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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Trump Bombs Iran Again, Says Tehran Playing Us for Suckers; Trump Shrugs Off High Prices Amid Iran War, I Love the Inflation; Trump Calls Graham Platner Outright Pig After Primary Win. New York Times Reports Trump Administration Officials Held a Situation Room Meeting on Epstein Files; USPS Warns that States Could Disenfranchise Voters if They Could Not Share Voter Information. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired June 10, 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 ANCHOR (voice over): Tonight, after insisting the U.S. is close to a deal with Iran, the president says he'll start bombing them again.
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: They keep playing us for suckers.
PHILLIP: Plus, Republicans sound the alarm after inflation hits the highest pace in three years.
SEN. JOSH HAWLEY (R-MO): We need some relief.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: People are really feeling it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, everybody's having some problems.
SEN. KEVIN CRAMER (R-ND): I don't think people have a great deal of confidence in any of us right now. Their party's leader disagrees.
Also, as the winning Democrat in Maine kicks off his midterm race, Donald Trump unleashes on Graham Platner.
TRUMP: He's a thug. I mean, he's worse than any human being that's ever run for office probably.
PHILLIP: And infighting, blame, and spin, stunning new reporting on the administration's freak-out over the Epstein files, including one official calling it Trump's Iran-Contra.
Live at the table, Tara Setmayer, Horace Cooper, Ana Navarro, Noah Rothman, and Kmele Foster.
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.
Tonight, a major escalation, the U.S. has launched a new wave of strikes against Iran as talks between the two sides continue to stall. This latest round finishing up just a short time ago, the Pentagon says that the attacks are in response to Tehran's unwarranted and continued aggression.
Trump had this warning had this warning -- warned this could happen, writing on social media that Iran is taking too long to negotiate a deal, and that it'll have to pay the price. And his frustrations came to a head today as he bemoaned the slow-going pace of talks.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I've been working with Iran for a number of months, and it was just tap, tap, tap. I don't know what they're doing. We were really close to a deal, but they keep tapping us along. They keep playing us for suckers.
We have a fully negotiated, but they're tapping and tapping. And I said, all right, let's give them a couple of more days. They're tapping because it's a meaningful paper.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: It's a sharp change in tone from the president who, for months now, has insisted that a deal is right around the corner.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We have points, major points of agreement. I would say almost all points of agreement.
And they want to make a deal so badly. You have no idea how badly they want to make a deal.
REPORTER: Could you foresee a deal on Iran this upcoming week?
TRUMP: I do see a deal in Iran, yes.
Most of the points are already negotiated and agreed to.
We're very close to making a deal.
We were very close to a deal.
I don't think there are any sticking points.
We're very close to having a very, very good, strong, powerful deal.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: The frustration is starting to show and Trump is putting more red lines on the table, more ultimatums. And it seems to me that it's not disconnected from the economic news that we got today, which is that inflation has spiked once again now at 4.2 percent annually for the month of May. It is having an impact on the economy, and even Trump's own timeline, we've blown past that so many times at this point, he's starting to show his frustration.
NOAH ROTHMAN, SENIOR WRITER, NATIONAL REVIEW: Well, the president is showing his frustration because the economic conditions are applying political pressure to him, but the economic conditions are applying political pressure to the Iranian regime too. They're struggling under this blockade, which probably should have been part of the kinetic phase of these operations from the start.
I'm surprised that the president called them off when he did. He said that he had spoken with his Iranian counterparts and this promised wave of strikes, which both he and the secretary of defense said would be very robust and sustained and ongoing in order to create coercive conditions for diplomacy, a breakthrough in diplomacy. And then they called it back, which suggests to me that they're not going to get the kind of breakthrough that they want. They want to apply kinetic pressure to this regime, and to -- particularly to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps components that are being very hard line, very recalcitrant.
And, yes, this is the -- part of these strikes, most of these strikes were focused on the Hormuz region. This is the clearing operation.
PHILLIP: You're talking about today's strikes. Because actually I'm listening to you and I'm like, what you're saying, could've been applied --
TARA SETMAYER, CO-FOUNDER AND CEO, THE SENECA PROJECT: Three months ago.
PHILLIP: It could've been applied to any number of junctures in this conflict over the last three months.
[22:05:01]
ROTHMAN: The strikes on the Hormuz region, this is -- this looked like, to me, the beginnings of the straight clearing operation that this administration needs because that is the last linchpin in this campaign.
PHILLIP: But they're not -- but to your point, they're not really doing that, like they're not really going that far. Trump keeps saying that this is the last straw, if they don't do this by tomorrow, then. And then -- but then he keeps saying that over and over again, so the Iranians are basically like, okay, we'll call your bluff.
SETMAYER: Listen, you cannot execute foreign policy by temper tantrum. That's what Trump is doing. This is constant temper tantrums because he's not getting his way. The Iranian regime isn't House Republicans. Donald Trump is not used to people who are not going to just bow to his will when he wants to. He's used to getting his way.
