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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Campaigns Enter Final Stretch One Week Before Midterms; Trump Says, Jihadist El-Sayed Will Take Christmas Away If Elected; El-Sayed Camp Distances From Ad Highlighting U.S. Aid To Israel; European Protests May Come To America Soon; Donald Trump Posted A Very Long Rant To Bill Maher On Social Media. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired October 26, 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)
MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN HOST (voice over): Tonight, just a week before the polls open, the closing messages focus on the serious issues.
BARACK OBAMA, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: He's got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory.
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: He said, this isn't a Cheesecake Factory, can you believe it, which is a very successful company. This isn't -- he doesn't like successful companies.
SMERCONISH: Plus, in one of the nation's most critical Senate races, are Republicans deploying the wrong strategy?
TRUMP: They will open the flood gates and invite poor jihadists to our shores, creating a nightmare of violence and terror until you cannot even have a Christmas.
SMERCONISH: Also, if the French turmoil risks coming to American shores, the president's not worried.
TRUMP: I don't give a damn. I'm going to say it. We're making a freaking fortune.
SMERCONISH: And a dinner is apparently worth a thousand words. Why Bill Maher inspired the longest social media rant of Donald Trump's career.
BILL MAHER, COMEDIAN: He's a lame duck now.
SMERCONISH: Live at the table, Scott Jennings, Van Jones, Lydia Moynihan, Joanna Coles, and David Wasserman.
Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here, they do.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SMERCONISH (on camera): Good evening, I'm Michael Smerconish, in New York for Abby.
Tonight, in the home stretch before Election Day, it seems both parties have given up on persuasion for passion. In the Senate races in Texas, Michigan, and Ohio, three of the most closely watched contests next week, only 2 percent say they are either undecided or don't know which candidate they're voting for.
Then again, 2 percent could be enough to swing any of those tight races. Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed brought out the heavy hitters this weekend. President Barack Obama joined him at a campaign event in Detroit, and quickly went after President Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: Does anybody really think this guy is spending all, that much time thinking deeply on these issues? I don't know if you've noticed, but he is very focused on home renovation. He should be on HGTV.
What's up with the gold? I mean, he's got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory. It's just gold everywhere.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SMERCONISH: Trump responded in kind, telling reporters that Obama is not a smart guy, adding that only a, quote, stupid person would run the country as he did. He responded again at a rally in Mississippi tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Barack Hussein Obama, have you heard of him? Donald Trump spends a lot of his time fixing up the White House. Isn't that a nice thing to do?
He said, this isn't a Cheesecake Factory. Can you believe it, which is a very successful company. This isn't -- he doesn't like successful companies. But, you know, he was very critical about me because I spend time.
It's not money, it's peanuts, but the White House is now in better shape than it was in 1792.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SMERCONISH: Before we open it up to the table here, we invite you at home to join the debate. Head to cnn.com/abby and weigh in. We'll get to some of your comments throughout the course of the program.
Van, dispense with the 22nd Amendment, Trump and Obama, let's get this on.
VAN JONES, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Hey, listen. Hey, I'm in.
SMERCONISH: It's another election and it's these two who are making the argument. Your thoughts. JONES: Well, hey, listen. Barack Obama is still the most talented communicator, and when you get him loose like he was this weekend there's nobody better, and he lit him up. By the way, Bill Clinton also lit him up. He said he, he made the White House look like Liberace's bathroom. So, you got, you know, both of our heavy hitters whooping this guy and I don't think that Trump's rebuttals are as sharp.
Listen, you're watching the collapse of one of the great American talents in Donald Trump. Donald Trump used to have such a fine sense of where the working class was. Now, he's out there, you know, bragging on the fact that, you know, oil companies are making money while everybody else is suffering.
[22:05:05]
So, you see Obama has not lost his fastball. Trump's losing his.
SMERCONISH: Who's winning the Cheesecake Factory debate?
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: First of all, Liberace's bathroom? Bill Clinton turned the Oval Office into Hugh Hefner's bedroom- Oh -- and he's out here criticizing Donald Trump? Come on. That's number one.
Number two, has anybody seen Barack Obama's presidential library, and he's got design critiques for Donald Trump?
Number three, this was a totally unserious speech by someone who can't get over one thing, that his presidency will be remembered for ruining healthcare and then ushering in the Trump years. That's all Barack Obama gave the country. He's been lashing out emotionally ever since. He campaigns every year on the same tired jokes and it's not going to work this time.
JONES: They were brand-new jokes.
JOANNA COLES, CHIEF CONTENT OFFICER, DAILY BEAST: I think Donald Trump's presidency is going to be remembered for a slice of the Cheesecake Factory's prime cheesecake, now, I think, probably half the size it was, and it's $13 a slice.
LYDIA MOYNIHAN, CORRESPONDENT, NEW YORK POST: Because everyone's on Ozempic, right?
COLES: That's what he's going to be remembered for. No, darling, I think it's because prices are high everywhere because of inflation. Cheesecake is getting smaller. It could be Ozempic, but I think it's getting smaller because Cheesecake Factory can't afford to give us a decent-sized slice anymore.
SMERCONISH: Dave, you know the numbers. Who's winning this fight, if anyone?
