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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
CNN White House Reporters Denied Access to Xi's Dinner Arrival; Trump Rolls Red Carpet for China's Xi Despite GOP Backlash; Netanyahu Lashes Out at Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D-New York City, NY), Call Him Anti-Semitic. Trump White House Accused of Propaganda After an Ad Funded by Taxpayers; Nevada Dismisses Trump's Claims of Illegal Votes. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired September 24, 2026 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[22:00:00]
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR (voice over): Tonight, as the American president fights the First Amendment, he welcomes an authoritarian leader to American shores.
SEN. ROGER WICKER (R-MS): I would have suggested the president not invite Xi Jinping.
SEN. RICK SCOTT (R-FL): Xi's a despicable person. They're just killing us with fentanyl.
SEN. JOHN CORNYN (R-TX): The bottom line is that China cheats.
PHILLIP: Plus, the Israeli prime minister attacks the mayor of New York in New York.
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: Shame on you for spitting in the face of truth.
PHILLIP: Also, the White House is accused of propaganda paid for by taxpayers with a Trump commercial.
And the administration first claimed 16,000 people illegally voted in Nevada. It turns out the number is zero.
Live at the table, Leigh McGowan, Jason Rantz, Dina Doll, Tim Parrish, and Anthony Scaramucci.
Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here, they do.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIP: Good evening, I'm Abby Phillip in New York.
Tonight, pomp and circumstance at the White House, or so we're told. In the middle of his attack on the First Amendment, President Trump rolled out the red carpet for the authoritarian leader from China. But once again, CNN reporters have been denied access to the state dinner honoring the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping.
Earlier, Trump accused CNN of refusing to cover today's events, but that is not true. After a judge ruled that the White House must allow three outlets back in, the administration still refused to confirm that CNN would be allowed to return fully to its reporting duties. That includes the T.V. pool that usually handles live coverage, but won't until this is resolved. So, strikingly, Trump has allowed Chinese state media to cover this visit, and has told Xi that China had the friendliest press corps because they request permission asking a question.
Now, a reminder, state media operates under the direct control and the strict censorship of China's communist government. He also gushed over Xi, calling him strong, vibrant, and fit, better than ever.
The visit also comes at a pressing time between these two countries, like China, for example, helping Iran in the war, cyber warfare, fentanyl, Taiwan, what the State Department is calling the genocide and crimes against humanity, primarily against Muslim Uyghurs in China.
Now, two Americans are currently jailed there as well, and Trump's own State Department designated them wrongfully detained. And the list can go on and on. But some Republicans are tonight reminding the President to not lose sight of who the guest of honor truly is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SCOTT: I mean, I understand that, you know, Trump has to -- he has to be diplomatic, but Xi's a despicable person that is killing us with fentanyl, building a military to try to defeat us.
WICKER: Our commander-in-chief should keep in mind that his guest is a brutal, unelected, and oppressive dictator who seeks to dominate his neighbors and whose massive military arsenal is aimed directly at the United States of America.
SEN. TED BUDD (R-NC): The Chinese Communist Party's malign influence on the world stage, it's growing rapidly, and American citizens are paying the price.
And we cannot afford to ignore the CCP's ambitions to reorganize global order at the expense of the United States.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Former Trump White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci is joining us in our fifth seat tonight. He has a new book out. It's called "All the Wrong Moves". It's available right now in everywhere that you can buy books.
And before we open it up to the table here, as always, we invite you at home to join our debate. Go to cnn.com/abby, weigh in there. We'll get to some of your comments throughout the show.
And, Anthony, what do you make of the president continuing to praise Xi Jinping while -- just -- let's take -- just take the political piece of this for a second. They're running a midterm campaign against communism --
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI, FORMER WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR, FIRST TRUMP ADMINISTRATION: Yes.
PHILLIP: Against --
SCARAMUCCI: Supposedly.
PHILLIP: You're right, supposedly against communism. The Republican Party has made it their business to accuse China of everything under the sun, and much of that actually is true, their role in trade, their role in the drug trade. Why won't the president follow any of that up with actual act comments from him?
[22:05:03]
SCARAMUCCI: Well, I think he's got an economic woes, and I think he knows that he -- to use the president's own words, he doesn't have any cards related to President Xi. He pressed those cards to people at the table. Remember when he came down from like Mount Evil as like Orange Moses with the tablets and the tariffs, and people looked at that in China and said, we'll match those, and they kept ratcheting up, and then the president realized, wait a minute, I'm going to lose this economic trade war, and so he called a truce.
And so he knows with the affordability issue, and he knows with the Iran war going at the same time, he cannot afford to have a trade war with China, and that's why he's rolling out the red carpet. And he gave President Xi a huge propaganda win yesterday when he showed up at Joint Base Andrews because Xi didn't do the same for him in Beijing. He sent the vice president.
So, the president's behind the eight ball with China, and that's why he's playing nice with them right now.
PHILLIP: That's very strange, Jason. Why?
