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CNN Live Event/Special
CNN Saturday Morning Table for Five. President Trump Fires Head of Bureau of Labor Statistics after Poor July Jobs Report; Former U.S. Vice President and Presidential Candidate Kamala Harris Questions Stability of American Political and Democratic System; Trump Administration Announces Plan to Build New White House Ballroom with Private Donor Money; New York City Mayoral Candidate Zohran Mamdani Addresses Questions about His Previous Defund Police Stance; Conservative Political Commentator Charlie Kirk Speculates Higher Testosterone Levels in Men Correlates with Support for Republican Politics. Aired 10-11a ET
Aired August 02, 2025 - 10:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: This morning, the economy turns Jeckel and Hyde as Donald Trump can't decide to get on or off his tariff rollercoaster. Plus --
KAMALA HARRIS, (D) FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I don't want to go back in the system. I think it's broken.
PHILLIP: A harsh assessment about the state of American democracy, but is the answer to unplug? Also --
KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: We are proud to announce that the construction of the new White House ballroom will begin.
PHILLIP: Donald Trump's gold rush at the people's house is expanding with a $200 million price tag.
And, what makes a man?
CHARLIE KIRK, TURNING POINT USA FOUNDER: I do think that there is a direct correlation between someone's testosterone and their politics.
PHILLIP: MAGA decides real men vote red.
Here in studio, Alyssa Farah Griffin, Jim Schultz, Toure, and Harry Enten.
It's the weekend. Join the conversation at the "TABLE FOR FIVE".
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Good morning. I'm Abby Phillip in New York. Is it the best of times or the worst of times? Once again, another
American sector becomes a political Rorschach test. First, the good. The economy has largely defied gravity despite the uncertainty of Donald Trump's tariffs. The nation's GDP grew sharply in the second quarter, and people are shopping. Consumer spending, which powers 70 percent of the economy, is also up. Combine this with steady inflation, a stronger stock market, and tariff revenue in the billions, according to the White House.
Now, here's the bad news. The unemployment rate is rising. Hiring is slowing. July's jobs report was the worst since the pandemic. Prices are up. Investment in business is down. And once again, confusion and chaos reign over who gets a tariff and who gets a delay and who gets a break. Oh, and Trump just fired the messenger in charge of the jobs reports. Why? Because he didn't like the results.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, (R) U.S. PRESIDENT: We're doing so well. I believe the numbers were phony, just like they were before the election. And there were other times. So you know what I did? I fired her. And you know what? I did the right thing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So do you feel liberated yet? Well, it depends on who you ask. This firing of the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics is, I think, one of the more stunning things that Trump has done, not because people in Washington will be stunned, but because of the ripple effects that it will have for the people who rely on it around the globe and on Wall Street, people who make business decisions here in this country.
ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, I think that there's going to inevitably have to be a private sector alternative that emerges. Most of these statistics can be pulled after the fact, even if the government tries to flub the numbers or fudge them. There is a way that we're going to be able to get that data.
But keep in mind, he's toyed with the idea of firing Jerome Powell on a number of occasions. That's something that's much more difficult for him to do. There are checks in place. His lawyers, I bet, have advised him against doing so. This is something that's technically within his purview to do, but I think it raises concerns naturally if you're going to put somebody in place who's going to be a bit more favorable to you. Are they going to inflate the numbers as we see them?
But to your opening, we're in a choose your own adventure economy. There's something good -- there's plenty of good things you can point to, and there's plenty of bad things you could point to. What you don't need right now is this sort of just uncertainty when you're giving out basics around jobs numbers.
PHILLIP: I mean, just two days ago, Howard Lutnick was saying GDP surged to three percent and the Trump economy has officially arrived. Biden's first quarter is behind us, and growth is already accelerating. So the only thing that's really changed is Trump's mood.
HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICS WRITER AND ANALYST: Yes, yes.
PHILLIP: Today.
ENTEN: I mean, look, if I were a decision desk on the economy, I'd say it's too early to call. We don't know exactly where this Trump economy is necessarily going, though I do have to ask the question of whether or not the suit that Donald Trump wore on Friday is from the Banana Republic.
(LAUGHTER)
ENTEN: Because when you fire a lifelong bureaucrat whose mere job is to count the numbers, count the numbers, count the number of jobs, this is not a partisan position. This, to me, is the worst of Donald Trump that gets at the conspiracy theories. The idea that the 2020 election was stolen when clearly it wasn't. These job numbers weren't flubbed. This is a reaction to Donald Trump's tariffs that, at least in the near term, at least the job market did not necessarily like.