DAVE WASSERMAN, SENIOR EDITOR AND ELECTIONS ANALYST, COOK POLITICAL REPORT: Well, you wouldn't guess it today. SMERCONISH: Yes.
WASSERMAN: But there are an awful lot of Obama, Trump voters out there in each of these states. Iowa, Ohio, Michigan, about 10 percent of the electorate voted for Obama and then switched to Trump in 2016, and those are the voters who are up for grabs.
It turns out it wasn't like they made some covenant with Trump to support Republicans forever, and it's not just the rhetoric, it's the reality. They signed up for Trump in 2024, not because they loved him personally, but because they believed he was going to usher in an economic golden age.
JONES: Oops.
WASSERMAN: That he was going to extract America from foreign conflict.
JONES: Oops.
WASSERMAN: And that he wasn't going to make major changes to entitlement programs, including Medicaid. And so that's why his approval rating among independents in our tracker is at 27 percent. And when he's at 35 percent approval in Michigan, is that a great place for a Republican candidate to invite him to appear on stage?
JONES: I don't think so.
WASSERMAN: That's the ballgame.
SMERCONISH: On the subject of affordability, Kevin Hassett today calling it all a myth. Let's watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KEVIN HASSETT, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL: The amount of consumption per household has gone up maybe around $5,000 per household, that's after inflation, because of the income boom, the capital spending boom, the fact that people aren't losing their jobs. All the things that have made the economy great means that affordability crisis, it's a myth.
The bottom line is if you adjust for inflation, you adjust for changes in prices, that Americans are a trillion dollars better off than they were when President Trump took office. And so this whole idea about affordability, the way they're presenting it, is inconsistent with the data.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SMERCONISH: Lydia, you can't run from those gas prices. I counted the number of gas stations, all with the price posted, that I travel a short distance from my home to my studio every morning, three of them, by the way. It's a constant reminder. How can you win an argument when you're saying it's all a myth?
MOYNIHAN: Well, Kevin Hassett's a very smart guy, but he's an economist, not necessarily a communicator, first and foremost.
SMERCONISH: What should he have said?
MOYNIHAN: And so I think to call it a myth is not understanding where people are coming from, and I don't think that's the right message at all. I mean, but he also, as an economist, is right to say that the stock market, our economy, it's never been bigger, and Trump is giving people access to that with Trump accounts, which I think is a huge and incredible innovation that this administration has created.
But I also just want to note on sort of the difference between Obama and Trump, and those sort of two dueling --
SMERCONISH: We're back to the Cheesecake Factory?
MOYNIHAN: -- those two dueling presidents. It struck me as somebody who hasn't been paying attention to Obama in the last few years how elitist he and the party that he continues to lead has become.
JONES: No.
MOYNIHAN: And I think that's what struck me with the Cheesecake Factory.
SMERCONISH: Because he's making fun of the Cheesecake Factory?
MOYNIHAN: So, it felt very reminiscent of the, the guns and religion, where you're jabbing the people who you should be trying to win over. And, of course, the reason he's there is because he's not doing as well -- El-Sayed is not doing as well with black voters as previous candidates were. That's why they need him.
JENNINGS: That's absolutely true. Abdul El-Sayed needed Obama to come and shore up his main problem in Detroit. I look at the pan of that crowd. A lot of folks in Detroit that you wanted to be there weren't there, number one.
Number two --
SMERCONISH: What does that mean?
JENNINGS: It means this, he is failing right now to convince black Democrats in Detroit that he cares anything about their plight, that he cares anything about their future, or that he would even give them the time of day if he were a United States senator.
SMERCONISH: Do you think that's because they won't vote for Abdul El- Sayed?
JENNINGS: I think it's because he is arrogant and he won't listen to them. He didn't listen to them in the primary and he got wiped out in Detroit. If it were up to the people of Detroit, he would not be the nominee and he's done nothing to assuage them.
SMERCONISH: Is that race coming down to the black vote?
JONES: It comes down to the black vote and the Jewish vote. I hate to --
SMERCONISH: And how does that break?
JONES: Well, I hate to agree with Scott on some of this but, I mean, we're all friends here.
[22:10:02]
We can talk real politics and not just do the partisan stuff.
He has not sealed the deal yet, Abdul, with black voters and Jewish voters. That is true. He's having a tough time in Detroit. He brags on Detroit quite a bit, but Detroit actually voted against him in the primary. That's why Kamala went up there to help him. That's why Warnock went up there to help him. That's why Obama went up, up there to help him. He's also having trouble with the Jewish vote. He refuses -- you know, there's this group called non-negotiable. That said, will you just say you care about Jewish safety and that you believe that Israel should have a right to exist? He won't even respond. So, these are real things.
But to say that Obama is an elitist, you didn't watch the whole speech. Obama was unbelievable in prosecuting the case for ordinary people, everyday things, and also pointing out, you want to talk about elitist, there's nothing more elitist than Donald Trump sitting up here and bragging on the fact that the oil companies are making trillions of dollars while everybody else is suffering. So, I don't think you guys are going to win the elitism election with the golden ballroom fan of oil company making trillions of dollars while people are suffering.
