Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Live Event/Special
CNN Saturday Morning Table for Five; President Biden Warns of Emerging Oligarchy in U.S. as Tech Leaders Seek Support from President-Elect Trump; President Biden Claims He Would have Defeated Donald Trump in 2024 Presidential Election; Some of President Biden's and First Lady Jill Biden's Grudges Made Public; Comedian Discusses How Comedy Should Adjust to Upcoming Trump Presidency; Businesses and Government Agencies Rolling Back Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Programs ahead of President-Elect Trump Taking Office; Food and Drug Administration Bans Red Dye Number Three. Aired 10-11a ET.
Aired January 18, 2025 - 10:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[10:00:29]
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: This morning, they're rich, they're powerful, and now they're with MAGA. Are we seeing the rise of an American oligarchy, or is the left creating a new boogeyman?
Plus, all the president's grudges -- despite his hopeful farewell message, why Brandon's list went dark.
Also, comedy in the Trump era.
BILL MAHER, COMEDIAN: I'm not going to chase every rabbit down the hole like I did the first time.
PHILLIP: How far is too far when crossing the applause line?
And from candies to cupcakes, why did it take the government so long to ban red dye?
Here in studio S.E. Cupp, Roy Wood, Jr., Arthur Aidala, and Cari Champion.
It's the weekend. Join the conversation at the "TABLE FOR FIVE". Good
(END VIDEO TAPE)
PHILLIP: Good morning, everyone. I'm Abby Phillip in New York. Let's get right to what America is talking about.
The sequel begins 48 hours from now. Donald Trump is going to become president yet again, and he'll do so in his indoor voice. Frigid temperatures are forcing the inauguration inside the Capitol. That's where Ronald Reagan did it back in 1985. He's also going to take the oath before a row of billionaires cheering him on. All of the tech titans, including the new Trump whisperer, Elon Musk, they're all getting plum spots in the inauguration. And they should, since they are literally paying millions for it. For the last couple of months since Trumps inauguration, they've been hitting up Mar-a-Lago, bending the knee, kissing the ring, doing all the things. And they've done everything from pitching a DOGE department to cut spending to cutting fact checking at their news sites.
So what is the reason for all of this? Is it all for influence? Is it for their bottom lines? Is it all for self-preservation? After all, Trump once suggested that Mark Zuckerberg head straight to jail because of Facebook's actions during the campaigns. The sitting president thinks that he knows, and he's sounding the alarm before his exit.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Today, an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power, and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: I want to be naive about this. Look, we've had rich people with a lot of influence for a long time in this country. However, clearly, they think something has changed because they didn't do this in 2020. They didn't even do this in 2016. They are now saying it's erased. We've got to all throw the money at Trump because it does matter whether he likes you. It does matter whether you give him money. That will influence the policy. And I think to me, S.E., that is the difference between now and all the other eras in American history, perhaps, that we've seen.
S.E. CUPP, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, there's a really symbiotic relationship now between politics and tech. And I think over time, the tech industry has realized the benefits of being close to political power. There was a resistance at first. I remember I was brought in to Facebook with a bunch of conservatives to try and, like, talk to Mark Zuckerberg and Peter Thiel about how to be more inclusive to conservatives. What a change a couple of years makes. But that resistance is clearly over now, and they see a real clear benefit in being close to Trump and close to political power.
PHILLIP: I mean, they used to like, avoid Washington, like a plague.
ARTHUR AIDALA, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Trump got this four-year break, right. So he was president, and then he's been off for four years. And in those four years he developed strong relationships. I think, and don't forget, he seemed to be the frontrunner for quite some time when Joe Biden was going to be running. So these guys, yes, it does, of course, what you're saying is true, right? The president of the United States has enormous power. These guys need his help. So they're drawn towards him. And he wasn't the president at the time. He wasn't back-to-back. So he was able to be a citizen and pal around with him. And he's comfortable in that environment. He's comfortable with billionaires because he is a billionaire.
And but look, if you really follow the money, I believe, more billionaires and millionaires gave Biden money and Harris money for their campaigns than gave Trump money. It's just that we know where Beyonce's money comes from. We know where Taylor Swift's money comes from. They're brilliant entertainers. Elon Musk, he's losing money on Twitter. Bezos, OK, we know where his money comes from. It's just a different element. And we feel more comfortable with Taylor Swift than we do with Elon Musk.
[10:05:04]
PHILLIP: I think the difference isn't actually so much like who gives campaign contributions. I think the difference is Trump himself. He's the guy who, he'll just decide on a whim, hey, I want to, you know, TikTok to survive, just because he likes it. And that's just not -- we're just not used to the government working that way. Yes.
