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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Trump Defends Ramaswamy's Ad, Urges Him to Keep Running It; Trump's List of Promises Grows Longer in Final Stretch. FCC Chairman Threatens Broadcasters over Fake Polling; Todd Blanche Won't Rule Out DOJ in Intervening Election Results. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired October 22, 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, Donald Trump uses his perfect call playbook to support the ad that even Republicans say crosses the line.
GOV. MIKE DEWINE (R-OH): I would just urge the Ramaswamy campaign to take this down.
PHILLIP: Plus, from cash and checks to pardons and pipelines, the president's list of midterm promises grows longer.
Also --
J.D. VANCE, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: I do think they have the effect of de-motivating our voters.
PHILLIP: -- they bragged about the polls when they were up. Now, MAGA is making baseless claims when they're down.
And --
REPORTER: Is there any scenario in which DOJ would weigh in on the, that certification process or try to block states from certifying?
TODD BLANCHE, ATTORNEY GENERAL: I mean, is there any scenario? Yes, of course.
PHILLIP: -- with 12 days to go, the feds don't rule out intervening in the elections.
Live at the table, Chet Love, Mike Nellis, Lydia Moynihan, Yemisi Egbewole, and Geoff Duncan.
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. Do gutter politics have limits? President Trump is not only defending Vivek Ramaswamy over the attack ad that features Democrat Amy Acton's estranged mother, he is now defending the ad itself, despite a growing number of Republicans speaking out against it, including the governor that Ramaswamy is seeking to replace.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DEWINE: The ad on its face is deeply, deeply, deeply troubling.
So, it's wrong to run this ad.
I would just urge the Ramaswamy campaign to take this down. It's just wrong.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: But Trump wants that ad to stay put. In a post on social media, he called it very powerful, and he criticized DeWine for coming out against it. He called him a RINO and accused him of being disloyal to his own party. Then he urged Ramaswamy to keep the ad running. He also praised Acton's mother, calling her brave to come forward, and said that it took a lot of courage.
Now, Ramaswamy's campaign is defiant, and it says that it won't take the ad down. In fact, they've put millions of dollars behind it. Here's what Trump is saying about it tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: It's like a big story about, he must take that ad down immediately. He must -- no. The mother is calling the daughter a terrible person and a liar. Everybody should be so lucky. Why would you shield somebody from that? Why would we do that? So, I told him, leave it up and look upstairs and say, thank you, God, very much. I appreciate it.
So -- but that's the hot story today. They want him to take down an ad. I only wish I could have had an ad like that against somebody, but as it turned out, we didn't need it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Before we open it up to the table here, we invite you at home to join the debate. Go to cnn.com/abby and weigh in there. We'll get to some of your comments as we go throughout the show.
Geoff, this is gross stuff at this point, the fact that Trump is celebrating an ad that essentially minimizes and obscures child sexual abuse and rape, that's incredible. But it also tells us a lot about what Trump, Vance, and I guess Ramaswamy, are willing to do for power.
FMR. LT. GOV. GEOFF DUNCAN (R-GA): Yes, I think it's Exhibit A for what's everything wrong with politics and elections going on right now. I mean, first of all, this isn't an ad you run if you're in the lead, and I think it's a Hail Mary pass that he's trying to throw, first and foremost. But secondly, it really puts the onus on all he wants to do is win. And you put yourself in such a negative position even if you did win the election and be able to govern to use this type of politics, and then to watch a president, a sitting president, others around him fan the flames of this it's just, it's heartbreaking to watch America get to where we're getting in politics.
Look, we need to get leaders, Democrats and Republicans, that want to actually lead, that want to actually come up with good ideas, that don't want to just win an election and spike the football and worry about their next election two days later.
PHILLIP: I don't understand. I mean, Lydia, do you have a sense of where this is coming from for Trump and Vance? I mean, Amy Acton's mother not only disbelieved her own child, right, had those children taken away from her, but this man who she was married to was accused of rape by another daughter prior to this, which Amy Acton's mother knew about.
[22:05:03]
The president doesn't seem to care about any of that. In fact, actually, let me just play this exchange that he had with Kaitlan Collins, because maybe you could argue he doesn't know about this part of the story. Well, Kaitlan told him about it. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: What about what the daughter said about her mother? What about what the daughter --
TRUMP: I don't know what the daughter said.
COLLINS: She said her stepfather, her mother remained married to her stepfather who sexually abused her when she was 12 years old.
TRUMP: But when did she make that statement?
COLLINS: Years ago.
REPORTER: In the 1970s, sir.
COLLINS: Years ago. They -- he was charged, Mr. President.
TRUMP: No, I have no idea. All I know is Amy Acton's mother said horrible things about Amy Acton, calling her a liar and other things, and unreliable, a lot of very bad things. And I say that she's fair game.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: How do you explain that? How does that not reflect poorly on the Republican Party in this moment?
LYDIA MOYNIHAN, CORRESPONDENT, NEW YORK POST: Yes, I mean, this is a self-inflicted wound, and I had read a, a spokesperson at one time said when the ad was coming out that they didn't know why there was that estrangement, but, clearly, they know now and they're choosing to double down on it.
PHILLIP: They knew.
MOYNIHAN: It's either not doing adequate research or knowing, but --
PHILLIP: There's absolutely no way.
MOYNIHAN: -- they know at this point.
PHILLIP: There's no way, because Amy Acton has talked about it. In this campaign, and Ramaswamy has diminished her history of sexual abuse in this campaign.
MOYNIHAN: Yes.