COLES: If you also pan the crowd when Donald Trump is speaking, now he's started making these strange noises. You see the crowd behind him looking really embarrassed for him, and there are several shots of young men just looking down, because they're trying to figure out what on earth is he doing with those noises?
JONES: You mean talking about men's butts?
COLES: Well, there's also that, which has also become very strange.
JENNINGS: The bare-sided (ph) men, for the record.
COLES: Well --
MOYNIHAN: Since when did liberals become such scolds? You can't give someone a compliment?
COLES: But the strange noises he's making, which nobody understands what they are.
JENNINGS: This is your great analysis for tonight, the noises?
COLES: Well, I think it's an indication of Trump beginning to fail in plain sight, something we've seen before and we all want to guard against. JENNINGS: You know what? He's fine. You know what Kevin Hassett should have said today?
COLES: Is he fine?
JENNINGS: You know what Kevin Hassett should have said today? He should have said, you know what? The gas prices are a problem, and they're going to come down very, very soon. It's a blip. It's temporary. But you know what's not temporary? The 25-year, 30-year, 50-year war that Democrats have had on this country in domestic energy production, pipelines, refineries. They're not running on anything that would make gas any cheaper. All they want to do is take the knee and wave a white flag to the IRGC. We will bring down gas prices. They never will. That's what he should have said.
WASSERMAN: But you're not hearing that from the president at these rallies. And getting lost in all this talk about Cheesecake Factory or Nicki Minaj, what are the parties, what's the president going to do to make voters feel better about the economy or have any optimism that prices are going to come down? And Trump has missed a lot of opportunities.
SMERCONISH: I think the problem is oftentimes you see an escalating gas price, you really don't know as a consumer to what you can attribute it, right? But in this case, everybody can look at the war with Iran and say, it went from point A to point B, and that's why we're here.
JENNINGS: I totally agree, and it's okay to acknowledge that, but it's also okay to acknowledge the policy debate. Is there a Democrat running for office in America that expand domestic production?
JONES: Absolutely, yes.
COLES: This is why they need you as White House press secretary instead of Trump doing it himself and filling in now.
JONES: I think that's a compliment. You should probably take it. But, look, there's this whole mythology that somehow, you know, the Democratic Party is opposed to energy expansion. Under both Obama and Biden, we became the world leading exporter on traditional energy, and we would have been the leading champion and not China on renewables if Republicans hadn't got in our way.
You don't have a problem in the Democratic Party of expanding energy production. You have a problem with Donald Trump stopping renewable energy production in this country at the worst possible time when we need more energy.
SMERCONISH: I'm going to go back to where we began the conversation with me asking about persuasion. It seems like we no longer live in an era where people try to persuade. It's all about motivation, and they are the two best, by the way, for their respective parties to bring out the base. Agree with me, David?
WASSERMAN: This is pure base politics at this point. SMERCONISH: Pure base politics. But the whole campaign has been, right? We never had the phase where you're trying to sell anybody on anything.
WASSERMAN: What we're hearing in President Trump's remarks at these rallies is more or less an acknowledgement that the persuasion phase is over. This is about preventing Republican turnout from falling through the floor and saving his red districts.
SMERCONISH: He's never been a persuasion guy, right?
JENNINGS: Well, I don't know.
SMERCONISH: Trump's been a motivation guy.
JENNINGS: He persuaded a heck of a lot of labor Democrats to vote for him in three elections, and he won two of them, and that's really -- and I think you're right. He is trying to persuade that base that propelled him to the White House to stick with him one more time.
Now, will he succeed? I don't know. But you're persuading them to turn out. It's not that they're -- it's not that they feel like Democrats again.
(CROSSTALKS)
SMERCONISH: Real quick, then we got to move.
JENNINGS: It is that they feel like they can engage.
JONES: look, I this -- I think that Trump is now left with only trying to mobilize the ultra MAGA base because he has failed to be the persuader he used to be. He persuaded young blacks to vote for him. He persuaded a bunch of young men. He's persuaded Latinos. They've all walked away from him. And so that's where the problem is.
SMERCONISH: The travel schedule doesn't lie in terms of where we are at this stage.
[22:15:01]
JONES: Yes.
SMERCONISH: We talked about Michigan. We're going to talk about it some more.
Next, a controversial new ad in the Michigan Senate race is released in support of Abdul El-Sayed. It's being labeled anti-Semitic.
Plus, Donald Trump goes on his longest social media rant ever targeting Bill Maher. We'll talk about that too.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SMERCONISH: President Trump yet again taking aim at Abdul El-Sayed, leveling fresh attacks, saying that the election of the Democratic Senate nominee would threaten Christmas.
[22:20:03]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I'm here to keep a jihadist Muslim Brotherhood member from becoming a United States senator, and that's a fact. We're not going to let that happen.
If Abdul and the Democrats win, they will open the floodgates and invite hordes of jihadists to our shores, creating a nightmare of violence and terror until you cannot even have a Christmas or --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SMERCONISH: Republicans have increasingly drawn attention to El- Sayed's Muslim faith during the closing weeks of one of the most important races of the midterms, but El-Sayed is now firing back.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ABDUL EL-SAYED (D), MICHIGAN SENATE CANDIDATE: I get that the president of United States takes personal offense to my first name. He doesn't mind as much when it's a shared name from the Saudis who are funding his son-in-law's private equity, doesn't seem to mind as much when it's the Qataris who are giving him a $400 million private jet.
