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Inside Politics

Has Political Rhetoric Gotten Too Extreme? Two Senators Weigh In. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired November 13, 2025 - 12:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[12:30:00]

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: -- look, there's a ready case law that says that when someone is improperly installed in a role, they got to be taken out of the role, or the, you know, the work that they touched as U.S. attorney or prosecutor might be taken out.

So the judge is clearly winking at potentially removing Lindsey Halligan from the case. But this is such uncharted territory --

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: Yes.

WILLIAMS: -- in terms of presidential power. I don't think anybody really knows how this is all going to come out.

BASH: Right. And the key is removing her from the case, but also the question which the defendants are putting out there is whether the case should be brought at all.

WILLIAMS: Absolutely.

BASH: Yes. Thank you.

WILLIAMS: Thank you, Dana.

BASH: Always make us smarter, Elliot.

Discuss, don't yell or scream. Discuss civilly. That's actually what happened for an hour with Senators Mark Kelly and John Curtis in Curtis' home state of Utah on the campus where Charlie Kirk was assassinated, where emotions are still so raw, especially for the students.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALEXA HERRERA, UVU STUDENT: It sucks. Like, that was awful. And I can't believe that, like, obviously we have to live in a world where that happens. But that's why this event is so important, where we can, I don't know, continue to have, like, calm, civil dialogue.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [12:35:41]

BASH: America is as divided as it's been in decades, certainly in my lifetime. Polls show fewer and fewer Americans even have cross-party friendships. And most frightening of all, we've seen a surge in political violence. It's been two months since Conservative Activist Charlie Kirk was assassinated at Utah Valley University. We were there yesterday talking to students who are still understandably shaken.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BECK DISHMAN, VP, TURNING POINT UTAH VALLEY UNIVERSITY: It's kind of one of those moments where you don't forget where you were and you don't forget the emotions that you felt. Even now it brings up a lot of emotions talking about it.

EVA MCCULLOUGH, UVU STUDENT: When they shut down the campus, it was just like there was an overwhelming sense of loss and like a horrible thing had happened here. And so coming back to campus was really difficult for me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: That's why both Beck and Eva you saw there were excited about the event I was on campus for, to moderate a bipartisan dialogue about a host of issues, especially lowering the temperature in American society with Utah's Republican Senator John Curtis and Arizona Democratic Senator Mark Kelly. We talked about the heated rhetoric, not just from President Trump, but also Democrats.

We started talking about the New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, who used some pretty strident language in his election night speech last week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MARK KELLY (D), ARIZONA: I think it's easy for some people in office to step over a line. We live this life and we're in this world basically 24/7. And I think some folks say things and then they regret it.

I -- what John referenced, putting the phone down and getting away from it would be, you know, a rather healthy thing to do. But I, you know, I think anybody in a position like ours in the United States Senate, in the House, in the White House, should be looking for opportunities to unite us, to bring us together, not further divide us.

And language when you have -- you know, I mean, I don't have a million followers on Twitter, but I think I got a half a million or more than that, I mean, a half a million people might see this. And then you apply the algorithm and suddenly you got 17 million views on a video. You need to be responsible and careful for what you say because those words, some people act because of them.

SEN. JOHN CURTIS (R), UTAH: Yes, I'd add to that. One of the duties of a new member of the Senate is to preside on the Senate floor. It sounds like an honor, but it's kind of like KP duty, right?

BASH: Yes.

CURTIS: And so I get a lot of time up there. As a matter of fact, they just gave me a -- it's called the golden gavel for 100 hours of presiding up on the floor. And I will tell you, there are moments when I literally want to flip my chair around and turn my back to the Speaker, both Republicans and Democrats.

BASH: We're not talking about online, we're talking about on the Senate floor.

CURTIS: Yes, yes. Both Republicans and Democrats. And I believe one of the problems -- and by the way, I am going to -- I'm going to give my colleague here a shout out. I've never once heard whether on the Senate floor or otherwise anything from him that even gets close to that line. So I think I wouldn't have invited him here, right, if I felt otherwise. So thank you for that.

(APPLAUSE)

CURTIS: But I think also a very negative part of this is a mastery of what I would call the half-truth, right? Like, no wonder they don't believe us, right? They take something and they put it in a speech and they just hammer it. And half of it is right, right? But half of it's not.

And of course, people don't trust us because they have, you know, they can tell when we're not doing the right thing. And I just wish that more people could do that. But what's happening is we are rewarding the wrong behavior.

Those are their colleagues who make millions of dollars in donations. Those are our colleagues who have millions and millions of people follow them on these accounts. And one of the problems is the American people have to stop rewarding that kind of behavior.