JASON RANTZ, SEATTLE RED RADIO HOST: You're matching what they did with him during his visit. He's in the middle of negotiations. This is how the president negotiates. He believes in negotiating based on creating these friendships and these partnerships where you feel like you can trust the other person, but it seems pretty obvious that it's not like he's holding back on China any meaningful way as it comes to our goals.
I mean, we went into this undercutting Chinese just the last week or this week with the Greenland deal, when going after Maduro and going after a key Chinese, you know, ally. The war in Iran also impacts in a very negative way in their economy, China. So, I mean, again, he's not, it's not like he's going in, going easy. And I will note, you know, do I feel comfortable when we have any of these? No, not really. But also this is not new. This is not invented by the Trump administration. The Obama administration did quite literally the exact same thing.
SCARAMUCCI: And President Trump criticized him for it.
RANTZ: And people criticized him at the time. Like this is what kind of happens, but it is --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Back in 2012, Trump said, so wrong, Barack Obama is hosting China's V.P., Xi Jinping, today at the Pentagon with a full honor ceremony with music and cannons. The president had a military flyover. He literally praised Xi Jinping's physique. He has praised his treatment of the media, which is objectively repressive.
Yes, I mean, Trump is going well beyond what he criticized Obama for. And not only that, it's not just about the negotiations, supposed negotiations that are underway, there has been a broad praise of Xi Jinping's leadership style that is facilitated by the fact that China is a communist repressive government. That's the reason he can lead this way.
LEIGH MCGOWAN, PODCAST HOST, POLITICSGIRL: Yes. If you're saying, well, isn't this amazing that your state T.V. people are asking for permission? You're like, yes, because it's a communist nation. It's the same thing that he said, when I see the North Koreans and they see Kim Jong-un walk into the room, they just jump up and they stand at attention, I want them to do that for me, and he was caught on a hot mic saying that.
I think this is like watching someone who is around someone that he wants to be like. He's like showing off his toys, and showing off his helicopter, and showing off his pad, showing off the picture of the autopen of Joe Biden and having a good old jokey moment. He's not doing world deals there. He's trying to make a friend with someone that he wants to be like.
And I find it embarrassing for America. I think it's so interesting that there's so many Republicans coming out and being like, we shouldn't be doing this. This isn't the relationship we should have with them.
And then I think we also have to keep in mind that we have 19 American service members who are gone, our bases across the Middle East are decimated, and, technically, the president just literally rolled out the red carpet for Iran's closest economic partner. So, I don't know what we're doing here.
TIM PARRISH, : Leigh, have you been to one of those bases that you say are decimated?
MCGOWAN: No, I've seen the photos from the --
PARRISH: You've seen the photos. So, our service members aren't capable of executing their mission or decimated?
MCGOWAN: You know what? I hate it when we do this because you're turning --
PARRISH: No, I'm using your words.
MCGOWAN: No. What you do is you take -- you act like if I say, I have seen the photos from service members who have leaked the photos that we are having a lot of trouble in our Middle East bases, and you immediately turn it around to, I am against the troops, and I'm sick of it.
PARRISH: I never said that.
MCGOWAN: Honestly, Tim, it's tiresome.
PARRISH: I'm asking you your words because you've totally mischaracterized the -- some of the realities that you're missing here is China, which I'm excited that all of us are on the same page at the table, that China is bad, what they're doing to the Uyghurs, that they're a horrible communist state. I'm excited about that. But the reality is that they are a near peer hegemon just like the United States. They have a strong military with issues that we may have to face in the future, and the president has to balance that.
I hope the president asks questions about the things that you've listed, particularly with Iran and those things, but he's also the president of the United States. So, he has to balance a global power that is near equal to the United States on so many levels. And so why would we bash him for doing that?
MCGOWAN: But we don't need to be praising the leader of a communist nation.
PARRISH: He is still the president of the United States and he still has to balance these things out.
[22:10:05]
MCGOWAN: He's not balancing it out.
PHILLIP: So, Tim, do you think that undermines the White House's argument that the greatest threat facing America today is communism when the president is regularly praising a communist leader and their country?
PARRISH: The greatest threat to the United States is communism, and it's festering in the Democrat socialism --
PHILLIP: Sure. But when the president praises Xi Jinping, does that undermine his argument?
PARRISH: Well, of course, it undermines that argument, right? We can't have communism in the United States festering through the Democrat Party that we're seeing and be praising the communist leader of China. You're not going to get any pushback from me on that. DINA DOLL, HOST, MEIDASTOUCH NETWORK: I mean, back to the media point because that's a really specific example where he praised what a communist country was doing. It's the most undemocratic thing in the United States.
RANTZ: He was mocking U.S. media. I mean, that was obviously the context of that --
DOLL: The fact is we didn't even get a chance --
RANTZ: You might not like the joke but it was very obviously specifically --
PHILLIP: Is mocking U.S. media by holding up China as a paragon of --
RANTZ: He was mocking U.S. media in the comments that he made specifically because of how many times they interrupted. That was the obvious joke.
PHILLIP: In what world is that okay?
