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The Chris Wallace Show
Some Claim President Biden Facing Difficulty Responding To Widespread College Campus Protests Regarding Israel-Hamas War And Palestinian Civilian Suffering; Donald Trump Using News Coverage Of His Criminal Trial To Campaign For President; Some Republicans Against Trump Calling For Vice President Kamala Harris To Be Replaced On Biden Ticket Due To Her Unpopularity; Heisman Trophy From 2010 Returned To Reggie Bush After It Was Taken Away Due To His Receiving Gifts From Sports Agent; California Considering Banning Airport Security Service Clear Due To Issues Of Inequity; Combination Of Croissant And Cookie Called "Crookie" Goes Viral; Professional Sports Organizations Draw Controversy By Partnering With Gambling Websites. Aired 10-11a ET
Aired April 27, 2024 - 10:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:00:43]
CHRIS WALLACE, CNN ANCHOR: Hello again, and welcome. It's time to break down the big stories with some smart people. Today, we're asking as anti-war demonstrations spread across the country, can President Biden continue to have it both ways, saying he understands why protesters are upset while backing Israel's Gaza offensive?
Then sucking up the oxygen -- is all the attention Donald Trump's trial is getting already a win for the former president?
And stop the skipping -- the new push to make all travelers wait in line at airport security.
The panel is here and ready to go. So sit back, relax, and let's talk about it.
Up first, the protests over Gaza have ignited a firestorm on college campuses. The growing demonstrations becoming a political issue, drawing condemnation from Speaker Mike Johnson and a muted response from President Biden.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
WALLACE: All over the U.S., pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses leading to hundreds of arrests. At the University of Texas, state troopers used riot gear to break up demonstrations, while at Columbia, the epicenter of the protests, things took a political turn, with some Democrats touring the campus.
REP. JOSH GOTTHEIMER, (D-NJ): Protests here at Columbia are a new low.
WALLACE: And top Republicans like House Speaker Mike Johnson also showing up. REP. MIKE JOHNSON, (R-LA) HOUSE SPEAKER: We just can't allow this kind
of hatred and antisemitism to flourish.
WALLACE: And calling for the school's president to step down.
JOHNSON: I am here today joining my colleagues in calling on President Shafik to resign if she cannot immediately bring order to this chaos.
WALLACE: But President Biden has no plans to visit Columbia as he continues to walk a fine line between defending the protesters and denouncing them.
JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I condemn antisemitic protests. Thats why I've set up a program to deal with that. I also condemn those who don't understand what's going on with the Palestinians.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
WALLACE: Here with me today, author and podcast host Kara Swisher, editor-in-chief at "The Dispatch," and columnist at "The L.A. Times" Jonah Goldberg, Lulu Garcia-Navarro, "New York Times" journalist and host of "The Interview," a new podcast from the times, and Eliana Johnson, editor-in-chief of "The Washington Free Beacon." Welcome back, everyone.
Jonah, as we saw in that piece, Republicans seem to think they can score points on all the protests going on on campuses across the country. How do these protests play politically?
JONAH GOLDBERG, "THE DISPATCH": I think the Republicans are smart to do it. Take aside the issues about Israel and Gaza and all that. Just the feeling of chaos and things spiraling out of control is bad for Joe Biden, the sense that things are not returning to normal is bad for Joe Biden and bad for Democrats. And plus, these protests, whether you want to call them pro-Palestine or anti-Israel or pro-Hamas, they divide a big chunk of Biden's coalition and unite basically the Republican coalition, which is bigger than the Trump coalition. So I think it's almost all political upside for --
WALLACE: Lulu, I want to pick up on that. And how big a problem is this for Democrats? And specifically, the two points that Jonah made. One, just the sense and chaos and disorder, which is spreading. First it was a Columbia thing. Now it's all over the country. And also it sharpens, deepens a divide within the Democratic Party between people who are supportive of Israel and people who are upset about the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, "NEW YORK TIMES" JOURNALIST: I think that's right. I think it is a real big -- a very big problem for Democrats. They're finding at the moment that they don't really know how to grapple with these protests. On the one hand, they want to be supportive of their base, many of whom, especially young voters and voters of color who think that what is happening in Gaza is terrible and they want to show support for the Palestinians. And on the other hand, of course, we've seen antisemitism and
antisemitic comments in many of the protesters in many campuses. And of course, they want to condemn that. But they're caught in the middle. I mean, they really are struggling to figure out a coherent message.