CARI CHAMPION, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: And he's very mercurial. And the thing is, is that there was a time, and you can tell me how long ago this was. Remember when he was banned from Twitter, what was then Twitter.
PHILLIP: And Facebook.
CHAMPION: And Facebook. And then all of a sudden now he's their best friend. But he also sees the benefit of making money and being friends with this guy, because this, at the end of the day, is about everybody making money. And I know that we want to say it's the political process, but they all are going to get paid. Even though Elon lost all this money, there were reports that he immediately, once Trump became president, made somewhere upwards of -- yes. It's insane.
PHILLIP: It was the best bet ever, literally.
CHAMPION: And they want to take over the social media site. Like that's where the power is. Social media can influence -- he's influencing people and he's smart. So we've got Mark, we've got Elon. We have all the other sites that are working in our interest. And so we're going to control the narrative. And no one in this day and age is really paying attention but to headlines and alternative facts.
PHILLIP: And, you know, I just got to say Coca-Cola is getting in on the game. They have this commemorative Diet Coke bottle that they like.
(LAUGHTER)
PHILLIP: They know the way to his heart. Yes, it's actually not the bottle. They bottle is not the thing because they've given the bottles before, but it's the going down to Mar-a-Lago.
CHAMPION: Yes, and doing all the things. Yes, I heard they were creating a Trump meal at McDonalds. I don't know how true that is, but --
(LAUGHTER)
ROY WOOD JR., COMEDIAN: And it would do numbers, it would do numbers. I just don't -- the thing in this whole scenario is that I think we
assume that Trump will always have a little bit more of a power dynamic over these billionaires, and I don't think that will always be the case. Elon Musk is in charge of the company that will essentially replace whatever NASA is doing in the current construct. Mark Zuckerberg lost weight and learned martial arts to get like -- that's -- is that manipulative? And it's like, how genuine are their intentions in the long run? Because right now it's all we're here to help you make policy versus them turning Trump into their puppet.
AIDALA: But I think that's normal. Like in my world, right, as a lawyer in the courthouse, when the chief administrative judge changes from one administrative judge to the other, you try to curry some favor, you want to get to them. When Roger Ailes left FOX News and Suzanne came in and take over. Like, they just left, the head of MSNBC just left. You're going to go in and try to schmooze with the new person because it's its mother nature.
CUPP: Now, there's a huge difference. And there's a big difference between Taylor Swift giving money and people with real conflicts of interest. SpaceX is subsidized to the tune of $20 billion. My money, your money, your money.
AIDALA: But they're getting it done.
CUPP: That's a conflict. And they're all conflicted, right? The Bezoses, the Zuckerbergs. They're all conflicted.
AIDALA: Explain the conflict.
CUPP: And Taylor Swift, I don't think was giving money or Beyonce giving money to the Harris campaign with an expectation that her records would sell her even more.
AIDALA: No, if you don't think Taylor Swift is an enormous businessperson, you know that that's not true.
CUPP: You know that's not --
AIDALA: She's not making billions of dollars --
CUPP: What did she think Harris was going to do for her music business?
(CROSS TALK)
AIDALA: It seems --
CUPP: No, this is a stretch.
AIDALA: Like, we were talking about him performing for the inauguration. You get seen as the president of the United States, her or him, put your arm around you. Me being on CNN takes me to another level.
PHILLIP: I don't know what you're talking about. AIDALA: I'm talking about --
PHILLIP: This is a good segue. I mean, Roy, just to be clear, because I think people might be confused. Roy is not performing.
AIDALA: I thought you were headlining. You're not headlining?
PHILLIP: Wait, time out, time out.
WOOD: You're going to get me disowned by my family.
AIDALA: Snoop Dogg is going to do that.
PHILLIP: How much money would it take?
WOOD: How much money would it take for me to go down to the inauguration?
PHILLIP: And perform?
WOOD: How much money? Because I'm looking at a 10-year ice out on the black American side of the gate.
(LAUGHTER)
WOOD: So I would do a 10 year salary aggregate of whatever that number is, just perform, disappear for 10 years, come back, learn karate like Zuckerberg, and be like, hey, look, I'm all more improved.
PHILLIP: What do you think is going on with Snoop is performing. Nelly is performing.
AIDALA: Carrie Underwood.
PHILLIP: Well, Carrie Underwood, but I mean, let's just.
CHAMPION: Carrie Underwood, you get.
PHILLIP: Carrie Underwood, it makes sense. But just because Roy pointed this out, he said, he made the point that there's backlash, right, when you when it comes to black Americans. For those guys, they're calculating it's not they're a big enough backlash.