The Iranians are a very complex, formidable opponent. They have been at this for decades, and they have patience, and they don't have a democracy where they have to answer to the political pressures of the citizenry. That's what happens when you're negotiating with an authoritarian dictatorship that's ruled by mullahs.
So, you know, this is embarrassing for Donald Trump, and it's embarrassing for the Americans, because for us as a country, looking at the president of the United States blowing past, you know, all of these different deadlines and making these, you know, veiled threats. CNN did a compilation, what was it, 38 times he said we're almost there for a deal. We've got a deal. Well, it's just right around the corner.
I mean, it feels like it's transportation infrastructure week again, two weeks. It'll be two weeks. This is real. These are real world consequences, and the downstream effect of this, not only for our economy, but politically in this country, is, you know, it's -- he's feeling the heat on this, and it's embarrassing.
ROTHMAN: I got to tell you, I'm less embarrassed today than I was 24 hours ago.
SETMAYER: Are you really?
ROTHMAN: The president is actually -- yes. Well, aren't you? You just said that it's --
SETMAYER: No.
ROTHMAN: Well, Tara, you just said it's really embarrassing that the president makes threats and doesn't act on them.
SETMAYER: Yes.
ROTHMAN: Maybe he is acting on these threats. So, is that also embarrassing?
SETMAYER: This isn't a coherent strategy. This isn't a coherent strategy. Launching bombs because you can --
ROTHMAN: But if both of these are embarrassing --
SETMAYER: Is launching bombs because you can is not a strategy.
ANA NAVARRO, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Going on Truth Social and saying that he's going to wipe away that civilization, that he's going to bomb the shit out of them, this is just bad. It's bad because it began, you know, four months ago. It was supposed to last two weeks. There was supposed to be regime change. Donald Trump has found out that the Iranian mullahs are not Delcy Rodriguez in Venezuela. He's not going to find somebody that he can work with.
I desperately want this to be over. I want this to be over in a way that the United States got something out of all the pain that we have sustained for the last few months. But I fear that the Iranians have figured out that there are elections here in five months, and that because of the economic pressure, that then turns into political pressure, and there's elections, and people want this over.
ROTHMAN: It sounds like you would like more kinetic operations, more attacks, in order to get the outcome that you want.
NAVARRO: I want a peace deal. I actually want a peace deal. And I don't think -- I think this week has not been -- this is a weird way to get to a peace deal, right?
ROTHMAN: I don't think so.
NAVARRO: With Israel bombing and Iran bombing and now the U.S. bombing.
ROTHMAN: I think that's precisely how you get to a peace deal with Iran.
PHILLIP: We've all had worse.
HORACE COOPER, CHAIRMAN, PROJECT 21: A couple observations. One is that the people that are being negotiated with in Iran are sending a signal that is different from the people who are engaging in the strikes and wanting to continue the hostilities. It is very, very likely that after today's round, all that happened was that those people called in and said, please, we're ready. We want to talk, and we think we can convince them.
The challenge is --
PHILLIP: Do you realize that's been said, I mean --
COOPER: The challenge is --
PHILLIP: Well, by our count --
COOPER: As my father --
PHILLIP: Four times by Trump over the last three months.
COOPER: As my father used to demonstrate, he gave you two tries. And after that, there was violence. What we need to see -- what we need to see is that same attitude that Billy Cooper had with child discipline with the Iranians. We need to continue what was started this morning and it needs to continue.
PHILLIP: We are well past that. Trump has given them tries. He's called it off. He's given them more tries, called off the threats, given them more tries, called off the threats. This has happened many times at this point, and we --
COOPER: It sounds like you really want us to go forward with this kinetic action. Which if that's true, sign me up.
PHILLIP: But actually here's what I'm putting -- going to put on the table, is I actually think that the threat of force is no longer working in this conflict. It's because now the Iranians are like, well, we'll take some blows, and we still won't have to give up our nukes, and we'll just keep going. The strait will be closed. The leverage that we have is still there and we don't have to make a deal.
[22:10:00]
So, I don't think -- you guys keep saying more attacks, but I'm like, the attacks also are not working, so --
(CROSSTALKS)
SETMAYER: There's also a consequence of these kinetic actions, is that we are depleting our arsenal. Our weapons are at levels that are concerning to a lot of folks in the military.
COOPER: This is the reason for a trillion dollar defense budget, for things like this.
SETMAYER: No. This is -- no. This is why you don't decide to just launch bombs and get into kinetic activity when you don't have a long- term plan. This is why you don't keep our men and women deployed forward op -- you know, forward deployed with a an unlimited amount of time just because Donald Trump feels like it, and then, oh, maybe we will, maybe we won't. This is no way to behave as commander-in-chief of something this important.
PHILLIP: Let me just play this. This is the -- you know, Trump is confronted with the inflation numbers today, which are a direct result of this war. And here's how he responded, which, frankly, I will say will probably live in infamy. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Are you concerned, Mr. President, about the latest inflation number which came out this morning? Could that be a --
TRUMP: No, I love it. The numbers are great. You know what I really love? I love that inflation.
Oh, when the war's over?