But you're seeing Republicans like Johnson come out and try and say, they should bring the National Guard in to quell these protests.
[10:05:06]
This is a man who of course supported January 6th and the insurrectionists. So there is a little bit of political hay being made on the right that perhaps is going to benefit them.
WALLACE: As we showed in the set-up piece, Biden is trying to straddle this, is really trying to have it both ways. On the one hand, he's condemning antisemitism, but on the other hand, he's expressing sympathy for the Palestinians and their situation in Gaza. And Donald Trump, season-opening here, take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: This is tremendous hate. We have a man that can't talk about it because he doesn't understand it. He doesn't understand what's going on with our country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: Eliana, can Biden keep trying to play it both ways here?
ELIANA JOHNSON, EDITOR IN CHIEF, "THE WASHINGTON FREE BEACON": He can do it, of course. But I think it's a missed opportunity for presidential leadership. I think it's good politics to come out against protesters who are telling Jews to go back to Poland and saying Zionists don't deserve to live. Those are direct quotes from leaders of the Columbia protests. It's good politics for Biden to stand against that.
The problem for him, of course, is that the left wing of his party, Representative Ilhan Omar, are showing up at the protest to shore them up. So of course, he would alienate the left flank of his party. But I do think it's a missed opportunity for him to fade into the background of this.
KARA SWISHER, PODCAST HOST, "PIVOT" AND "ON": Well, some people are saying that, and I think you have to be -- the question is, are you for order and against chaos, or for protests and the right to free speech? And what's interesting is how quickly everyone and shifting. All the free-speech warriors are suddenly like, order, order, we must have order.
And so there are heinous things that are said, but there is a line where you have to support also young people, especially when they do things that they do badly. Not to support them, is sort of anti- American in a way. JOHNSON: Free speech is fine, but USC has canceled its graduation. Columbia University has canceled classes and put them online. We've gone well beyond free speech and into shuttering the operations of universities. And I do think it's a missed opportunity for Biden to say there are limits. We've gone beyond speech and into harassment and disruption here. And we will not stand for that.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Yes, I think we've also, though, seen a reaction from some of the police and others that have been deployed on campuses that have been --
SWISHER: Excessive.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Excessive, thank you.
SWISHER: Texas today or Indiana, because then then that's a whole different story as these young people -- you are changing the political mentality of young people right now. And if you push down too hard on it, especially at this age, and not being able to express yourselves, I think you have a much bigger problem later on.
WALLACE: But just to get back to the politics of this.
SWISHER: That's the politics of it.
WALLACE: But the problem is, it seems to me, that Biden is really caught. His coalition, on the one hand, there's an awful lot of the Democratic Party that is foursquare behind Israel. You don't want to alienate them. On the other hand, there are a lot of people, including some Jews, who are for Israel, who are horrified by what's going on in Gaza. And so how do you walk that tightrope?
GARCIA-NAVARRO: This is also a gift to Netanyahu, I mean these protests. You can look at this, and whatever the protesters think that they're doing, what you have seen, is that -- you have seen Israelis. I spoke to the Israeli opposition leader for my new podcast, "The Interview," and he was absolutely horrified by these protests. He said that they didn't know what they were talking about. They didn't clearly understand the history of the conflict. And so you are seeing here it activating not only here in the United States, but also how it's, how it's being played in the rest of the world.
WALLACE: I want to bring one other aspect of this up. There is growing talk linking the protests that are happening now, for instance, on the campus at Columbia University, the anti-war protests, to anti-war protests like those at Columbia University back in 1968, which did not turn out well for the Democrats. Jonah, how legitimate do you think is the comparison of what's going on now on campuses to what was going on during the Vietnam War?