PHILLIP: that's on tape.
MOYNIHAN: I mean, this is a self-inflicted wound because at this point in the campaign, you should be talking about the issues, and it completely undermines any of Vivek's very valid criticisms about her record as essentially COVID czar there, trying to shut down businesses, and now it's completely on this decision to run a very inflammatory ad.
And I don't know why they didn't back away from this. And --
CHET LOVE, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Yes. But I would think, you know, in fairness to the president and to V.P. Vance, they're simply being loyal to somebody that's been extremely loyal to them. So, we certainly understand their position.
However --
PHILLIP: Is that -- I mean, should we be being fair to the president and J.D. Vance when they're defending a woman who covered up the sexual abuse of her own daughter? I'm not sure that fairness is what is owed to them. Fairness is what's owed to Amy Acton, who is the actual victim.
LOVE: Well, certainly understand there's no defense of the actual video, and Vivek Ramaswamy should be paying more attention to Governor DeWine, who has a great approval rating in the state, where Vivek Ramaswamy right now, according to Henry Enten here at CNN, has a negative 25 points with independents, and he needs to be winning independents.
So, clearly, as we think about getting back to this election, there absolutely needs -- his campaign, this is, as you've said, a complete wound that doesn't make any sense, and it's completely undermining the momentum that he needs to win over these independent voters.
YEMISI EGBEWOLE, FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF AND ADVISER, BIDEN WHITE HOUSE PRESS OFFICE: He had no momentum. He was totally flat. And he leaned into the storyline of a narcissistic woman, and it is disappointing to see, especially from J.D. Vance, because he has his own relationship, very turbulent relationship, with a mother who went through addiction issues. And now here, Amy Acton had a very well-known, documented, rocky estrangement from her own mother. And what he's done is he's lit $4 million on fire and thrown it to the Democratic side, because I've watched video after video of mothers hugging Amy Acton and saying, I am so sorry.
I understand that politics is tough. Everybody at this table works in politics, but this was a level of cruelty that I think is just really incomprehensible.
PHILLIP: So, CNN's Lauren Fox spoke to some Ohio voters about this, and let's just play what they had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KATHY BROWN, OHIO VOTER: It's just horrible. And I don't want that type of person making decisions about my life. It just made me feel that he is not a good leader at all.
CORRINE BONGERS, OHIO VOTER: I'll be voting for Amy Acton, and it's just gotten a little ugly in the last couple of days. So, that make -- kind of seals the deal for me.
JAMIE MARTINEZ, OHIO VOTER: I hope it's going to backfire on him. Like the tone from the top, like the president sets the tone for this country. And him slurs and name-calling and it's just -- can we just get back to like neighborly decency?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: You know, it's interesting because maybe there's an argument that if people just see the ad, they put $4 million behind it, they see the ad, they don't see the pushback because maybe the pushback doesn't penetrate as deeply, they'll be fine. But it seems to me that the pushback is penetrating maybe more deeply than the ad itself at this point because of the president's comments.
MIKE NELLIS, FORMER SENIOR ADVISER, KAMALA HARRIS CAMPAIGN: Well, not only is it penetrating in Ohio, it's penetrating nationally right now. You have other candidates in other states, like Ashley Hinson in Iowa, who are being forced to answer for this.
And let's just be clear, the only reason you ever run an ad like that is because you're down and you think you're going to lose. A Hail Mary is the exact way to describe it.
PHILLIP: It's a way to burn your reputation --
[22:10:01]
NELLIS: What reputation? I mean, Vivek Ramaswamy is a grifter and a scam artist. Like he's a scumbag, and he never should've been in this position in the first place. Republicans should've nominated somebody who knew what the hell they were doing. This is a really gross ad. And I've been working in politics for two decades. I've run a lot of ads that I frankly wasn't proud of. I've seen a lot of attacks that I thought were gross in the Democratic Party and in the Republican Party. This is the worst ad I've ever seen. And the fact that basically the entire Republican leadership is rallying around it, there's no defense of that.
I can appreciate loyalty to your party, but this goes way too far, and I think especially for men who work in this space, we have a responsibility to speak out and say that this is wrong because I'm actually horrified that nobody on Vivek Ramaswamy's campaign has resigned over this.
PHILLIP: And that's actually a very interesting point. I mean, on the loyalty piece, J.D. Vance framed it that way earlier this week. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
J.D. VANCE, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: I have to admit that I'm a little bit disgusted when I see Republicans across the country who are whining more about that advertisement than they are about what the Congressional Democrats and other Democrats want to do to the United States of America.
Politics is a tough business, and my message to my fellow elected Republicans is if you actually believe in the things you say you believe in, stop whining about an advertisement and go win the race in 13 days.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So, Geoff, he is disgusted that people are pushing back on a disgusting ad. But you might also remember that he acknowledged to Dana Bash when he made up stories about Haitians in Springfield that sometimes you have to say things like that to get people's attention. And then when a group of young Republicans were chatting with, you know, Nazi memes, he dismissed that too and said, why ruin those young men's lives?
Does J.D. Vance have a problem with this kind of politics being his calling card?
DUNCAN: J.D. Vance just wants to be in the cool kids club. I mean, that's all he wants to do. He'll do and say anything, and we've seen him talk negatively about Trump, about as negative as anybody in the Republican Party, and then flip and be his vice president. And then we watch him lie about these other issues.
