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Conservative "New York Times" Columnist Ross Douthat States President Trump has Lost American Electorate One Year into His Second Term; President Trump Calls on Republicans to Nationalize Voting in U.S.; White House Scrambles to Explain Racist Post on President Trump's Truth Social Feed; Republicans Praise Nicki Minaj for Supporting President Trump While Criticizing the Grammys for Anti- Trump Political Statements by Celebrities; Conservatives Holding Alternative Half-Time Show Featuring Kid Rock During Super Bowl in Protest over Bad Bunny Performing at NFL Half-Time Show. Aired 10-11a ET.

Aired February 07, 2026 - 10:00   ET

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

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[10:00:44]

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: Today, from DOGE and ICE to dollars and ballrooms, one conservative delivers an eye-opening warning about the president's behavior.

ROSS DOUTHAT, COLUMNIST, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": A year into his second presidency, Donald Trump has lost the country.

PHILLIP: Plus, is MAGA signaling that Americas elections are at risk?

DONALD TRUMP, (R) U.S. PRESIDENT: The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.

PHILLIP: Why election office raids may be the first step to an unprecedented midterm.

STEVE BANNON, FORMER ADVISER TO PRESIDENT TRUMP: You're damn right we're going to have ICE surround the polls come November.

PHILLIP: Also, the president of the United States shares a racist video depicting the Obamas as apes. Which Republicans will defend him?

And political protest poised to grab the spotlight on the world's biggest stage tomorrow.

Here in studio, Joe Borelli, Ashley Allison, Charlie Dent, and Astead Herndon.

It's the weekend. Join the conversation at a "TABLE FOR FIVE".

(END VIDEO CLIP) PHILLIP: Hi everyone. I'm Abby Phillip in New York. We are hardly into Donald Trump's second year back in office, but one conservative is saying that the president has already lost the country.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROSS DOUTHAT, COLUMNIST, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": I want to tell you a secret, one that most conservatives on the internet don't want you to know. A year into his second presidency, Donald Trump has lost the country.

All of this was predictable. From the first days of DOGE through the debacle in Minneapolis, the Trump administration has consistently governed as if swing voters aren't part of its coalition. And now, guess what? They're not.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: And there are polls that back him up, including a poll this week showing that Trump's lowest numbers on the economy are right now since his first term. But if you ask the president, he is the GOAT.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) U.S. PRESIDENT: You know, I've done a great job as president. They say I've had the best first year of any president in history. And I think I have.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: And with that attitude, he's busy sticking his name on a bunch of buildings. Joe, is Ross Douthat correct? Or do you have a counterargument?

JOE BORELLI, FORMER REPUBLICAN LEADER, NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL: Well, Ross Douthat, I remember in, I think it was October of 2024, his headline in "The New York Times" that week was how Kamala is going to win the election. So this is someone who has been pretty wrong on his hot takes on how the conservative movement views different things.

You know, he's pretending to speak for conservatives. And if you look at the polling numbers, even the polling numbers that aren't sometimes good for Trump, it still confirms that the majority of Republican voters are still with him. The poll numbers weren't all that bad. There was a Harvard-Harris poll out this week that sort of despite some of the polling numbers about ICE, right, that's not going well right now in terms of polling, but he's actually doing well on some issues, 15 out of 22 issues they polled, Trump was above water and doing well.

PHILLIP: So I have to say, the Harvard-Harris poll, CNN has different standards for polling. That's usually not one that we cite. But I did look at that poll. That poll also found that most Americans say that that they are worse off now than they were under Joe Biden, in that very same poll. There are a lot of numbers you can look at, and I don't even think numbers are really the issue here. The issue, I think, is what I think Ross is talking about there. Go back to DOGE and the politics of cruelty, and whether or not that has been working for the Trump administration. I think that you can only conclude after a year of it that it has not. They've taken their best issue, immigration, and they have made it a liability.