GOLDBERG: On the substance, I think it's a pretty weak comparison. The anti-draft movement, the anti-war movement was a much bigger thing, much more galvanizing force. But at the level of atmospherics and sort of psychology, I think there's a lot of similarity. A lot of college kids, I get the whole free speech argument. A lot of kids basically have Selma envy. They're taught to be, that protest is sort of part of who it is to go to college. And it is -- and so some of this is sort of cosplay to my mind.
SWISHER: Protests is what it's part to be a young person, to push against ideas.
GOLDBERG: It's part for some young people. A lot of people just want to go to their graduation and classes and go to parties, and that's the majority.
[10:10:00]
SWISHER: Sure, sure, sure. But this is more like the anti-apartheid movement, as I recall when I was there, it's more on that level, because there's not Americans in -- Americans were in Vietnam. It was a very different conflict.
WALLACE: I was going to say, the personal stakes are completely different. There were a half-a-million people in 1968, American soldiers in Vietnam, and 200,000, mostly college students, had been drafted at that point. So the personal stakes, very different.
While President Biden is speaking up about the protests, he's keeping pretty quiet about Donald Trump's hush money trial. But is that the right move?
Then unconventional wisdom, the new effort by some Republicans to possibly replace Kamala Harris on the Democratic ticket.
And later, rolling the dice, the growing money-making trend with some career-ending consequences.
I mean, you know, I was there in some of those protests and 68, and you felt a very personal interest --
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:15:36]
WALLACE: Bad publicity is sometimes better than no publicity at all. Controversy, in short, sells. Donald Trump wrote that in his book "The Art of the Deal." And after a week of wall-to-wall coverage of his criminal hush money trial full of embarrassing details about his personal life, Trump must be hoping those words still hold true.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: So we have another day of court in a freezing courthouse. It's very cold in there.
WALLACE: But on the stand, scorching details from former "National Enquirer" boss David Pecker. He testified about a scheme to get Trump elected in 2016. Pecker saying he told Trump, "I would be your eyes and ears." Pecker testified he told Trump about two women, "Playboy" model Karen McDougal and porn star Stormy Daniels, who had stories about alleged affairs with Trump. Pecker paid McDougal $150,000, then never published her story, part of a so-called catch-and-kill schemes. Trump's lawyer asking Pecker you had similar relationships with other
people? Pecker answering, I did. But the public seems unbothered by the case so far. In a new CNN poll, 45 percent of voters say it's irrelevant to Trump's fitness for the presidency, up from 39 percent last summer. And while some Trump critics are speaking up about the trial -
SEN. MITT ROMNEY, (R-UT): So far as I know, you don't pay someone $130,000 not to have sex with you.
WALLACE: President Biden is choosing to stay silent.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: President Biden, have you watched any of the Trump trial?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: Lulu, I know it's only week one of a trial that's going to go on for five or six or whatever weeks. How's it going for Trump so far?
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Sorry I'm smiling. That Romney quote was just really, really funny. How's it going for him? I'm not a legal analyst, so I don't know it on the merits, but I can tell you that I have been riveted, even though we can't see it. It is salacious. First of all, the window into how this all worked, this catch-and-kill, and how this man, whose name is David Pecker, like it feels like I'm already in some weird alternate universe with the name alone is so amazing.
And I think -- what I keep coming back to is Trump, every day he shuffles out of the courtroom, and he rails against what is happening. And there's this idea, and he's constantly talking about his victimhood, and yet it's about he basically was this wealthy man who had this -- who was plugged into one of the most read tabloids in the city. And they were trying to find if there were people trying to -- if there was word on the street that he was sleeping with people. I mean, it doesn't seem like he's much of a victim to me. So I think it's going to hurt him.
WALLACE: Jonah, I've got to say, I was surprised at how much the prosecution got out of its first witness, David Pecker, and especially the fact that he said, look, when he was worried about these women, it was all about the campaign. It wasn't about trying to protect his family, Melannie, Ivanka. I mean, that that's an important point because that's what the contention is, that paying this off was a campaign issue. It wasn't a personal issue.
GOLDBERG: Yes, although, just on the strictly legal part of it, it's not illegal to pay off somebody to keep quiet during a campaign.
WALLACE: But it is illegal to --
SWISHER: Call it a business expense.