REPORTER: Yes.
TRUMP: It's coming down. It's going to come down like a rock.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NAVARRO: Yes. I love this shit.
PHILLIP: So, yes, I mean, ad makers are busy, they're working. But I also think that just like the promises about a deal being on the horizon, Trump's promises about the gas prices are going to fall like a rock are also being received by the American people as, you know, just the boy who cried wolf. You're just always saying the thing over and over again.
COOPER: Look at the whole --
PHILLIP: Let me let Kmele have a word.
KMELE FOSTER, EDITOR-AT-LARGE, TANGLE: Well, it's the messaging. And actually I have a question for you and for you, Noah. It's the messaging that is most disconcerting to me. Certainly, that response to the inflation question is disconcerting, but it's kind of a piece as with the way the negotiations have been conducted.
We've seen reporting in recent days about just how schizophrenic the administration has been. You've got the negotiators who are saying one thing to their counterparts in Iran, and then the president gets the -- they get back to the president and the president changes the terms on them in the last moment.
To the extent you're conducting business like that, no one knows what to trust. Certainly, the American people don't know what to trust when they hear from you and you say, this will be over in a matter of weeks. In fact, it's already over. We're not even at war anymore. We've already got a peace deal, right? And it's still not --
COOPER: That the price of oil --
FOSTER: But what does the president say? Can you trust what the president says?
COOPER: -- is dramatically lower than what we see today. And so I don't know that that's the standard.
SETMAYER: It's not lower than it was before he decided to launch the war.
FOSTER: That is the standard here. Normally, it's inversed.
ROTHMAN: Kmele, it is funny though. I agree that the president's rhetoric is probably the worst part of his approach to this war, and I'll sign on to any critique of his approach rhetorically. But it is funny what you just described as he's changing the terms, what have you he's mercurial. That's precisely how the Iranians negotiate. Araghchi, foreign minister, wrote in his book that the Iranian bazari- style of negotiation is just to be intractable, and to change the terms on you, and to exhaust you to the point where you give up concessions.
FOSTER: So, this is strategic, not schizophrenic?
ROTHMAN: I don't think it's strategic. I think it's driving them as crazy as it's driving us, which is the Iranian style, and it's probably driving the Iranians crazy too.
SETMAYER: So then you would admit then it's folly that Trump thought this was going to be over in like two weeks -- no, wait a minute. Trump thought this was going to be over in like two weeks.
PHILLIP: And if both sides are being schizophrenic and, let's just use your word, and putting -- you know, basically putting things on the table, taking them back, that does not seem to be a recipe for a deal.
ROTHMAN: It's not a recipe for a deal, but the deal should be one that is commensurate with our strategic objectives. And by all accounts, the Iranians weren't putting anything on the table that was commensurate with our strategic objectives.
PHILLIP: I agree.
ROTHMAN: We're engaged in coercive diplomacy now. That's what you call this sort of thing.
And, Tara, I will concede that the president shouldn't have given himself a window, because you never know how operations are going to unfold once you start. And he was sacrificing tons of political capital by saying something and not doing it.
NAVARRO: He was on a sugar high from Venezuela.
SETMAYER: Right.
ROTHMAN: But now he is doing something. So, you cannot say that he's sacrificing credibility while he's doing exactly what he said he would do.
SETMAYER: Doing something?
PHILLIP: What do you mean now he's doing something?
SETMAYER: Right. What's the plan?
PHILLIP: What is he doing now?
ROTHMAN: Today's attack.
SETMAYER: What's the plan?
ROTHMAN: He's executing attacks on Iranian targets --
SETMAYER: To what end?
ROTHMAN: -- in response to the -- and, as I understand, it is to force the Iranians to come to the negotiating table in earnest with genuine concessions.
SETMAYER: It's not working. He's done this already multiple times.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: I just want to note that Trump also announced to great fanfare today, both in the Oval Office and on Truth Social, that he's directed the military to execute a secret mission, not so secret anymore, to support oil tankers and commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz. And then he declares that this wildly successful effort is because the United States of America controls the Strait of Hormuz, not Iran.
Meanwhile, The New York Times reports that this mission that he's talking about, that he claims is secret, has been widely known. It's been underway for a long time. It's been talked about publicly. And it has not produced a Strait of Hormuz that is open.
ROTHMAN: Wait, so it's not closed.
PHILLIP: The strait is not --
ROTHMAN: But by your own definition, it's not closed.
[22:15:01]
COOPER: I agree. That's right.
ROTHMAN: And it's not -- it's neither closed, nor is it in Iran's control.
COOPER: Right.
PHILLIP: It's neither closed nor is it open.
ROTHMAN: If we're exfiltrating --
PHILLIP: It's both.
ROTHMAN: Well, it is in this Schrodinger's --
COOPER: If the Iranians say that it's closed, then it's proof that it's not.
Now, the fact that the president shares and discloses things, this is baked in the cake.
PHILLIP: Wait.
COOPER: We've seen that since 2015.
PHILLIP: Just to be clear, just to be clear, is it open or is it closed?