BASH: How?

CURTIS: Stop following them, right? Stop sending them money. Call them out. I was in a parade just a few blocks from here with my grandkids in kind of this bicycle thing. And some guy in the crowd yells the obscenity at me. And he's surrounded by families. And not one person said a thing. Like, how is that OK?

[12:40:10]

Look at the online comments that you see anytime we post anything online. You probably get this too, right?

BASH: Oh, yes. How is that OK? Why are we tolerating that? And I think this is where when you, part of that, look up in the mirror is I'm going to speak out, right? I'm not going to let those things slide.

KELLY: Well, with the exception of the guy at the parade, because he said this in person, most people online -- CURTIS: Yes.

KELLY: -- just they're hiding --

CURTIS: In the basement.

KELLY: -- yes, they're hiding in the basement --

BASH: Yes.

KELLY: -- and they're anonymous. And it's very easy to say things you would never say publicly to a person if you're saying it in an anonymous fashion.

BASH: I would be remiss if I didn't ask about the President, because he is not known for holding back, and he has some pretty intense and sometimes vicious language that he uses online. So would you apply what you're saying to him as well as all of your colleagues in the Senate and elsewhere?

KELLY: For me, 100 percent. I mean, I think --

(APPLAUSE)

KELLY: So I -- you know, I think the President uses just about every opportunity he can to drive that wedge between Americans, between Democrats and Republicans. And it's not healthy. And every day I wake up hoping, especially when something happens, especially when there's a significant event like what happened here two months ago and the memorial service that followed.

I watched that and saw Erika Kirk get up there and forgive people, followed by the President, who said that he hates his political enemies. Not healthy for our democracy. He's the President of the United States. People listen to him.

They act on his words more than anybody else in our country. Donald Trump's words matter. So every day I get up and I'm looking for a nice tweet kumbaya that's going to bring us all together and it's just never there.

CURTIS: So I do think the same responsibility that I ascribe to us applies in this situation as well. And it is something in my office that we watch carefully that my colleagues like to use the term flood the zone. It's a real thing, right? I can't respond to everything. So we carefully pick what we're going to respond to.

My standard has always been Utah standards. Has something violated what I would call a Utah standard, if that makes sense. And when I do, hopefully that people see that I do speak out. But I also think this is a moment to -- for a little self-reflection.

Within a few percentage points during the last three presidential elections, half the country said yes to that map, right? So I do think that this is more a reflection, right, of who we are as a country than we are willing sometimes to admit. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Up next, Senators Curtis and Kelly on the crisis facing young men. Why so many are angry and lonely and what can be done about it, they do have an idea. You're going to want to hear it after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:47:41]

BASH: I want to take you back now to the campus of Utah Valley University, the site of Charlie Kirk's assassination in September. We spoke about the crisis facing young men in America and the cause and some bipartisan solutions to address it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: We've heard Democrats talk about it. We've heard Republicans talk about it. The professor Scott Galloway has a book about it and how to deal with the -- what he calls an epidemic of loneliness and troubles with young men. And frankly, Charlie Kirk cracked the code. He figured out how to reach young men.

I have a 14-year-old son. He, for sure, knew who Charlie Kirk was, and all of his friends did as well. And so, can you talk about finding the way back societally and doing so through and with young men?

KELLY: I think we've got to engage with them more and meet them starting out where they are. They've got fewer opportunities than they used to have. There's a lot of destructions, videogames, social media.

There are opportunities to build relationships with women are much more limited. You would think a thing like a dating app would help.

BASH: Have you been on the dating app?

(LAUGHTER)

KELLY: I --

BASH: I hope the answer is no, but I haven't.

KELLY: No. But I'll tell you why --

BASH: Apparently they're not so fun.

KELLY: I sat there with one of my daughter's friends --

BASH: Yes.

KELLY: -- as she went through --

BASH: And?

KELLY: -- and I was trying to understand this. And I saw Scott Galloway at an event recently and he was talking about this. So this is --

BASH: Yes.

KELLY: -- what he said is it's very, very few men, you know, have opportunities there and it's a lot of women competing for very few men. So these young men don't have the chance to find somebody and build a relationship. They often never approach a woman in public or somebody that they don't already know to even have a conversation. And I think that's a problem. We've got to navigate our way out of this.

CURTIS: So when I was a young man, I thrived on challenges. I thrived on doing hard things, right?

[12:50:05]

I think we have to have higher expectations. Somehow it's become OK to stay at home and stay on the couch and we're going to pay for your insurance, we're going to pay for your college, we're going to send you a check, right? And I think that that is part of the problem.