CHARLIE DENT, (R) FORMER U.S. CONGRESSMAN, PENNSYLVANIA: Well, not only immigration, but the economy, that's been their liability. And what Ross Douthat was talking about was not just about the president's numbers, but his -- but the fact that he has lost swing voters. And as a guy who came from the swingiest district in the swingiest state, I can tell you he's absolutely right on that point, that just speaking to your base is a surefire way to lose an election.

ASTEAD HERNDON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, it really feels to me that the kind of original failure of the second Trump administration is tariffs, the biggest one. I think that that's where we see the numbers shift last summer, and that's clouded voter perceptions.

[10:05:03]

As we talk to people consistently, they're filtering their view of everything that happens next through the idea that Donald Trump did not focus on the thing that they sent him there to do. So I think that's actually at the core of this.

But I think you're absolutely right that the politics of cruelty has multiplied the kind of downward spiral for Trump, whether it's the scenes that we saw in Minneapolis, Chicago before that, L.A. before that, there is a, I think, correct understanding that this is a president who is not governing with swing voters in mind. He is really, he is really legislating for the base. He's not thinking about the midterms, in my opinion, or even its potential impact on the party. He has governed in a kind of Stephen Miller-esque, Project 2025-esque way. And I don't think that's what most people sent them there to do.

PHILLIP: I mean, it's literally Stephen Miller and Project 2025.

HERNDON: So I'm saying --

PHILLIP: I mean, it is actually those people running the government.

HERNDON: It is. And I think that is, you know, in some ways I can see how people are saying, how can folks not see this coming? Because they clearly advertise that on the campaign trail. Stephen Miller has been with him since day one. But folks' vote for Donald Trump was about a diagnosis of legitimate problems and a distaste with Democrats. They were never signing up for the solutions he was proposing. We are now seeing that.

PHILLIP: So let me, before you jump in, Ashley, because you just made a point that Rahm Emanuel was talking about, which is what do Democrats do in this moment? How do they reflect on what voters are doing a U-turn on? He says, "To cement the support of these unaffiliated voters, Democrats will have to avoid the mistake we so often make of telling people we were right all along. Smug superiority is the electoral kryptonite that gets us every time."

I'm reminded of when Kamala Harris made one of her first public appearances after the election, and the line was, I told you so, essentially. I mean, is Rahm Emanuel right that Democrats need to forget even about that phrase, I told you so, and go a different direction.

ASHLEY ALLISON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think it depends on who you're talking to, because if you're talking to black voters, they did tell you so. And so when you -- you want to validate them and reignite them in the coalition, as people often say. Trump is slowly starting to tick away black voters, not in the numbers that Republicans like to project, but you should validate that you had it right. Please stick with us. We won't forget you. We'll fight for you.

I think for moderate voters, I slightly disagree. I think Donald Trump governed with the policy platform he is actually implementing. He said tariffs. He said he was going to do immigration reform. It's the procedure in which you do it. It is the cruelty of it.

But this should not surprise anybody. This is why some Democrats are saying I told you so, because he said it to you, and now he's doing it, and now you don't like it.

Now the question is what Republicans need to do right now and what Democrats should be doing right now, I think is totally different, actually. I think Democrats should be aligning and saying, this is the future forward, while Republicans need to not forget they did not win just because of the MAGA base. They actually had a coalition that they put together that they hadn't put together in some years. And I will tell you, it's not going to look the same in 2026 for the trends that we have. Democrats, though, should be looking at it and saying, we know were in bad shape. We know that -- meaning the country. This is our path forward. We don't want to look back. We want to look forward. We understand if you got it wrong the first time, there's still a place for you in our party in the future.

PHILLIP: Joe, what's the turnaround plan?

BORELLI: Yes, I was going to say, I don't think she's entirely wrong. Politics simply aren't working in this ICE enforcement. So I think Republicans have to recalibrate. Make this about sanctuary cities and sanctuary states who are still trying to withhold ICE detainers and withhold people who have been arrested, withhold people who have been convicted, from being deported. That's the winning side of the immigration issue. And I think if Republicans got back to that, they'd start picking up those swing voters again. Same thing on the economy, you know, not letting the Democrats sort of take the message away.