DOLL: And it's even worse --
RANTZ: But -- or if you want to argue that it's not an okay joke, okay, I think that that's a fair point. But --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Hold on. We have a Constitution that explicitly protects the media. The president then, to use your terminology, makes a joke that aggrandizes an authoritarian nation that represses the media, and that's funny? Are we supposed to find that funny?
RANTZ: No, I'm saying just call it what it was. Again, I think it's totally legitimate, Abby, to --
PHILLIP: But do you think it would be legitimate to call that un- American?
DOLL: But it's not just a joke but the media --
PHILLIP: Do you think it's legitimate to call it un-American to basically make light of something that is enshrined in our Constitution and praise something that is the antithesis of it in another country?
RANTZ: But I just don't think that that was the intent, and I do think intent matters. I mean, do you believe, Abby --
PHILLIP: What do you think the intent was if not to denigrate the media?
RANTZ: The intent was to -- the intent was to mock the people who he believes are rude. That's it. I think you're reading too much into him praising the Chinese state. That's what I'm saying.
PHILLIP: He's literally in the middle of going to court to ban the media. So that's a --
RANTZ: No, I'm a talk show host who's on T.V., and I don't support the suppression.
DOLL: But the reality is --
SCARAMUCCI: So, you then disagree with the president's decision?
DOLL: -- the media didn't get a chance to even hear.
RANTZ: On what?
SCARAMUCCI: On banning the press? Don't you disagree with him?
RANTZ: Yes, I was on T.V. that night saying that that was the wrong decision. That was ultimately the way it got overturned by the --
SCARAMUCCI: Do you support the First Amendment?
PARRISH: Well, considering -- yes, I swore an oath to --
(CROSSTALKS)
SCARMUCCI: To figure out who the sane people are at the table.
PARRISH: Which includes the First Amendment, and offered my life for that. So, to answer your question, I absolutely support the First Amendment.
SCARAMUCCI: Okay, good. I appreciate that.
PARRISH: And similarly to Jason, I was on the waves saying he was wrong.
DOLL: I mean, there was an actual effect of him defying the court order, which was we didn't even get a chance to hear the entire conversation that he had with a communist Chinese leader. So, regardless if it was a joke or not, the effect was we didn't even get to hear it, and that is a violation of the First Amendment and a violation of a judge's order.
This is, for full disclosure, it's my former law firm, Gibson Dunn, that represented this. I know the lawyer, Ted Boutrous. He has won every single First Amendment case against Trump because Trump doesn't even try to pretend this is a blatant violation of not only the free press but they're due process.
Again and again, it's -- he wants to be the communist leader, and he said it.
PARRISH: Well, I don't know that any president having a bilateral conversation with another world leader that we would've heard every single word. I mean, that goes back through --
DOLL: We don't know.
RANTZ: No, that never happened.
(CROSSTALKS)
PARRISH: We never hear those conversations. And you haven't heard from Jason or I or anybody else at the table that we disagree with those issues.
PHILLIP: But, Tim, can I ask, where are we seeing Trump punishing or pressing China on shipping weapons to Iran? Where are we seeing him pressing China on some of the many things that we think that they're doing wrong in the world? Like where's that happening?
PARRISH: No, that's a valid question, Abby, and Jason very, laid it out very well of all the things that we've done in Venezuela, and the big win in Greenland, and different aspects around the world that we're denying --
PHILLIP: I don't know why you guys keep calling it a big win on Greenland but the Greenland deal is effectively the same one that we had before.
PARRISH: Donald Trump did it, and so it's -- you have to give him credit for it.
PHILLIP: Except that despite Trump saying that he wanted to invade in order to get the minerals, we're not invading or getting the minerals. So, I don't really understand what the point of that is.
PARRISH: Abby, the point I was going to make before you cut me off is that, yes, we have these big wins on China that Jason laid out, and we should give the president credit for that, and they are wins for the country.
However, at the same time, I think your question is absolutely valid. I wish the president would press Xi Jinping on some of these things that we've laid out, and I hope that he does. One of the things that I think makes the president valuable is he is one of the toughest, most resilient negotiators that we've had ever occupy the Oval Office, in my opinion.
And so I do hope that we see --
PHILLIP: Then why did he back down on trade?
PARRISH: I do hope that we see some of those things --
PHILLIP: Why did he back down on trade?
PARRISH: Some of those attributes of him as a tough negotiator, I do hope that we see those to answer those questions.
[22:15:02]
PHILLIP: He's backed down on trade.
(CROSSTALKS) PHILLIP: He's failed to get a deal -- he's failed to get a deal with Iran.
SCARMUCCI: I think you should start with there's no evidence to suggest that he's actually done those deals.
PARRISH: Are you -- so are you guys willing to deny all of the things that Jason listed --
SCARAMUCCI: They came up with the whole TACO thing because of what he's like.
PARRISH: -- that are actions and not words -- are you willing to deny, Anthony, all of those things? Are you willing to deny China?
PHILLIP: I guess, Tim, the question is where is the deal? Where's the deal with China? Where's the deal with Iran?
PARRISH: But they don't have a summit right now to talk to any of these things.