WOOD: They're a little bit backlash-proof though. Snoop is a tried- and-true brand. And when you look at the things that Snoop Dogg has done on the philanthropic side of the game in the black community, you can't say he don't care about us, blah, blah, blah. Nelly, it's Nelly. You love his music and you're not really listening to Nelly for his political views anyway.
CUPP: It's getting hot in here.
PHILLIP: He has a new baby, so.
CHAMPION: Yes, but he has to pay some bills. Yes, but you know what, though? There's a precedent for rappers doing this. They're not the first rappers to do it, and they're also men. And so the point being is that they know that if I look down the history of people who did it, and their career survived, there's not going to be an issue.
[10:10:05]
PHILLIP: Trump has also always wanted Hollywood, the music industry, to be on his side. He just this week surprised some of these folks side by naming ambassadors to Hollywood. He said they'll serve, Jon Voight, Mel Gibson, Sylvester Stallone. "They'll serve as special envoys to me for the purpose of bringing Hollywood, which has lost much business over the last four years, to foreign countries back, bigger, better, and stronger than before."
WOOD: To which Mel Gibson said he found out on Twitter like the rest of us, didn't even call him first.
AIDALA: Let me just show you a point. One of my client's friends is a kid named Sheff G. He's a black kid from the Bronx. He was at the ,he headlined Trumps rally in the Bronx. Since he headlined the Bronx in there, his sales or his hits or whatever you get on the phone have gone through the roof. Lawrence Taylor, the great New York Giant, he stood up and he headlined a rally for Trump. He didn't get any pushback at all. Just the opposite. There is a piece of our country that looks at Trump and says he's a different guy and let's give him a shot.
CHAMPION: There's a piece of the country that understands that. But when you talk about a Sheff G or a Lawrence Taylor, there are people that the culture believes belongs to them. Sheff G, not one. Lawrence Taylor, we can debate that at any time of day. But there are people that have done things, foundational things for the culture that stand for the culture. And it's hard for us to accept this. And I'm not speaking for the culture as a whole because it's not a monolith. But they'll say, wait, but I thought, to his point, Trump is a little bulletproof. I think that when you're hanging out with Martha Stewart, you could do just about anything.
WOOD: Yes, and that's the thing with snoop. I see the play with Snoop. Snoop sells Skechers. That's a Skecher crowd. You've got to go --
(LAUGHTER)
WOOD: -- perform for the people that buy the Skechers.
PHILLIP: You sell Skechers, you have universal appeal. That's the moral of the story.
Everyone stick around. Coming up next, we're learning more about President Biden's grudges as he leaves the White House.
Plus, what does comedy look like in the second Trump era? Here what the comedian Bill Maher is saying he will not do this time around.
You're watching "TABLE FOR FIVE".
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[10:16:52]
BIDEN: I still believe in the idea for which this nation stands, a nation where the strengths of our institutions and the character of our people matter and must endure. Now it's your turn to stand guard.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: President Biden's farewell message may be forward looking, but his final days are being spent looking back. His wife, the first lady, hinted at a grudge with Nancy Pelosi for her role in pushing him aside on the election. But she said this, quote, "We were friends for 50 years, and it was disappointing." This is all coming, as Biden himself is still claiming that he had a leg up against Donald Trump. That's despite pretty much everything to suggest otherwise.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think I would have beaten Trump, could have beaten Trump.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Now that declaration, according to "The Wall Street Journal", is apparently irking the person who did lose, Kamala Harris.
I'm not -- I'm not surprised that she might be a little upset about this because she went out of her way not to criticize President Biden. She did so at --
AIDALA: To her detriment.
PHILLIP: To her detriment.
AIDALA: What would you have done differently? And she didn't answer.
PHILLIP: Her own campaign aides in all of their postmortems have said she would not do it because she felt loyalty was important. She felt that this was an attempt to sort of drag her into attacking her boss. Man.
CHAMPION: Yes, the biggest lesson that I think I'm learning, and especially when I watched Jimmy Carter's funeral, I think that that energy that she had was what she probably wanted to give without it being so emotional. Her energy was like, I don't fool with none of y'all. Like, I'm done with all of y'all. Her husband grabs her hand and touches her like, babe, forgive me.
(LAUGHTER)
CHAMPION: Forgive me. But she's like, he just, the look that he gave her. And look it was, we got this. I'm not dealing with these people. It's me and you. I'm right here. I'm protecting you. But hurt is palpable. And what her lesson has to be in this is that one of two things have to happen. You can -- we are all learning. And the Democratic Party needs to take a lesson. We can agree to disagree. And it's business. We've got to take the emotion out of it. And I feel like so many times there are so many emotional people on the Democratic side.
