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CNN Tonight
Trump Dealt New Blows As Legal Probes, Political Pressure Mount; Democrats Emboldened, GOP Reeling After Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) Win In Georgia; Why A Restaurant Refused To Serve Conservative Christian Group; Restaurant Denies Christian Service; Prince Harry And Meghan Markle To Release Docuseries On Netflix; January 6th Committee To Release Final Report. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired December 07, 2022 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:00:00]
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening, everyone. I'm Alisyn Camerota.
LAURA COATES, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Laura Coates, and this is CNN TONIGHT.
And, look, the Georgia election just may be a big nail in the coffin of Donald Trump's political aspirations after his handpicked candidate, Herschel Walker, was defeated by Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock.
So, the question is, has the fever broken as members of his own party are now abandoning him?
CAMEROTA: And as you know, Laura, Republicans are in the throes of a Georgia election autopsy. Tonight, they're reconsidering their opposition to mail-in voting and early voting. Maybe those practices are not so bad after all.
COATES: Our panel is already giggling.
CAMEROTA: I heard that.
COATES: Plus, the controversy over a Virginia restaurant that canceled a reservation for a conservative Christian group that has lobbied against same-sex marriage, lobbied against abortion. We'll tell you what it's all about.
We'll go ahead and to talk about it tonight with former Federal Prosecutor Jim Walden and CNN Political Commentators S.E. Cupp and David Urban.
Now, the question, really, I mean, when you think about it, Alisyn, right, is, has it broken? I mean, this was a no good, terrible week or month for Donald Trump. But yesterday with Herschel Walker's loss, I mean, was that it? S.E. CUPP, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think you have to parse out Republican political electives and then the Republican base. I think Republicans in office and Republican leadership are wondering how they can win again and maybe regretting that Faustian bargain they made in 2016 to accept all the crap that comes with Trump for very short-term gain, let's be clear.
But the base, I think, is all-in on Trump still. They're not affected by this kind of stuff. It makes Trump more of a victim and a loner and, you know, a strongman out on his own. You still hear people like Marjorie Taylor Greene complaining that Republicans weren't like helpful enough to Herschel Walker, not that Herschel Walker was the problem. So, yes, I think you're going to see it on the politico side, not the base. And that's where you're going to need to see the change for real votes to change.
CAMEROTA: But, David, let's take a look at the things that happened that Donald Trump was connected to.
DAVID URBAN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It hasn't been a good week, that's true.
CAMEROTA: It hasn't been a good week. So, his handpicked, Herschel Walker, lost, as we know, in Georgia. He put out that thing on social media to terminate the Constitution. That has not gone over that well, frankly, David. He had dinner with Ye and Nick Fuentes that continues to reverberate in not a good way. And then yesterday, the Trump Organization was found guilty of this like 15-year tax scheme, basically. So, in other words, he's not winning legally or politically. And his superpower of being a lightning rod on social media backfired.
URBAN: Yes.
CAMEROTA: So, where do you think we are?
URBAN: So, I think -- remember, I don't know which Monty Python movie it is, like, I'm not dead yet. Bring out your dead, and you bring out the guy he's like he is not dead yet, and that's kind of the joke. And so I think that's where we are with Donald Trump, right?
I think, as S.E. correctly points out, the chattering class, the political establishment, is sitting, saying, look, we're getting clocked in every race. Independent voters come out and say, we're breaking against you, we're not voting for Republicans, we're afraid of Trump. And everybody knows it, everybody reads the tea leaves. And so the party, the chattering class, say we've got to move on. But the ride or die Trump base says, we're with this guy to the end, right?
And so --
CUPP: And, in fact, McCarthy and McConnell are the problem, right? The establishment is the problem, not being Trumpy enough.
URBAN: We saw like last night on a different network, there was an anchor saying, like where are the other 49 Republican senators, why weren't they campaigning for Herschel? That's not really the issue, folks, right? It's a different issue.
COATES: Well, there's one thing on the info graphic you showed though, and it had to do with the Trump Organization. And, you know, first of all, and we'll talk about this as well, on a day when a lot of Republicans were told to show up, not engage in early voting, you had this verdict come out, right? The people going to the polls had that image in their mind. But it's not the Trump individuals.
I mean, Allen Weisselberg is one person who was named in it. But he pleaded guilty already. He testified actually kind of favorably about what Trump did or did not know. But tell me the significance of the idea that the Trump organization was what was found and do you think that there is the ability of most people to parse that out?
JIM WALDEN, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Well, I'd break it into two parts. One is the legal part and the other is the political part. From a legal perspective, the company is dead. It's basically going to be a defunct company. He's already started a new company in Florida to take its place. And from a political perspective, to David and S.E.'s point, I'm not sure that that is going to move the needle, right?
I have a slightly different view, which I think the foundation of the Trump legacy is crumbling in front of our eyes and it's going to continue to crumble as more bad news comes out.
[22:05:06]
And the new special counsel for the Justice Department really digs into the case.
CAMEROTA: Well, maybe, Jim. I mean, I can't begin tell you how many people I have heard for six years be like, any minute now, Donald Trump is going to be held responsible.
URBAN: He's getting indicted. It's coming out.