TOURE, SUBSTACK AUTHOR, "CULTURE FRIES BY TOURE": I think that's absolutely right. And what scares me here is this notion of if you don't give me jobs numbers I like, I will fire you. What will the next person do, right?
[10:05:03]
Every Trump firing is that, if you don't give me what I like -- so does he live in a world where he doesn't actually know what's going on? Because the people who might say, hey, something bad is happening wouldn't say it to him because they would risk losing their job?
JIM SCHULTZ, CNN LEGAL CONTRIBUTOR: Look, it is well within his purview to make this decision to fire the jobs person. It's well within purview to do it. And, look, they had to make adjustments to the jobs numbers for the prior months. There were some adjustments that had to be made about a year ago in August. So when you look at it over time, it's within his purview to do it. If he doesn't have confidence in the person, he has a right to fire them.
PHILLIP: In other words --
SCHULTZ: Actions have consequences.
PHILLIP: In other words, yes -- in other words, if he doesn't like the results that the person is producing, he can fire them?
SCHULTZ: Remember, there was an adjustment in the results. The results weren't right.
TOURE: That doesn't mean that the director was wrong.
GRIFFIN: This also isn't going to give him the solution he wants, because the reality is we said this all leading up to the election. You can give people whatever stats you want about the economy. How they feel is going to dictate their feelings heading into the midterms. If people they know are struggling to find jobs, if they've been laid off, if unemployment is up, they're going to know that regardless of what the Bureau of Labor Statistics says.
PHILLIP: Thats true. It also is true that revisions happen. They happen under every president. They happened when he was president the first time, they happened under Biden. So the idea that revisions are inherently a problem is nonsensical. That doesn't --
SCHULTZ: Well, I don't know that it's nonsensical.
PHILLIP: It is.
SCHULTZ: It's again, within the province of president. Elections have consequences. If he wants to change somebody out, it's well within his --
PHILLIP: He's acting as if this is something new -- he's acting as if this is something new when it's really not. There are revisions, actually, almost every month. It's just that they're not always all --
SCHULTZ: And the argument this is going to have some tremendous ripple effect on the economy long term, I mean, going back to your point that it's really not, and we're not going to be talking about this a week from now.
TOURE: We're not going to be able to trust the government to tell us the truth. That is a very important thing, especially within a global economic context. How do we know that the next person will tell us the truth because his job is on the line or her job is on the line?
PHILLIP: That is a good question. I mean, how will we know?
SCHULTZ: I mean, look, this person is not a is not a protected job. We have elections have consequences.
PHILLIP: But to answer his question.
(CROSS TALK)
SCHULTZ: We can change out folks in leadership positions because the president wants to.
PHILLIP: I know, but Jim, to answer Toure's question, how does Trump explain to people that they should trust these numbers when he has literally, explicitly fired someone because he did not like the numbers that they produced?
SCHULTZ: Or he didn't believe in the numbers or the numbers had to be adjusted.
PHILLIP: So going forward, when he put somebody in that position, the whole world is going to assume, well, that person has that job because that person is going to produce numbers that Donald Trump likes.
SCHULTZ: Thats why we have congressional oversight, right? That's why Congress exists, congressional oversight. And it's up to Congress then to hold these agencies accountable. We have checks and balances in this country. The president isn't the only check and is not the only balance.
PHILLIP: It's interesting that Trump is sort of devoid of agency in this situation, as if he doesn't have the power to exert some kind of modicum of self-control in this moment.
ENTEN: Donald Trump can do a lot of things as president. The presidency is vested in enormous powers. But just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do something. And in this particular case, I am somebody who studies stats. And, you know, I give Donald Trump, I think, a very fair shake. I give all sides, I think, a pretty fair shake. But it is reliant on the numbers being reliable. And when you make moves like this, you cede a little bit of doubt that the numbers going forward with whomever is put in charge of the BLS, all of a sudden, at least in terms of the numbers, that they are not nearly what they should be.