COOPER: It's not closed the way the Iranians say it is.
ROTHMAN: Right. It's not closed with military force.
PHILLIP: Okay. Are we able to get what we got out of it before, which is free ransom?
COOPER: No.
ROTHMAN: Obviously not.
PHILLIP: No. So, it's not open?
ROTHMAN: But have the Iranians stopped all traffic through the strait, as they say they have and are?
PHILLIP: But just --
ROTHMAN: No.
PHILLIP: And I just want to note, on that front, they have said in response to this, that they are going to now --
COOPER: Bring it on.
PHILLIP: They're now going to attempt -- I don't know if it's going to work, they're going to attempt to close the whole thing entirely. So, we'll see.
NAVARRO: Marco Rubio was in front of Congress testifying, and he testified that the war was over.
PHILLIP: Right.
NAVARRO: Well, if the war was over, then what the hell is this?
SETMAYER: Well, you can't have a blockade. A blockade is an act of war. So, what is it? We have a blockade. We're at war or not?
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: And we're going to leave it there, my friends.
NAVARRO: The Americans (INAUDIBLE) they don't have eyes and ears.
SETMAYER: Because they don't know what they're doing.
PHILLIP: Next for us, Donald Trump calls Graham Platner a thug and says that he is the worst human being ever to run for office. We'll discuss that.
Plus, there's some new reporting that reveals chaos inside the White House over the Epstein files, backstabbing, storming out of the room, calling the scandal Trump's Iran-Contra.
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:20:00]
PHILLIP: Tonight, the gloves are off and Donald Trump is unleashing on Graham Platner after Platner secured the Democratic nomination for the Senate in Maine. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I watch that thug that's up in Maine. He's a thug. And they're trying to make excuses for him. I mean, he's worse than any human being that's ever run for office probably.
He's a cheap, no-good person.
He's just an outright pig. He's like a pig. I watched him. And I come up with good names for people. I don't want to stick him with that one, although I think pigs would be very upset about it.
(END VIDEO CLIP) PHILLIP: If Republicans want to maintain control of the Senate, they'll more than likely need to rely on incumbent Senator Susan Collins to defeat Platner in November. But in light of his rocky relationship with Collins, Trump's endorsement today was hardly enthusiastic, to put it lightly.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: She's not my best friend at all. These guys are, and I get along with, but I have some -- but she's a sane person, and she's a person that never missed a vote in many years. I mean, she's like had 10,000 votes. She had 10,000 votes. She never missed a vote. Unfortunately, because sometimes she voted against me.
You know, look, she's a sane woman, and she's a respected person.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Donald Trump calling Graham Platner the worst person, I guess, to run for office, attacking him for the scandals that he has endured over the last couple of weeks, what do you make of it, Ana?
NAVARRO: Pot meet kettle. I mean, look I think there's a lot of people in this country who think Donald Trump is the worst person that's ever been elected president. Maybe not run for office, but certainly been elected president. Donald Trump, of course, has his own barrage of problems with toxicity, sexual harassment, accusations of rape, so many different things, sexual assault that we all heard him boast about.
Look, this Graham Platner thing is very difficult, and I think that the more we talk about it, the better it is because the voters of Maine, who are the ones that are going to decide, are going to make an educated decision of just what matters to them and what doesn't. You can't say that they're going into the ballot box without knowing who they are voting for, in the same way that the Christian evangelicals who held their nose and voted for Trump after the Access Hollywood tapes knew who they were voting for.
So, you know, I just -- I think it's the utmost irony these kind of criticisms coming from Donald Trump. There's a lot of other people who have the moral authority to do it, not Donald J. Trump.
PHILLIP: It feels like something he might want to sit out, this particular conversation.
ROTHMAN: Yes. Listen, the president has ethical flaws, we'll say, and a checkered moral past, but I don't think this is difficult at all just judging by the Democratic Party standards. The Democratic Party standard was that this is a moral abomination, and you have a moral responsibility to oppose it.
When the president was on the ballot back in 2018, we were confronted with the concept of toxic masculinity, which was the notion being that men raised in the poisonous milieu of the American environment come up and fetishize violence, have physical and emotional abuse to the women in their lives, are boorish, are crude, and that's the sort of thing that we should discourage and not reward.
(CROSSTALKS)
ROTHMAN: And, Tara, I just described Graham Platner in Maine.
(CROSSTALKS)
SETMAYER: I am not defending Graham Platner.
ROTHMAN: No. You are defending Graham Platner.
SETMAYER: No, time out, time out. I am not defending Graham Platner.
ROTHMAN: So, should Mainers go to the polls to vote for Susan Collins? Sure.
SETMAYER: So, I am not defending Graham Platner. I am actually you know, someone who is intellectually consistent about the fact that character matters. I think that this is a horrible choice.
[22:25:01]
I think Democrats made a terrible mistake by putting this guy forward. They knew that he had problems back in the fall. And I find it hard to believe that there's no one else in Maine besides the 79-year-old governor or this guy, and but it's up to the people of Maine.