CAMEROTA: It's getting close, any minute now. There's going to be an investigation.
COATES: It feels Chicken Little.
CAMEROTA: And here again, the Trump Organization had a 15-year tax scheme. He is the Trump Organization. He was at the head of it. Nothing -- everybody has testified that nothing happened there without going through Donald Trump, but he's not held accountable once again.
WALDEN: I take your point, Alisyn, but I'd say there's blood in the water. And I think that you're starting to see the results of that. You're starting to see Bolton come out and say, I'll challenge Trump. I think you're going to see --
URBAN: I'll fight him behind the gym.
WALDEN: Right, I'll knife fight him. I think you're going to see more people coming out and splintering away from Trump because it's just the dominos are falling. And I think they're going to continue to fall.
COATES: Plus exhaustion.
URBAN: To Jim's point, right, a primary in 2016 looked completely different than a primary would look like in 2024.
COATES: But why?
URBAN: Because people won't be afraid to punch him back in the nose, right? People didn't know -- I think during the Republican primary in 2016, Donald Trump was brand-new on the scene. He was completely -- no one had ever done what he had done before, right, on the debate scene. We've seen that act. It hasn't changed. People know how to respond, right? The first time he insults somebody and somebody comes back with President Trumpty Dumpty, I mean, what's going to happen?
CUPP: I don't know.
COATES: But to S.E.'s point about the base, yes, you're right, that it's no longer the novelty perhaps, but I'm not sure that people know when they're punching back. They're still sort of doing the, wait, I'm going to punch, does the base like this?
URBAN: Yes. But if you're jumping in the race, if you're going to run, if you say, I'm in, if you're Chris Christie, if you're Mike Pence, if you're Mike Pompeo, if you're getting in the deep end of the pool, you're punching or you're going to be drowned.
CUPP: I'm not sure any of those are going to take him down because, again, the base is so rabidly loyal. And, listen, we didn't know, to Laura's point, that the novelty of how Trump would run, but we knew lots about him. I remember writing countless times in 2015 about how he didn't care about the Constitution, it was clear based on all the things he said about Muslim bans and wanting to close the internet. I mean, he said it.
CAMEROTA: Well, he's confirmed it for you.
CUPP: Right.
CAMEROTA: Black and white.
CUPP: So, there's, I mean, a lot we knew that he was never going to be able to do, that he shouldn't do, we knew he was terrible, and all the Republicans ended up lining up behind him. I don't know, despite everything we know now, if that calculus has completely changed.
CAMEROTA: One more thing from this week that I just want to point out. Yesterday, he met with a QAnon follower.
CUPP: Of course.
CAMEROTA: And she also believes in pizzagate.
CUPP: Complete that trifecta.
CAMEROTA: They took a picture together. Is it possible that his judgment is getting even more impaired?
URBAN: Well, just to be fair, they were there for a fundraiser. It was at Mar-a-Lago for a fundraiser for child trafficking. And he took probably lots of pictures that night.
CUPP: I don't think you're helping.
URBAN: I'm just saying. I'm just giving an explanation of what may have happened. I wasn't there. I've seen the clips.
CAMEROTA: So, he doesn't know who she is?
URBAN: I would venture to guess, just like Nick Fuentes, Donald Trump had no -- there are people, however, there are people, however, that should be --
COATES: But isn't the lesson that you ought to know who's in your pictures? That's the lesson from the dinner.
CUPP: Being very generous, look, Trump likes anyone who likes him and it's very possible he had no idea who these people are. That's not the problem. The problem when is he's told who these people are, whether they're the white supremacists that showed up in Charlottesville, or some of these neo-Nazis, or the Proud Boys, he doesn't take that opportunity to disavow them wholeheartedly.
URBAN: This was Michael Flynn charity, right? Mike Flynn was down there helping raise money for child --
CUPP: Oh, another great guy.
URBAN: No, I'm just saying. This is what he was told. Mike Flynn is downstairs raising money against child trafficking. Well, that's (INAUDIBLE).
CAMEROTA: When they talk about child trafficking, you know that they think it's Hillary Clinton and pizzagate. You're using a generic term that anybody could get behind but that's not how exactly how the frame this.
URBAN: Well, the pizzagate part is a little bit lacking.
COATES: But I want you bring in this conversation because I think it's important to think about all that we're talk about, there's a level of exhaustion, right? There is a level of all these different investigations. It's difficult to then run as the law and order president, right, under the law and order party, if you've got these things swirling around. You talk about blood in the water. I mean, there are people who are swimming around this thing. These are things that will fatally undermine that particular talking point.
Do you think that these are going to land in some meaningful way, I mean, if there's not some quick indictments? It's been a long time.
WALDEN: So, no one outside of New York is going to care about the New York attorney general case on the Trump Organization. But I think people --
COATES: You don't think so?
WALDEN: I don't think so. But what I do think people are going to care about is if there is an indictment, and I believe there will be one, if there's an indictment of Donald Trump.
And I think you've already seen Trump 2.0 coming out in people like DeSantis. This is where I tie it back to Georgia.