PHILLIP: Let me just play a little bit more of what Ross said in his column about Trump's legacy.

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ROSS DOUTHAT, COLUMNIST, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": I was right when I warned liberals in the Biden era that they were losing the country and enabling Donald Trump's return. And I'm right when I tell conservatives and populists the truth that they don't hear enough of on rightwing media, that unless the administration finds a way to seem a little bit more moderate and just a little bit more normal, there isn't going to be any Trump legacy at all.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: He also points out so much of what Trump has done that has roiled the country has been done via executive order, and it is a swipe of a pen away from being put to the side if a Democrat wins.

DENT: Well, you know, politics used to be a game for many of us that was played between the 40-yard lines. That's where you were trying to, those were the persuadable voters. Those are the ones you always needed. And what Ross is saying is that too many Republicans, particularly the president, are ignoring them. Between the tariffs, between all sorts of other wild things and chaotic things that are happening, they're not speaking to that rational voter who doesn't like chaos, who doesn't like craziness every single day, who doesn't obsess on social media.

[10:10:01]

But they're worried about normal things -- paying the mortgage, paying the groceries, you know, getting the kids to college. And they're dealing with this never-ending nonsense of things that don't mean anything to them in their lives. Ballrooms, renaming buildings, all this stuff that doesn't mean a damn thing to them.

PHILLIP: Yes, they're asking themselves, what is -- what is this to me?

DENT: Correct.

PHILLIP: You know?

All right, next for us, the president shares a racist video depicting the Obamas as apes. And the White House can't keep its story straight about why it happened.

Plus, Trump wants to nationalize elections, and one of his megaphones is threatening to deploy ICE.

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STEVE BANNON, FORMER ADVISER TO PRESIDENT TRUMP: You're damn right we're going to have ICE surround the polls come November.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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[10:15:31]

PHILLIP: Is one of the most shocking posts that Donald Trump has ever shared also one of the least surprising? In a late night posting storm, which has become more and more common, the president of the United States shared a racist video depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as apes. The outrage came quickly, even from many Republicans, who called it vile and disgusting. But in their first response, the White House defended it as just an internet joke and accused everyone of fake outrage. Then, a few hours later, amid all of the backlash, they blamed a staffer and removed the post.

So what is perplexing about all of this is how shocked Republicans claim to be by this. Trump has a long history of racist posts, comments, and actions, and yet they were all dismissed or ignored by those same people. And it's done nothing to change the level of support, Astead, that he receives from these very Republicans. Tim Scott said this is the most racist post I've ever seen come out of this administration. And as someone pointed out on social media, what was the second most racist you'd ever seen come out of this administration? Since when is that the bar?

(LAUGHTER)

HERNDON: Yes, yes. I mean, you know, when I saw this today, like, it's the dual feelings that you identify, both shocked and not shocked at all, because this is someone who, this is not only a racist post, but a president who has engaged in racist policies, who has encouraged racist rhetoric from his supporters, who came to office on behind a racist conspiracy about Barack Obama. So this is all within his kind of political history.

I guess I would also say that when you think about the Tim Scotts or some of the black conservatives, I know Byron Donalds was on the phone with the White House today, I have a -- look, it feels to me as if I've never seen someone sign up or give up some of their values for Donald Trump, and they don't get embarrassed in the end, you know? And so I think it's inevitable when you kind of see some of yourself and your values to him, he ensures embarrassment.

PHILLIP: And that's actually part of the political strategy.

HERNDON: And I think that, how much folks will take is a question he will always get to.

DENT: And where's the staffer, by the way, who did this? Has this person been frog-marched out of the White House yet? Or did a staffer actually do this? I mean, these are the kinds of -- there should be accountability --

PHILLIP: Dare I say, Charlie, no one believes that a staffer did this. OK.

DENT: I know.