JD Vance -- but I think this, you speaks to the problem. This isn't just about Ohio. The shrapnel's flying much further than Ohio. The shrapnel is now going to show up in debates in other Republican primary or other general election primary or general election debates and interviews because how does, how do these folks want to Republicans want to have to defend this type of stuff or defend gas prices or defend inflation or defend the stock market? LOVE: Well, well, in fairness, I think if we defend in a state like of Ohio, Governor DeWine, we have a 3.4 percent unemployment rate while in Ohio, while the national unemployment rate's over 4.3 percent. So, there's a lot of great things. The governor of that state, when he won, won 32 percent of the African American vote in that state.
So, you have a Republican who's getting significant support from all communities --
DUNCAN: Yes. But Mike DeWine did look and smell like Donald Trump.
NELLIS: Right. But you have a Republican candidate who's undoing all of that progress right now, both at the national level with Donald Trump, but also Vivek Ramaswamy, who's not up for the job.
And I want to just add to something that you just said, because I think there is a broader problem here. Like, Vivek Ramaswamy's not the only problematic candidate in Ohio, not the only candidate that frankly is a scumbag, like Max Miller's out there credibly accused of beating his wife, breaking his daughter's collarbone. Donald Trump is standing behind him because he's basically his protege.
So, Republicans are refusing to police their own when they are abusive against women.
(CROSSTALKS)
MOYNIHAN: I mean, okay, it's a little rich, the pearl clutching from a party that you embraced Graham Platner until the polling --
NELLIS: And is Graham Platner on the ballot?
MOYNIHAN: -- until the polling showed that he couldn't win. The Nazis had to define --
NELLIS: I mean, Donald Trump is an adjudicated rapist found liable in the sexual assault of E. Jean Carroll.
MOYNIHAN: People who've said that and claimed that he raped somebody actually have to pay a settlement.
PHILLIP: He didn't say that.
MOYNIHAN: That's not.
NELLIS: I didn't say that.
MOYNIHAN: That's not true.
NELLIS: I said adjudicated rapist. That's what the jury said.
MOYNIHAN: This is the party that last year elected somebody who fantasized about killing Republican children.
NELLIS: And he's not on the ballot right now. You have an opportunity to make --
MOYNIHAN: Well, he won. He won. So, look, I think --
NELLIS: He won the primary, but we made the decision, same thing with Eric Swalwell. We police our own when it gets too far. Republicans don't do that. I'm not happy with the way Graham Platner was handled either, but you guys don't police your own.
LOVE: It's not about policing our own. Ultimately, at the end of the day, the voters are going to police, and the voters are going to make choices in terms of the candidates.
NELLIS: You guys have a responsibility as leaders in your party to stop this stuff from happening.
LOVE: Ultimately, at the --
PHILLIP: And also, I mean, the president could have just stayed out of it.
NELLIS: Yes.
PHILLIP: And not only did he not stay out of it, but he defends the ad. He defends the decision to put that out there.
There's a difference between, well, let the voters decide, and, oh, what a great ad. You better thank God that it came down from heaven, like manna, to help your campaign. Those are different things.
LOVE: Absolutely. But, again, Abby, when we think about what the president is actually doing going around the country, he's not going out and trying to go get independents or swing voters. He's trying to rally his base.
(CROSSTALKS)
NELLIS: Oh, so it's okay because he's rallying his base?
PHILLIP: Is that how we're rallying Republican voters now, with an ad that diminishes child sex -- child rape?
LOVE: Again, the actual ad --
EGBEWOLE: And discrediting a popular Republican governor, to your point.
LOVE: Yes.
EGBEWOLE: You talked about unemployment being down. You talked about the 32 percent of voters that he was able to get in the black community.
[22:15:00]
He's a popular Republican governor. He has denounced the ad, and Trump supported the ad and also denounced the governor. NELLIS: But there's also something beyond just like the politics of this. Like this is just disgusting. Like J.D. Vance has four kids. What kind of role model is J.D. Vance if he's not going to stand up to this stuff?
Like I have a seven-year-old son. I spend a lot of time thinking about how I don't raise him to be a scumbag like some of these people. J.D. Vance did defend this, and to defend, you mentioned the Nazi text messages from the Republicans too. He defended that. Like he's just not a good dude.
LOVE: Look, I think the simple answer at the end of the day is this ad is indefensible, but there's still a lot --
NELLIS: But they're defending it.
LOVE: Well, again, I can't --
NELLIS: You're saying it's indefensible, but they're defending it and then you're defending them.
LOVE: No, the governor has renounced it, and many Republicans has also renounced it.
PHILLIP: All right.
NELLIS: Not the president.
PHILLIP: Next for us, Donald Trump's list of promises gets longer the closer America gets to these midterms. But are any of them actually realistic?
Plus, it's a new refrain by MAGA, the polls are all fake, meant to suppress Republican turnout. We'll discuss.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:20:00]
PHILLIP: Tonight, the fine line between a campaign promise and a bribe. Democrats are accusing President Trump of obscuring that line. He has put the money in the pockets of some voters in the form of rebates and refunds just a few weeks before the election, and he's even pledging more if Republicans win.
And now he's making more specific and conditional promises for the states that he's campaigning in. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I just sent out nearly 1 million refund checks for $500 each.
20 million seniors on Medicare will soon be receiving a deposit of nearly $100 directly into their bank accounts.
I am going to give all adult citizens in the United States of America $5,000.
It's only if we win. Don't -- we got to win.
If the Republicans win the Department of War, we'll be investing $100 million in the pharmaceutical company, Anthea.
If we win the House and the Senate, I am directing the Department of Justice to settle all remaining legitimate claims as soon as possible.