However, this is the part that I think is just indefensible. Donald Trump just described himself. He always projects. And then all of the Republicans who are trying to now project onto Democrats that, oh, well, Democrats, you guys need to take a stand because you criticize Trump. No. Miss me with all of that virtue signaling. Anyone who voted for Donald Trump, anyone who has sat up here in T.V. studios and defended Donald Trump, the guy -- the grab them by the pussy guy, the he hit them in that -- you know, knock the hell out of him guy, the fire that son of a bitch guy, the suckers and losers guy, the guy that posts violent memes on his Truth Social, you people all defend that.
ROTHMAN: Should Mainers vote against Graham Platner? Should they vote for Susan Collins?
SETMAYER: I think Mainers should do -- Mainers are going to have to deal with that.
ROTHMAN: You won't answer the question. I said they should sacrifice the presidency.
SETMAYER: No, that's up to them.
ROTHMAN: The way that Donald Trump was on the ballot. I talk about if you should sacrifice the Senate.
SETMAYER: I couldn't vote for him. I could not vote for him, but that's up to the people of Maine to decide.
PHILLIP: So, just so that we understand where everybody stands. Noah, you voted against -- you did not vote for --
ROTHMAN: I never voted for Donald Trump.
PHILLIP: You never voted for Donald Trump. You didn't support his nomination. What about you, Horace?
COOPER: I supported Donald Trump because I support these policies. But let's be clear -- let's be clear. I didn't interrupt you. So, let's be clear --
PHILLIP: That's the point that Tara's making.
SETMAYER: That's my point.
COOPER: Let's be clear. This anti-Semitic dirt bag -- there are more people in Maine that could have been picked, any person randomly than this guy.
PHILLIP: let me just ask you the question, though, just what Tara was saying. If you agree with Donald Trump's assessment of Graham Platner, you probably ought to agree that Donald Trump's assessment --
COOPER: I didn't say I agree with Donald Trump's assessment. I didn't say I agree with Donald Trump's assessment. I'm saying this anti- Semitic reprobate should never have been allowed to run. Any decent, credible party would have said -- no. Any decent, credible party would have said, no, it's not your time. We're going to get someone else.
PHILLIP: Why would why are you so confident in saying that about Graham Platner but you cannot say that about Donald Trump?
COOPER: The star of the Nazi that he had on his body?
NAVARRO: Okay, but listen to her question. Why did he say about Trump?
COOPER: That's why I'm so confident.
SETMAYER: Yes.
NAVARRO: Well, her question is why are you so confident about Graham Platner but not Trump.
PHILLIP: So, we know that Donald Trump has his --
COOPER: Is not anti-Semitic. I know that.
PHILLIP: -- has his own long history.
NAVARRO: Yes, but he's a dirt bag in many other ways.
PHILLIP: He, in 2016, hesitated several times to disavow David Duke and then eventually did it under duress. He never apologized for falsely claiming the Central Park Five were guilty and calling for the death penalty. He was accused of bias in his real estate practice. He dined with white nationalist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes at his private club in Florida.
SETMAYER: Who is anti-Semitic.
COOPER: Yes. I think that --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: So, I'm just saying, listen, it's -- I'm just asking, we asked Tara, we asked Noah, they were both able to say neither of these guys, right? Are you willing to say that?
COOPER: I'm willing to say that this scumbag should not be on the ballot.
PHILLIP: So, the answer is no.
COOPER: This anti-Semitic problem that his party is associated with needs to come to an end.
SETMAYER: But what about Donald Trump and the other Nazis?
FOSTER: I think it's worth talking about what the Democratic leadership has done both before he won the nomination and after. And the reality is that lots and lots of people have been willing to put party over principle here, and we saw Republicans do something similar. And to the extent there's hypocrisy, that is the hypocrisy here.
And is it really the case that Susan Collins, for all of one's political disagreements with her, like that she is obviously a worse human, a less kind of credible, honest, earnest, sincere person, less trustworthy than the person who seems to be running for office now?
NAVARRO: No, I don't think they're comparable. I don't think they're comparable.
FOSTER: They are.
NAVARRO: They're -- no, they're not comparing --
FOSTER: That's not?
NAVARRO: No, I don't think they're comparable.
FOSTER: Okay. So, what is it?
It's Susan Collins as a vessel of and complicit with Donald Trump, not who's better -- who's a better person? But that's politics and principle, right? No, who's a better person, Susan Collins or Graham Platner? I would say most rational human beings would clearly say Susan Collins. But I don't think that's the decision that Mainers, right, are making. The people who say --
FOSTER: I don't really get it.
NAVARRO: I don't -- Graham Platner is reprehensible, but we're going to vote for him because we need to get rid of Susan Collins.
FOSTER: I think I would have a difficult time voting for someone who I wouldn't feel comfortable saying --
(CROSSTALKS)
ROTHMAN: It's that Democrats are as capable of rationalizations in the pursuit of political power as Republicans are.
[22:30:04]
SETMAYER: It doesn't make it right.
FOSTER: I think that's what it is. No, it's not a matter of making it right, but I do think exposing that hypocrisy is appropriate.