We've got to tell them that, no, we expect you to work. No, we expect you to achieve. We expect you to do hard things. We expect you to study, right? And that's what brings self-esteem.

And when we take those things away from them, we shouldn't be surprised that they don't have any self-esteem and that they're lost. And I really worry, if you look at the history of our country, going back to -- I mean, we all grew up with these heroes of World War II. They did so much. They sacrificed so much. It was hard.

They did hard things and they grew and they prospered. And go to 9/11. For a while, we came together, right? We were unified. We were motivated. And now we have a whole generation that doesn't even know what 9/11 is.

And I worry that it's going to take a tragedy or something really bad to engage them if we can't figure out how we challenge them, how we make them be the best that they can be and not say it's OK to be anything less.

BASH: I worry that, God forbid, another tragedy, what's going to happen is not post-9/11 if people are going to feel divided and not unified.

KELLY: Dana, I spent 25 years in the Navy and I loved being in the United States Navy. I thought it was great for me, my squadron mates, everybody I served with just seemed to really love the experience and it did so much for us as individuals.

I think we need some kind of national public service. It doesn't have to be the military. But somebody -- you know, I think young people, not just men, young women as well, need to be doing something that kind of gives them a little bit of ownership in this great experiment of our democracy and our country and just ownership in what we are trying to build here. And we don't currently have a lot of that.

CURTIS: I have to comment on that because the culture here in the state is --

BASH: Of course.

CURTIS: -- many of our young men and women go out at 18, 19 years of age and go away for two years and serve. And obviously, we wouldn't compel people to all do religious service. But what a young man or young woman learns two years, I was 19, went to Taiwan, a state that was under martial law, right?

And what I learned and how I grew from that experience cannot be duplicated. And I totally agree. If there was a formula where we could mandate, right, like everybody go to --

BASH: If only you knew somebody who could legislate that.

CURTIS: Yes, yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Let's see if that happens.

When we come back, we're going to talk about the hope for civility here in Washington, but more importantly, in our society and politics. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[12:57:29]

KELLY: -- get so upset with your friend at work who wears, you know, the political hat. I'm not a big fan of the MAGA hat. You know, I'm a Democrat in the United States Senate. I do not have one.

CURTIS: Make a note, staff, when you got (INAUDIBLE).

BASH: You know, there was a guy in the audience here with a 47 hat. It doesn't bother me. I hope he asks a question later. I'd love to take a picture with him, wearing the hat. I noticed the hat, but, you know, I'm sure he and I have a lot in common.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: That was Senator Mark Kelly on the campus of Utah Valley University, part of our discussion yesterday.

My panel is back here. David Chalian, what's your take on this? I want to try to have some optimism, but also some realism.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: No, I mean, it's -- it is great to hear two senators sit and have this kind of conversation. I heard their idea in the second part. In the first part, there's a lot of identifying of the problem.

I don't know what the solution is for the incentive structure that they identify is perverse, but I don't see -- I have not seen a path for how that incentive structure gets unwrung at this moment with how online our politics is and where the money comes from and where the energy comes from. And to me, they have correctly identified a problem with that, but I don't know what the solution is.

BASH: They have legislation that they're pushing together to try to address the algorithm issue. And a lot of people have talked about it for many years. But this is something that they say that they're going to push. We'll see if they can get past the --

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes.

BASH: -- billions and billions of dollars that are working against it.

HENDERSON: Yes. You know, and Senator Kelly did talk about the problem of Donald Trump. I mean, I think that is the sort of unique figure in our politics now that you do have a President who thinks it's OK to go in front of an audience and say that he hates Democrats. And there is no incentive for him to stop that because he's essentially been rewarded for it.

And Senator Curtis talked about, you know, Americans don't really self-reflect in terms of what does it mean that Americans seem to be fine with electing a person who does seem to like to stoke division.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Look, my take is I have a lot of my closest friends and family are just not in this politics world at all, right? And they always say to me at some point, the pendulum's got to swing back, right? But I don't know if that's possible without action. And I think it was a fascinating discussion.

I think it's something that a lot of people recognize. I mean, even from, you know, 10 years ago, when I started covering politics, I've seen it personally change so much. And I can't also say it's just because of Trump.

I mean, Biden came in promising to bring the world together. Look at where we are now. It's -- I think political violence is even worse now. Obviously, President Trump's back in office, but I agree. I don't know what the solution is, but it's definitely a problem.

BASH: All right. Well, we'll continue trying to be part of the solution as much as we can.

Thanks for joining Inside Politics. CNN News Central starts right now.