I don't care how he pronounces my name. I don't even care that he remembers my whole name, because he can just go on and call me Senator after November.
I'll be Senator Mohammed to you, bro.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SMERCONISH: David Wasserman, I would have thought that it would be less risky to play the socialist card against Abdul El-Sayed than the Muslim card. I want to show you some data. First to go, the head-to- head in this race, we've got it at 49, 47. That comports with Cook Political Report, right? You see it that way?
WASSERMAN: Yes.
SMERCONISH: Okay. Second slide, look at how independents are now regarding socialism. There's been an uptick in favorability. They've moved in the last year from 37 percent favorable to 45 percent favorable.
Third slide, now let's talk about the way in which Americans perceive Muslims. 43 percent perceive them as less patriotic than other Americans. This is according to Pew Research. 42 percent have a negative impact on the country. That's the perception of Muslims. I guess therein lies the answer as to why this is the way the White House, the president, is going in the last eight days.
WASSERMAN: Well, that's still a minority of the electorate, including in Michigan.
SMERCONISH: It's pretty disheartening. Is it not?
WASSERMAN: Well, look, if you're Republicans and you're a strategist for Mike Rogers' campaign, I'm curious your take, Scott, but you'd rather be prosecuting the case on El-Sayed's positions on the issues than calling him a jihadist. You'd rather be talking about abolishing a federal law enforcement agency and open borders. You'd rather be talking about socialized medicine.
But most voters in Michigan personally know someone who's Muslim.
JONES: That's right.
WASSERMAN: And the Arab American vote in Michigan's twice as large as the Jewish vote. But, really, the target here is the voters who are doubly disenchanted with Trump and not yet comfortable with the Democratic alternative. That should be Rogers' audience.
Right now, they're very negative towards socialism, but they're also very negative towards Republicans on tariffs and energy costs. I think the Canadian tariffs are what put Mike Rogers in a bind and make it very difficult for him to separate himself from the president enough to win the race.
SMERCONISH: Lydia, it's the size of that Muslim population in Michigan that caused me to say, this is the wrong, I hate to put it in these terms, card to play in the final eight days of the election. Why not go the socialist route? You're thinking what?
MOYNIHAN: So, I disagree with your characterization that Republicans are being anti-Muslim. They are being anti-El-Sayed, who has repeatedly refused to deny or distance himself from Muslim Brotherhood ties.
I want to highlight something that just came out. In 2012, he signed a letter in support of then-Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood Leader Morsi, and urged him to purge the media and the police force as quickly as possible of dissenters.
He told Kristen Welker, no familial ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. Well, we're learning that actually --
SMERCONISH: I watched all the clips --
MOYNIHAN: -- his mother was involved with an organization that did funnel money to Hamas and Al Qaeda.
SMERCONISH: -- including the confrontation at the town hall.
Wait, I just want you to know I don't accept your assertion that he's refused to cut all ties, deny all connections.
MOYNIHAN: No. He just acknowledged it recently.
SMERCONISH: It's all a semantic game. I've watched it four or five times, Lydia.
MOYNIHAN: Why isn't he willing to say, I disagree with my sister, my family has no ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.
SMERCONISH: I'm not here to carry his water, far from it. But on this issue, I just don't think that's a fair accounting.
MOYNIHAN: He's pressed, then he lashes out at Bret Baier, because Bret Baier wants a real clear answer on how did you --
SMERCONISH: The guy's probably sick and tired of having to answer the same question.
MOYNIHAN: Because he never fully answered it.
SMERCONISH: Has he fully answered the question?
MOYNIHAN: He needs to fully answer why he's changed his position so dramatically.
JENNINNGS: What do you think about, what do you think about his inability to answer the question, what's a bigger threat, Israel or Iran? What do you think about his answer to the question when that a radical ran their truck into the synagogue hurt people?
The reason he's having to answer all of these questions is because he has made so many mistakes in his own positioning, in his own rhetoric in this campaign.
[22:25:02]
And then when journalists, as Lydia points out, follow up with him, his sneering, condescending, defensive attitude leads to more questions. That is his problem.
SMERCONISH: Is he sneering and condescending on this issue?
JONES: Listen the things that he said, that Scott pointed out, were terrible things to say, and he shouldn't have said them. But to say that he has not distanced himself from the Muslim Brotherhood is just not accurate. And he multiple times, I'm not a member. Even in the -- when he blew up at Bret Baier, to your point, probably annoyed, he said, I'm not a member of that.
So, I think that the problem is if it's Scott Jennings asking focused questions about actual mistakes, that's one thing. But when you have the president of the United States saying he's going to open up the borders and let in jihadists, that is a lie, and is a lie based on bigotry. It's a lie based on scaring people about him being a Muslim. He's never said anything about opening the borders for jihadists. He said dumb things about foreign policy, but not about that.