(CROSSTALKS)
MCGOWAN: They're in the middle of a stroke fest, and the president is an easy mark, and China knows it, and you can see it.
SCARAUCCI: And the Chinese have already said they're only here for relationship building. They're not here to break the impasse on trade.
RANTZ: Months ago, the argument was that we were going into a foolish trade war and that we were too aggressive with China, and now we're saying that he's an easy target. Pick a lane.
MCGOWAN: You pick a lane. Pick a lane on communism. Is it good or is it bad?
(CROSSTALKS)
RANTZ: We're already calling out communism as bad.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Jason, that's by Trump's own -- we're measuring Trump by his own measuring stick. He said that Liberation Day was going to be the way that he gets a big win on China. So, based on that, the question is, where's the big win on China? What we know so far is that after ratcheting up a trade war, he backed down. And still to this day, they're extending that truce until January. So --
SCARAMUCCI: January 10th.
PHILLIP: So -- okay. So, did the pressure that Trump said that he put on China result in a more favorable trade environment? I haven't seen it. Have you?
RANTZ: Not yet. That's literally what they're doing, and that's my point.
PHILLIP: That's not my bar. I didn't say that the best way to do this was just slap 50 percent tariffs on China or 100 percent tariffs on China. Trump said that.
RANTZ: But, Abby, you know, let's say in January --
PHILLIP: He makes the measuring stick. I'm just using it.
RANTZ: Totally understandable. In January, he comes out with a deal. Are you going to say, well, then that's a good deal, or are you going to say, it's not a good --
PHILLIP: If it's a good deal, we'll say it's a good deal.
RANTZ: If it's a good deal, we'll call it a good deal.
PHILLIP: If it's a good deal, we'll say it's a good deal.
RANTZ: But that's the process.
PHILLIP: Just like with the Iran war when they came out with a deal and it was a bad deal, it was clear that it was a bad deal despite the fact that they were saying that it was a good deal, so -- and then it lasted a few weeks. So, look --
PARRISH: Because Iran violated the deal.
PHILLIP: -- the -- not just for that reason. It was an actual bad deal for the United States.
PARRISH: But no matter what the deal was, Iran violated the deal.
PHILLIP: And, look, the devil is always in the details. It's -- and so far -- - there are no details because there's no deal.
SCARAMUCCI: If we had kept the Obama deal, we would be in a much better spot.
PHILLIP: Next --
PARRISH: Giving Iran $4 billion?
PHILLIP: We got more ahead for us. Next for us, after a mass walkout, Benjamin Netanyahu is lashing out at New York City's mayor, calling Zohran Mamdani anti-Semitic at the U.N.
Plus, critics are accusing the White House of releasing a Trump propaganda video that's paid for by taxpayers. We'll debate.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:20:00]
PHILLIP: Tonight, a public feud boils over onto the world stage. New York City's Mayor Mamdani doubled down earlier this week, calling Israeli prime minister a war criminal again.
Now, you might remember that the mayor pledged to arrest Netanyahu over a warrant that was issued by the International Criminal Court. He later backed down after concluding, correctly, that the city does not have the authority to do that. But today, just as Netanyahu was about to speak at the United Nations, Mamdani posted this video of himself with Palestinian families from Gaza planting an olive tree at Gracie Mansion.
As Netanyahu took the stage, dozens of diplomats left the room, and he took some time in his speech to call out Mamdani by name.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NETANYAHU: Shame on you. Shame on you for distorting the facts. Shame on you for inverting victim and aggressor. Shame on you for spitting in the face of truth.
Mr. Mamdani, since you were elected mayor of this city, many Jews no longer feel safe in New York. They talk to me. They tell me, this isn't the city we remember. It changed so quickly.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
It is such an interesting choice, Leigh, for him to choose Mamdani of all people to single out in the speech. He even brought up Hasan Piker. I mean, in the big scheme of challenges that Israel faces around the globe right now, it was a choice.
MCGOWAN: Yes. I mean, Trump and Netanyahu in many ways are very similar. They both say what they want to say when they want to say it. They both know who's making the news and who to mention. They both don't care if there's evidence for what they're saying. They both confuse victim and aggressor. I think it's crazy that he's standing there on the stage of the U.N. with that many people leaving because there are atrocities happening in the Middle East and it's a very complicated situation.
But what the IDF is doing to the people of Palestine is very, very problematic, and to stand there and to call out a Muslim mayor in the city that mayor is the mayor of, I think is incredibly rude and incredibly distasteful.
And I'm kind of tired of the idea that if you call out the atrocities that are happening in Gaza, you're somehow pro-Hamas or anti-Semitic. If anything, what he did today was Islamophobic.
PARRISH: I'm sorry, what?
MCGOWAN: Yes. No, I mean, we're going to have the same conversation over and over again.
RANTZ: We all have a little bit of a similar conversation. Go ahead. Go ahead and respond.
MCGOWAN: Like it's exhausting to act like you don't know what I'm talking about.
RANTZ: So -- no, I know exactly what it is you're talking about.