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: I think you're right about that. One thing I will maybe, to some extent, give to both sides is that politics and policy are not just about the games that we play rhetorically. It's also about the impact that they have on people's lives.
Republicans believe that their policies make their lives better. Democrats believe their policies make their lives better. That's what allows people to justify moral inadequacies, because they believe the policy is worth it, that the outcome is worth it.
That Susan Collins voting a certain way on a HHS nomination has real impacts on real people.
ROTHMAN: But then you don't have an inviolable--
PHILLIP: It's not just rhetoric. It's life and death.
ROTHMAN: But you don't have an inviolable moral frame there. You have a flexible moral frame.
HORACE COOPER, CHAIRMAN, PROJECT 21, INC.: Well, that's my case.
PHILLIP: Listen, I agree with you.
COOPER: That's part of the problem--
PHILLIP: -- things of hypocrisy all around, but that's the why of it. That's why we're all comfortable saying, I'm fine with it in this case, but not in that case.
COOPER: Abby, in my case, I represent one of the largest conservative African-American groups in the country, and we believe that the kinds of policies that we're seeing under this administration is specifically helping black Americans. I was so convinced of it, I actually wrote a book about it.
TARA SETMAYER, CO-FOUNDER AND CEO, THE SENECA PROJECT AND SUBSTACK AUTHOR, "UNCOMPROMISED WITH TARA SETMAYER": And look, I mean--
PHILLIP: I will just note that the black unemployment rates skyrocketed, basically, as soon as Donald Trump got into office.
SETMAYER: And they decimated DEI programs.
PHILLIP: You would have to address that as well.
ANA NAVARRO, CNN SR. POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, AND PODCAST HOST, "BLEEP WITH ANA NAVARRO": Black generals have been--
PHILLIP: Next for us, new reporting on what it was like inside the Situation Room in the White House, as President Trump's top officials met without him to try to contain the Epstein Files crisis. We're going to discuss that reporting, next.
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[22:35:00]
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PHILLIP: Tonight, stunning new reporting from the "New York Times" recounts the administration's freakout over the Epstein Files and its efforts to contain the fallout. According to the Times, on July 17th, 2025, top administration officials met in the White House Situation Room without the President to address the backlash over the DOJ's handling of the Epstein investigation and to attempt to regain control.
Ten days earlier, the Justice Department had released a memo that was intended to put years of speculation surrounding Epstein to rest, but its findings that Epstein had killed himself and that a so-called client list didn't even exist and that no new charges were forthcoming set MAGA in a fury.
Among the new revelations in this story, in that meeting, J.D. Vance, the Vice President, reportedly proposed a P.R. gambit. Vance floated that colleagues at the White House could enlist Tucker Carlson to interview Epstein's accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, while she's in prison.
The Vice President reasoned it might help Trump if Maxwell were willing to state that he had not been part of any wrongdoing with Epstein. I do think that this particular, there were a lot of meetings reported here, but that Situation Room meeting, where they're going over, should he pardon Ghislaine Maxwell, basically the gist of it is what all can we do to protect the President?
That is the stuff that I think is the fuel for conspiracies around a broader cover-up of this Epstein scandal.
ROTHMAN: I mean, I just found this article so entertaining, which is not what you were supposed to get from it.
PHILLIP: I mean, but it's revelatory.
ROTHMAN: It's revelatory of the degree to which, at least at the outset of this administration, they were so plugged into the online right, which is where this stuff lives. It is not really bleeding out into the real world, and I have proof. It's not hard to find polling, even last year, where Republicans, Democrats, majorities say we don't approve of how this administration is handling the Epstein files.
But is it a salient issue? Fox News Channel in July surveyed the people who said we disapprove of this President, 54 percent. Litany of reasons they offered, you can imagine.
One percent said the Epstein files, and that was exclusively Democrats and Democrat-leaning independents. It was a MAGA thing, but it was an online MAGA thing. It wasn't in the real world.
PHILLIP: I mean, but in that meeting, I mean, the Vice President thought it was a real thing and thought that it was effectively, I think the quote was, this is going to, or Dan Bongino said this.
He said, "This is going to be the President's Iran contra." Part of the reason Dan Bongino would say something like this is because they literally brought the conspiracy theorists into the White House.
FOSTER: As Noah said, he is an extremely online person, as is the President of the United States. It makes a lot of sense that he'd have interest in this. But all of this gives me very much so, like Russiagate vibes.
The reality is that the President wasn't a Russian asset. He was never the Manchurian President, but he certainly seemed to act like it. He was obsessed with the story in the same way that his critics were obsessed with kind of promulgating these conspiracy.
He fed it and gave it energy. And I think the behavior of the administration with respect to the Epstein scandal, which I think quite honestly is driven primarily by speculation, by this belief that there must be some deeper story here.
When in fact, this is something that has occurred across multiple administrations -- across multiple political parties.
[22:40:06]
The reality is that if there was any sort of criminal conduct in these files related to the President of the United States, the current one, we would have known about it already. Everything leaks, it hasn't happened.