And so I just want to say this, this is the worst mistake that the Republicans are making, because they're driving up Muslim turnout. And to your point, the Muslim turnout is very big. They're driving it through the roof, and they also are scaring people away from Rogers, because people don't want to be a part of something that's racist.
MOYNIHAN: Does it alarm you that he won't condemn the ayatollah because he doesn't want to --
JONES: I didn't like when he did that.
MOYNIHAN: -- offend people? So, what --
JONES: Talk about that. What does it have to do with calling him Mohammed, Mohammed, Mohammed, and talk -- and calling him a jihadist? He has done and said things that deserve --
MOYNIHAN: Right. So then -- and then when people ask him about it, he gets defensive.
JONES: I think all those things are correct, but I think Republicans are making a horrific mistake. If they want to stop Abdul this -- all of the -- jumping the shark and calling him a jihadist when he is not, saying he's going to open up the border, which he is not going to do is wrong.
MOYNIHAN: Mike Rogers has not said any -- his opponent has not said any of those things.
JONES: Well, your president.
MOYNIHAN: Just to be clear.
SMERCONISH: Well, Joanna, you want in on this?
COLES: Oh, my point is that actually Abdul El-Sayed has got under Donald Trump's skin, and Donald Trump is a man who's flailing. He says he's not on the ballot, but he is on the ballot, and he's going after him because he's trying to create a diversion from his horrible policies, which is why the Republicans are in the place that they're in.
SMERCONISH: The El-Sayed campaign distancing itself from a commercial that was theoretically produced in support of his candidacy. Roll it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You're going to have to put those eggs back.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They don't like eggs anymore?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, they like eggs, but we have to set that $7 aside, for killing Palestinians?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What? I mean, don't we give Israel $4 billion a year anyways?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, and now we're giving them another $26 billion. Do you know how much that is per American taxpayer?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's like $161 per person. Apparently, it's costing us a lot of money to drop bombs on Gaza.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SMERCONISH: Okay, theoretically, for El-Sayed, when I saw it, I said to myself, wait a minute, this must be a campaign trick. There's going to be blowback. This must be a Mike Rogers commercial. Did anybody else have that reaction? No. Yes?
JONES: Look I'm trying -- I want to be very consistent here. I don't like hate. I don't like hate. I don't like hateful rhetoric. I don't like it when it's against the Muslims. I don't like it when it's against the Jewish people, or when it's against our ally in the Middle East.
This is a very dangerous ad because what it does is it suggests that the reason that people can't pay for things in the grocery store --
SMERCONISH: Bananas.
JONES: -- bananas, is because of, you know, United States is giving all this money to Israel.
We give a very small amount of money to Israel compared to all the other foreign assistance that we do, but you're picking out the Jewish state. And you're pointing to the Jewish state, and of all the -- yes, we spend money in Qatar, we spend money all around the world. But you're going to say because of the Jewish state, that's why you're suffering.
Listen, when that happens, when you start getting people riled up, and you've seen this all through the last century, against Jews, and blaming Jews for all your problems, you're headed down a dark pathway. I have spoken aggressively against the anti-Muslim hate in this campaign. This is an example of anti-Jewish hate, and it should be taken down immediately, and denounced. And, by the way, Abdul should denounce this ad immediately.
SMERCONISH: His campaign has distanced itself from it.
JONES: They've distanced. They haven't denounced it. They've not denounced it.
SMERCONISH: I just want to make this point. You've said it more clearly than I intended at the outset.
JONES: Yes.
SMERCONISH: When I saw it, I thought, it can't possibly be what it represents on the surface. Surely, it's intended to help Mike Rogers because others will also be repulsed by it.
Go ahead, but quickly.
JENNINGS: Yes, of course. Well, it's economic incoherence wrapped up in anti-Semitism, so it's sort of par for the course. I mean, El-Sayed himself in this campaign has argued we can't have good education in this country because we fund the Iron Dome, which is completely wrong, nuts, economic incoherence.
By the way, eggs, like $2.70 a carton, bananas 40 or 50 cents a pound. It's economic incoherence. It's a lie. But it's all done in service to anti-Semitism. And at the same time, El-Sayed's campaign running ads featuring comments from Tucker Carlson, what is a Jewish Democrat in Michigan supposed to think right now? Why would El-Sayed have to answer these questions? It's a mystery.
[22:30:12]
COLES: I find myself in agreement with Scott Jennings. This is not a great ad, and it's almost as bad as Vivek Ramaswamy's ad using Amy Acton's estranged mother, which I think we're coming on to talk about, but those two ads stick out in the campaign so far.
MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN HOST FOR "SMERCONISH", AND POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: The Cleveland Plain viewer decided today they would get involved in that race. They weren't going to make an endorsement, but they endorsed Amy Acton as a result of that ad. President headed to Ohio on Wednesday.
Next, are the massive protests in Europe coming to America? That's what the President says will happen if Democrats do well in the midterms. We're about to discuss it.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:35:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SMERCONISH: Another wave of protests reverberated across Europe this weekend as thousands took to the streets to protest the costs of living, housing, and a crisis in education. France was their focal point of demonstrations, where over 400,000 gathered on Saturday. And while most of the rallies remained peaceful, there were some pockets of disorder and clashes with authorities, including in Barcelona.