PHILLIP: Hold on. Hold on, Tim. Let me let -
RANTZ: The problem is when you accuse a country of genocide where a genocide is not actually happening --
MCGOWAN: There is a genocide happening.
RANTZ: -- when the day you take office you decide to get rid of the --
[22:25:04]
MCGOWAN: But there is a genocide happening.
RANTZ: No but there isn't a genocide happening.
MCGOWAN: There is a genocide happening. Can I just for a second?
RANTZ: Yes. So, no -- hold on.
MCGOWAN: Can I?
PHILLIP: Hold on. Leigh, can I --
MCGOWAN: Actually, I get all these opinions, and I really did come with facts.
PHILLIP: But I will let you respond, but can I let Jason finish his thought first?
MCGOWAN: Sure, but I would like to respond.
PHILLIP: Go ahead.
RANTZ: As Netanyahu made clear today, if they were actually committing a genocide, Gaza would not exist. You would not have seen an increase in population amongst Palestinians. You would not see any effort to try to actually save as many people as humanly possible.
And when you have these conversations, without the context of noting that, oh, you've got a terrorist organization that's quite literally hiding behind human shields, which the left pretend did not happen. You don't even at least give an opportunity to the Israeli government to hear an idea.
Tell me how you would specifically respond to an actual threat, an existential threat to your very existence by a group of people who say you don't have the right to exist, when you're saying that they lob bombs into your country and they target Jews. They rape, murder, and kidnap Jews. All you have to do is hide next to an apartment complex, and there will be no repercussions whatsoever. At least come to the table and say, here's what you should do in response to that. And just very quickly, the reason why he went after Mamdani, I think, is obvious. You brought it up in your intro. I mean, he said, I'm going to arrest you if you come into my city. That's why he did what he did.
PHILLIP: Okay. I mean --
RANTZ: And that's a fair point.
PHILLIP: Well, first of all, I mean, he also acknowledged that he couldn't do it.
I do want to play what Netanyahu said about the genocide issue and a little bit more. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NETANYAHU: You falsely, repeatedly accuse Israel of genocide.
Here's a simple truth. Israel didn't commit genocide. Israel prevented genocide. And that's exactly what Mr. Mamdani's Hamas buddies would have done to us had we not stopped them. They would have killed every last one of us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So, just -- I'll let you respond on the genocide piece, but it's also worth noting, I mean, this accusation that Mamdani has Hamas buddies is completely unfounded. He's condemned Hamas repeatedly.
And I also just think one of the big picture pieces of this is that Mamdani is not like alone in calling this a genocide. There are many sitting United States senators, including Bernie Sanders, who is Jewish, who also calls it a genocide. So, it's an issue that is up for debate.
Leigh, I'll give you a chance to respond.
MCGOWAN: Yes. I just -- here's the thing. I understand that genocide is a really serious word to throw around, but I'm not throwing it around. I don't think the people that are mentioning it are throwing it around.
The United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry has said what the Israeli authorities and security forces are doing meets the criteria of what the 1948 Genocide Convention labeled as genocide. The specialized United Nations independent experts have also characterized the ongoing destruction of Gaza as a collective crime and genocide. The International Association of Genocide Scholars, over 500 of them, passed a resolution stating that Israel's policies and actions in Gaza meet the legal definition of a genocide under international law.
So, I think we have to be very careful. It is terrible what happened on October 7th. Any war is terrible. But I've also watched images of IDF soldiers telling someone they're free to go and then shooting them point-blank in the back of the head while they're carrying their baby. I have seen children with their legs blown off who are Palestinian children. So, it is terrible on both sides.
What is going on in this world, what is going on in the Middle East right now is so complicated, but what's happening in Gaza is not. Those people are really suffering.
PHILLIP: So, Netanyahu is as a messenger, someone who's very controversial here in the United States. Just looking at some of this polling on this issue, the Pew asked Americans, will Netanyahu do the right thing with regard to world affairs? Overall, 59 percent of Americans said they had a little or no confidence. Even among Republicans, it was almost like an even split. And among young Republicans, most also said that they had little or no confidence. He himself is a very unpopular figure.
DOLL: Well, as he should be. The thing is the definition of genocidal intent comes from his own words, his fellow Israeli officials' own words. I don't know why people here want to give them cover when they were willing to say their genocidal intent.
And here's the thing, as an Arab Christian, I also didn't like the part in his speech where he tried to use Arab Christians to give him cover for what he is doing, saying that somehow this is a safe space, that Israel's a safe space for Arab Christians.
RANTZ: It is.
DOLL: No, that's not the case.
RANTZ: Jews can't go to Gaza, and Arab Christians can go to Israel. That's how it works.
DOLL: Arab Christians are second-class citizens, first of all, in Israel. They have separate schools.
[22:30:00]
They cannot serve in the military, so they don't get military benefits. So, they are second-class citizens in Israel.
RANTZ: They're not second-class citizens.
[22:30:04]
DOLL: But beyond that, he talks about the population. The reason why there's so many Christians in Israel is because Palestine is a place of a holy land for Christians, and that population existed before Israel.