GOLDBERG: Right, right. So it's a misdemeanor to call it a business -- to falsely call it a business expense, and it's a misdemeanor under federal election law. And what Bragg is doing is he's putting two misdemeanors together to get 34 felony, and I don't think that math works legally.
Regardless, I don't think this is particularly great for Trump. It does take time out of campaigning. It's going to be a wet blanket on fundraising.
WALLACE: No, actually, he's rising a lot of money yes.
GOLDBERG: Yes, I mean about like bigger donors and all that kind of stuff. But the number to watch is that 45 percent -- 45 percent is basically Trump's share of the electorate. If it gets higher than that, then this is starting to work for him. But right now, 45 -- I would expect 45 percent of the electorate to say they don't care about this because 45 percent of the electorate says they're going to vote for him no matter what.
WALLACE: Coverage of the trial is drowning out all other campaign news. I defy you to tell me what Joe Biden are Kamala Harris did this week, or anybody in Congress.
[10:20:00]
And when Trump goes in that shot, when it goes in or out of the courtroom, all the cable news channels carry it lives. So Eliana, is this a win? All the attention, is it a win for Trump?
JOHNSON: That was striking to me. Trump has this free airtime to deliver his message. But I think it's really hard to argue that it's a win for Trump.
Should Biden be talking about it more and out there more? I think Biden is exacting costs that don't require him to talk about it. Trump is tied up in a courtroom every day. He's not on the campaign trail able to prosecute his message. His schedule and availability for fundraisers is not what it should be. So I think --
WALLACE: Let me bring Kara in, because the fact that matter is he was talking about the trial and how cold it was.
SWISHER: Yes.
WALLACE: But now he realizes, I got a free three or four minutes on every channel, and he's talking about other things. He talked about the campus protests. Today, this week he was talking about the debates. So he's getting his message out.
SWISHER: He is, but it's not a great place to get your message out there, doing this in front of a courtroom. Or he also continues to complain about the weather or whatever was inside the courtroom, and other things that are going on in the courtroom. The sleeping is not good. This is not good for him. This is just not -- it's the same shot every day going in and out. And he looks exhausted by the end of the day. This is what's going to happen in the coverage, unless something happens, this is going to go down.
GOLDBERG: He's also not an early riser, right? I mean, usually went down to the Oval Office by 11:00. And now he's going to get there every day. He's an older guy. It's going to take a physical toll.
SWISHER: He's getting sleep, which is good.
WALLACE: He's got to be there by the crack at 9:30?
(LAUGHTER)
WALLACE: I want to talk about --
SWISHER: He's getting rest, and that's important for him.
WALLACE: Yes, he's sleeping, actually, during the trial. Then Lulu, there's this issue who about Biden, who is talking about everything except the trial. Take a look. He's taking some shots at Trump. Here they are.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Maybe it's coming from that bible he's trying to sell.
(LAUGHTER)
BIDEN: I almost wanted to buy one just see what the hell is in it.
Remember when he was trying to deal with COVID. He suggested to inject a little bleach in your veins. He missed it. It all went to his hair.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: Lulu, he clearly, Biden doesn't want to play into the Trump narrative that Biden is somehow behind these prosecutions. But is it the right move to just stay quiet and keep quiet about the trial while it's going on?
GARCIA-NAVARRO: I think it is. I just don't I don't think he has anything to gain by getting involved in that at all. If someone is drowning and they're your opponent, why go out there and go around a life raft around them? I mean, it's sort of like, just let him do his own thing.
SWISHER: He could make a dig. The digs are good. The little digs, the little things. But it's always to be part of that.
JOHNSON: Yes. And I also I don't think Biden at all should want to play into the idea that he is behind the prosecutions. That's what Trump is arguing. And I think him prosecuting the case is dangerous for him.
WALLACE: While some Republicans like to use Kamala Harris as a campaign talking point against President Biden, others within the GOP maybe pushing to get her off the ticket.