PHILLIP: We didn't know that either. I mean, part of what you get from the story is that they were desperate to find out if there was stuff about Trump.
FOSTER: Yes, stuff that was perhaps conspiracy.
PHILLIP: They were like, we've got to figure out if he's implicated here. And they dug through it.
SETMAYER: Right. With all due respect, the Russiagate comparison, I think, doesn't hold up because Robert Mueller in the Mueller report said that there was some problems here going on.
Maybe the term collusion isn't really a legal one, but there were some issues there. And he was hoping that the Congress would take it up through, or it would go through a legal process once Trump got out of office. So that was that.
And unfortunately, because of the attorney general and all kinds of different things, they decided not to do that. But we can't just absolve him from whatever was going on with the Russians. So there's that.
Now, as far as Epstein is concerned, the guy's name is in the Epstein files thousands of times. He was best friends with him for years.
He was on his plane with him. They were big. They were involved in all kinds of things.
FOSTER: With the evidence of criminal conduct.
SETMAYER: There are 2.5 million files that still have not been released. And if Pam Bondi and Dan Bongino and Kash Patel and all the people in the Situation Room, which is where you usually go when you need things to be really secure, why are they going to the Situation Room?
No, because they are concerned about what did the President know? How much did he know and why? Is he legally culpable? We don't know. But he all has his minions in the Department of Justice who are covering this for him.
NAVARRO: I have to agree with you. I also found it in a very long article, which I also found somewhat entertaining, just for like the gossip value of it, right?
Like Bongino calling Pam Bondi blondie, berating her in front of everybody and telling her, you fucked this up from the beginning. I mean, that was kind of glorious. But I also got out of it and how much they wanted her gone, right?
I also got out of it just how different J.D. Vance's take is within the administration from some of the people that are surrounding Trump, like Susie Wiles. He is obviously plugged into the MAGA-sphere and the manosphere in a way that some of them, some of the political folks that are around Trump are not.
COOPER: I'm not surprised.
NAVARRO: The way, honestly--
PHILLIP: If they had listened to him at the beginning and just released the files instead of doing all the other shenanigans, I actually think this might have ended up differently.
SETMAYER: It's almost like he's running for President in 2028.
COOPER: Enough time has passed that we now know that if there had been any evidence, if there had been any of these details--
ROTHMAN: J.D. Vance wouldn't have made that recommendation.
SETMAYER: Not true.
COOPER: But here's what I'm interested in. What if when Graham Platner came to Washington, D.C. to meet with the Senate Minority Leader and all these other people, someone there was taking detailed notes and they decided to write a book?
It's not so much what insider conversations talk about. It's about what ends up happening. It can sound salacious.
SETMAYER: What are you talking about?
COOPER: It can sound really provocative.
SETMAYER: Horace, what are you talking about?
COOPER: But it has no actual merit in the end.
SETMAYER: The Department of Justice has not moved whatsoever on going after any of the people who are in these files. They've covered it up. They have thousands of pages of redactions.
COOPER: I don't agree with that. I don't agree with this comment.
ROTHMAN: Is that a cover-up or is there no prosecutable crime here?
SETMAYER: This is not how you behave when you're innocent.
PHILLIP: We have to go. And I think just to Tara's point, if there's one thing that you take away from all of the reporting in this story, it's that the highest levels of DOJ, their top priority as it relates to the Epstein files, was protecting the President.
SETMAYER: Right.
PHILLIP: Pam Bondi.
SETMAYER: That's right.
PHILLIP: Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. And that is not their job.
NAVARRO: Their job is not to protect the survivors.
PHILLIP: It's not to protect the President.
NAVARRO: Their job is to protect the survivors. What happened in Bill Gates' testimony today saying that Epstein was trying to extort him through knowing about his infidelity, to me is more relevant because it might explain how the hell Epstein got all that money. Blackmail.
PHILLIP: Next for us, state election officials might soon face a stark choice. Hand over voter rolls to the Trump administration or risk losing mail service for mail-in ballots. We'll discuss that next.
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[22:45:00]
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PHILLIP: It could soon become much harder for some Americans to vote by mail as President Trump pushes for more control over elections. Under newly proposed rules, the U.S. Postal Service could stop delivering mail-in ballots to states that refuse to share voter information with the federal government.
The move is tied to an executive order that Trump signed in March seeking to crack down on vote by mail. 23 states and the District of Columbia are suing to stop the new rules, warning that voters could be disenfranchised if the proposal is enacted.
Some of these cases have gone before judges. Some of these lawsuits, many of them, you can see the map there in green, they've been dismissed because judges have said there's no legal right to vote for the federal government to have voter rolls.
[22:50:07]
But what this does is it raises questions about how far the Trump administration is willing to go to dabble in elections, in an election year, by the way.
SETMAYER: Pretty damn far. They had Tulsi Gabbard in the shadows before she quit as DNI when they were going, you know, getting ballots from Fulton County, Georgia. What was the FBI doing there?