(CROSSTALK)
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI, FORMER WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR DURING THE FIRST TRUMP ADMINISTRATION, FOUNDER AND MANAGING PARTNER, SKYBRIDGE CAPITAL, AND AUTHOR, "ALL THE WRONG MOVES": So, listen, I'm not going to like what I'm going to say on either side, but I think that he went after the mayor because it plays very well at home, and it plays very well with a certain group of people that support him here in the United States.
But this is undoubtedly a humanitarian crisis, and if people at the table want to disagree with me with those two words, they can, but we've killed 80,000 people in that region, and even Joe Biden went there to say, don't overreact. And I think he overreacted.
Now you can disagree with me on that, but I think he's hurt --
(CROSSTALK)
RANTZ: How many of you are Hamas terrorists of the 80,000?
LEIGH MCGOWAN, PODCAST HOST, "POLITICSGIRL": That's not the point. That's not what he's making. That's not what he's making.
RANTZ: If you're coming out (inaudible)
(CROSSTALK)
SCARAMUCCI: Can I just finish the point?
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: Let him just finish this point, please.
SCARAMUCCI: Let me just finish the point, okay?
He's hurt the brand of international Jewry. And I love the Jews, I grew up in a Jewish neighborhood. I'm a philo-Semite, but he has empirically and objectively hurt the brand. And that's not me being anti-Semitic to say that, that's me objectively looking at those approvals and those opinion polls, and I would like to see them better.
Because let me tell you something about anti-Semitism, it is always the precursor throughout history to mass violence. And so our political leaders have to speak out against anti-Semitism.
I don't want anybody to get killed. And if you don't think we're having a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, you're not paying close enough attention to the facts.
PHILLIP: All right. We've got to leave it there.
Next for us, propaganda in prime time. Well, a new ad touting the President's midterm message that was paid for by taxpayers hits the airwaves tonight.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:35:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: Tonight, a public service announcement or propaganda. With 40 days until the midterms, the White House is airing a new TV ad promoting President Trump and the taxpayers are the ones footing the bill.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (voice-over)L: Together we will defeat communism, socialism, and Marxism in America.
America will never be a communist country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: The 30-second spot ends with UFC President Dana White praising Trump as the toughest, most resilient person that I've ever met. And the ad includes the disclaimer at the bottom of the screen that says, "Paid for by the United States Government."
In a letter that was sent to the White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles, Democratic Senator Maggie Hassan demanded to know the cost of this ad, saying, quote, "It raises deep concerns about the Trump administration's use of taxpayer dollars and its compliance with federal laws." In a statement, the White House defended the ad, saying, quote, "These public service announcements are about reminding Americans to love their country." The ad is educational and unapologetically patriotic.
And I have never seen anything like it, paid for by taxpayer dollars. I mean, it is a political ad. And what's interesting to me about it is that the only message really is Trump.
I mean, the music underlying that whole thing is "Love Me." It's a song called "Love Me." And by the way, the singer-songwriter of that, JMSN, I guess, says that they're looking at handling it with lawyers because they didn't give permission for the use of that song.
TIM PARRISH, CONSERVATIVE STRATEGIST: Abby, I hope that, you know, if there was some, particularly with this artist, if there was some issue, I hope we get to the bottom of that and he gets that handled. I hope that the President puts 20 more of these out, because we saw a Gallup poll that said, we saw a Gallup poll that said -- Leigh, you'll get your time to share your opinion, but I'm sharing mine.
The 40 percent of Americans are taking a sympathetic position on communism and on Marxism and on these things by the vehicle of the Democrat Socialist Party that is taking an uprising in the United States of America.
Leigh, you brought it up earlier about a point with China. I mean, all of you did about China and how it's so bad. Yes, this is an issue in the country. The President did not list a call to action in that. He didn't say, go vote for a Democrat. He didn't say, go vote for a Republican.
PHILLIP: A campaign ad doesn't need a call to action.
PARRISH: He didn't do any of those things.
PHILLIP: Do you really think taxpayers ought to be paying for this when the President has an $800 million war chest that he could spend?
(CROSSTALK)
PARRISH: No, Abby, the way you're characterizing it is, what was illegal?
PHILLIP: I'm asking you. Do you think taxpayers should pay for it?
(CROSSTALK)
PARRISH: The way that you're characterizing this story is that the President did something illegal.
PHILLIP: You're not answering my question.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Should taxpayers pay for it?
PARRISH: My question is, what was illegal?
PHILLIP: Should taxpayers pay for it, Tim?
PARRISH: Every administration has done PSAs. Barack Obama did PSAs, Biden did PSAs. No one questioned when taxpayers paid for PSAs.
PHILLIP: Let me give you some examples of the PSAs courtesy of the White House. This is actually on the White House's fact sheet.
George W. Bush did a PSA on Medicare. George W. Bush also did an anti- drug PSA for the National Drug Control Policy Office.
Barack Obama did one on EPA rules. Joe Biden did one on COVID vaccines.