Republicans can be emotional, but I almost feel as if it's just for the for the play of it, the circumstances of it. I'm not speaking as a whole, but so emotional. You can say there are things that Biden did wrong that I don't want to be a part of. And I also think it's disrespectful how they're all throwing her under the bus after the fact because there was no other viable choice.
AIDALA: Who is throwing her under the bus?
CHAMPION: I don't like Biden saying -- I don't -- throwing Harris under the bus. I don't appreciate Biden saying that about her when he knows that she went out of her way --
AIDALA: That's a bitter pill for him to swallow.
CHAMPION: He can't say that now. He can barely even stand on his own. He is -- he was not ready. It was not -- he would not have won.
AIDALA: I agree with her loyalty. I agree with her loyalty. Reading the tea leaves.
CHAMPION: I disagree with her loyalty.
AIDALA: It seems what happened is he stepped out of the race under all this pressure, and it seemed like President Obama, President Clinton, Nancy Pelosi wanted some sort of a choosing mechanism. And Biden said, OK, you're throwing me out. I'm putting the person I want in.
[10:20:00]
CUPP: I feel bad for Biden, honestly, because that man's delusional. And so either he is really out of it, or he is still being lied to by people around him who are telling him, you could have won, sir. No, you could not have won. And Kamala Harris was not the reason he lost. Obama was not the reason he lost. Nancy Pelosi was not the reason he lost.
If there's not going to be any introspection, these races are won by three things -- candidate, message, and policy. He's got to take responsibility for all three of those things because he failed on all three of those things. He could have gone out a hero had he stuck to being a one-term president.
AIDALA: Yes, I agree.
PHILLIP: We know for sure that in the Biden household, he's not alone in in these views. I mean, Jill Biden, on the Record in an interview with "The Washington Post," said about Nancy Pelosi, "Let's just say I was disappointed with how it unfolded. Why? I don't know. I learned a lot about human nature." Did you? I mean, look --
CHAMPION: Did you? Did you really? Can you hear yourself.
PHILLIP: Schumer to his face warned him, if you run, you will go down in American history as one of the darkest figures. He was warned.
WOOD: Yes. I just think that, you know, it's unfortunate that the vice president was put in this position by the Democratic Party anyway. And then now the bigger question becomes, where do they go? Can you even heal? At this point --
CHAMPION: It doesn't feel like they're healing. They're pointing fingers. No clear leader. Nobody is saying this is what we should do to move forward. He's saying he should have won. She's mad at everybody. She doesn't want to talk to anybody, because she knows the dealings of being a politician are the dealings of being a politician, and everyone's acting like they're new to this.
CUPP: There's a mechanism for this. I went through the Republican autopsy. I worked on that autopsy. When you look at the mistakes you've made, you can improve and go on from there. I don't see anyone talking about how it's --
CHAMPION: Exactly, like a full hygiene, like break it down from top to bottom.
PHILLIP: I think they are going to do that. But I think one of the other pitfalls for them is that a lot of Democrats are now saying, well, there was nothing we could have done, this was this was lost from the beginning. And I think that it might be damaging thinking --
AIDALA: Because you're not doing triage on yourself as a party at any point. And what -- how can I have confidence come midterms if you still haven't done any triage on this --
PHILLIP: -- will be here before we even know it.
Everyone hang tight for us. Coming up next, what does comedy look like in the next Trump era? Good thing we have a comedian here to help us explore that. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WOOD: We don't talk. We don't interact. We don't chitchat no more. We don't, we don't even like talking on the phone. We get mad if the phone rings.
(LAUGHTER)
WOOD: The phone that was invented for talking. You get mad? Oh, hell no.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Roy Wood, he's got a new stand up special, "Lonely Flowers." And it's out right now on Hulu. He talks about the fractures that are occurring in our society, incredibly timely here as we enter this Trump era. The question is, what will comedy look like in a second Trump term?
The president-elect is notoriously thin-skinned. In fact, just this week, he went off on NBCs Seth Meyers, calling him out and saying that he's a marble mouth. He's a timeslot filler. He threatened Comcast with a big price to pay. HBO's Bill Maher sees his role in this era a little differently than his peers in a world now that is basically run by MAGA.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILL MAHER, COMEDIAN: He's a kooky guy who says a lot of kooky things, and I'm just not going to pre-hate anything. I'm just going to hope for the best. And then when something serious happens, I'll comment on that. I'm not going to chase every rabbit down the hole like I did the first term.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Roy, I mean, maybe he's right. Like, I don't know, perpetual outrage is both exhausting and also not funny.