With Roger Marshall in the Senate, we will make year-round E15 permanent. But if Adam Hamilton is in, I'm not doing it. That's it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: It's quite the strategy there, Yemisi. The president seems to be saying, Well, I'll help you, but only if you vote for me.
EGBEWOLE: I love it all. I mean, $5,000, clean water, helping farmers. Sounds good, do it now. There is nothing preventing the president from acting on those things right now.
There is a president, President Biden, that passed the CHIPS and Science Act in August 2022, passed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, IRA, and Republicans took those wins even though they didn't vote for them, and they went to their districts and their states during the midterms and campaigned on that.
And we were fine with that. We were a little annoyed, but we were fine with that. Watching Tommy Tuberville talk about broadband infrastructure in Alabama when he directly voted against it, okay, that's fine. That's the way politics works. We still passed the legislation. We didn't wait until after the midterms when it would've been more advantageous than giving wins to Republicans to talk about at home.
So, it's a bit odd to me that the president is holding back aid from key groups like farmers just so that he can have a win if anything happens after the midterms.
PHILLIP: It sounds kind of like a threat.
LOVE: Well, it's certainly not a threat. It's normal for a president to go out and articulate to the American people the benefits of supporting him and his party in terms of what they're going to be able to accomplish.
EGBEWOLE: Yes, but I just told you that we did things before the midterms and gave you all an opportunity to tout wins you didn't even vote for. I'm saying the president can do that now.
LOVE: Yes. But, again, what we are seeing across this country is that President Trump has an agenda. President Trump was able to lower prescription drug prices in the last year by 3 percent. That's the biggest decline since the 1960s.
NELLIS: Now do gas, diesel, groceries, housing. Do the rest. LOVE: Well, we can talk about housing. Purcell came out with a poll actually over the last six years that have said Republican or red states have put on, almost double the amount of housing that blue states have. That's going to increase --
NELLIS: Yes. I guess if things are so great in red states right now, why are you guys running for your lives in states like Kansas and Texas?
LOVE: At the end of the day, what President Trump has made very clear is that, yes, you are going to have a temporary price spikes because we didn't want Iran to have a nuclear weapon.
NELLIS: And Iran was nowhere near having a nuclear weapon. Tulsi Gabbard herself said that.
LOVE: No, that's not true.
NELLIS: That's a lie that the administration's been telling this entire time.
LOVE: Listen, we can have a debate on Iran and national security, but the issue right now for American voters is that they want to have safety, and President Trump has closed the border.
NELLIS: No, I'm sorry. The American people would like to be able to afford their bills.
LOVE: No, President Trump has closed the border. Can you admit that President Trump has closed the border?
NELLIS: I mean, you're just throwing -- you're just throwing out -- hold on. You're just throwing out talking points right now.
LOVE: You're not going to admit that President Trump has closed --
NELLIS: Congratulations.
LOVE: Thank you. Can you admit that President Biden had millions of --
PHILLIP: Hold on. Hold on. We're getting a little off track here because I think that the issue also is that Trump is saying, I won't do things like ensure that you have clean water or disaster relief funds unless you vote for me. I mean, he is tying disaster relief aid to voting for Republicans. I can't think of a president who's done that.
MOYNIHAN: Well, there was one politicization of FEMA, and that was in North Carolina.
PHILLIP: By the -- hold on.
MOYNIHAN: That happened --
PHILLIP: Was that made up by the president of the United States? MOYNIHAN: It was not by the president, but there was one politicization.
PHILLIP: Well, that conversation doesn't -- is not relevant here.
[22:25:03]
MOYNIHAN: Look, I think what's interesting is that Trump offering $5,000 is construed as a bribe. What is Medicare for all? What is student loan forgiveness?
NELLIS: Those are called government programs and --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Medical for all, by definition, is Medicare for all.
MOYNIHAN: But this is literally what Democrats have no leg to stand on.
PHILLIP: And so I don't understand how that works.
MOYNIHAN: And it's a 5,000 check for all. So, Democrats have no leg to stand on that they're criticizing Trump for bribing people, saying, I'm going to do all of these things, give you free things when that's their entire platform. Since FDR, their entire platform every single election is --
PHILLIP: But isn't that what you -- isn't that what Republicans --
MOYNIHAN: -- vote for me and I give you free things.
PHILLIP: But isn't that what Republicans are supposed to be running against? I mean, aren't Republicans running against giving handouts to people for free?
MOYNIHAN: It's not a handout, but you know what's funny? It's a lot cheaper --
PHILLIP: I mean, why is it not a handout?
MOYNIHAN: It's a lot cheaper than Medicare for all.
NELLIS: Listen, hold on, Abby. It's not a handout when the Republicans do it. But if the Democrats have any idea, it's definitely a handout.
MOYNIHAN: All of those things are going to cost $200 trillion over the next ten years.
NELLIS: Here's the thing. Why would any American believe --
MOYNIHAN: No, but it's just how can you be critical when that's literally all you do is offer a free thing?
NELLIS: Why would any American believe anything that Donald Trump or any of his defenders say when Donald Trump has promised a DOGE check, he's promised me a tariff check, he's promised me 1,000 other things, grocery prices are going to go down on day one, I'm going to make everything less expensive, I'm not going to launch more forever wars in the Middle East. He's lied about everything.
DUNCAN: Donald Trump has sealed the deal on being the ultimate snake oil salesman of the century.
NELLIS: Correct.