Plus a big award reversal that few people saw coming. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:27:50]
WALLACE: Vice President Harris is taking a bigger and more prominent role on the Biden reelection campaign. This week, she's kicking off an economic opportunity tour starting with stops in Atlanta and Detroit that focuses on communities of color. Harris has already visited more than a dozen states this year, talking about reproductive rights and gun-control. But despite being out front of those issues, interesting news, recent focus groups conducted by the super PAC Republican voters against Trump found that swing voters don't like Harris. And focus groups conducted by the Democratic National Committee also found Harris rubs some people the wrong way.
So Jonah, how big a drag is Kamala Harris on the ticket?
GOLDBERG: I think she's a pretty big drag. I think she was arguably Biden's worst political decision of his presidency, to pick her in the first place. And one of the special reasons that she's a drag is Biden's age concerns people. They worry that he can't fill a term. They worry that he's not up to the job. And so the vice president matters more than they normally do. I generally think going into the future that Democrats really should not nominate or front people who come from decidedly all blue states unless they're like once-in-a- generation talents like Barack Obama, because Kamala Harris does not know how to talk to the center or to the right. She only really knows how to sort of speak the language of the base of the party. And that's 34 percent --
WALLACE: Let me pick up on that, because it's not just focus groups that are down on Harris right now. In a recent poll, national poll, 40 percent approved of the vice president's job performance while 55 percent disapprove.
And Kara, to Jonah's point, given the fact that people are so worried, voters on all political stripes are so worried about Biden's age and whether he's going to last for four more years, is it a problem when there they're not very satisfied or reassured by the person who would succeed him.
SWISHER: It doesn't really matter. She's not going to be replaced, and they don't like her. There's lots of reasons they don't like her. And I don't think the vice president matters as much as people think. I don't think they think about her, unless --
WALLACE: With an 82-year-old president it might matter more.
SWISHER: I get that, but right now, I don't think that's the first thing that we think about is her necessarily.
[10:30:02]
I just don't -- I think they've not liked her. She's had not a successful vice presidency, although I don't know what that means at all, because I don't think people thought of Mike Pence very much or Dan Quayle or anybody else. And so it doesn't matter because she's not going anywhere. He's not going to replace her. Think about that. Think about the earthquake that would cause. And so --
GARCIA-NAVARRO: I think Jonah is right, though, in the sense that she really does struggle with her communication skills.
SWISHER: She does.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: She really, really --
WALLACE: It's so interesting you say, that because the vice president's staff, Lulu is saying, well, she got off to a rough start, whether it was just one year or two years or whatever. But she has finally found her voice, especially on reproductive rights. Here's a case.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAMALA HARRIS, (D) VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: In America, freedom is not to be given. It is not to be bestowed. It is ours by right.
(APPLAUSE)
HARRIS: And that includes the freedom to make decisions about one's own body and not have the government telling people what to do.
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: Lulu, is Kamala Harris finding her voice, as the Biden camp says?
GARCIA-NAVARRO: I mean, I hate that term, finding her voice. I mean, she's always had it. But this is an issue that I think is one that is good for her and good for Biden. Biden on this issue isn't particularly strong. He has his faith. He's talked about it. He feels uncomfortable talking about reproductive rights and abortion in particular. This is perfect for her to go out. This is a really important issue for the Democrats, and she is a good messenger.
WALLACE: You know, Eliana I find it kind of ironic that the Biden campaign talks about her finding our voice, and they have said this repeatedly over these four years, because in these focus groups that were talking about, one of the things that people objected to was her voice. They said they found her voice, especially her laugh, annoying.
SWISHER: Oh, dear.
JOHNSON: It is amusing. And I put in Google "Kamala Harris finds her voice." It's not just the Biden -- it's not just the Harris team that's saying this. When you Google that, you get several articles by reporters. It is the media that's saying this. And about once every six months, the media writes a story, Kamala Harris finds her voice, and usually it's on the abortion message. If she had a strong, consistent voice and was really finding a lot of success as vice president, we wouldn't read an article every day --
SWISHER: Yes, because no one ever writes about woman and their voices. No one ever writes about women smiling or being appealing.
WALLACE: I kind of anticipated this. People write about Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his voice.
SWISHER: Not that much. Come on. A particularly annoying voice, by the way. But that's besides the point.