GRIFFIN: And that's a very key point, because if you put somebody in who is just a diehard Trump loyalist and suddenly you start seeing off the charts numbers that just don't reflect the reality of the economy, Americans are not going to believe it. But we do live in such a polarized environment right now that about half the country is going to be like, yes, I don't trust a Biden appointee, put in a Trump person, and the other half is going to be like, this is unprecedented. You're firing a bureaucrat who's not a partisan. So I think either way you're going to have a lack of trust. But I do think there's a way that the numbers should --
SCHULTZ: -- trust the bureaucracy? Are we going to sit around this table and say that people in this country trust career bureaucrats at this point? I don't think that's the case. We had a change election --
PHILLIP: For the last however many years, OK, everybody gets the jobs numbers on the first Friday of the month, and they digest them. But the more important thing about jobs numbers, I mean, yes, everybody understands the economy based on their own personal economy, what's happening in their families and their communities. But government entities, businesses make decisions based on these official numbers. They matter because they are tied to something. So when they go away, I mean, we already have private sector numbers. ADP produces numbers. But the reason we have government numbers is because we have government entities that make decisions based on those numbers. When that goes away, what do we have?
SCHULTZ: And are we going to sit around this table and say that government always gets it right? The bureaucrats always get it right, that we trust everything, the bureaucracy?
PHILLIP: Well, let me let me go back to what Harry Enten said.
SCHULTZ: Theres no way the American people believe that.
PHILLIP: Let me go back to what Harry Enten said at the beginning. What makes the United States different from the banana republic or the Soviet Union or whatever it is, is actually, yes, that that over many decades, we've created a system in which people believe not just us as Americans, but around the world that American statistics and numbers and facts are generally reliable.
[10:10:10]
And when that goes away, that's the part that I think that is unchartered territory.
SCHULTZ: You presupposing it's going to go away just because we change out the person --
PHILLIP: I'm just asking. I mean, I'm asking the question. What's the criteria by which Donald Trump is going to pick that new person in that slot?
TOURE: I think the ongoing attack on truth that we see from Trump will have a global impact of we cannot trust the United States. We don't know what they're - what they're saying is true.
PHILLIP: All right, we've got to leave it there.
Next for us, Kamala Harris emerges from silence to tell America that democracy is broken. Is she right about that?
Plus, the gold rush comes to the White House. Donald Trump announces a $200 million ballroom as many Americans worry about their own futures. We'll discuss.
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[10:15:38]
PHILLIP: Welcome back. The woman who lost to Donald Trump emerges in her first TV interview since November to reassure -- to not to reassure Americans, but to actually warn them.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAMALA HARRIS, (D) FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Recently, I made the decision that I just for now, I don't want to go back in the system. I think it's broken.
And I always believed that as fragile as our democracy is, our systems would be strong enough to defend our most fundamental principles. And I think right now that they're not as strong as they need to be.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: A pessimistic tone, for sure, from Kamala Harris as she decides against a run for California governor. So is she right about that? And if so, is the answer to just unplug the system, and perhaps plug it back in and see if it's working again?
(LAUGHTER) TOURE: No. Of course, she's absolutely right. The system is absolutely broken. And I could see where she would deeply understand that and see that the democracy, the checks and balances that we are used to in this country, are not happening. There is an erosion of the sort of democratic systems that we have never seen in this country. That is shocking to many of us on a day-to-day basis, the erosion of democracy. So I completely understand what she's saying, and I applaud her having the courage to say it and not sort of couch it in some other language. I think she understands that I can't plug into the system, I can't be part of the system and change it at this time. So I have to approach it in a different way.
PHILLIP: She didn't rule it out. I mean, she didn't rule it out. She kind of like just said, well, not right now. Which made me wonder, like, what is the -- under what conditions is she going to think that the system is better?
SCHULTZ: Maybe she should have plugged in at the border when she was vice president, right? That's what was broken. And what we see now in the short amount of time, we saw the numbers that came out today were staggering in terms of the border issues are gone. Ninety percent difference when the from when the Biden administration was in there. That falls at her feet. That falls at her feet. Look --
TOURE: I don't know if you can trust those numbers. I mean, I don't know. What number can we trust from Trump?
SCHULTZ: I think everyone can agree, and we've said it on this show, Democrats and Republicans alike, border crossings, border problems, border crimes are at a record low.
(CROSS TALK)
SCHULTZ: And that fell right at her feet, and what was broken was our country and our border as a direct result of what she was charged with protecting.
ENTEN: Go ahead. And then I'll go.
GRIFFIN: I was struck by -- I'm going to try to not be too harsh on this. This interview felt like a microcosm of everything that's wrong with Democrats post-election. Going to CBS and this sort of trying to make a point that they fired Stephen Colbert, which many on the left called an attack on democracy, a man who was making $20 million a year, someone I hold in high esteem. But the economics of his show were not working. He was losing $40 million a year. He was in the Ed Sullivan Theater, which is expensive.