You've got Bill Pulte now who is completely unqualified as the acting DNI and he can be in that acting position through the midterm elections doing God knows what, claiming foreign interference or whatever excuse Donald Trump comes up with because he has said multiple times we should federalize elections, maybe we shouldn't even have elections.
Oh, if you have a war or something, well, we don't have to have elections. He has said this multiple times. And as someone who spent many years in the conservative circles, hearing a President of the United States with an R next to his name saying we should federalize elections when our argument was always about states' rights and the states are controlling the elections and it should be states and localities and people used to have freakouts over national I.D. Now you've got a President that wants a federal vote for voters. It's crazy.
PHILLIP: He's trying to, he said it himself, he would like to federalize elections.
COOPER: Okay. Well, disagreeing with practically everything my good friend just said, I do think that there are strong legal arguments to be made by state and local governments, but they are not required to comply with these requirements. Congress needs to act.
If Congress were to act, it would change the scenario mightily. We have lived under an imperial presidency for almost 50-plus years and it's thought you just issue the executive order and everything great can follow.
Well, we are seeing some of the limits to that, but our legal system is working fine.
SETMAYER: So you disagree then with Trump's executive order on mail- in?
COOPER: I disagree with the DNI. I disagree with the idea that our national security apparatus is being targeted toward political opponents. I disagree with all of that.
FOSTER: But I wholeheartedly agree with the point about the imperial presidency. I think this administration, however, has done something to kind of supercharge that transformation of our government and honestly, there are so many critical things that I could say about the President.
Again, on the merits, I think the personal corruption, enriching his family through government, pretty bad. I think the lying and the dishonesty, all pretty bad. The gaudy structure behind the White House now, pretty bad.
But the worst thing, his most enduring legacy is going to be that continuation of this process of making the imperial presidency even more robust, of accruing more and more power into the executive branch, which will almost certainly be abused by the very people you ostensibly are against.
COOPER: Barack Obama and Joe Biden set records for the number of unanimous losses before the United States Supreme Court. This President is not setting a record of that kind. Instead, he's setting a record for the most successes.
ROTHMAN: Well, he might set himself up for that. I agree with everything Tara said, for the same reasons that I opposed the Democratic Party's HR1 in 2018. I oppose this initiative on Federalist grounds alone.
I think there'll be a very strong challenge to it in the courts. But the President is trying to make a political argument here. I don't think he's trying to make a legal argument.
What he's trying to say is that voting in this country is flawed, if not wholly corrupt, and it needs to be reined in by a strong force.
NAVARRO: This is a tactical and strategic effort by Donald Trump in many different ways, from the gerrymandering, the never accepting the laws of 2020, from calling what's going on in California fraud without any evidence, of him trying to diminish confidence in our elections.
ROTHMAN: But you don't have to be worried about it. NAVARRO: Suppress and depress the people going out and voting.
ROTHMAN: Just say it's better.
PHILLIP: Next for us, the panel is going to give us their nightcaps, America the Beautiful edition. Be right back.
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[22:55:00]
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PHILLIP: World Cup tourists are going viral for documenting their favorite experiences while here in the United States, from Taco Bell to Buc-ee's. So for tonight's news night cap, what would be your recommendation on an Americana tour? Noah, you're up first.
ROTHMAN: The county fair, deep fried everything, tractor pulls, the dusty beer tent, all that stuff I think would really appeal to the continental sensibility.
NAVARRO: It's cute.
Well, I think America is a place where you can come from anywhere, from any other country and find your cuisine represented here. Different Ethiopian cuisine, Somalian cuisine, Armenian cuisine. I don't think you can do that in many other countries.
PHILLIP: So what cuisine would you have them eat?
NAVARRO: Whatever the hell their cuisine is.
FOSTER: You should try our version of that stuff.
PHILLIP: You want the bastardized American version?
NAVARRO: Yes, I want that. That's exactly, that's very American to me.
PHILLIP: Go ahead.
FOSTER: I think that one of our best things is our national parks, and particularly they should get to Mount Tam in California and they should go look at the Pacific coast from the summit of Mount Tam. It is one of the best things you'll do in your life.
PHILLIP: Tara?
SETMAYER: Everyone should experience the beauty, the glorious Jersey Shore. And it is, people give Jersey a bad name, but the Jersey Shore is a wonderful place. It's my happy place.
[23:00:09]
Everyone should eat Zeppoles, get a slice of pizza, do a couple of fist bumps and sing some Bon Jovi karaoke, and eat disco fries at two in the morning.
PHILLIP: All right, Horace. Jersey Shore.
COOPER: Having just taken the family on a Route 66 trip, I heartily recommend it. Go to Seligman, Arizona, and you'll be amazed at the Americana you see.
PHILLIP: All right, everyone. Thanks very much. Thanks for watching "NewsNight. Before we go, special programming note. Our Summer Fridays are back here at "NewsNight," and we will take the show on a field trip to the Food Network. We'll be broadcasting from the test kitchen, and we'll have some food and drinks, lively conversation as well, starting this Friday. Don't miss it. Meanwhile, "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