[22:10:00]
I think people are starting to get sick of this. I think people are getting sick of it on the left and on the right, that there's so much hyper-partisan-ism and there's no compromise. And I think that's going to resonate.
URBAN: Yes. But I wouldn't look to Ron DeSantis being a compromise candidate.
CUPP: No, no, no. I'm just saying, six years later, I think you're right. I think you're right, still right.
CAMEROTA: Yes. All right, friends stick around. As we mentioned, that Georgia election autopsy is under way. So, we'll look at all of the things the Republicans are rethinking today.
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CAMEROTA: As you know, Senator Raphael Warnock won the runoff election in Georgia against Donald Trump's handpicked candidate, Herschel Walker. Now, many Republicans are starting to wonder whether the party's rejection of mail-in and early voting hurt them at the ballot box.
We're back with Jim Walden, S.E. Cupp and David Urban.
So, David, for all the skepticism of early voting and mail-in voting, how much do you think that that ruined Republicans' chances?
URBAN: It's ruined our chances in all these elections, right? Democrats are very smart, right, how they play this game, right? So, they get the ballots, they can cure an absentee ballot that's not filled out correctly. Then when you get the ballots in, you know who's voted, who hasn't voted, you turn them out, right?
[22:15:01]
It's a great operation. Democrats have figured this out. And Republicans are so far behind, we're going to be playing catch-up for a long time. Just now, you see Newt and some others saying -- hey, Sean Hannity, is saying, hey, maybe we should be doing this.
CAMEROTA: Today? I mean, it's a little late.
URBAN: Hello, in 2020, in 2016, before -- you know, all this is happening in Pennsylvania and other states, we should have been doing it. And the former president was saying,, no, don't do it, it's bad, absentee bad, so, we're not doing it. So, we talked our team out of playing on a level field. It doesn't make sense.
COATES: And I want to play that sound though, too. Remember, people were saying that very notion, and the idea -- and the operation you call, many would just call voting, the idea of being able to cure absentee ballots, et cetera. But here, listen to what was happening on Fox about this very issue, from Ronna McDaniel to Kellyanne Conway and beyond. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RONNA MCDANIEL, CHAIR, RNC: What we do need is our voters need to vote early. I have said this over and over again. There were many in 2020 saying, don't vote by mail, don't vote early, and we have to stop that.
REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): If you wait just to Election Day, it's almost -- you're running a race where you're starting 30 yards behind. You don't know if you have enough time to catch. The last race we just won, we won by less than 600 votes. It is that close. You want to bank as many votes as you can. Republicans in the past, we had an advantage because we would vote early. We would vote by mail. And we put that away.
KELLYANNE CONWAY, FORMER TRUMP ADVISER: We need to not just compete for votes, for ballots, we need to compete for ballots. If we don't bank ballots early, we're going to keep losing.
LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS HOST: But we didn't.
CONWAY: But we didn't.
INGRAHAM: But we didn't do it in 2020 because everyone said, don't vote early, because that's corrupt. So --
CONWAY: Not everyone.
INGRAHAM: Well. A lot of people did at the top of the Republican Party. You didn't.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CUPP: Well, they won't name him. It's absurd. I'm sorry.
COATES: No, go ahead.
CUPP: It's absurd. It's like these guys, like Ted Williams had cryogenically frozen for the past four years, like they forgot that, yes, the guy at the top of the ticket suddenly gave you an aneurysm and told you not to do something that everyone could see would actually help. And now they're like, it was just invented, we should try this too. No kidding. No kidding.
COATES: And let's just remind people, remember when Trump said this very thing how it invites fraud? It wasn't that -- he thought it was a sure thing that if you did early voting or vote by mail, it would lead to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: Voting by mail is wrought with fraud and abuse, and people don't get their ballots.
When you do all mail-in voting ballots, you're asking for fraud. People steal them out of mailboxes. People print them and then they sign them and they give them in.
I think it's going to be the greatest fraud ever. I think it's going to be a rigged election.
They think they're going to send hundreds of millions of ballots all over the United States and it's going to come out. You won't know the election result for weeks, months, maybe years.
Get rid of this mail-in voting.
And ultimately, we need same-day voting with only paper ballots. It's very simple, same-day voting.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COATES: And, no, you're not imagining. It was 2020 all the way through 2022 that you heard these sort of comments, right?
WALDEN: Maybe we should just use tablets, right, stone tablets. People are sick of this kind of hypocrisy. I don't understand why other Republicans aren't calling it out.
CAMEROTA: Well, by the way, he absentee voted.
WALDEN: I know. I saw that.
CAMEROTA: He and his family used mail-in voting. I'm just throwing that out there.
But, Jim, why do you think he was so passionate about that? Because he thought he was losing at that point? Why was he railing against it so much?
WALDEN: Because there is this perception that if you just lie, people will buy it and then you can blame that conduct. And they wanted to limit the rules. They're trying to limit Democratic voting. Gerrymandering is another example of all of these games that are getting played. And, frankly, the thing that's the most disappointing is that we can't fix this nationally. And that's because the Constitution doesn't let us. But the Constitution is not perfect. If there was one set of rules that everyone had to follow, nobody could play these kinds of games anymore. That's the part that I think --
COATES: So, what do you mean, the Constitution does not let us? What are you honing in on as to why there is that hurdle? WALDEN: This was they argue in the Supreme Court case today, yes, the case right now. The Supreme Court says state legislatures can pick how federal elections occur within their states. But if everyone had one set of rules, if everyone got the same play, then there would be a level playing field and no one could decry the process being broken.