DUNCAN: It is what it is. But I think the most interesting thing is in those rallies that we're watching him make all these unfounded promises and bribes or whatever we want to call them, there's sitting Republicans elected that are on the campaign trail that would be rather eating a bowl of vomit than having to share a stage with Donald Trump in that particular moment.
He could offer a billion dollars to everybody, and only 35 percent of people are going to actually believe him. That's the MAGA crowd. The rest of the world is starting to ask questions because, to your point about the prescription cuts, it costs them $6 more to go pick up that prescription that they saved 30 cents on or $3 on. It costs them that much more with housing. It costs them so much more to run diesel in their trucks for work. The list goes on and on and on.
This is a snake oil salesman that's failing and everybody's watching it play out in real time.
LOVE: I think that, one, that's a fair mischaracterization. So, let's just talk about the facts. That's an unfair mischaracterization.
NELLIS: I thought you said fair.
LOVE: No.
NELLIS: I was just confirming. All right.
LOVE: So, number one, let's talk about the fact in terms of presidential promises. Obama, Biden, they've all made promises that they have not kept. Presidents try to set an agenda and a vision for the country in terms of where they want to go. So, simply acknowledging the fact that he didn't achieve certain things, I don't think that that's a criticism as a snake oil salesman. That just means you didn't achieve the goal.
But let's really talk about the fundamentals of --
DUNCAN: Make that plural, goals.
LOVE: - yes, of course, if you don't meet it. But I think the more important point in terms of what we're trying to talk about in terms of what the president has done and what the president's going to continue to achieve is really focusing on delivering for the American people.
NELLIS: Which he hasn't done. The two most important promises that he made in the 2024 campaign were, everything's going to get less expensive on day one. I'm not going to launch any more wars.
LOVE: Well, let's actually talk about --
NELLIS: He's broken those promises.
LOVE: No. Listen, on this --
NELLIS: He said it on the campaign trail all this time.
LOVE: On this table, there's been consistently -- I've watched week after week criticism of President Trump and his tariffs, but we never talk about the fact that President Trump has gotten concessions from major auto manufacturers like Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, dedicated $10 billion over five years to the United States manufacturing.
NELLIS: When does that trickle down to the American people?
LOVE: It's over time. It's over five years.
NELLIS: Day one. He promised day one.
LOVE: Listen, these are the facts of what the president's delivered.
NELLIS: If he set the standard of day one.
LOVE: Can you at least acknowledge that the president has delivered?
NELLIS: No, these tariffs are a disaster.
LOVE: Of course, you can't because you're just a hater.
NELLIS: I'm not a hater.
LOVE: You are a hater.
NELLIS: You're just a sycophant. You were just defending the president ten minutes ago for supporting the Vivik Ramaswamy ad.
LOVE: I absolutely can call the president out when he's doing something wrong.
NELLIS: Can you -- give me one thing Donald Trump's done. Give it to me right now.
LOVE: Listen, on the last time I was here, I called out Islamophobia and I called out racism.
NELLIS: Good for you.
LOVE: Right? And I stand by that.
NELLIS: Can you admit that it was wrong for Donald Trump to support the Vivik Ramaswamy ad, because you're supporting that too?
LOVE: No. I simply -- I condemned the ad. I said that ad was wrong.
NELLIS: You condemned the ad, but then you supported Donald Trump for backing the ad.
LOVE: I said Donald Trump and J.D. Vance are loyal to Vivek and so I understand why they did it. I don't agree with --
NELLIS: So, loyalty is more important than anything else?
LOVE: I don't agree with they did.
PHILLIP: All right. Okay, all right, we got a question from a viewer. Josh says, Lydia, what is the policy purpose of $5,000 checks for every American?
MOYNIHAN: I don't know if there's a policy purpose. I think it's a campaign purpose. I'm happy to acknowledge that.
DUNCAN: That's a good -- that's an honest answer. I respect that.
MOYNIHAN: But that's literally everything that every politician says.
PHILLIP: And let me just make one note here that it just seems honestly that voters are not buying any of this from the president. The question in the poll from The Washington Post/ABC News/Ipsos is, would you rather see the next Congress controlled by the Democrats to act as a check on Trump or the Republicans to support Trump's agenda? 59 percent say the Democrats to act as a check.
They're not all that interested in a Republican agenda that is laid out by Trump, that basically sounds like fairy dust and, you know, princesses and that things like that are not likely to actually happen.
[22:30:01]
MOYNIHAN: I support fiscal conservatism, and sadly, I think Trump's $5,000 check to every household will cost a lot less than the Democrats' agenda for America. So --
NELLIS: Well, that's simply not true.
PHILLIP: Well, either way, I guess we don't know how either of them are going to be paid for, so we'll find out.
Next for us, if you don't like the polls, do your best to undercut them. That's the MAGA strategy less than two weeks before the midterms. We'll debate that next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:35:02]
PHILLIP: Tonight, with a number of reputable polls showing the Democrats poised to make big gains in the midterms, Donald Trump's FCC chair is warning broadcasters to beware of quote-unquote "fake polls."
Brendan Carr isn't specifying which polls he thinks are bogus, but after it was revealed that a self-identified pollster admitted to making up its data, Carr, a close ally of Trump, says that there's been a significant surge in fake polls intended to suppress votes. Earlier this week, it was revealed that Wedgwood Polls was fabricating its numbers and deceiving news organizations, including the "New York Times," in what its leadership calls a social experiment. The organization that discovered the fraud isn't buying that excuse, but experiment or not, it's having real consequences.