PHILLIP: It's 10:00, 11:00 p.m. at night. The president is in the residence, and he is on social media. Let's not -- I think it is so silly that we have to give credence to these very obvious lies that come out of the White House sometimes on this stuff.

DENT: I agree, I agree. But it just if it were really a staffer, they would have been fired and we would know who they are.

PHILLIP: We would know.

ALLISON: Would they? I mean, like --

DENT: In a functional environment, any other --

ALLISON: In a functional environment, but we're not here, there. You know, we're not there.

I think a couple of things. One, I saw it, I expected it. I'm not surprised. But I have the ability to do two things at once, and that is acknowledge how unacceptable it is, but also ask the question of what else happened that you were trying to cover up by doing this. So you arrest Don Lemon, and then you go to Fulton County and try and raid the voter rolls in a county that you are concerned. You released the Epstein files, and you go to Fulton County. There is a distraction tactic that this administration does, and we cannot be distracted by this. We also should not be surprised by it.

But we also shouldn't be silenced by it, because there are many times I come on these shows and I say when there's a group chat and they're saying racist things like the n-word and J.D. Vance doesn't stop it at the gate, and says, make some excuse. I'm being too -- I'm being too sensitive. I'm being -- when it's the eating the cats and dogs, it's just too much. It's just too much.

Those are warning signs of people who have behavior like this. And then when it comes out, it is like defend, defend, defend, then delete. Pretend like it didn't happen, and make a pivot. We can't be surprised. We can't be silenced. But we can't also be distracted.

PHILLIP: Can I play this? This is a C-Span caller who is a three-time Trump voter and called in to say this about how he feels about the president right now.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Voted for the president, supported him. But I really want to apologize. I mean, I'm looking at this awful picture of the Obamas. What an embarrassment to our country. All this man does is tell lies. He is not worthy of the presidency.

[10:20:00]

He takes bribes blatantly. And now he's being a racist, blatantly. He's pathetic as a president. And I just want to apologize to everybody in the country for supporting this rotten, rotten man.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: I know it's going to be easy for a lot of conservatives to dismiss that, but if you really look, as we've been talking about the polls and what they say about what independent and swing voters are thinking, there are a lot of people like that who are in that place right now. Or there was a poll this week that talked about, does Trump share your values? Does he have basically the ethics to be president? In the 60s say he does not. That's a problem.

BORELLI: Let's start with the response, right. So this is obviously a case where the second response should have been the first response, if that's, if that's what the truth was. I mean, that said, you know, the fact that they had a first response that perhaps wasn't entirely true is problematic in and of itself.

I don't think you're going to find, and you haven't you haven't seen any Republicans, any conservatives come out, you know, and really defend this, nor should they. The idea, the defense that this was part of a -- the minute you start having to like, you know --

PHILLIP: Stitch together, explanations, yes.

BORELLI: Stitch together all these things. Right. There is a credible screen grab of that by the president's Twitter handle, or Truth handle. And it shouldn't have happened. So they should take responsibility. They should apologize, and then seek to move on. Not, you know, sort of deflect and try to hope it goes away.

ALLISON: But what are a lot of people supposed to feel about? Like what, like I'm -- this is, I would like have a real conversation about this, because what that tells me is that the person who made history, became -- held the job that he currently has, the highest office in the land, he sees them as monkeys. And we know historically that people have looked at black people, as less than human, that they were three-fifths of a person and they didn't deserve the right to vote.

And so if that is the place where, again, in make America great again goes back to, what am I supposed to think as a black person sitting in this country right now? Does he think I am a monkey? Does his supporters think I'm a monkey? It's like, there is something about the deleting, but it is like, are we comfortable with a person that thinks like that, that would even do that, to be in an office in the White House?

HERNDON: I always thought this was the heart of birtherism, that to denigrate Barack Obama, to denigrate, to denigrate someone who achieves the highest office in the land isn't just about the individual action of the individual men. It is about a signal that it sends to a community, largely that your achievements, your accomplishments, does not overwhelm that perception.