Ahead of the midterms, President Trump warning that the riots, the chaos, and the disorder that drew headlines earlier this month will come to the United States if Democrats are elected in November. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: If you want to see what is at stake in this election, just look at what's happening in France, a once great nation that is being conquered, looted, and burned to the ground by migrants, jihadists, and communists who hate Christianity, and they hate, frankly, the Western civilization itself. When you see burning steeples and raging fires in France, just remember that is what the radical Democrats want to do to America. (END VIDEO CLIP)
SMERCONISH: Joanna, we wanted a French accent, but Central Casting sent you here.
COLES: What does that mean, that I have a European accent, or do you want me to go into my French accent, which I can't do because I used to live and work there?
SMERCONISH: What are the commonalities in terms of what they face and what's going on in the United States? Where are the differences? Where are the similarities?
COLES: Well, there are differences. There are no 400,000 people rioting down the streets of New York. Well, it's not the American way.
The French have always rioted, that's what they do. It's obviously not jihadists.
This is French. It's largely started by French students who aren't getting enough supplies in their schools and are sort of fed up. I mean, it's actually a ground up revolt going on in France, which is highly unlikely to spark revolution here.
JENNINGS: I saw a video today of what I guess was a 45-year-old bearded seventh grader who was out on the street telling this reporter that they're there to tear down the system. They're there to tear down capitalism. They're there to tear down everything as you know it.
The communists, the anti-capitalists, the radicals, the anarchists, they've all converged here because they're taking advantage of the situation. I will grant you that a handful of students may have been bent out of shape, but what you're seeing on the streets in France, Italy, Spain, all over Europe, the President is exactly right. It will come here not because it's going to be ground up here from America.
These international organizations are well-organized and well-funded and they take advantage of people. That's what they're doing in France. And they've got shopkeepers pouring boiling water off the buildings to try to keep people from destroying their livelihoods and it will come here if it is not stopped.
DAVID WASSERMAN, SENIOR EDITOR AND ELECTIONS ANALYST, THE COOK POLITICAL REPORT: This has the potential to be one of the President and Republicans' better arguments. When the economy is bad here, at least we don't have the class-size explosion that's going on in France and the riots and the looting, right?
And that comparative argument could at least make the case that he's hell-blind from things getting even worse. And yet every time he compliments Jon Husted's ass, it takes away from his ability to sell any kind of narrative that things are better than they are in Europe.
JONES: I think I'd be careful here. You do have in this country a bunch of disappointed college graduates who did what we told them to do. They worked hard, they stayed out of trouble, they didn't do drugs, they didn't get pregnant, they went to school, they graduated off a cliff into the same dead-end jobs their ne'er-do-well cousin got who did nothing but smoke pot and play video games.
And so those young people, just like the young people in France, have legitimate concerns. And there are people who are speaking to those concerns, and to the extent that some people are too far on the right- wing talking to those young people too far on the left-wing, the center is not addressing those concerns.
The people who are the central left and central right talk over these young people, they talk about these young people, they don't talk to these young people. And so then when they start protesting and then some people jump on and try to make it something else that it's not, then we get distracted by the nut jobs who are making this thing worse. If we don't start listening to these young people and what their actual concerns are and coming forward with real solutions, it's going to get worse and worse.
And you don't have to blame migrants for it. It will happen because we're not addressing the concerns of this next generation.
[22:40:05]
SMERCONISH: So on my own program, I love my daily poll questions, and on Saturday I'll put it on the screen and show you. Thoroughly unscientific, but very interesting nonetheless.
I said this, Europeans are protesting high costs, low wages, failing schools, and a bleak future. Are Americans better off? 45,000-plus voted on this, and 52.73 percent said no, Americans are not better off than what they're seeing overseas.
Are they right? You're going to say they're wrong, right? There's 52 percent?
MOYNIHAN: I'm not going to deny someone's reality or guess like them if they feel that way.
SMERCONISH: I think they're wrong, so we could be on the same team on this.
MOYNIHAN: I will say, I think America remains the hub of innovation and the land of opportunity, and that's why it's the greatest country.
SMERCONISH: But to Dan's point, the seeds are here, right?
MOYNIHAN: What I will say is Europe's economy, I found this statistic and I thought it was astonishing. Basically, tech companies in America pay more in fines over in Europe than European tech companies pay in taxes. So they're dependent upon us and our innovation.
I recognize that's an issue, and I think that's part of the reason why Trump is pushing to bring back manufacturing jobs. I mean, I feel like every day there's an announcement about a new factory that's going in, but that absolutely needs to continue to be a consideration. SMERCONISH: I think it's actually what differentiates us from them. We
have too much debt. $40 trillion of debt is way too much in this country, but when our debt is measured against our wealth, we have wealth that they lack, and that's the difference.
JENNINGS: I'm with you, and they have choked the life out of any innovation on the continent of Europe. And at the same time, if you're protesting social benefits in France, they spend almost everything on the social welfare system. I don't think you can downplay the immigration piece of this.
In France, last year they had more deaths than births. They have the lowest birth rate since World War I. Their population increase in France is fully because of this migration crisis that swept over Europe.