URBAN: And we wouldn't have to wait a week to find out what's going on in Arizona.
WALDEN: We wouldn't have to wait.
CAMEROTA: Back to what Donald Trump was doing there, was he -- he was hedging his bets.
CUPP: He needed a boogeyman.
CAMEROTA: He needed a boogeyman. That's what that was.
URBAN: I honestly think -- look, Donald Trump is one of these people, probably last guy on his block to get an ATM, probably still wrote paper checks, right? I got to wait for the bank to open, I don't trust the ATM. You know what I mean? You know what I'm talking about. You know these kinds of people. Your parents, right? I'm not going to get an ATM card, I don't trust the banking system, right, like I'm going to write a check.
[22:20:01]
No, no, no. I don't mean Richie Rich. I meant to get an ATM card, right?
And so there are still lots of people in America that don't believe -- that they believe that the voting system is rigged, that they can't trust it, that somehow the votes are being shipped to Mars and then altered and put in back.
CUPP: Well, they believe it because he said it.
URBAN: Yes, but not just because of Donald Trump. There's a whole subcurrent of the population --
CUPP: Listen, there's no shock he's not a political mastermind, okay? No surprise. He doesn't have this all worked out. He doesn't always pick great candidates. He doesn't give any of his money up to candidates that he wants to win. I mean, he's self-sabotaging except it's the whole party. They're just realizing it now.
URBAN: But just to pull on a thread that Jim started though, no, if we did have a national system that was transparent and quick, right, I think there would be less skepticism, people would believe in the system, where they would be more willing to accept absentee ballots, if it was transparent, quick.
CUPP: Is it the system's fault that a lot of Republicans also believe in QAnon and pizzagate?
URBAN: No, no, but that's a separate question. I'm talking about voting here and saying if we have a transparent system --
CUPP: It's not. They believe it and because he keeps saying it.
COATES: Election denialism was on the ballot to a certain degree, right?
WALDEN: And lost.
COATES: And lost in many instances. You did hear Herschel Walker yesterday, which I think was a good moment, and he talks about having faith in the system, nonetheless. This is a handpicked, endorsed candidate based on a theory of election denialism --
WALDEN: Said, uphold the Constitution.
COATES: Right.
WALDEN: And my point is it's all tied together, right? This skepticism, the money in politics, the gerrymandering and the broken system all impacts quality candidates, because quality candidates don't want to run in this kind of political blood sport game. And so you get terrible candidates, like Herschel Walker, who had no business being on the ballot at all. And that's the choice that people had to make.
CAMEROTA: Well, tell that to the Supreme Court and we're going to be talking about that later. I mean, as you said, this is what the crux of the arguments that they heard today, and we don't know what's going to happen. But it could change the way our electoral system works based upon how they decide to vote.
COATES: At the end of the day, right, I mean, if we'll are willing to believe the lie without any evidence, nine justices won't be able to change just that.
URBAN: Have you checked on a grocery, seen the tabloid, Weekly World News, Elvis' baby, right, aliens live. People believe a lot of crazy stuff.
COATES: I subscribed, wonderful. I love it.
Well, seriously, a reservation was canceled, everyone, and a restaurant refusing to serve a conservative Christian organization. Is that their right or are they in the legal or maybe moral wrong? We'll ask next.
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COATES: The American ideals of religious freedom and freedom from discrimination getting tangled up in some pretty high-profile cases recently. I talked to a plaintiff in a case before the Supreme Court that poses the question, does a graphic designer have the right to refuse to create websites celebrating same-sex weddings based on her religious beliefs and her professed First Amendment rights?
Well, now, The Washington Post is reporting that a restaurant in Richmond, Virginia, canceled a booking that was made by a conservative Christian organization. The restaurant is saying in a statement, quote, recently we refused service to a group that had booked an event with us after the owners of Metzger found out it was a group of donors to a political organization that seeks to deprive women and LGBTQ+ persons of their basic human rights in Virginia. We have always refused service to anyone for making our staff uncomfortable or unsafe, and this was the driving force behind our decision.
CAMEROTA: So, the conservative group, the Family Foundation, posted a response on their website entitled, we've been canceled again. They ask, have you ever been denied a meal because of your beliefs?
Let's discuss this. Back with us, we have Jim Walden, S.E. Cupp and David Urban.
So, S.E., is this just -- are these two things just the inverse of each other? So, a web designer who doesn't want to make a website for gay couples because it violates her religious beliefs, is this the same as restaurant wait staff who doesn't want to serve a Christian group because they violate the wait staff's beliefs?
CUPP: Well, I'm not a legal scholar, but I think the master cake -- Masterpiece Cupcake case before the Supreme Court makes it clear, those are not analogous things. But I think --
CAMEROTA: Well, why not?