And so I think that message is received by a lot of people. And I, frankly, think that the White House's initial response is in line with what they've done about Minneapolis, about they've done about a lot of other things. They are increasingly telling the public to not believe their eyes.

And honestly, that didn't work out for Biden. And that's not going to work out for Donald Trump either. Like there are -- their credibility loss, I think, has been legitimate. And I think that they cannot keep sending people out here with excuses that even their supporters know are lies.

DENT: Well, that gentleman who just spoke, you know, he represents what I call the double haters. This is a guy who probably voted for Donald Trump in spite of his conduct, didn't like him, but he disliked Kamala more. So he voted for Trump. There are a lot of people like that out there.

And frankly, this kind of -- these racist comments and all these other crazy things happening in Minnesota and Epstein and elsewhere, you know, all these people, you know, who had doubts about Trump have even more. And many of them are either not going to show up or they're not going to vote Republican in the midterms. So this is an enormous problem for Republicans. All the things you pointed out actually are true. But I do think it is having a real impact on the body politic.

PHILLIP: All right, thank you, guys.

Next for us, between an FBI raid and the call to nationalize elections, the Trump administration is setting the table to interfere in the midterms. How far will they actually go?

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[10:28:35]

PHILLIP: If it's not clear yet that Donald Trump wants to interfere in America's elections, consider the following. He said he wants to nationalize elections. He regrets not seizing voting machines in 2020. And his intelligence chief actually did seize voting machines late last year in Puerto Rico. He's ordering said intelligence chief to go to FBI raids on election offices in Georgia. He wants to ban mail-in voting around the country. He's still pushing disproven conspiracy theories, and yet he is still lying about losing the election.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) U.S. PRESIDENT: The Republicans should say, we want to take over, we should take over the voting, the voting. And at least many, 15 places, the Republicans ought to nationalize the voting. And we have states that are so crooked, and they're counting votes. We have states that I won that show I didn't win.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Remember, states run their own elections. That's according to the Constitution. And it's also notable that Republicans have been saying this for a long time. Trump and Republicans have long accused Democrats of trying to nationalize elections.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MARKWAYNE MULLIN, (R-OK) SENATE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE: They want to federalize elections and make all the elections run like California. That's a huge problem.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's a lot harder to hack 50 states than it is one computer system here in Washington, D.C., but that's what we're talking about. And you can't sugarcoat it.

[10:30:05]

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My Democratic colleagues have tried multiple times to force through an election takeover bill that would federalize voting.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Federalizing elections, indulging in all sorts of progressive wish list items.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The founding fathers were clear that states are the primary managers of elections.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I urge my colleagues to vote against this federal takeover of our states' constitutional right to manage their own elections.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's why top-down federal mandates usually do more harm than good. We've shown America what's possible when the federal government gets out of the way and allows states to lead.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: What happened to that?

BORELLI: I have a great question for this panel. I mean, everything those Republicans said in that montage was true, right? Democrats have pushed, and they voted on, and every single Democrat except for one, voted for the For the People Act, which takes all of the Democratic policies regarding elections from voter registration guidelines to ballot qualifications to mail-in voting rules, everything, and nationalized the elections. That's what the For the People Act would have done. Democrats touted it, they supported it, and every single one of them, save one, voted for it.

No one freaked out and said that they were trying to interfere in the elections. No one freaked out and said they were trying to steal the elections. But they actually had a plan, a congressional plan to do just that. And no one said -- and no one got hyperbolic about what he said.

PHILLIP: Here's the thing. Where in the For the People Act does it say that the federal government needs to take over the elections because states are just the agents of the federal government, and that federal agents need to count the votes? Did it ever address that?

BORELLI: But you're getting all that from Trump simply saying --

PHILLIP: Yes.

BORELLI: -- we should nationalize it. Trump's quote meant --

PHILLIP: We're talking about this because Trump said --

BORELLI: Trump's quote in the piece was nationalize the elections.