WOOD: I agree with that. I mean, in my special I don't talk about politics at all, considering my pedigree and hosting a show on this network and daily show. I just for this special, I've talked about what's going on in the world. I want to talk about how it's affected us. And so that was more interesting to me. I just think that you cannot use outrage as a punchline replacer, and that's what has happened in the last --
AIDALA: The phone thing that you had that was perfect. I run --
CHAMPION: Finish the sentence. What do you mean you can't use outrage?
WOOD: I think that for the last eight years we have been in a place where if you say the right thing as a performer, it is seen and camouflaged, it creates the illusion of hilarious. And you're going to have to actually say something now. And the act -- and the idea that everybody is angry, everybody's tired, I don't know if we can still hit that nerve performatively, and go Trump's stupid. Can you believe Trump do stupid? You're going to have to figure out another way.
And I think for me as a performer, I can't speak for what we're going to do on CNN when we come back in February, but for me as a performer, it is more about the people now. Let's talk about people that are affected by the issue. Let's find jokes state and local, because it's going to be a lot of swindling happening at the state and local level.
AIDALA: But I like your comedy because you're not doing the politics. The thing you did about the phones is fantastic, and it's so true. WOOD: I appreciate it.
CHAMPION: No, but this is not true. Comedy has always been used to make light of what's going on in the world. Artists have always been used to bring light to attention and levity to hard stuff.
AIDALA: The comedy is the low hanging fruit. Seth Meyers, if you ever watch his show, if Donald Trump did not get reelected, Seth Meyers has got to be off the air in six months.
[10:30:03]
His whole show is beating up on Donald Trump, the whole thing. And if you notice, there's no laugh lines. He makes a remark and beats up on Trump, and all you hear is this. You don't hear people giggling.
PHILLIP: I think they're going to be, you know --
TYRUS: They're going to be fine. You figure out ways to adjust to what people have a flavor for. And I think that Seth is funny. I've done the program a couple of times. Same with Colbert. Like, they make great jokes. But the reservoir from which we pull the premise from -- Mike Birbiglia says something I always love. He said, a joke only works if we all agree on the premise. And the way we have splintered the truth and the way we -- we can't even agree on how a wildfire started.
CHAMPION: Facts don't matter.
WOOD: So how do you write material based in that? And that's the difference between now and 2016, when we had the first rise of Trump. And so I just think that if you're living in a place where you're only going to insult the president, you're not going to get the same return on investment. But also, I don't think Trump can shut down Seth. I don't think he can use any type of policy because you're biting off your own hand because you're the free speech guy.
AIDALA: I agree with you 100 percent.
WOOD: Right wing comedians get to say and do what they want.
PHILLIP: Does anybody think that we will start to see what is happening in the business world and maybe in the entertainment world, happening in the comedy world, where we start to see people trying to kind of just --
WOOD: Well, Bill Maher --
PHILLIP: -- the center shift a little bit to the right.
CUPP: I liken comedy to journalism in that there is an independence, I would hope. And the role, my role as a journalist, your role as a journalist, is to hold people in power accountable. I think the role of a comedian, or partly, is to make fun of people in power and not be afraid of doing that, not be afraid of making fun of the richest man in the world, or the most powerful person in the world. And so I would hope that there is a wall that remains between comedy and the targets, whoever that is.
WOOD: And to that point, here's the real variable in that, is that Trump can try and regulate and bully a network. But YouTube has more viewers than most streamers. Facebook just took the, as they say in NASCAR took the governor off of decency. So people are going to be able to say what they want, and the virality can happen there. And now, if you're Trump, you can't shut down those because those are your boys. That's you and karate man, space man.
(CROSS TALK)
PHILLIP: We do need to start seeing comedy doing what S.E. is suggesting, which is actually, you know, taking the jokes to everybody. Because I think the complaint that conservatives have is that it actually doesn't happen that way, that they don't make jokes at the expense of Democrats.
CHAMPION: No, you're right, you're right, you're right. The media especially always much more leaning towards, comfortably towards Democrats, always making it seem as if -- but now we're seeing this shift. But the shift is so extreme. My hope is that comedians definitely like Roy, not necessarily stay attacking Trump, but hold people accountable in a way that's still light and you can see the joke in it. And you can see the joke because to me, that's where the story and the power lies, when you can laugh at your own. I think this is --
AIDALA: I want to defer to you, OK. Who is the king of late-night comedy, was Johnny Carson, right? He had the longest run. He was the most successful, completely apolitical. People laughed at him. They giggled at him.