CUPP: Well, for a number of reasons, because it is illegal to discriminate against someone based on their faith, based on their race, based on their creed. It's not maybe illegal -- again, I'm not a legal scholar -- to decide someone cannot come into your private business, cannot come into your private establishment. I don't know. It's a bad idea. It's a bad idea from the right or the left to tell people that based on their political beliefs, they are not welcome, you're not going to serve them, especially since they hadn't shown up yet.
You can't say that your wait staff felt unsafe based on the idea of them, based on the fact that they might come and you are just uncomfortable by their very presence. I think that sets a terrible precedent. You can have your political feelings about everyone but it's also this false notion of security that you are safe from ideas if you can't see them. That's not true either.
COATES: I asked the question of the plaintiff in this case, the Supreme Court, the other day, talking about this very issue, was she concerned about people using her as an example and saying, listen, I have -- it's my own private business, I'm going to -- it's going to lead to a slippery slope.
[22:30:05]
CUPP: Are you talking about the graphic designer? Okay.
COATES: Here's what she had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COATES: What is the line that distinguishes, say, you from the artist that somebody could, under the auspices of saying there's an artiste, do the same thing? Do you have those concerns?
LORIE SMITH, PLAINTIFF IN 303 CREATIVE LLC V. ELENIS: Well, I can only speak to myself. And I've made it clear, I work with everyone. I have clients who identify as LGBT. And what I'm seeking is that the court step in to protect everyone's right to speak freely.
KRISTEN WAGGONER, CEO, PRESIDENT AND GENERAL COUNSEL OF ADF: The court has already determined these tests. Every free speech case determines whether its speech or conduct. The law is well-established to determine that. Is a message being communicated? Is it in a medium that we're used to seeing that we know, words, text, and graphics? That's speech. If we're talking about some macaroni and cheese dish, that's not speech and that's an easy call for the court to make.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COATES: So, on that point, I mean, all macaroni and cheese aside, I mean, in thinking about it, her statement is that speech, right. I can't be compelled by a state to create speech in the form of my art and my web design. In the instance of a private restaurant that says, look, no shoes, no shirt, no service.
Your beliefs, what you're doing politically, there's no law that says that I have to protect that as a classification. So, get out of here. Is there a violation, you think, in the law that would be part of what the Supreme Court might look at ultimately as analogous?
JIM WALDEN, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: I do think that they are at least morally equivalent. And I think it's very difficult for people to get their minds around and get behind these kinds of very technical legal distinctions. We're lawyers so we're used to making them, but most people aren't.
I agree with S.E. completely. This is just bad conduct regardless who does it. We live in a society where we're supposed to all be aligned at some level. Like we've got to be able to deal with one --
ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: But hold on, Jim. If you are -- so let's, go back to the web designer. If you don't believe in gay marriage, you think it violates your religion, you think it violates the Bible. Why should you have to make a website for a gay couple's wedding?
WALDEN: Because I believe that if you're in business, you should serve everyone equally. That's my personal belief. Now, you can draw distinctions and say, well, I don't believe in this and I don't believe in that. This is what happens.
CAMEROTA: I understand. Like I see what's happening, but you can always find an example. If a Nazi comes in and wants you to do a swastika, you don't want to do it and you shouldn't be forced to. I mean, you can always find an example that's so odious that you shouldn't be forced to, right, legally. WALDEN: I agree with you. I'm a lawyer. If a Nazi came in and wanted
me to represent him, I wouldn't want to represent him. But what I'm saying is that as a general matter, when people start saying, I'm not going to serve categories, and we make the distinction, well, is it speech? Is it conduct? Is it commercial speech? It's a very difficult line for people to draw. And it just disappoints --
S.E. CUPP, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: And this definitely wasn't conduct. They haven't -- they hadn't shown up yet.
COATES: Well, their conduct you're saying, though, to be clear, the conduct we're talking about is that --
CUPP: Is there lobbying.
CAMEROTA: Lobbying.
COATES: They're lobbying before and they then tell you.
CUPP: And what a precedent to set that you have to investigate everything that everyone who is coming to your restaurant has done to make sure you're morally okay with it.
COATES: Then you just -- well, hold on. S.E., didn't you just make that point about say Donald Trump, everyone who comes before him has to be vetted in some way, it's a responsible thing to do? And so, in a sense, I mean, is that something similar in the (inaudible) --
CUPP: Wait, what? What?
COATES: The point is, if the idea is, it is odd to be forced to have to vet and understand who's coming before you so you can be morally equipped to deal with what you believe --
CUPP: You're voting for these people.
COATES: No, I agree with that premise. But the point is, if you're talking about the requirement on people that it's odd to require somebody that, if they're in your presence, they must be vetted. Talking about, say, Donald Trump, who is a citizen, everyday person, right? It was at Mar-a-Lago this happened, compared to somebody at a private organization, a private restaurant. Why can't they make the same sort of any decisions?
CUPP: I'll be honest, I completely missing the connection between Donald Trump, the former president, and wanting to make sure, you know, what he's doing, and customers coming into a restaurant.
COATES: Well, I'll be even clearer --
CUPP: I've been essentially blacklisted, something I thought we probably put back in the annals of history.