To talk about the plight of democracy at CBS, a network that's having its own struggles right now, rather than talking about the economics of the situation and playing to something, a shrinking audience that is network television, not realizing it's not where the American voters are. It felt like if everyone who was advising her told her this was a good idea, that is not where I would have made the grand comeback if she -- it's like announcing your exploratory committee on the sinking deck of the Titanic. PHILLIP: She had this part of her remarks, her comments about not
running, where she said, we need new, you know, new ideas, new ways of communicating, all of that stuff. But to your point, this was a very old school kind of approach to making this decision and explaining herself in this way.
ENTEN: I just can't possibly believe that someone who was attorney general for a good period of time, a United States senator for a good period of time, and then vice president for four years, and then ran for president all of a sudden believes that the best way to solve it is from being outside the system. Oh, please. Not a chance on God's green earth that that's necessarily the case.
What's probably going on is she saw what the polling numbers were, perhaps for her running for governor of California. Yes, she has left open the idea that maybe she could run in 2028 for the Democratic nomination. But I'll tell you, Abby, I've looked at those numbers. She would be the weakest front runner since 1992.
[10:20:00]
So the bottom line is this -- she is looking at the numbers. She knows what's cooking. And then all of a sudden, you know what? Actually, this lifelong politician, I want to be outside the system. Give me a break.
TOURE: You don't question when she says that she believes the system is broken. I am absolutely certain that she truly believes that.
PHILLIP: Let me play a little bit more from her on that. Here's what she said about, you know, the checks and balances not holding in her view.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAMALA HARRIS, (D) FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Stephen, what I did not predict was the capitulation. I think there are a lot of people who think they're riding out the storm as an excuse to be feckless.
When you see that the president of the United States is trying to get rid of the Department of Education, and Congress has the role and responsibility to stand in the way of that, and they're just sitting on their hands, and then they go on recess because they don't want to deal with transparency.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHULTZ: I mean, she sat on her hands when we had a declining president. Talk about feckless, and I'll just leave it at that.
GRIFFIN: Listen, I think she genuinely believes what she's saying about the threats to democracy. I raised concerns ahead of the election, some of which I share with her. But I also think that Democrats can go too far in these concerns. Every time I hear something like Stephen Colbert losing his job as a threat to democracy, that makes people just roll their eyes.
TOURE: But Colbert is not the issue here, right? The issue is the loss of democracy. And that's what we're talking about.
GRIFFIN: But what she just listed were the stakes of the election. Donald Trump did talk about abolishing the Department of Education. He was open about what he was going to do, and the fact that Democrats couldn't listen to the American public and think, OK, something he's saying is resonating. What can we do to beat him? That's where I kind of -- they lose it for.
TOURE: You know, when we talk about a politician who has years in the system and is given three months to run for the presidency, here's partly the problem, that we have given her a horrible hand, and then said, you failed. Nobody could have succeeded in that situation.
PHILLIP: I do think that there is something to be said, for you can't erase the fact that she was also the vice president of the United States in the four years that preceded that moment. So to Alyssa's point, in politics, you've got to win. You can complain about the system not holding, but if you don't win, then the chips fall where they may. And I think that's where Democrats are. That's why this is such a tough moment for the Democratic Party, because the one thing they had to do in order to stop all of this was to get the politics right, get the border right, get the economy right, and win.
ENTEN: After January 6th, Donald Trump's net favorable rating was something like minus 20, minus 25 points. And then they allowed him to come all the way back and win the presidency. That is a failure of massive historical proportions.
But here's the thing. We talk about democracy being potentially broken. Well, you know what? How do you solve that problem going forward? You've got two governorships coming up here in New Jersey and Virginia. You've got midterm elections. That is how you solve that problem. If Republicans can't stop it, then Democrats need to stop it, and they need to pick themselves off the ground and figure out a way to beat Republicans.
PHILLIP: They have to stop it at the ballot box. That's the only, only way.
Coming up next, one critic calls him Donald Antoinette Trump. The president unveils a plan to build a $200 million gold-plated ballroom. So who are the donors behind this? And how much are Americans paying for it? And of course, is it tone deaf? We'll discuss.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:27:41]
PHILLIP: Apparently, the White House isn't grand enough for the president. The administration announced that the White House ballroom is going to be renovated as part of an East Wing makeover.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The White House ballroom will be substantially separated from the main building of the White House, but at the same time its theme and architectural heritage will be almost identical. The site of the new ballroom will be where the small, heavily changed, and reconstructed East Wing currently sits.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Renderings of the ballroom show a passing resemblance to the main event room at, you guessed it, Mar-a-Lago. The White House says that the redo will be funded by the president and other private donors. So can you put a cost on a giant reception hall? Well, apparently it is $200 million.