There are a lot of people there who care nothing for France, nothing for its history, nothing for the West, and they think nothing of tearing it down.
MOYNIHAN: You see in these protests, you see Palestinian flags, you see the parents of the Intifada, three policies.
JENNINGS: But why?
JONES: Because the Palestinian cause has become the cause of the uprisings.
JENNINGS: It's the omni-cause of those who hate the West.
JONES: But my point is that there are a bunch of people. What I don't like what the right-wing does is they act like all the migrants are hateful and ungrateful. It's just not true.
You have people who are immigrants who are fleeing tough situations. They come, they start businesses, they pay taxes, not just here in the United States, but around the world. When you start --
MOYNIHAN: Migrants are 35 percent of the looters and the rioters.
JONES: According to some, but I don't trust those numbers, but here's my point. I still believe that it's a net benefit, and because in Europe you do have this low birth rate, having more workers coming is not a bad thing.
SMERCONISH: We're not going to be able to pay for our own societal safety net because we have fallen behind the replacement rate ourselves.
MOYNIHAN: One point I want to make, I think this is the ultimate rebuttal to the DSA that basically wants to extend government spending and make government basically the main part of the economy and what we're seeing in France, 60 percent of their GDP is public sector spending. That is not the answer.
Basically just the government getting bigger and bigger, it's never going to be enough. They have one of the largest social welfare states in the world. People are still angry.
MOYNIHAN: I wanted to talk about it tonight. I'm glad we did because Brexit preceded the populist movement that produced a lot of leaders, including President Trump, and I therefore now pay attention to what's going on overseas.
Next, a 1300-word Truth Social howler just days before the midterms, not about affordability or jobs, but comedian Bill Maher. Is the President helping his party? We'll talk about that too.
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[22:45:00]
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SMERCONISH: President Trump apparently had some time in his hands this weekend dedicating his longest ever truth social post to comedian Bill Maher. In a 1300-word diatribe, Trump called Maher a complete and total loser, among other insults addressing a dinner he and Maher shared at the White House earlier this month that he'd previously called great.
Trump's record-long rant about Maher was nearly two times as long as his previous record, that was a 723 word tirade from May that began with complaints about the Kennedy Center's plumbing and veered into attacks on a federal judge and the Supreme Court.
Of course, Scott, this is for you. Explain this debate. If it had been a paragraph long, you'd have still talked about it, right? Why the what's going on with this?
JENNINGS: I mean, our President has a lot to say about this. He's very loquacious, and I don't know, but I think it's sort of a miraculous that the President of the United States issues such detailed missives about all sorts of things going on in our culture.
He does the same thing in front of the press when they come and ask him questions, he goes on at length about things. You cannot call Donald Trump a lot of things. One thing you can never say about him is we don't know what's on his mind.
JONES: What's left of his mind?
JENNINGS: Oh come on. By the way, I have to say, I kind of like Bill Maher. I mean, Bill Maher has been basically a rational actor.
[22:50:01]
I used to not like him that much, but he has become a rational actor trying to tell the left, like my buddy Van here, trying to pull him back from the brink of insanity.
SMERCONISH: I agree with that.
JENNINGS: Very rational guy. So I don't know why he's so upset with him.
JONES: Here's the deal. Bill Maher went and sat to talk with Donald Trump. He had Kid Rock with him. He had Steve Naismith with him and they had a conversation and Trump loves that.
Trump loves when people who are from the other team come and sit with him and talk with him and he can be charming and he can be a little crazy. He could do all those great things, but he thinks that if you eat that biscuit and you drink that wine, you're his friend forever. And Bill Maher did what Bill Maher does.
He went on his show and he said good things about Trump and he said bad things about Trump. And by the way, Bill Maher said that Trump was not a bad actor. He said I was an obnoxious person, but he also made criticism and Trump cannot stand even 0.1 percent criticism.
And so he will react in this way. And listen, you have other things to do, Mr. President. We have a war, we have a bunch of stuff going on, but you just spend this much time.
It is no great character.
SMERCONISH: After the first dinner, it was the same old Maher. The following Friday night, he came out and he hammered the President and he told the story.
By the way, I defended him. I love Larry David, but I defended Maher because David was so incensed that Bill Maher would have dinner. He did in a few other times.
I want the President having conversation, breaking bread, mingling, my favorite word. So I like what Maher did. I'm just surprised, Scott, that he brought him back for the second time if he was so offended by that reaction.
JENNINGS: Yes, I don't know what's on his mind exactly, but I don't mind it when the President comments on things. He's welcome to have an opinion about these things.
COLES: But isn't this doing exactly what Donald Trump wants it to do, which is detracting from the issues that the country is facing and that he's about to be called on the carpet upon next year? We are at war.
(CROSSTALK)
He is the master of changing the conversation and that's just what he's done. Natalie Harp (inaudible) --
SMERCONISH: That's why I said to Scott, you had me at a paragraph. It didn't have to be 1,300 words.
COLES: Michael, a paragraph. He wouldn't have had you at a paragraph. He's always upping the ante.
This is the longest Truth Social post ever. No one's ever seen anything like it.