CHAMPION: Different times, different times.
WOOD: People weren't having their lives threatened.
AIDALA: He was on during the Vietnam War. He was not during.
CHAMPION: There was not social media.
AIDALA: Watergate wasn't domestic? The president United States is cheating. The president of the United States resigns.
WOOD: You cannot compare Watergate to deportation.
AIDALA: Listen, the president of the United States, for the first time in history, resigns from office. That's not political? That doesn't affect America? John Kennedy gets executed. That doesn't affect America?
WOOD: John Kennedy getting executed is not the same as people starving and waiting for aid.
PHILLIP: Roy, let me ask you this, because -- just because I'm thinking about your --
AIDALA: I apologize. Too much coffee.
PHILLIP: I'm thinking about your special and the focus on like, people and what's going on in their actual lives. Why is it that now what's happening in Washington is inseparable from what is going on in people's lives? Or at least they think that it is?
WOOD: Because it's Washingtons fault that all of these things are happening in people's lives.
CHAMPION: That's right.
WOOD: So now I feel completely detached. So yes, I want to see some criticism on both sides. I think Jon Stewart did it best when he came back to "The Daily Show." First night, he called Joe Biden old. And then people got mad at him and Jon did not back down.
CUPP: Bill Maher does it, too. Bill Maher is an equal opportunity offender. He's great at that.
WOOD: And neither of them backed down. They don't apologize. And I think that there's going to have to be a shift also from liberal audiences on how you laugh and what you see and what you think. You're not -- you should not be coming to a comedy show thinking you already agree with and want a warm hug from --
CHAMPION: OK, I want to go back to this, this, this Johnny Carson of it all, quickly. The two different times, you can't compare then and now. And I know that you can make some -- you can make some comparisons.
AIDALA: It's comedy.
CHAMPION: No, it's not the same.
AIDALA: It's supposed to make you laugh.
CHAMPION: First of all, that was when only white men could be on television at night telling funny stories. You have to realize that things have changed.
AIDALA: It's still only white men on television, CBS, NBC, ABC.
CHAMPION: But to his point, he has his own comedy show. He's had his own -- he has his own show currently on this network.
[10:35:01]
AIDALA: Not talking about politics.
WOOD: A little bit.
CHAMPION: He can do things that other comedians haven't done. And the reality is you can't compare Johnny Carson and the privileged life that he had to what he's talking about in the messages.
AIDALA: It's whether they're funny, they're comedians. It doesn't matter if they start --
CHAMPION: That's not true.
AIDALA: It's comedy. You're supposed to make people laugh. That's your job.
WOOD: But that doesn't mean that the joke can't have a responsibility or a vitamin in it.
AIDALA: OK, it could have a vitamin in it.
PHILLIP: But what you said, though, about the liberal audiences having to shift their mindset I think is going to be one of the hardest things about this next era.
WOOD: Don't come to the show if you don't like it. Like, for every comedian that's been canceled, liberal or Republican, they still sell out when they tour. Somebody like it.
PHILLIP: Somebody will like it. We'll see what happens.
All right, everyone, hold on. Coming up next, the question now is, is DEI dead. Just 48 hours before Trump returns to power, more and more companies, they are rolling back those diversity initiatives. We'll debate that next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:40:42]
PHILLIP: Is DEI over? More and more companies, from Walmart to the Golden Arches, they are rolling back the diversity initiatives that were created after George Floyd's protests in 2020. DEI has become this trendy word for conservatives to blame pretty much anything on, from the border to the fires in California.
But it's not just corporate America that is reexamining all of this. We're now learning that the FBI shut down its DEI office last month just as the Trump administration comes to power. That part probably should not be a surprise, because that's where it's going to start. The Trump folks, they want to go straight to the government, shut down all those DEI offices. In the corporate world, there's some reconsideration of this. There's some renaming of it. But this is a real trend that's happening.
CHAMPION: Yes, we're seeing it, and it's pretty, it's pretty disturbing in my opinion, when you look at someone and you hear -- and I heard just the other day, so many random things. But you think about Ketanji Jackson, our justice. And I think of this woman and how hard she worked. And they said she was a DEI justice. And I thought to myself -- or like when you look at Kamala Harris, or people who have went to Harvard and Yale and have the same exact, the same exact resume as their white counterparts, their white male counterpart, DEI is so trendy. And when you when it comes from someone from a conservative side and they label that, it becomes just this truth. I often ask my question when I look at Pete Hegseth, I wonder if they
say he's a DEI candidate. Is that would that be unfair to say? I don't know why we can't use -- cha, cha, cha, cha, cha. Why we can't use the same words? Because I know, I'm going to let you get to it. But why can't we use the same words that they use on us? Earlier, you said that liberals are going to have to start saying that quiet part out loud. I think this is the same energy in the match, because it's just not true. And we need to battle those facts.