I have many, many questions about this, many. But I do have a lot of questions about why are we outsourcing the building of a federal building like the White House to random private donors? And what guardrails are going to be put on that? I mean.
TOURE: No guardrails, and yes, another chance --
PHILLIP: And can there not be guardrails on that, like building a building on the White House grounds?
TOURE: Of course.
SCHULTZ: Government contractors couldn't build --
TOURE: No, no, no.
PHILLIP: I'm talking about the people paying for it.
TOURE: This is another chance another chance for donors to come in and look good to Trump and to appeal to Trump and create the relationship with Trump. All of that extortion that he's been doing, his is more a part of that. This is nothing that we need. It's just him to be able to relate more. Here's how you can give to me. Here's how you can create a relationship with me. Like, it's ridiculous.
SCHULTZ: It's also just going to be something that everyone can benefit from.
TOURE: How do we benefit from this? We do not need this.
PHILLIP: How did like housing 600 people at the White House become suddenly a top concern in this year of our lord 2025, when we have so many other things going on?
GRIFFIN: Gods honest truth, I've spent a lot of time in the East Wing of the White House. I thought the East Room is a ballroom. Like it functions for many things, but it's the size of one. You could have a very elaborate event.
PHILLIP: It's a pretty large room. Yes, but I mean, he's right about the state dinners. They typically take place, but they take place in a very nice tent, by the way. I mean, he makes the tent sound like this is some kind of third world country. It's a very nice tent. And it does take place --
SCHULTZ: Now he's going to have the biggest, most beautiful ballroom in the history of all ballrooms.
PHILLIP: It does take place in a tent. So he's not wrong about that. But this just does not seem to rise.
[10:30:00]
GRIFFIN: Yes. And I think here's the thing. I too share concerns about like sponsored by Amazon being in the new White House ballroom or whatever pay to play access that you may have. I do think a lot of Americans may say they're more comfortable with private donors than this being through an appropriation of Congress, and that's where he's going, how he's going to market it to them.
TOURE: Because they don't understand what that means. They don't understand that that is allowing him to use it.
SCHULTZ: Look, how is he personally benefiting, pay to play on that? I don't get it.
TOURE: You understand. You understand. You understand.
SCHULTZ: I don't understand.
TOURE: Here's the thing, that optics has been an incredibly important part of every White House until this one. Michelle Obama was gardening so that she would have a good image. This goes completely opposite the image in a country where the economy is teetering downward for most people. People are paying more for groceries, and we're going to build a $200 million room we do not need?
SCHULTZ: And he's probably not going to lose one vote in midterms as a result.
PHILLIP: The whole situation with this administration and saving versus spending, what's waste, what's not, is paradoxical. I don't understand it. They're currently, according to "The Washington Post," paying over 100,000 federal employees to do nothing, not to work. They're cutting, in the big, beautiful bill, Medicaid. They're doing a bunch of other things. And then they're saying, on the other hand, let's renovate the Oval Office. Let's renovate the East Room. Let's renovate the Rose Garden. I mean, I just it's hard to understand.
ENTEN: I guess, you know, on that necessary column, you know, everything gold-plated, this, gold-plated that. Of all the things that Donald Trump has done during his administration, the idea that they'd spend $200 million to redo a wing of the White House and then there'd be a ton of gold there has to rate as the least surprising thing that Donald Trump has done so far. If the American people were expecting something from Donald Trump, I think that's probably rates very high on the list. PHILLIP: A lot of people are probably at home right now just rolling
their eyes at the whole situation. But it is fascinating that this has suddenly become one of the top concerns of the president of the United States. But here we are.