PARRISH: EPA one actually was illegal.
PHILLIP: Hold on a second.
PARRISH: Abby, you could go through that list.
[22:40:07]
PHILLIP: He did a PSA, you might not like what he did it on, but it was on a government policy. So there's that.
Joe Biden did a PSA on COVID vaccinations through HHS. These are all examples given by the White House of policy. What is the policy that Trump is advertising here?
PARRISH: Abby, the underlying tone of all those things you listed were political in nature. Every single person knows that they were using those to tout wins for the President right before midterms. The same thing that President Trump is doing.
PHILLIP: Listen, I will concede that all policy has some nexus with politics, sure. But what is the policy here for Trump? What is it?
PARRISH: There are Democrats right now in a 16-1.
PHILLIP: Hold on. What's the government policy, though?
PARRISH: Abby, I want to answer your question.
PHILLIP: Is it a bill? Is it a regulation? What is it?
PARRISH: It's a cancer that is taken over the Democrat Party.
PHILLIP: It's a political position.
And the policies that come with it, if you would let me answer your question, Abby. The policies that come with it, like defunding the police, opening the border, getting rid of the Senate, getting rid of the Supreme Court. All policies are going to come.
I would encourage each of you to look at the campaign.
Oh, please. It's a debate show.
MCGOWAN: Tim, I'm not debating. You're just diatribing over there.
PARRISH: You've done a great job of cutting people off without letting me talk. If you look at the candidate in Florida right now, the policies that she's putting forward are the things that the President is pushing back against.
PHILLIP: You haven't named the policies, so Leigh, go ahead.
MCGOWAN: Great.
Tim wants to have 10 more of those propaganda ads that are basically like watching "Clockwork Orange." We may as well have just had toothpicks in our eyes with the shooting of the propaganda, of the propaganda, and underneath love me.
And then Dana White's there. He's going to keep fighting for us. He's our man, He's our guy.
That was a blatant political ad paid by the American taxpayers on behalf of a sitting President. That is not against the law.
PARRISH: He's not on the ballot. He's not running for anything.
MCGOWAN: Well, he himself is. He thinks he is.
DOLL: He says he's on the ballot.
PARRISH: You can say that, but he's not on any ballot.
MCGOWAN: At the end of the day, he says we will defeat communism, socialism, Marxism in America. America will never be a communist country.
One, we just rolled out the red carpet for a communist country. Two, communism, no one is offering it.
Literally, if you want me to sit here and define communism, I'm happy to do it. I can define socialism, I can define Marxism. I even brought them here to make sure I didn't get it wrong.
But I can tell you the 40 percent of people that are worried about socialism or communism in this country couldn't define it. 70 percent of this country couldn't define it.
PARRISH: Are you saying that voters are too dumb to understand what --
MCGOWAN: Are you saying that the military -- you always do this.
PARRISH: You can mock me. You can mock me about a debate.
MCGOWAN: I can tell you. Well, then let me tell the Americans what these words mean, Abby.
PHILLIP: Jason, hold on a second. We're going to give some other people a chance to talk. So, Jason, is this a political ad that the American taxpayers should be paying for?
RANTZ: It is an ad that's political. I do not think that the taxpayers should pay for it. I hold that position of the Biden administration doing it, and specifically the Obama administration.
One that was missed on that was he decided to push Obamacare right before the elections. They spent a lot of money on it. The EPA thing that you mentioned, they didn't even mention that they paid for it.
So, I think across the board, I generally am against things like this. Am I, like, very upset over a patriotic ad?
No. I think it is a good message. I think it's a message that should be sent. I think communism and socialism are the correct.
However, I agree with you that it is a political ad.
DOLL: It's clearly a Trump ad. It wasn't about our country. I think the American people are so sick and tired of their dollars being just taken.
He doesn't even try to, like, make this seem like anything else than just grabbing it from your wallet and putting it in his.
Because he has more than enough.
PARRISH: The White House has a budget for this.
DOLL: They do.
PARRISH: The White House has a budget for this.
DOLL: They could have used his PAC money, which he's spending all the time.
PARRISH: The White House officially has a budget for this.
This was clearly a campaign ad. This was a campaign ad.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: First of all, Tim, I don't know where you're getting your information from, but we don't know who's paying for it, A. And B.
PARRISH: It's sort of the U.S. taxpayer.
PHILLIP: Yes, the U.S. government, which is the whole government, not necessarily the White House.
So, we don't know if the White House is paying for it. We don't know how much it is. And those things, that's why Maggie Hassan wrote that letter.
Because she wants to know, look, this is part of a broader theme of Donald Trump spending government money.
SCARAMUCCI: Just be careful of the double standard. Because if Jay-Z was out there praising Barack Obama and saying the stuff about Barack Obama that Dana just said about Donald Trump, you guys would be upset. Because it's always a double standard.
PARRISH: I wouldn't be upset.
[22:45:01]
Taxpayer-funded ad for Barack Obama with Jay-Z speaking praiseworthy things about Barack Obama.
RANTZ: I would not be upset. I'd be in the same position across the board.