WALLACE: No, it's precisely the point. Her voice is an issue.
SWISHER: Look, she's got a problem with communicating, she sounds like a prosecutor. I would say that's probably -- she sounds like what she was for years. I think the issue is she's also a woman. She's also one of color. And I'm not blaming it on that necessarily, but she has got a lot of in-built thing --
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Are you suggesting that women don't face a double- standard in politics.
WALLACE: I'm just saying that I think the voice question with her is that she does have a voice that people find annoying, just like they do with Robert F. Kennedy. I think there are limits to how this double standard --
JOHNSON: It's not limited to women here. I think Ted Cruz struggled with the same thing.
SWISHER: You're going way down the line on him.
JOHNSON: He's not likeable. He's annoying.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Yes, but Ted Cruz is not likeable.
JOHNSON: Neither is she.
WALLACE: All right, Jonah.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: She's not down --
WALLACE: I understand. I take Kara's point, she's not going anywhere. If she just disappeared, would Biden the better off with another running mate?
GOLDBERG: Oh, I think it depends on the running mate, but yes, I think so. I mean, look, I think this whole thing gets the causality backwards. Abortion is an issue that's good for Biden and Harris and for Harris, and it has coattails for them. She's not helping the abortion issue. The abortion issue is helping her.
WALLACE: From a presidential ticket to a plane ticket, up next the new push to stop those travelers who pay, and they know who they are, to skip the lines at airport security.
And we have as a treat for the panel that's a tough yay or nay for those of us with a sweet tooth. We'll chew on it right after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:38:54]
WALLACE: Once again, it's time to get our group's yea or nay on some big talkers.
Up first, the return of an award that's been 14 years in the making. This week, former USC running back Reggie Bush got his Heisman Trophy back. In 2010, an NCAA investigation found Bush received thousands of dollars in gifts from a sports agent, which wasn't allowed at the time. Bush denied it, but still gave up the trophy honoring the best player on college football. Now, citing changes that allow college athletes to get paid, the Heisman folks decided Bush should get a statue back.
Kara, are you yea or nay on Reggie Bush holding his Heisman once again?
SWISHER: Sure. I think college athletes should get paid. I guess. I don't honestly care. I'll be honest with you. Good. Yea. Yea.
WALLACE: Wow, passive aggressive.
(LAUGHTER)
WALLACE: Jonah, college athletes can get paid now, but they couldn't back them. So how do you to feel -- and I love this. How do you feel about the Heisman Trust, as it's called, applying the rules retroactively and saying even though it wasn't allowed, then you got your Heisman back?
[10:40:00]
GOLDBERG: Yes. I think it's a judgment call, but ultimately, I think it's yea. I think the circumstances specific to him are such that it's on the bubble, and why not?
WALLACE: OK. Yea, or why not?
Next, it may be harder to jump the security line at airports. A proposed California law looks to possibly banned services like Clear, which allows people who pay $189 a year to skip wait and to straight to security ahead of other passengers, including those with TSA pre- check. If passed, Clear would have to provide its own dedicated security lane or stop operating in California. Lulu, as our social justice advocate, are you yea or nay --
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Is that what I am now?
WALLACE: That's what you are now, our official bureau chief for social justice. Yea or nay on airport equity?
GARCIA-NAVARRO: A social justice advocate, I see. No one ever called me that is a journalist. OK, so what I would say about this is what I find interesting is I am
a Clear user. I love swatting up to Clear, waving at the TSA people, and saying bye-bye. And in America, I've never heard of anyone objecting to the fact of paying to get better service. So that's what I would say about that. I personally like it.
But I also do take the point that this is a public resource, right? Which is like an airport, and should a private company be able to use this public resource to get their customers through the line?
WALLACE: So interesting that our social justice advocate is like bye- bye to all the lines, the regular --
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Because I'm not really a social justice advocate.
WALLACE: Eliana, should Clear, something like that where you can pay your way to skip the security lines, yea or nay.
JOHNSON: I'm 100 percent yea. There was a great line in the article about this that said, had somebody objecting saying this is pay for play to get through airport security lines. I'm totally for pay for play to get through airport security.