COATES: Well, I'll be -- when I say I'll be clear. If the crux of the issue, is you ought to have control over the people who come into a private establishment and have the right to exclude who you'd like, and one of the criteria for exclusion is based on what you agree with morally or find reprehensible, then the idea of the expectation of say, as an example, a Donald Trump being required to, in his own private institution, private restaurant, private club, having to have those sorts of criteria you met --
CUPP: Oh, are you talking about like Nick Fuentes?
CAMEROTA: Yeah, the --
COATES: Well, are you listening to me what I'm saying? Yes.
CUPP: You didn't say that at all. I have no idea what you were talking about. If you're talking about, well, okay -- yes, of course. If I were the former president, I would vet every single person that was in my presence. That's not him. We know that. I mean, he didn't do that at the White House.
[22:35:00]
Everyone got an audience if they liked him. But, I mean, to say that you should vet every customer that's coming into your business so that you feel like you are morally okay with everything they've done in their private life, you can't possibly think that that's a good bar to set.
COATES: I don't think it's the bar. And when you come in to say that, I don't think it's the bar. The point is, if we're talking about, to your point, the moral equivalence of the expectation of being able to have the right to exclude or invite based on the criteria you set within your private establishment, doesn't that require to a certain extent that people can be proactive about vetting?
I'm not agreeing with what they've done or disagreeing. I'm just saying, if we're saying societally that people ought to have the right and autonomy to do so, where does that line get drawn?
DAVID URBAN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: So, I'm just going to say two things really quickly. The first point is, why would you want to patronize someone who hates you, right? So, I don't understand. If you're a gay couple, why would you want to go to a designer who doesn't want to design for gay couples?
CAMEROTA: Well, you didn't know that. They didn't know.
URBAN: Okay. But I'm saying like, so in the future, I think this will all kind of vet itself -- kind of work itself out, right, in terms of people who are known. They just won't be going there. And as far as --
CAMEROTA: I mean, I don't know if you can just leave it the up to the market like you're saying.
URBAN: Oh, I think the marketplace will work. And the second part is, like to answer -- go to where Laura's talking about, which -- pull on the thread that Jim was talking about, if I walk into a restaurant, is someone going to type up on open secrets and see who I donated to and say like, well, Urban donated to this candidate. Maybe we're not -- maybe we're not going to serve him tonight, right? Or he donated to this charity. I don't like that charity. I mean, it's just nutty. To S.E.'s point, like, you know, you don't have a right to not be offended in life. That's just -- that's not -- there's no constitutional right not to be offended.
WALDEN: But there's one thing that I think we'd be remiss to ignore. These are companies, right? They're creatures of the state, right? They're chartered in the state. They get tax breaks from the state. They pay less taxes, generally, than individuals. If you are essentially a creature of the state, maybe we should have clear rules that say, you can ban people because they're bad in your establishment because they break the law, because they cause violence, but you can't ban people otherwise.
UNKNOWN: From showing up.
UNKNOWN: Some states do that.
WALDEN: Wouldn't that -- wouldn't that be a good law?
COATES: Well, D.C. is not a state, it does that. Virginia, ironically, is not a state that actually has that notion that you cannot ban someone based on or move or have to protect the political. Remember, Sarah Huckabee Sanders was in a Virginia establishment when she was asked to leave. You have other figures. It actually prompted, remember, the whole issue with Maxine Waters. And it prompted these discussions about what you can do to draw the line.
CUPP: And that's terrible. I mean, legal or illegal, it's almost beside the point. If we are a decent society, that behavior is terrible. Shouting people out of restaurants is terrible. And refusing --
URBAN: Followed Kyrsten Sinema into a bathroom, right?
CUPP: Well, yeah. And Kirstjen Nielsen. I mean, it happened to more than one person. You can disagree with Trump and his policies; you can disagree with Republicans. But shouting people out of establishments, you know, unleashing a mob on people, making people feel actually unsafe, as opposed to servers who said they felt unsafe when they hadn't even come yet.
CAMEROTA: Yeah.
URBAN: Because of their contributions.
CUPP: I just think it's a terrible precedent.
CAMEROTA: I only chase people out of a restaurant if they stiff me on a tip. And I think that's why.
WALDEN: Who would do that? Who would do that?
COATES: Thank you. That's justified.
CAMEROTA: All right. Meanwhile, Buckingham Palace bracing themselves because Harry and Meghan are about to drop their controversial documentary. What's in there? We'll talk about it.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:40:00]
CAMEORTA: Well, we're just a few hours away from getting a closer look into the private life of Prince Harry and Meghan, volume one of the couple's six-part docuseries "Harry and Meghan" is set to hit Netflix basically tonight at 3:00 a.m. eastern. And then volume two of this series which will be the remaining three episodes will be released on Thursday.
COATES: We're not going to bed tonight.
CAMEROTA: No, we're not.
COATES: We're watching.
CAMEROTA: We're pulling an all-nighter.
COATES: In the latest trailer for the series, the couple offer their side of the story of what life was like for them within the royal family, saying only they knew the full truth. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PRINCE HARRY, DUKE OF ESSEX: -- family. You know, there's leaking, but there's also planting of stories.