SCARAMUCCI: If the President's daughters were on a money grab all throughout the Middle East, you guys would be totally cool with it.
DOLL: I mean, it's all in my voice --
PHILLIP: Coming up for us, from 16,000 to zero, the Trump administration's claims of thousands of people voting illegally in Nevada comes up completely false. We'll discuss that next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:50:08]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARKWAYNE MULLIN, UNITED STATES HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: We've identified 250,000 non-citizens registered to vote in California and Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Nevada. One thing that I love about numbers and I love about facts is they don't lie.
(END VIDEO CLIP) PHILLIP: That was Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin back in July. And it turns out his numbers were wrong. But he was right about one thing, facts don't lie.
According to the "New York Times," DHS initially claimed that nearly 16,000 non-citizens were on Nevada's voter rolls. But state election officials found no evidence of that being true. Even after a manual review, DHS followed up with a list of 185 people they claimed were not citizens. But Nevada officials say that is also false.
In fact, the state's deputy attorney general says all 185 people on that list are U.S. citizens.
So you heard, with all this certainty, the thousands, tens of thousands of non-citizen voters. They didn't have the evidence then, and they still don't have it now. It's almost October.
DOLL: I mean, it's laughable if it wasn't so dangerous to our democracy. It looked like some sort of SNL skit.
I mean, boasting about these things. The problem is you have a combination of being extremely incompetent and at the same time wanting to just destroy our elections.
And you get that. You get a speech like that. You're not even going to try to see if you have the facts to justify it.
The fact is our elections are safe. But Trump is still so mad that he lost the 2020 election. He's willing to drag down our entire democracy.
PHILLIP: I just want to play this exchange. This is DHS on a call with Nevada officials and they're basically admitting that they didn't check these names, they don't have the resources to do it. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
C. MURPHY HEBERT, NEVADA CHIEF DEPUTY SECRETARY OF STATE: So what you're saying is the 15,000 number has not been vetted, basically.
KIMBERLY VOIGT, HOMELAND SECURITY OFFICIAL: So I probably wouldn't use the sentence, it hasn't been vetted. Because definitely we've done something with it to get down to 15,000. So I wouldn't say that.
But it hasn't had a full manual review of each one. It is a lot of work to go one by one.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Yes, I mean, it's a lot of work. Because it should be that if you are going to disenfranchise people who actually do have the right to vote, you should check. You should do the legwork to prove what your claims are, that they're actually real.
PARRISH: Abby, look, I want our elections to be safe. I actually agree that we do have safe elections. I'm also just really tired of the, I was never an election loss denier person.
It's unfortunate because even Trump-supported judges, or Trump- appointed judges, sorry, have not found these numbers to be accurate. They haven't found any reason to overturn elections. And why this is problematic to me as a Republican is because, in my opinion, and in millions of Americans' opinions, the Republicans actually have a winning message to go run on.
And instead we're, in my opinion, wasting time on these election things and then going in courts and losing these case after case. I wish the President and the administration would focus on the winning message, would highlight the President's wins, instead of wasting the resources on this bygone story of stolen elections and keep losing in court.
PHILLIP: And I don't want people to misunderstand. Voter fraud does get prosecuted in this country. It's just not widespread enough to change the outcome of any federal election.
SCARAMUCCI: Do you think a large group of people in the United States feel that there is voter fraud because of the Trump message on voter fraud and the Homeland Security?
PHILLIP: I think that's demonstrably true, yes. His supporters, principally.
SCARAMUCCI: He's been very effective in challenging the electoral integrity. And we seem like we're all in violent agreement that there is no voter fraud, but he's done a very good job of making people think that there is.
PARRISH: Well, I didn't say there was no voter fraud. What I'm saying is, at this point, is when it does come up,
SCARAMUCCI: There is scant voter fraud.
(CROSSTALK)
PARRISH: I just think that we shouldn't be investing the resources that we are. I'm not saying no voter fraud.
SCARAMUCCI: He has heard us in that area. You love the guy.
Next for us, we're going to react to your feedback from cnn.com/abby. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:55:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: And now we've got some viewer feedback from cnn.com/abby.
This one's a little evergreen, but I think it has to do with Trump and Xi Jinping. It says, "we need some women leadership because these men ain't cutting it."
And then we've got another one. That was directed at the three of you.
MCGOWAN: Whoever that was, we thank you for your service.
PHILLIP: Jason, if someone jokes as much as Trump does, as you claim, how can people take him seriously?
RANTZ: Well, the people who don't take him seriously never took him seriously to begin with. I don't like the whole idea that we pretend that his personality just came out of nowhere and that he hasn't always kind of talked like this.
[23:00:07]
Argue that it's inappropriate or unpresidential. I think that's a fair criticism. I just don't like pretending that an obvious joke is an obvious joke.
PHILLIP: All right, everyone. Before we go, remember you can stream the show live or watch on demand anytime with an all-access subscription. Scan that Q.R. code at the bottom of your screen or go to cnn.com/watch to learn more.
Thanks for watching NewsNight. "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