For years, Donald Trump has called polls he doesn't like fake news, but celebrated the ones from highly respected pollsters that showed numbers in his favor. J.D. Vance is now encouraging Republicans to just completely disregard bad numbers entirely.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I remember in the 2020 campaign, I want to say, there was a Wisconsin poll that had Donald Trump down by 17 points in Wisconsin, or of course, during the 2024 campaign, there was the famous poll that had us down in Iowa by three points, which if we lose Iowa by three points, or even if we only win Iowa by three points, we were in for a long night. Those polls all proved to be false, but I talk to people and I do think they have the effect of demotivating our voters, which is why I encourage people, ignore the polls, run like we're down, and try to make the best case that we can.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Or if you're Brendan Carr, the FCC chair of news organizations and broadcasters, I don't understand why he's even weighing in on this, because there is a difference between the Wedgwood situation, which seems to be just fraudulent, and polls that are wrong, and polls can be wrong. That doesn't make them something that is nefarious, it's just wrong.
NELLIS: Yes, I mean, what happened with Wedgwood is disgusting, and I think given the fact that they were raising money for these fake polls they were doing, they should probably be seriously looked at and potentially prosecuted for fraud. But it's a time-honored tradition in American politics to complain about the polls when they're not in your favor.
I think what's new is the federal government literally weighing in. It's not the first time that Brendan Carr has threatened somebody, I mean he literally threatened the networks if they didn't have favorable coverage for the war in Iran a few months ago, which I just think is a huge problem. It goes way too far here.
I mean, you don't like the polls, fine. There have been some polls that are wrong. I would note that in the last two midterm elections the polls were roughly accurate.
Four years ago the polls were actually favored for the Republicans by I think about 1.5. A year ago the polls were more favored towards the Republicans by 10 points, I think in Virginia, and five points in New Jersey. Might need to flip those if I got them wrong, but it was pretty bad. I just don't understand why Carr is weighing in, other than just to
threaten the media, which he loves to do.
CHET LOVE, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Well, don't you think that's a little bit unfair though in this? Because when we look at the facts, what he did in that tweet, and then he continued to tweet, he showed the "New York Times" had to withdraw about 15 of those polls, so they were posting --
NELLIS: Which they did the right thing.
LOVE: -- which they did the right thing, but we have to admit those are facts. We also had median strategies earlier this year that came out and they got exposed for doing fake polls. So it's not like --
NELLIS: The polling industry is the one who discovered those fakes.
LOVE: Exactly. So I'd simply say there are actual facts of people making these fake polls, and you had the media that actually ran with these polls, and you've had candidates use these polls.
So all we're simply saying is holding social media companies and media companies to all the same standards is to not promote mis -- disinformation.
PHILLIP: Who's holding social media companies accountable for disinformation? No one. Literally no one.
LOVE: Okay, that's not true. I mean, there are trust and safety divisions that are out there in these borders --
PHILLIP: -- that work for the social media companies. My point is, and I think this is Mike's point, look, there's a difference between the "New York Times" making a mistake, polls being wrong, and Brendan Carr basically saying that if you suppress our voters, we're going to come after you. The government is going to come after you.
LOVE: No, but I think if we hearken back to 2018, we saw Bernie Sanders and 11 other Democrats that urged the FCC to go after Sinclair and do its own similar investigation of its broadcasting practices. So this is not simply a Republican or Donald Trump issue. This is something that's been traditionally done, and I think --
PHILLIP: I mean, that's a separate issue. I mean, the issue that Bernie Sanders and others had with Sinclair was about the consolidation of media, which is an antitrust issue. What I'm talking about is perspective, right?
Does the government get to say which polls they like and which polls they don't? Which polls suppress their voters and which polls don't? What's at issue here?
YEMISI EGBEWOLE, SENIOR FELLOW, THIRD WAY, AND FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF AND ADVISER, BIDEN WHITE HOUSE PRESS OFFICE: Right. J.D. Vance is right on one thing. Everybody should operate as if they are behind.
NELLIS: A hundred percent.
EGBEWOLE: And I feel the worst in the situation for Mallory McMorrow, whose entire campaign infrastructure completely collapsed because of polling that showed her in the single digit.
[22:40:03]
And there's another subset to this story in that within the Democratic Party, it felt like a lot of these polls were pushing more progressive candidates as possibly winning, like in Wisconsin with Francesca Hong, up 23 points from David Crowley, which was absolutely ridiculous when you looked at her platform.
NELLIS: And some general election polls, too, that just didn't line up.
EGBEWOLE: Right. So the polling in itself, I think it is fair to say, to feel a distrust about the polling. I felt very blindsided by polling when it came to Trump and Hillary, because I very much leaned into the fact that there was no way that he could win.
I understand that portion. It's like you always take it a step too far, then, when you have the FCC commissioner come in and talk about punishing everyone because of polling.
Polling isn't anybody's fault, but the people who, like you said, should possibly be prosecuted for these fraudulent polls, which they bet on as well. That's a whole other piece of this.
LOVE: But again, I don't think that he came in and he said specifically, if you do a bad poll that we don't like, we're coming after you. He simply provided a very clear statement about making sure that you're following a process.
EGBEWOLE: It's like a threat --
LOVE: And there's a legal standard.
PHILLIP: When he talks about a suppression poll, what is he talking about?
GEOFF DUNCAN, FORMER REPUBLICAN GEORGIA LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR, FORMER DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE FOR GEORGIA GOVERNOR, AND CONTRIBUTING COLUMNIST, "THE ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION": Well, I think all of us at this table and a majority of Americans are hopefully mature enough to know that a government agency should not put its thumbs on the scales of an election.