AIDALA: But it comes from the United States Supreme Court, the decision last year about the Harvard admissions, and they just said it violated the 14th Amendment. And it really had to do with, I think, Asian students who were being excluded from going to Harvard because there were too many Asian students. Their grades were very high. And so that's where this all comes from. Corporate America is basically following, well, if they did it to Harvard -- don't worry. I can't even spell "Harvard." So I'm not from Harvard. If they're going to rule there, the next stop is corporations. You're only hiring this person because of the DEI.
CHAMPION: Thats not true.
PHILLIP: I read this really interesting --
AIDALA: Thats how -- I'm following the law. The law part I know, and that's the law. And that's the way it's going.
PHILLIP: -- when it comes to college admissions, theres a very interesting piece in "The Wall Street Journal", in the opinion section. It says "You blame DEI for hurting your career. Now what? For people who pinned their failures on diversity, corporate America's DEI retreat removes a barrier, or maybe an excuse." And in the piece, they talk to a bunch of people who called in saying DEI is why I didn't get promoted. And they also talked to a lot of hiring managers who said that sometimes those hiring managers don't want to tell the white guy that they just weren't likable and that they say, well, we had this woman. We had to give them the job instead. I mean, is this an excuse?
CHAMPION: Yes.
PHILLIP: And are we just coddling people who don't want to take accountability for their own career, stalling, perhaps?
CUPP: Listen, as Republicans tend to do, they overreach, and they cast a very wide net. And so everything becomes DEI. And that's absurd. That is absurd.
But I will say there was a case last year in March of 2024, Duvall versus Novant Health. And what Duvall, David Duvall, claimed was he was a white man, and he was fired by the hospital so that they could promote a black woman. And several other white people lost their jobs at the same time for DEI hires, OK. He won that case, not because of Trump's Supreme Court, but because a jury agreed. A jury agreed that there was some reverse discrimination here.
It is worthy of looking and scrutinizing, looking at and scrutinizing where this policy is getting it wrong and where it's getting it right. I think the good news is, is it is so embedded in corporate culture, despite these people announcing they're going to retreat from it, it's very embedded in corporate culture. I don't think it's going away anytime soon. I just don't think you're going to hear about it as much as you --
PHILLIP: I think you're I think that's a very valid point about just scrutinizing. I mean, look, it's fine to take a look at it and see, is it really achieving the goals that it's supposed to be achieving.
[10:45:03]
WOOD: But I feel like a lot of these corporations are eliminating these programs without any say so on what they plan to do instead. And a lot of them, let's be honest, they're doing it out of fear of losing business from customers who use DEI as a substitute for the n-word. So these are people that they're just wanting to, oh, don't be mad at us. We're doing the cool thing. They're just following the trends the same as they were when they posted the black checks back when all the George Floyd stuff happened in the first place. And we're going to listen to you, and we're going to start our program. And then the moment that wave went away, they got rid of that stuff. So it's just doing whatever is good for business at the end of the day.
PHILLIP: They are activists who are actually go into corporate boards and trying to push this stuff. So they're afraid, in a way, of this coming to their to their boards as well.
Everyone stay with me. Coming up next, the story that's got everyone talking. The FDA is now banning red dye number three. That dye is in everything from candy to medicine. The question, though, is why didn't this happen a long time ago? We're going to discuss.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:50:44]
PHILLIP: This is in so many of our foods -- cupcakes, candy, cereal, even in your medicine. It contains red dye number three. And now scientists are sounding the alarm about the health effects about it. In fact, they've been saying it for years. It was banned in cosmetics 35 years ago. Those studies showed cancer in rats as a result of this. But not until now did the FDA ban it from the products that we consume in our food. That's a decision that one expert called low hanging fruit.
So what took so long? And can the agency really keep up with the science of this? It is, honestly, it feels like a reckoning for some of this stuff.
WOOD: Look at RFK already getting stuff.
(LAUGHTER)
AIDALA: Exactly right. Exactly. But the truth is they wanted to -- they probably wanted to take credit for it. You think they found out about this yesterday, the Biden administration, or the first Trump administration, or the Obama administration? You just said 30 years they've known it's been a problem.