UNKNOWN: There was a war against Meghan to suit other people's agendas.
UNKNOWN: It's about hatred. It's about race.
UKNOWN: It's a dirty game.
UKNOWN: The pain and suffering of women marrying into this institution, this feeding frenzy.
MEGHAN MARKLE, DUCHESS OF ESSEX: I realized, they're never going to protect you.
PRINCE HARRY, I was terrified. I didn't want history to repeat itself. No one knows the full truth. We know the full truth.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COATES: Oh. Well, we're about to know the full truth, I guess. Joining us now, "One World" executive editor Kierna Mayo, S.E. Cupp and David Urban are also back with us and I can tell that David wants to talk about this all night long.
CAMEROTA: He's been (inaudible) through the entire thriller (ph).
COATES: He's pretending. You're pretending.
URBAN: I promise you I will be the one human being not staying up till 3:00 to watch this.
CAMEROTA: But you weren't (inaudible).
URBAN: I will not watch this. I will not pay one leg of attention.
CAMEROTA: Why are you disgusted?
URBAN: Listen, these people, right, this couple, had said we are out of the royal family. We're going to live a private life. We don't want to be involved in the spotlight. And they have -- they're just -- this is everything that they said they're trying to run from and hide from. It's so fake. It's so B.S. Meghan Markle, I didn't know who he was, we went on date. Give me a break.
COATES: She knew who he was. It was a blind date matchup.
URBAN: Oh, it's all -- it's all so --
COATES: Oh, am I telling you I know too much already? Sorry.
(CROSSTALK)
URBAN: I find it, like, just a complete joke. They want to hide, go hide. Go stay at your house in the Hollywood Hills and be rich and have dinner with your friends, but don't cry me a river about, you know, their tough life.
(CROSSTALK)
UNKNOWN: -- saying he didn't care.
[22:44:56]
COATES: -- because, I have to say, I mean, it's almost a luxury to say, you know, run and hide and not be a human being and live any longer. But they're trying to share their story because frankly, it's been written for them --
KIERNA MAYO, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, ONE WORLD: They have to own the narrative. And I don't know that they ever said they wanted to have a private life. I don't think they ever imagined in a trillion years that life would ever be private. But I do believe that they wanted a modicum of respect and they wanted to be able to, again, tell the story the way they see it happened.
And you know, part of what I'm imagining is going to come, first of all, beyond the tea, and yes, I will be up. Just that, you know, these are two relatively young people who are setting out in life in this impossibly unique way, right? There's absolutely no one else under the sun who understands their specific experience.
And yet they are human beings. And all they've been saying the entire time is, can you respect our humanity? And with regard to Meghan, you know, I think that the clip says it all. It's about race. It's about race.
COATES: And she was talking (inaudible) for that reason, as opposed to the women who are marrying into the institution.
MAYO: Yes.
COATES: That was actually really the clear picture.
MAYO: Yes.
CAMEROTA: But I mean, do you think that she was targeted, I mean, she was clearly targeted by the paparazzi. But isn't it possible -- is it possible that two things are true? The royal family in their stiff upper lip way felt that they were welcoming, thought they were welcoming, and she felt marginalized? Isn't it possible that they're both true? I mean --
MAYO: Absolutely. But isn't it possible that there's even more nuance than that, that they were welcoming and yet also somehow subversively doing things against her?
CAMEROTA: But why? What would -- how would that serve them? How would it serve the royal family to ruin their beloved Harry's wife? I mean, why?
MAYO: Oh, I --
COATES: In this book called fair, I mean, just on the one point. It may not be (inaudible) --
MAYO: Well, I'm looking for -- I'm looking for the book too. But you know, I don't think that it's as simple as just protecting Harry's wife or loving Harry's wife. I think there's an institution at play. And an institution involves hundreds and hundreds of years of history and a lot of power and a lot of decision-making that's happening that's beyond just Harry's welfare. So, could they conspire against Meghan Markle? Black Meghan Markle?
CAMEROTA: I mean, that's -- obviously that was her feeling.
MAYO: You don't think this is a remote possibility?
URBAN: I don't buy it. I just don't buy it. I mean, look --
MAYO: Well, I mean --
URBAN: Look, I'm not a royal watcher. I don't --
MAYO: Neither am I, quite frankly.
URBAN: -- I mean, I tend to agree with Alisyn. Look, I don't know anything about this couple. I don't, you know, I don't begrudge them their peace and their narrative, and they get to do it all. But I just think that the whole, you know, that the, you know, we want to be -- again, this is my interpretation.
MAYO: It is.
URBAN: They want to be private people. They left the (inaudible), you know, they abdicated. They went away.
MAYO: But when did they say they want to be private people?
URBAN: No, listen. That's why I think they left.
MAYO: They're being harassed by the monarchy.
URBAN: Well, they don't want to be harassed by the monarchy, well, then go and go to Australia, go to the United States, go someplace and live your life.
UNKNOWN: They are in the United States.
URBAN: They're not. But they are harassed by the monarchy, why would you come out with a book that says you're poking the monarchy, you're doing exactly everything you don't want to be harassed by.
CAMEROTA: Right. (Inaudible). Go ahead, S.E.
