lies and got us into those wars. And it was President Trump who campaigned on being different. And that's a separate thing I'm going to get into. But the 18 U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that Iran was not building a nuclear weapon. And that has not changed during the course of this war.
However, what has changed is that Iran has now learned they don't need a nuclear weapon. Because they can behave like a nuclear power without ever needing to be one. Because they can just close the Strait of Hormuz if and when they ever want.
And they have learned what China has learned, which is that you're never going to beat the U.S. military militarily. You beat us economically. Let's just dismantle that.
PHILLIP: A last quick point on that.
Trump keeps saying how badly he wants a deal. The Iranians keep saying nothing. They're not negotiating, they're not coming to a deal and they still have nuclear material on their soil.
So it seems that they're the ones who seem to think that they have the upper hand to keep this going as long as they want.
GRANDERSON: Well, I think it's the economic lever just about more than anything else. Because it is able to control not just the United States, but really the Western world in a lot of ways. And because of the way the Western world has treated that region for centuries, you can understand why there may be some animosity.
BLOW: And the bigger point there is that Netanyahu has been trying to push Presidents into this for many presidencies. Trump's the only one who took the bait, because everybody knew what was going to happen.
Israel wanted to wipe them off the map, and they knew they would have some leverage, because they're in the region and they have the Strait. This is the problem.
PHILLIP: We've got to leave it there.
Next for us. Not exactly a hero's welcome for the President tonight at Madison Square Garden. We're going to talk the politics and the basketball next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:50:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: Tonight, Donald Trump returned to New York City to attend Game 3 of the NBA Finals, and he was shown on the Jumbotron at Madison Square Garden during the national anthem.
The reception to the President's homecoming may not have been what he hoped for.
(VIDEO PLAYING) But I cannot imagine that the President was surprised that he was booed at MSG.
NAVARRO: I was just at-- what was the thing where Fernando Mendoza played?
The NCAA football championship.
And Trump went. This was in Miami earlier this year. Spent so much money there, I'm not going to a sports event the rest of my life.
And he was booed as well. Listen, I think he knows that comes with the territory, New York, even more than in Miami, Florida. I would tell you basketball and Madison Square Garden even more.
It also caused a lot of disruption. It meant that a watch party that was scheduled to happen outside of MSG did not happen.
But, you know, he takes the punches. He knows that the boos are coming.
PHILLIP: He may be a glutton for punishment because the way that the city was bracing for chaos today was unbelievable.
GRANDERSON: I think the boos weren't as much political. I won't say that. They were definitely political.
And what you did to the city. They couldn't have the watch party. Streets are blocked off. And there was an opportunity for you to maybe have a watch party in Washington because there are so many Knicks fans in D.C.
You could have done it on the White House lawn. It would have been cool. You would have been cool.
BLOW: By that blue reflecting pool he just made.
GRANDERSON: Exactly.
NAVARRO; The White House lawn is under construction right now.
GRANDERSON: But the point being is that there was an opportunity for you to take that moment as a New Yorker and still allow the Knicks to have their moment.
NAVARRO: He's a Floridian now. Don't you know that we don't have property taxes over there? We don't have state income taxes over there.
GRANDERSON: He's a New Yorker. That's why he wants the approval of the city.
PHILLIP: I don't mind Presidents going to sporting events.
GRANDERSON: No, not at all.
PHILLIP: But I do think that this one seemed like just unnecessary.
GRANDERSON: It was.
PHILLIP: Just given everything that it entails to get him there.
SUNSHINE: Yes, it's interesting. Actually, after the White House Correspondents Dinner, the common strategy out of the White House was we have to have the ballroom because it's not safe. But it's safe for him to go to Madison Square Garden.
But I think Madison Square Garden is not the SEC for an NYC. But what is interesting is when I worked on President Trump's 2024 campaign, the month before he got elected, we held a historic rally at MSG where it was a very different vibe. I'll tell you that.
[22:55:03]
Not a lot of boos, a lot of cheers. It was historic because it's deep blue New York City for a Republican who then went on to win the presidency. But what I will say is I think it's good for the President to go out and do this and hear this reaction from the crowd because I really think it's the war that is driving the crowd's reaction.
And his staff really keeps him in a bubble. They take him to the villages in Florida and they're like, see, everybody loves you. And it's like, no, everybody hates this war and it's good for him to go out and actually get in touch with the people and really see, oh, wait, and I think you're starting to see it shape his decision-making too.
So I actually think this was a positive.
PHILLIP: Interesting. All right, everyone, thanks for joining us tonight. We'll be back in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