Next for us, the socialist candidate in New York is facing attacks from the left and from the right over his stances on police. That's after the city's deadly shooting. We'll debate that next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:36:58]
PHILLIP: After the deadliest mass shooting in the city in a quarter of a century that claimed the life of a police officer and three others, the frontrunner in New York's mayoral race is now facing flak from his opponents over his past calls to defund the police.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANDREW CUOMO, (D) FORMER NEW YORK GOVERNOR: Literally he has said he was part of this defund the police movement. He has said that the police are a threat to public safety, that they are racists, that he would dismantle the police department.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Zohran Mamdani, the democratic socialist hoping to lead the country's most populous city, attended the funeral of the fallen officer on Thursday after meeting with members of that officer's family. And at a press conference, he sought to distance himself from the comments.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ZOHRAN MAMDANI, (D) NEW YORK CITY MAYORAL CANDIDATE: My statements in 2020 were ones made amidst a frustration that many New Yorkers held at the murder of George Floyd.
I am not defunding the police. I am not running to defund the police. Andrew Cuomo is far more comfortable living his life in the past and attacking tweets of 2020 than in running against the campaign that we have been leading for the last eight months.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Harry, I'm curious what you think about this. First of all, I mean, do you have a sense of how resonant this is going to be? I mean, the NYPD is a big force in this city, but do you think that he can abandon his position and change his tune now and it'll work?
ENTEN: Absolutely. I think it could absolutely work. I mean, he is by far and away the frontrunner for to be the next mayor of New York City. You know, this is a city in which, what, Democrats outnumber Republicans five, six, seven, whatever the number is to one. And so they're going to make up the vast majority of the electorate. And he's already beaten Andrew Cuomo among that very same electorate.
Look, he has a paper trail that is a mile long, OK. And it's all available on a Web site that is called X.com. Everyone can read about it.
(LAUGHTER)
ENTEN: But at the end of the day, Andrew Cuomo, Eric Adams, Curtis Sliwa, perhaps the three dreamiest opponents that Zohran Mamdani could ever possibly hope would come down from heaven. There is very little chance that they'll be able to take advantage of Mamdani's record, despite the fact that I think Republicans nationwide are thanking the good lord that he is likely to be the next mayor of New York City, because they're going to try and beat him like a pinata.
TOURE: Look, you know, he has a progressive constituency, right? I mean, the New Yorkers who are pro-Palestine are like this guy, we like this guy. We're feeling -- what he's talking about in terms of free busses and giving grocery stores, like he, for poor people. Progressives love that in New York. So when he's critical of the police, that speaks to what we want to hear from him. When he says the police are quite often racist, that's not even controversial. When he says the police are a threat to public safety, that is how many of us live on a day-to-day basis, in more fear of the police in New York, in L.A., wherever else, than of the criminals, right?
[10:40:06]
So he's speaking to what a lot of his potential voters want to hear.
PHILLIP: He's also walking it back. Does that concern you?
TOURE: I mean, because it would be one thing if he was, like, this is what I believe. But he's also saying this is the old me.
TOURE: I interviewed him -- I interviewed him on Joy Reid's show about two months ago. Right after that, I asked him, what about the NYPD? He never, ever talked. He talked for quite a long time about the NYPD. He never, ever talked about defunding the police, which is not something that a mayor could do without the entire legislature's help. But like, this is this is not a serious issue. He's saying this when he's when were all saying this about George Floyd. This is not part of the Mamdani political campaign for New York City.
GRIFFIN: So I would respectfully disagree here. Listen, there are obviously deeply held views and issues that people have around policing around this country. But I would say the gold standard of American policing, one of the finest brands in law enforcement is the NYPD. People associate it with post-9/11, running into the towers, being first responders. They're seen as heroes.
We're also a much more elite force than most of the forces around the country. Some of the best anti-terror efforts -- get John Miller going off. The NYPD is seen by many as the gold standard. When you think of what you see on the subways and some of the concerns around crimes, people blame the governor and they blame the mayor. They generally don't blame -- I'm sorry -- New York City law enforcement.
And I would say, I do agree with you. I think he motivates the core constituency that he needs to win this race, and he has the benefit of the absolute worst opponents. But this is also a city that has the biggest Jewish population in America. The upper east side alone is actually the densest population of Jews in the entire country. And the fact that he has not made efforts at this point to realize that there is a side that he needs to represent that is a core constituency in running is something that could dog him as well. We saw the defund the police issue in 2020. Kamala Harris ran away from it in 2024. I think that's an issue that he could run into and could cause real trouble.
PHILLIP: One of the things some of -- I don't know, I mean, people are urging him to keep the current police commissioner, Jessica Tisch, who has a very good reputation in the force and outside of the force. Maybe not for people who are no fans of the NYPD. But I mean, that might be a way. I mean, if he were to signal that he would keep her, perhaps that might alleviate some of these concerns.