PHILLIP: Democrats have never suggested having a central administration of elections, a central counting of ballots. That has never been on the table.

BORELLI: You are presuming all that from --

PHILLIP: No, I'm talking about --

BORELLI: The one thing he said in the video was nationalize the elections, which --

PHILLIP: Hey, you brought up, you brought up the For the People Act.

BORELLI: I did.

PHILLIP: Tell me where in the For the People Act it says that Democrats want to nationalize the counting, the administration and counting of votes.

BORELLI: After Donald Trump's one sentence to Dan Bongino said that he wanted to basically have a central repository. He didn't say that. He said they should nationalize elections.

PHILLIP: He said Republicans should say, we want to take over. We should take over the voting. The voting in at least as at least many, 15 places, the Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.

BORELLI: Nationalize the election.

PHILLIP: We have states that are so crooked that they're -- and they're counting votes. We have states that I won that show I didn't win. Trump is saying he wants to nationalize the elections.

The argument I've been hearing from Republicans this week, and I think it's a fair one, on voter I.D. and other things, is that the federal government has always had, and it's in the Constitution too, a role in setting the floor, the basic rules for the conduct of elections across the country. So whether or not it's motor voter, whether or not it's, you know, the voting age, whatever it is, that's been the purview of the federal government.

So the For the People Act falls into that category. What Trump is talking about, though, is nationalizing the election, but for one purpose, which is to show that he won in places that he didn't win. I mean, how did they justify this?

DENT: Well, they can't justify it. I mean, this is unconstitutional. It's clear that the states and their political subdivisions run elections. It's true, the federal government has stepped in from time to time, motor voter, the voting rights act. There have been other times where they have stepped in to basically make it easier to enhance the franchise for people. But this is indefensible.

And by the way, you go to a Republican governor in any state, do you think they're going to want Washington to come in and run their elections? This has no chance. This will never go anywhere in the Congress. I can't imagine Republicans voting for anything that resembles what we talked about. ALLISON: Well, I thought I was having a stroke for a second. I had to

like, because you read that comment and then you were like, he didn't say that. So I was like, what?

BORELLI: He did not say how he was going to nationalize. My point was that --

ALLISON: He said take over the election, nationalize it. I just wanted --

BORELLI: Abby laid out a whole bunch of hypothetical situations that he would do, none of which he said in that comment. Not one of them.

ALLISON: I was really confused, because I was like, maybe I don't --

PHILLIP: I didn't even read the part where he said the agents should count the votes. He also said that.

ALLISON: I, for a second thought I didn't understand what "nationalize" meant based on that back and forth, so I just Googled it real quick, because I wanted to just make sure we were all working off the same premise of a word, because he said to nationalize the election. And what it means is that the national -- it says control of the national government. So the national government controls the elections. That is what, when I taught English, I would have told my students to use context clues, look up the definition of "nationalize." And that meant that the national government would control the elections. And that is what "nationalize" meant, and that is what Donald Trump said.

[10:35:00]

That is not what was in For the People Act. It did have provisions about voter registration. It did have provisions about motor voter rolls. It did have provisions about gerrymandering. It did have provisions about the voting age of 18. It did have all those provisions, but it did not say -- it still allowed for state elections to be administered by state officials, secretaries of state. They would work better with the federal government to make sure -- to get rid of people that I know Republicans love to purge so much because they may be deceased or they've moved.

BORELLI: And that's a good reason to purge them, right?

ALLISON: Yes, yes. But that, but the For the People Act, but the For the People Act had that in there. The nationalizing the election doesn't actually have it in there.

BORELLI: It doesn't exist.

ALLISON: Because he wants it to exist.

BORELLI: You Googled what you thought "nationalize" means. You don't have a plan, and we're spending 10 minutes discussing a hypothetical plan based on Trump's --

ALLISON: You've got to know what words mean when you use them.