CUPP: Well, I mean, there are very few institutions on this planet I am less interested in than the royals, and that is all right. As Americans, we fought for that, we won that right. But I -- and I have no interest in protecting the royals and their legacy, which is in need of an examination. But I did watch all three hours of the Oprah sit-down with Meghan Markle and Harry --
URBAN: Exactly.
CUPP: -- because I thought, well, I'm going to learn something new. And did I. I think we all learned a little something new about that experience for her. And I was so grateful that she talked about mental health.
MAYO: Yes.
CUPP: That was incredibly courageous. It meant a lot to me. And I hope a lot of the other people, too. And so, I was proud of her, and I felt bad for her. I'm not sure that a second go at it, with all this exposure and fanfare --
CAMEROTA: After this amount of time.
CUPP: After this amount of time is I don't think they want to be private, but they do want to get past the monarchy, or do they? I mean --
COATES: First of all --
CUPP: -- they seem to want to keep trafficking and this the cache.
URBAN: Full truth. Full truth.
CUPP: Yes. Yes.
MAYO: You know, I've been around a lot of things, people in my celebrity coverage years, and it's rare that folks in the public eye like that get to the full truth. That's freeing. That's --
URBAN: But whose truth?
MAYO: His. All that matters is theirs.
URBAN: No, wait. The monarch is not going to tell their truth. They're not going to have a sit-down.
CUPP: But they told Oprah. I got the truth.
MAYO: Hey, look. The monarchy has had 400, 500, 600, 700 years to tell their truth. Give Meghan and Harry like their six hours.
COATES: Wasn't that the plan? I mean, that's -- first of all, I will admit it, and I don't care -- I do watch all that. I watch the royal weddings. I made fresh scones.
MAYO: You are not alone.
COATES: I don't care. I was watching it the way I watch reality shows as well.
MAYO: Sure.
COATES: And now with that, I know that there is the truth, the truth, and then what actually it is. And so, if the Oprah interview is one truth and the monarchy's story is another, maybe this will give me the rest of the story because, frankly, when I watch it, I -- it was confirming what I thought her experience would be.
[22:50:02]
MAYO: Absolutely.
COATES: In an institution like the monarchy.
MAYO: Yeah.
COATES: It really was.
CAMEROTA: Well, this will certainly be interesting. And I look forward to watching it too, and then we'll all have this conversation.
MAYO: We'll circle back.
URBAN: Let's hope not. Let's hope not.
MAYO: We'll have tea and crumpets.
URBAN: Yeah, let's hope not.
COATES: Okay. I'll watch it with you, David Urban.
URBAN: No. No chance.
COATES: look, will they, or won't they? The question is big players on the January 6th Committee are talking about whether they'll refer crimes to the DOJ. We'll tell you what they're saying and what it really means, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CAMEROTA: January 6th Committee chairman, Benny Thompson, says they hope to release their final report and vote publicly on criminal referrals on December 21st. Committee member Adam Schiff telling Anderson Cooper this tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): I think that Congress, when it sees evidence of criminality particularly affecting the institution of Congress has responsibility.
[22:55:01]
Here there was an attack on Congress. So, to me, that goes right to the heart of our responsibilities. And so, we are weighing that. We're going to be balancing our decision I think with a report very soon. And I think there's also a high degree of consensus among our members.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMEROTA: Okay. So, Laura, explain how this works. If on the 21st they vote yes for a criminal referral, who does it go to? What's the next step?
COATES: Well, it depends on who it is, right? Because if it's about Donald Trump, then you have a special counsel that was already put in place in the DOJ because they know people are going to say, wait a second, he is a candidate, you are in charge, President Biden, of the executive branch, which includes DOJ.
CAMEROTA: So, hold on. The special counsel would decide about Donald Trump, not Merrick Garland, you're saying?
COATES: I think it -- no, it'd be special counsel if you're Donald Trump. However, if it's sort of Trump adjacent or not related (inaudible) different.
CAMEROTA: Well, definitely there are (inaudible) people who like defied subpoenas, they might get criminal referrals.
COATES: That's a different scenario. But in terms of I think Trump specifically, which is a special counsel appointed to oversee all those things, that rings differently to the American public about the idea of prosecuting a political rival or that talking point.
Having said that, though, I mean, first of all, December 21st is virtually the 11th hour in Congress to be able to see this report. We're all waiting to see what it actually says. And the filling of the gaps, like I haven't heard from Ginnie Thomas, right? We haven't heard what she had to say. We haven't heard what Kellyanne Conway testified to or others. There's going to be a lot more there. And I'm curious how they will
plan to present it in some way.
CAMEROTA: The report.
COATES: Right. So up to these dates, it's all been the televised videos and televised actual hearings, but now it will be this report.
CAMEROTA: Hundreds of hundreds of page report.
COATES: Not as exciting as the docuseries on Meghan and Harry, I tell you that. You're always leaning in the same way.
CAMEROTA: Great point.
COATES: But, still, look, we got a coup attempt abroad, conspiracy theorists and white supremacists hanging around with Trump. Anti- Semitism and hate so much on the rise, the White House is actually holding a summit. Look at the extremist threat at home and abroad after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