WALLACE: Finally, a must-have mash up known -- oh boy -- as the crookie. If you haven't heard, it's a combo of a croissant and a cookie, and it was created a year ago in Paris but recently went viral on TikTok. All right, panel take the wide shot. We have one for each of you. So it's time for a taste test. Everyone, a crookie.
SWISHER: You're going to make us do this?
WALLACE: Bon appetit. Kara?
SWISHER: No. It's like a sacrilege. I don't know what to say. Stop messing with a croissant, people.
WALLACE: I am going full John McLaughlin on you. Wrong. This is taste treat. It's absolutely delicious.
SWISHER: It's horrible, horrible.
WALLACE: What do we think.
GOLDBERG: I'm totally yea. It tastes very much like a lot of --
JOHNSON: Tastes like a chocolates --
GOLDBERG: -- of my people. It's a very Jewishy kind of strudel kind of thing. I'm all in. Yes, I'm all in.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: It's delicious. I love it. And it feels very American, though. It feels like this is something that is only in America.
WALLACE: Well, it was created in Paris.
SWISHER: I don't care. GOLDBERG: You look innovation and fusion and all these other things.
SWISHER: Not this. The croissant is perfect.
GOLDBERG: It's not going to replace the croissant. It's adding to the croissant.
(LAUGHTER)
WALLACE: Exactly. Up next -- you are so wrong -- an Over/Under that's actually about betting on the over/under. This is delicious.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:47:56]
WALLACE: Our Over/Under this week is literally about over/unders. Sports betting is exploding in the U.S. When you watch a game, it's hard not to be flooded by ads for betting apps that make gambling easier than ever.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We see spreads to cover, overs to hit, and chances to live bet from the first sound in the final whistle. So don't just watch football this season. Cherish it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: Last year Americans bet almost $120 billion on sports, part of a huge rise over the last five years. And sports leagues have signed marketing deals with betting platforms like Draft Kings and FanDuel. While it's led to big profits for the leagues, it's also led to scandals since players aren't allowed to gamble on their own sports. This week, the NBA permanently banned Jontay Porter of the Toronto Raptors after an investigation found he bet on basketball games. And last year, 11 pro athletes were punished for gambling- related infractions.
So Jonah, is pro sports rolling the dice by getting involved so closely with gambling?
GOLDBERG: I think this is the most foreseeable disaster of a major institution. It's going to lead to all sorts of problems. It's going to lead to violence in the stands. It's going to have all sorts of corrupting influences on sports. I think it's a terrible idea. I'm not for banning all gambling, but making it instantaneous and basically like the TikTok of wagering is a bad idea.
SWISHER: I'm completely opposite. This is what's happening. It's going on underground. I'm still recovering from that heinous baked good --
(LAUGHTER)
WALLACE: I'm still trying to suck it out from between my teeth. SWISHER: This is what's been happening, and it's better that we see it
out in the open. It's a little like weed. It's like everything else. People are using it.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: But they shouldn't be advertising for it. I mean, gambling, gambling people suffer from an addiction. It should be like alcohol and tobacco.
SWISHER: But that's because then it gets regulated and we figured out ways to have it --
WALLACE: But Kara, here's the question. There's going to be gambling, and you can --
SWISHER: And players shouldn't gamble.
WALLACE: And the Supreme Court, incidentally, said it's legal in any state.
SWISHER: Right.
[10:50:00]
WALLACE: But when the NFL or the NBA actually has a betting partner, a fantasy partner, does that mix the messages? On the one hand, we're going to make as much money as we can out of gambling, but you as a player, you can't bet on a game.
SWISHER: No, players shouldn't be able to. That is actually the correct answer on that one. That makes --
WALLACE: We all agree they shouldn't that on a game, but is it a mixed message --
SWISHER: No, because they're looking over here and seeing all this money being made illegally or under the table or in Las Vegas. And then they want a piece of it. These people have to find other revenue streams as others shift around them. I don't see --
WALLACE: Lulu, and I know you're not our -- you're our social justice advocate, not our sports advocate?
(LAUGHTER)
GARCIA-NAVARRO: What is going on today? I am not anything.