SCHULTZ: We saw it in Philadelphia, my hometown, where, you know, we went from a mayor who was not pro-law enforcement to an African American woman mayor who was strong on law enforcement. She did very well. She won the primary handedly. You know, he's going to have to pivot a little bit. I think you're right, because there are a bunch of people in this city who care about law and order, who care about feeling safe. And if they don't feel safe, they're not going to vote for him.
PHILLIP: Do you think it's appropriate for him --
SCHULTZ: And there are more people that are going to vote in a general election --
PHILLIP: Do you think it's fair for him to say, I've changed my views on this, or do you think that that's just politics?
TOURE: I thought he did a pretty good job -- all things considered, I thought he did a pretty good job owning it. Right. He said, this is where I was then. Here's why I was there. George Floyd, all the other things. But that's not where I am today. And I think that makes him pretty credible in the eyes of an electorate by owning his past views.
PHILLIP: We have to leave it there, unfortunately. But next for us, what does it mean to be a manly man? To some conservatives, it means you're MAGA. We'll discuss.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:48:06]
PHILLIP: According to one MAGA star, it's a man's world, and anyone who's not MAGA is just living in it. Listen to Charlie Kirk talk about how Democrats are cursing more and lifting weights.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CHARLIE KIRK, TURNING POINT USA FOUNDER: I do think that there is a direct correlation between someone's testosterone and their politics. I would love to have a study done on this, on young men, the lower their testosterone, the more likely they are to be Democratic. Democrats are not going to be able to win over high testosterone men because they're too self-directed. So differently, the lower your testosterone is, of course, the more likely you are going to be subservient and compliant.
OK, our republic needs alpha men.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ENTEN: What the hell is he talking about?
TOURE: Oh, my God.
ENTEN: Does anyone here know?
PHILLIP: I'm going to defer to the men on this one. Are you guys taking testosterone tests and then, like, registering to vote? Like, is that what's happening?
TOURE: I mean, I am sure that he would love to see a correlation between testosterone and masculinity. There actually is social science on this, right? There are people who study this stuff. Empathy is the core thing that divides the left from the right many times. So many of the right's policies are about this is good for me. And so much of what the left is about, this is good for everybody in our view. So that that's really the point. Not like I have more testosterone. That's silly.
GRIFFIN: I've also just never heard a man I consider masculine spend time thinking about another man's testosterone levels. I think that's where he lost me.
(LAUGHTER)
ENTEN: Look, I think there are two things. I'm going to be serious for a second, and then be not so serious. On the serious point, I will say that this does appeal to young men. You know, one of the things -- one of the graphics or the tweets that were up there was talking about the Pew Research Center validated voter survey, right. And we have seen a tremendous move to the right among young men, men 18 to 29. We see them overwhelmingly identifying as Republicans. So it does feel like there is a home for this particular message.
But I guess the other thing I would just note is I don't think, you know, masculinity matters that much.
(LAUGHTER)
[10:50:02]
ENTEN: I just I just feel like, you know, look at this. You don't need a testosterone test to know that you got a lot of muscle right here.
TOURE: And I'm not so sure that Charlie Kirk is hitting the weights all that much either.
PHILLIP: This is actually what I was thinking. I'm like, are we really, are you really the one talking about testosterone?
OK, but Trump and the and MAGA folks are kind of leaning into this. I mean, Trump recently nominated -- this is a true story -- a self- described alpha male influencer, Nick Adams, to be an ambassador, an actual ambassador, not a fake one. And he does lean into this WWE, like wrestling, you know, kind of it's like cosplay manhood. Even the Tate brothers got special attention from this administration, and they're just misogynists.
GRIFFIN: Oh, go ahead.
TOURE: Well, no, just the right's obsession with alpha-ness is toxic in and of itself. And the manhood that they are teaching to each other is quite frightening. And I fear for the young women who have to date these people, because they are growing up to be a horrible group of young men. It is true that a lot of Zoomers are -- male Zoomers are going rightward because they see that as the counterrevolutionary move, because they grew up -- when they grew up, that's the way they saw Trump. But I am afraid --
PHILLIP: I think there's some policy involved there.
SCHULTZ: Let's not say that like somebody who likes football, boxing, MMA, and the rest of it, makes him an evil person, right? That's just not the case.
TOURE: No, I like those things.
SCHULTZ: It also doesn't make you more of a Republican person, either.
PHILLIP: It also doesn't make you have more testosterone. I would like to see the test.