We should all be mature enough, Democrat, Republican, Independent, and everything in between.
I think there's two headwinds to polling going on. One, I've been probably the only one at this table that has been both a Republican and a Democrat. I've been in the front row of both parties, and they're both guilty of synthetically trying to engineer a poll to help themselves, right? I think we all are mature enough to know that. The other thing is polling is harder than ever these days, right?
People are not answering their phones the same way. It's tougher to reach in.
I think it's tougher with social media. There's so many, I think there's an inherent challenge to polling as a whole. And then you layer on trying to force polls that really aren't 100 percent scientific or accurate, and then you layer on the government leaning into it.
It's a disaster.
NELLIS: Can I circle back to something that Chet said just a moment ago, which is about social media companies and the need for them to limit the polls that Republicans don't like?
Because I thought that was an extraordinary thing to say when, let me finish my point, then you can tell me why I'm wrong, is that Republicans have been complaining about, I don't know, social media companies going after COVID disinformation, going after disinformation in the wake of the January 6th insurrection, going in the wake of that horrible hurricane in North Carolina where a lot of right-wing outlets were posting stuff that was fake, and you guys were outraged. And it was free speech, and we're free speech absolutists.
And what's amazing to me is the minute you guys get power, you don't believe in the First Amendment anymore. Even if there's a bad poll that you don't like, and it gets posted by me on social media, I still have the right to post it.
LOVE: No, that's not, that's absolutely not what I said, first of all.
NELLIS: That's what it sounded like. I'll give you a chance to correct you, I believe you.
LOVE: Well, I mean, of course, we've already established that you're a hater. So we understand.
NELLIS: If you're going to call me a hater, Donald Trump -
(LAUGHING)
PHILLIP: Let Chet respond to what he said.
LOVE: I will.
PHILLIP: Quickly, very quickly.
LOVE: Okay, really quickly, what I will simply say is, I think the government was making it very clear that there's a standard that needs to be followed, and they're simply asking everyone to follow that standard.
PHILLIP: There is no standard. Okay, but just to be clear, there's no domain in which the FCC is monitoring which polls are broadcast and which are not. LOVE: Correct.
PHILLIP: There is no role for the FCC in policing polling in America. So that's important.
LOVE: I would disagree in that the FCC does have a legal authority to be able to have a standard in terms of what information is being put out. And so they have, they can. It's not about the suppression of information you don't like.
PHILLIP: Not in terms of determining whether or not polling, whether it's accurate or not, should be broadcast. There is a lot of polling out there.
MOYNIHAN: This is not apropos of nothing, though. It wasn't like he just randomly said, oh, don't post bad polls about Republicans. This is in light of Wedgwood, which is aggregating information, and it's the second time it's happened this year.
So it wasn't like he just randomly posted that.
PHILLIP: Just to be clear, if everyone broadcasts these polls knowing that they were fake, this would be a different conversation. But that was not the case. It was not known that these polls were fake.
So those are two completely separate things. And are we going to have to run our polling by the FCC chair to determine whether it's fake or real before we can poll and broadcast it?
No, we are not. And there's no evidence that anybody willfully used polling that was fake. Nobody did it on purpose except for Wedgwood.
So what is the FCC chair's role here? I don't see one. I really don't.
MOYNIHAN: Well, he also has free speech.
PHILLIP: All right, next for us, what the attorney general is saying today about the DOJ intervening in the upcoming elections and who he says he works for. We'll debate that next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:45:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: Tonight, as the Department of Justice escalates its voter roll demands, Attorney General Todd Blanche says that he's not going to rule out blocking states' election certification. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Is there any scenario in which DOJ would weigh in on that certification process or try to block states from certifying?
TODD BLANCHE, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY GENERAL: I mean, is there any scenario? Yes, of course, there's scenarios that we could all come up with hypothetically, you know, some doomsday scenario, for example, right? So I don't think it's proper to make any kind of conclusory statements about what's going to happen in the future, because I have no idea what's going to happen in the future.
[22:50:04]
It is not DOJ's intention to, and it's never our intention, to improperly interfere with elections or the state confirmation process or certification process. But, you know, to say that there's no circumstances that we would ever do that, of course, I'm not going to say that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: I'm not sure what the DOJ's potential role is in this. I mean, would that even be legal or constitutional?
DUNCAN: I'll just point you back to 2020 in Georgia. I mean, if you want to know what the DOJ is going to do, just go open up the playbook and read the press clippings from 2020.
I mean, the DOJ worked directly for Donald Trump and came in and tried to invent evidence and tried to upend the entire democratic process in Georgia. I mean, that's exactly what's going to happen here if they don't get what they want.
PHILLIP: But they can't stop certification.
DUNCAN: I know they can't.
PHILLIP: So why would he say that?
DUNCAN: Because it's about creating doubt. This is Donald Trump's game. This is the whole apparatus around this.
It just sows seeds of doubt to just create confusion and chaos and just wait for the next play. It's like throwing spaghetti against the wall and just seeing what sticks. That's what happens.
That's what happens with the economy, that's what happens with tariffs, that's what happens with immigration, that's what happens with everything.
NELLIS: One thing with Trump is you can never say can't, because how many times have we said he can't do that? He's not going to do that. And he does do something like that.
PHILLIP: And maybe he can't, but it doesn't mean that they're not going to try.