PHILLIP: I don't know. I also would like I also would like, if there is a plan, for the plan to be public. But I also think that Trump has also made it clear that if he had the opportunity back in 2020 when he lost that race, instead of conceding, he would have just gone down to Georgia and seized the voting machines. And now they've gone and raided the elections office there. They've gone to Puerto Rico looking for fraud, seizing voting machines. I don't know. I mean, I think sometimes with Trump it's hyperbole, but he also now has the power to do a lot of this stuff.

HERNDON: I think that's the important part, is that it's not like these comments are just happening in isolation. It comes after he is already shown a willingness in his first year in return to office, to use the power of the federal government to further his claims of election fraud. I mean, he is basically tasked Tulsi Gabbard with finding evidence that does not exist, after Republicans looked the whole time that Biden was in office. And not only that, it's coming as they have sued certain states or have proposed to a certain states to let them see their voter rolls. Remember, in Minnesota, they said to them that they would get ICE up out of there if they would just get access to their voter rolls.

I was asking around, saying, what is their plan for this? Like, why are they asking these states for that? The thought is that they're trying to build their own national voter registration. That is what nationalizing elections means. They want -- what they're calling a level of oversight for a lot of people feels like a pretense. And I think that is a fair feeling to have, considering this is someone who pushed their own false claims throughout 2020 and culminated with an act of violence on January 6th.

I mean, we cannot just take Donald Trump figuratively at this point because he has already shown a willingness to not only push the envelope, but to incite violence on this front. He has never lost an election, and claimed that it was true. I think what's different about this, maybe this year, is that he ain't on the ballot. So he'll just say it's the other people's fault.

PHILLIP: Well, we'll see. I mean, the midterms are going to be the first major test of how this goes down with Trump and his Justice Department, what they're going to do.

All right, next for us, the right is criticizing tomorrow's Super Bowl performer, Bad Bunny, for talking politics. But they're praising Nicki Minaj. What's the difference? Well, Minaj supports their team.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:42:47]

PHILLIP: Celebrities for me, but not for thee. When Nicki Minaj revealed herself to be a hard core Trumper, MAGA went goo-goo.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JESSE WATTERS, FOX NEWS HOST: Nicki Minaj is going MAGA.

GREG GUTFELD, FOX NEWS HOST: I love Nicki Minaj. And why is a Republican celebrity worth 100 Democrat celebrities? Because they're more rare.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think she, Nicki Minaj, put her finger on something real that Democrats should pay attention to, and that political tribalism is pushing people away.

DONALD TRUMP, (R) U.S. PRESIDENT: Nicki Minaj is fantastic. She's a terrific person.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: But when celebrities like Bad Bunny speak out against Trump and his policies, this is what they say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JESSE WATTERS, FOX NEWS HOST: The Grammys, now, we can't tell if it was a cry for help or a cry for attention.

SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS HOST: These far left celebrities, these coastal elitists that Democrats worship, well, they were in rare form.

TOMI LAHREN, FOX NEWS HOST: I'll tell you this, if the political opinions and activism of celebrities really matter to the everyday American, Kamala Harris would be our president.

BILL D'AGOSTINO, HOST, "NEWSMAX": There is nothing American about a Bad Bunny performance. Bad Bunny seems, for all intents and purposes, to hate America.

BENNY JOHNSON, HOST, "THE BENNY SHOW": So the NFL leadership has decided to hire a cross-dressing, America-hating, ICE-hating, Puerto Rican dude.

JIMMY FAILLA, FOX NEWS HOST: Let me be clear, I think it's absurd, because the Super Bowl is a monument to America

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Apparently they have forgotten Bad Bunny is from Puerto Rico. It is an American territory. I don't know why we need to keep doing this, but here we are. Charlie, do you have some deep thoughts about Bad Bunny or Nicki Minaj?

(LAUGHTER)

DENT: Until a few months ago, I didn't know who Bad Bunny was.

HERNDON: Boomer.