Well, it turns out, we care. We're all talking about it.
(CROSSTALK)
The point is to detract from the actual issues, which are the reason that the Republicans are most likely going to face a dropping.
WASSERMAN: What was the cardinal offense that Bill Maher committed? It was pointing out how low Trump's approval rating is among Republicans.
And the President is so thin-skinned that it causes a 1,300-word rant. But Maher's right. His approval rating among Republican voters is down to 80.
It started out, Trump, 2.0 at 90m and his strong approval among Republicans is now south of 50, south of 47. That makes it really hard to turn out your case.
SMERCONISH: The real answer is, just like with Trump and Obama, it suits both their interests, Maher's and Trump's. We need to talk about something more serious. We're going to go back and talk about the Cheesecake Factory.
(LAUGHTER)
COLES: And our tiny slices.
SMERCONISH: And bring it all home. We'll be back to react to your feedback from cnn.com/abby in just a moment.
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[22:55:00]
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SMERCONISH: Okay, time for viewer feedback from cnn.com/abby. By the way, this is the first question addressed to whomever is celebrating a birthday at the table.
JONES: Hey.
SMERCONISH: What Senate race are you most concerned about as a partisan, and why?
JENNINGS: Most concerned about?
SMERCONISH: Concerned, yes.
JENNINGS: There are many I'm concerned about. Texas, honestly. It's got a bad vibe. I think Paxton can win.
But if I were just looking at the map, that one concerns me. Frankly, Kansas, also concerning. And then Alaska with the Democrat shenanigans. So I hate to limit it to one, because there's a lot of bad vibes out
there.
SMERCONISH: David, if you could look into a crystal ball, and you could tell us right now who wins one Senate race, what would you most want to know?
WASSERMAN: I would say Texas. Because look, Democrats are going to pick up North Carolina. They're probably going to pick up Ohio and Alaska.
The Senate majority, in my view, comes down to Texas and Maine. Those are the two races that are tightest. Talarico's got to go into Election Day with a three or four point lead for him to have a chance.
Because I think the Libertarian vote's going to collapse at the last minute. That's where he is today.
JENNINGS: Would you rather be Talarico in Texas or Jackson in Maine?
WASSERMAN: I'd rather be Talarico in Texas. And the reason is that Republicans who have distinct brands from the President, whether it's Collins or Ashley Henson, Brian Fitzpatrick in Pennsylvania, they're in the ballgame. It's the Republicans who are in the MAGA camp who are getting dragged down.
SMERCONISH: Next question. If Obama is an elitist, then what is Trump? I have an answer for this, but does someone else want to go first?
COLES: Well, he's also an elitist, right?
JONES: He's a billionaire crook elitist.
[23:00:00]
SMERCONISH: No, I mean, he's a pure populist. I remember Michael Wolff in "Fire and Fury."
Listen to this story. He told this story. It's long-winded, I don't have enough time to tell it, but it's Trump and they're on an airplane and they're leaving Florida, going to Atlantic City.
There's a model present. It's not Melania as far as I know.
And Trump wants to make a detour. And he says, let's go to Atlantic City. And the model says, what is Atlantic City? And he said, it's a place for white trash.
I'm just like them, except I have money.
MOYNIHAN: He probably says McDonald's. Obama makes fun of Cheesecake Factory.
JONES: We don't have the time to explain all of this, but he's a fake, phony populist. He's the most elitist person. You're an elitist when you steal billions of dollars while you're supposed to be doing your job.
COLES: And smothering the White House in gold. Smothering it in gold.
SMERCONISH: Why are we not talking about the federal government plans to monitor polling locations?
WASSERMAN: Because it's impossible.
There are far more polling places in this country than there are ICE agents or federal troops who could police or intimidate voters. So I think this is a fake concern.
JENNINGS: All polling places are already monitored. There's poll workers at every single polling place. A lot of them are volunteers.
And by the way, we should thank them for their service because they do good work for the American people.
SMERCONISH: Can we end on a provocative note? David Wasserman, tell everybody, who is going to single-handedly, potentially, determine control of the U.S. Senate? One U.S. Senator, who will that be?
WASSERMAN: John Fetterman from Pennsylvania.
SMERCONISH: Because, listen to this, go ahead.
WASSERMAN: If we had a 51-49 result on election night, and look, I think the more likely result, all these races are going to go the same way. But the median outcome would be 51-49 for Democrats, and he'd be the wild card.
He's got no path to re-election as a Democrat in Pennsylvania in 2028. He's got two congressmen who are chopping at the bit on the Democratic side to primary him. He would have an avenue if he switched parties and got Trump's endorsement.
But my prediction, he's going to serve up the last two years of his term as a Democrat who loves to antagonize other Democrats and enter the private sector afterward.
SMERCONISH: But if he became an I who caucused with the Rs, again, in a 51-49, he becomes the Angus King of the Bernie and single-handedly determines control of the U.S. Senate. Just something to fire away. A little Easter egg for the program.
Everybody, thank you for being here. Before we go, catch me every weekday morning, 9 A.M. Eastern Time, Sirius XM's POTUS channel, Saturdays, 9 A.M., here on CNN.
Thank you for watching "NewsNight," "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