NELLIS: Exactly. And they might try. And I think that's why it's important for as many people to turn out to vote as possible, make the wave too big for them to deny it, make sure that we're out there and being vigilant. And I think that in blue states, red states, just make sure you're out there. Let me play what else Blanche said. This is about who he works for,
who he reports to. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BLANCHE: There was this misperception that there's this separation and independence between the Department of Justice and the White House. And everybody likes to champion that. And they accused me of not suffering from independence, I don't.
I work for President Trump. But they did too. They did too.
So this idea that Garland was just on his own making decisions independent of what the Biden administration wanted him to do is not true.
And by the way, I'm not being critical of that. What I'm being critical of is the lie that he was independent. He wasn't.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: I think the part that surprises me about that is not that he says he works for Trump. We know that he believes that Trump is the boss, right? But where is the role of the Constitution and the American people who are what the Department of Justice is supposed to be working on behalf of?
LOVE: I absolutely agree with you on this particular point, Abby. I think that around the country, Americans rely on the Justice Department to be focused on justice. And I think that one of the biggest mistakes and one of the biggest stains, I think, on the Republican Party has been January 6th and has been Trump's continued lie around 2020.
I think any adult male or woman or just adult general should be able to go out and say, Trump lost 2020 fair and square. I think it's ridiculous that we're continuing to have this conversation around the country. A lot of people won't.
MOYNIHAN: I have something else I want to say.
LOVE: But I do.
(LAUGHING)
PHILLIP: Who wants to try --
MOYNIHAN: I want to make. Okay, what do you say or not?
PHILLIP: -- whether or not we should be talking about. whether Trump lost the 2020 election.
MOYNIHAN: Oh my God, that's all we talk about.
No, my point is that Todd Blanche is absolutely right in saying the justice department is always cooperating with the President. Eric Holder called himself Obama's wingman. He refused to cooperate with congress and share information about the fast and furious issue with Obama.
I mean, are JFK rather appointed his brother to the A.G.? So this is -- I think, when Democrats are so critical of Todd Blanche, it's like, guess what?
Yes, the President and the DOJ have always had a relationship. It's not an independent agency the way that the Federal Reserve is.
And just case in point, it's not like Todd Blanche is only just working for the President today. He opened an investigation into Corey Lewandowski, who was part of a Trump administration.
So yes, of course he's going to have a close relationship with Trump, as every other A.G. has had with their President, and he can still walk into government now.
PHILLIP: Trump doesn't want him to investigate Corey Lewandowski. I mean, I think that's an assumption.
NELLIS: And they've shut down --
PHILLIP: -- fired Kristi Noem, by the way.
NELLIS: They've shut down other investigations, by the way, because Tom Homer was caught on tape taking a $50,000 cash bribe, and they basically quashed that.
Yes, exactly. I remember that one. I mean, what about the Tate brothers? I mean, they let the Tate brothers come back into this country because they had a relation with the Trump kids.
MOYNIHAN: We need more podcasts.
PHILLIP: Next for us, we're going to react to your feedback from cnn.com/abby. We will be right back.
[22:55:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: Now some viewer feedback from cnn.com/abby.
The first one is a little bit philosophical. It says, do you think the Trump administration has changed the American ethos? I do.
NELLIS: Yes, I do. I think it's certainly made all of us a lot more callous toward one another. And I think you see that in the Ramaswamy ad.
Just the fact that anybody out there is defending it, I just, I think it's, yes, it's made it harder.
PHILLIP: There was another viewer who said he's totally outrageous and his MAGA followers clap and cheer for him. Christians? I think not. [23:00:07]
LOVE: I think the change, the main change that I see from the Trump administration has been meme culture. And I think the one of the things the President has actually done really well is engage with the community. You can like, you can dislike what he actually says, but you can't disregard how his communication style has been incredibly effective in terms of mobilizing his base and his followers.
NELLIS: Can I address the faith thing just real quickly? As a practicing Catholic, there's nothing Christian about Donald Trump and his administration.
They're constantly the first ones going after the most vulnerable in society. I just think it's gross.
PHILLIP: We have another comment. Maybe this is also related.
At this point, men need to sit down and let the adult women talk. American politics makes it embarrassing to be an American.
EGBEWOLE: Okay, great, yes, I agree. I should talk more.
PHILLIP: Ladies at the table, talk more.
NELLIS: I mean, we got to talk too, a little bit.
EGBEWOLE: Not boxing up, men.
NELLIS: 60-40.
LOVE: Hey.
PHILLIP: Alright, another one.
Abby, there should be a rule at the table that what-about arguments are banned. Biden and Obama are no longer in office and what they did or didn't do is not relevant to what Trump is doing today.
To put a finer point on that comment, this viewer says to Todd Blanche, did Joe Biden tell Merrick Garland to continue to investigate and prosecute his son?
MOYNIHAN: Well, there was some sweetheart deals and pardons with Hunter and Joe Biden publicly talked about wishing that the investigation into Trump was speeding up, but I think context, I think context is important to talk about because it's not like Trump is the first person to enter the White House.
Things have happened before and you provide insight, like Biden's very close with his A.G., sometimes that can help to, I don't know how much I'm going to talk about Merrick Garland.
NELLIS: Could you imagine a scenario where Todd Blanche would investigate one of Trump's kids? That would never happen.
PHILLIP: No, I would not describe Merrick Garland as being close to Donald Trump.
EGBEWOLE: I would say yes.
DUNCAN: Rip the roll of fiber out of this country.
PHILLIP: All right, before we go, you can stream the show live or watch on demand anytime with an all-access subscription. Scan that Q.R. code on your screen or go to cnn.com/watch to learn more.
Thank you very much for watching "NewsNight," "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