WALLACE: This gets even dicier because there is a thing prop bets, where not only do you bet on which team is going to win, you could even have a bet on is this quarterback going to be able to complete x number of passes over or under. Now, it's not whether the team is going to win. An individual player could actually get involved and win or lose a bad. I mean, doesn't get kind of dicey?
GARCIA-NAVARRO: I think it gets dicey. I don't support it in the sense that I think that it's bad for people. And the other thing that I would just say is that in the social justice realm, it is often poor people and people of color who are using these apps and getting taken advantage of.
WALLACE: The panel is back with their takes on hot stories, and I have my own special best shot. That's right after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:56:23]
WALLACE: It's time for our panel's special takes on what's happening, or predictions of what we should be looking out for. So Jonah, hit me with your best shot. So FBI Director Christopher Wray has repeatedly and with increasing urgency warned that we could have major terrorist mass casualty events, that the threat matrix is very high. He's also made these very urgent warnings about Chinese penetration. And I think it's largely falling on deaf ears. Part is the Trump trial stuff is so soaking up all the attention. And I don't think that our politics are ready to be able to deal with a terrorist attack, nor do I think our institutions are.
WALLACE: Kara, you're focused on a ruling by the Federal Trade Commission this week.
SWISHER: I am. It's the ban on noncompete agreements, which I think is a huge deal and aims at one of the most anti-competitive tools in business. This is the ability for companies to enforce these noncompete agreements. And it goes down to chefs and hairdressers and things like that. It makes sense at the senior executive level, but otherwise it's a transfer of money from labor to shareholders. And people -- for innovation, people should be able to compete and get jobs after they leave job. It's ridiculous.
WALLACE: Eliana, best shot.
JOHNSON: Best shot, I am watching the first-quarter economic numbers that were out. GDP growth was lower than expected. At one point six percent, and core inflation was up, which makes me think that not only will Joe Biden not have the flourishing economy that he wants ahead of the November election, but also the Fed is probably not going to get the soft economic landing it has been hoping for.
WALLACE: The good news keeps rolling him for the Biden administration before November.
JOHNSON: Exactly, exactly.
WALLACE: Lulu, you claim you have an "I told you so" for your best shot.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: I do. "I am right, and Kara and Chris are wrong" is what I titled my email. I was very interested to see that reportedly Apple is cutting production of the Vision Pro. If you remember how reportedly with those lovely glasses and everyone was talking about was the new thing. And I was saying how utterly user -- how it's not user-friendly at all, and who wants to sit around the dinner table with Vision Pro on your head? And I was right, and you were wrong. WALLACE: Well, it's interesting because I kind of anticipated from
you. I would have thought better, but this is what I anticipated, and it's actually a case of wildly revisionist history. Go to the videotape.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SWISHER: I find it really exciting in terms of entertainment. I really like the way they've done it. I do think it's the first generation of where this is going.
WALLACE: I tried it this week, yes, and yikes, it's pretty cool. But I thought the headset somebody is wearing here, it got uncomfortable, not something you'd want to wear every day.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: Now, I wanted to play that tape for two reasons. First of all, to show that I actually also had doubts about the Vision Pro, but mostly because I could show kara looking --
(LAUGHTER)
WALLACE: And you can't get enough of that.
SWISHER: Directionally, correct. Sorry, I'm going to stick with it.
WALLACE: This week. I have my own best shot, and it's a two-parter. First, congrats to Kara, who was honored with a 2024 Webby Lifetime Achievement Award honoring excellence on the Internet. Congratulations.
SWISHER: Thank you. It's my greatest achievement.
WALLACE: And I want to congratulate our team for winning a Webby for this clip, which went viral from my interview with Jon Batiste on our Max show "Who's Talking" where he demonstrates how music can cross genres.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(MUSIC)
JON BATISTE, MUSICIAN: Well, you know, the blues --
(MUSIC)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: Which just goes to show if you're with Jon Batiste, you're on the right track. It was a great conversation. You can catch my entire talk with Jon on Max.
Gang, thank you all for being here. Thank you for spending part of your day with us. We'll see you right back here next week.