GRIFFIN: Some of this is smart politics. I remember some of my friends on the left laughing when Hulk Hogan came out at the RNC. Like, what a joke. Who cares about Hulk Hogan? Tens of millions of Americans for generations, and for some people, he was seen --
TOURE: Don't praise him too much. You're get canceled.
GRIFFIN: I did not grow up as a WWE, but I did not grow with it.
PHILLIP: Both.
GRIFFIN: But it spoke to a certain part of the of the electorate that cared about that.
The other side of this you have to be careful with. And Scott Galloway is brilliant on this. There is a faux concept of what masculinity is that I think is very, very dangerous with young men as they're getting exposed more and more to the more dangerous sides of the manosphere. It is totally fine to love boxing, love football, love lifting weights. But there's a side of it, whether it's the Tate brothers and others that are going to have impacts for all of us if that's what our young men aspire to.
PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, I think that's an important point. The sort of dumbing down of what manhood looks like, I think is not good for men, to be honest.
ENTEN: We've got three fine looking men at this table. That's what I know.
PHILLIP: Men, OK, we love you here on "TABLE FOR FIVE".
Coming up next, the panel's unpopular opinions, what they are not afraid to say out loud.
But first, a programing note. Don't miss an all new CNN original series on the remarkable life of John F. Kennedy Jr. "American Prince, John F. Kennedy Jr." premieres August 9th at 9:00 p.m. right here on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[10:57:38]
PHILLIP: We're back, and it's time for your unpopular opinions. You each have 30 seconds to tell us yours. Jim, you're up.
SCHULTZ: So at risk of being canceled, I grew up in the 80s watching Hulk Hogan in WWE.
TOURE: Uh-oh. Oh, no.
(LAUGHTER)
SCHULTZ: And I think I think he's one of the greatest athletic entertainers of my time in that generation during that time. All his other problems aside, he was an amazing, you know, sports entertainer.
PHILLIP: Thats why it's called an unpopular opinion, Toure.
TOURE: Though racism aside, he was great. OK, fine.
SCHULTZ: No, no, I said a great athletic entertainer.
TOURE: OK, fantastic. All right, look --
SCHULTZ: Who didn't like the Hulkster back then.
TOURE: Later today, I'm playing in a tennis tournament, so I am completely focused. So it's going to be two tennis things. One, if you hit your opponent with the ball, you get two points. I want you to be trying to hit him, like hit a drop shot, bring him in, try to hit him, right. And the other thing, the tweeners, stop it. Like it should be
outlawed. If the ball goes over your head, hit it around. Like, what are you doing? I'm not impressed.
PHILLIP: You just told me a lot about tennis.
GRIFFIN: So as an amateur player, I will take that.
PHILLIP: I can't engage on that conversation.
GRIFFIN: Unpopular opinion -- it is in Donald Trump's best interest to keep Jerome Powell despite his constant threats to fire him and get rid of him. Listen, the economy has been a bit sluggish. It's not where people want it to be. It's unclear where the next quarter is going to take us. Setting aside the importance of the independence of the Fed, it's also in his best interest to have a boogeyman, to have somebody that he can blame when things aren't going the way he wants them to. You get rid of the Fed chair and it's a lot harder a year into your presidency to say, oh, it's Biden's fault. It's actually really helpful to have somebody to point the finger at. And that's why I don't think he's ever going to end up firing him.
PHILLIP: Otherwise, he's going to own it. He's just going to own all of it. All right, Harry --
ENTEN: Yes, I'm going to go in a completely different direction. I'll just say, I don't like cake. Cake is overrated. It's disgusting. It's fattening. It doesn't taste that good. If you're going to have a treat -- all cake, all cake, except for ice cream cake. If you're going to decide to partake in a wonderful dessert that isn't necessarily too kind on the body, ice cream is the way to go. And a nice ice cream cake from Carvel, perhaps a little Fudgie the Whale.
PHILLIP: Ice cream cake is the worst kind of ice cream.
ENTEN: You're out of here.
TOURE: Fudgie the Whale?
PHILLIP: And also, good cake is good cake.
GRIFFIN: Good cake.
ENTEN: Baloney, baloney.
PHILLIP: You just have make good cake.
Everyone, thank you very much. Thanks for watching "TABLE FOR FIVE". You can catch me every weeknight at 10:00 p.m. eastern with our Newsnight Roundtable and anytime on your favorite social media, X, Instagram, and TikTok. In the meantime, CNN's coverage continues right now.