But what happens, it's the same thing with the alcohol. All of a sudden last week we're going to put alcohol could cause cancer. Why didn't they do it sooner? You're right, the Harris-Biden campaign wouldn't have gotten all that money from the alcohol that -- when you say, I'm going to put cancer on anything, that is not good for a business. So, and when you go and ask them for -- well, why else would they wait till the last days?
PHILLIP: I mean, it's not just the -- I mean, the cancer in rats is, is in the studies, but it's also linked to behavioral problems in children. And it's in everything. It is in everything. Parents have been, you know, if you go to Whole Foods, you cannot buy this dye in there because parents don't, parents who are health conscious don't want to consume it. But what about all the rest of the parents who aren't reading the studies?
CUPP: You can't. You go to a kid's birthday party. How do you know that the cupcakes or the birthday cake doesn't have it? So you can't be a total detective. But ideally, we're eliminating it. If it's not good for your skin, which is why they banned it from cosmetics, it's OK to ingest? This makes no sense.
PHILLIP: People are asking what is the government doing when it comes to --
CUPP: Not looking at stuff like this.
PHILLIP: Yes, and probably should ask the question what else should they be banning that they haven't?
WOOD: But until you start trying to avoid government malfeasance in what you consume, you have to shop at places that are going to cost more. And if you live in a food desert, or are you dealing with economic inequality, you can't avoid --
CHAMPION: That's right. You could care less about red dye.
WOOD: You can't avoid high fructose. It's there.
PHILLIP: But that is the purpose of the government.
AIDALA: Follow the money.
CHAMPION: Isn't that the purpose of the government? And my whole point is that they've been using red dye since 1907. Last thing I'll say, quickly. In 1907, they realized years and years ago, a scientist said, we are so far behind with this ban. And it's not a Republican or a Democrat thing. It's a failure on the government's part. It's no one's particular side.
AIDALA: But no one had the guts to ban it.
CHAMPION: That's the problem with our leaders. AIDALA: Because the money, it all comes down to money.
PHILLIP: Everyone hang on. We've got more to come. The panel is going to give us their unpopular opinions, including a dig at a musical legend. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:58:19]
PHILLIP: We are back, and it's time for your unpopular opinions. You each have 30 seconds to tell us yours. S.E., you're up.
CUPP: OK. Nikki Glaser at the Golden Globes finally gave me permission to say what I have not been allowed to say for all of my 46 years, which is that Bob Dylan has a terrible singing voice.
WOOD: Yes. He does.
CUPP: So don't come at me. She said it. She said it.
CHAMPION: You're blaming her?
CUPP: What we've all been thinking.
AIDALA: Not always.
PHILLIP: You know, I have to agree. I have to agree.
CUPP: Thank you.
PHILLIP: It is what it is. But the singing voice.
Arthur, you're up.
AIDALA: Well, Roy said it earlier about Mr. Kennedy. If he becomes the guy who is in charge, I'm going to say I think he's going to do a good job. I hope he does a good job. I have a three-year-old, an eight-year-old. My wife is reading all these labels, and she's saying what we just said on the last segment. It's like, there's all stuff in here our kids shouldn't be eating. I hope he doesn't do anything crazy, but I think there'll be enough checks --
PHILLIP: Like kill a bear and stuff in his car?
AIDALA: Yes, something like that. I think there'll be enough checks and balances around him. I think. I think he's going to do a good job.
PHILLIP: All right, Cari?
CHAMPION: The comedian is busy right now. That's my hot, unpopular take. No, I'm kidding. A quick unpopular opinion rather. The Democrats are in a world of trouble. Yes, we know that. But I think they need to start saying the quiet part out loud and we need to find some true leadership. Citizens of this country are fed up, and we're not looking for left or right. We're looking for somebody to speak truth to power and be honest. And it needs to happen ASAP, because right now, civility will no longer exist in this country if we continue on this path.
PHILLIP: All right, Roy?
WOOD: we should not have term limits on our politicians. But every year that you're in office, you should have to climb an extra flight of stairs to get to your office. I'm tired of politicians falling. No other politicians, you don't see other countries, you don't see they're leaders falling.
(LAUGHTER)
WOOD: And you're out. If you fall --
AIDALA: I didn't know where you were going with that, but all right, OK.
WOOD: That's your resignation. And you just add a floor. If you keep getting elected, I'm sorry. And this is bipartisan. That goes for Maxine Waters and Mitch McConnell, both of you, 20 flights.
PHILLIP: And thank you for watching "TABLE FOR FIVE". You can catch me every weeknight at 10:00 eastern time with our news night roundtable. But in the meantime, CNN's coverage continues right now.