DENT: Exactly. But, you know, culture seems to drive politics, and celebrity endorsements don't mean a damn thing. And I don't know why they obsess over this stuff. It really doesn't matter. Just by complaining about Bad Bunny, they're drawing more attention. Most people really don't care how Bad Bunny feels about any political issue, or any other celebrity for that matter. So I don't think there's any reason to get all spun up about this. Those who don't like Bad Bunny are going to go watch Kid Rock. Great. I mean, who cares?

[10:45:01]

PHILLIP: But the very fact that they're even having this so-called all-American halftime show by Turning Point USA, you can see there, it's Kid Rock and some other people who I've never heard of. Franklin Graham says that it's a better alternative because "Halftime shows began pushing moral boundaries and have become more and more sexualized. This year they have Bad Bunny perform. The NFL leadership is pushing this sexualized agenda." Not sure he's heard Kid Rock, but I'm not sure he's the antidote to sexualized performances.

DENT: He remembers Michael Jackson and the crotch grab and Janet Jackson and the fallout.

ALLISON: That was Justin Timberlake's fault.

(LAUGHTER)

PHILLIP: Kid Rock is no choir boy. OK. I'm sorry.

ALLISON: That was Janet Jackson slander, and --

BORELLI: I think this is what like conservatives get pissed about, right? You have celebrities who are preachy, whether it's Bad Bunny or whoever during the Grammys. You can't say that it wasn't political, right? And then people get mad when conservatives just say, OK, I'm just going to change the channel to Turning Point USA show. Like, don't get mad about that. If people are going to preach and be anti- conservative, let them go. Let them go watch their own show.

ALLISON: Yes.

BORELLI: That's it. I am bewildered how Bad Bunny has been the focus of the halftime show anger when Green Day has been, you know, genuinely anti-American. I mean, they've gone on stage in their concerts and said, f-America over and over again. They are probably more problematic for the NFL than Bad Bunny. And I think a lot of people --

PHILLIP: I wonder why.

BORELLI: I'm just saying, a lot of people are going to wonder, do we have the time --

PHILLIP: Do we have any guesses at the table as to why Green Day is not as problematic as Bad Bunny? Astead?

(LAUGHTER)

ALLISON: I'll let you go first. I'll follow up from there. HERNDON: Up the I'm going to go bro guy. You know, like I'm going to

go this Bad Bunny, it's about like -- and to me, like, this is like, Bad Bunny is a superstar. Like he is a global pop star, and he's really owned music and culture in the last couple years. And I think for Republicans, there's increasingly a tenor where they feel like they're owed these cultural elite spaces. And it will be one thing if people took your position and said, hey, the Grammys aren't or don't like us or the Super Bowl halftime ain't for us. We're doing our own thing and that's fine.

That's not what they're doing. They're whining every day of the week that they're not given the same kind of cultural cachet. And I think if you're going to do that, make some better art. It's my kind of question, Bad Bunny does art and politics --

PHILLIP: Is there supposed to be like, a benefit to -- isn't there supposed to be like, you know, anti-DEI is supposed to be merit based, right? Bad bunny is the biggest star basically on the planet on merit.

BORELLI: So are you surprised that people are offended by an artist who says f-America is the halftime performance? Are you surprised by that.

PHILLIP: All I'm saying is, like, I don't know. Do we want to just book second rate stars, because you just don't, you know, you don't feel like it? I don't know. He's the biggest star on the planet.

BORELLI: No, but I mean, like this this is a show, this is a show that relies on viewers. Obviously, the Super Bowl gets a lot of viewers. This is, you know, in 2026, probably a cultural event by American modern standards. We all kind of tune in. But do we want someone who is patently offensive to America? Billy Joel from Green Day is patently offensive to America.

PHILLIP: Ashley?

ALLISON: So all I'll say is that I think the -- wonder what Nicki Minaj thinks about the monkey posts. First of all, the ape posts. Wonder if she's still a MAGA person. I'm curious about that.

Two, it's the hypocrisy of it all. I agree with you. Like a celebrity is not going to help you win an election. It might expand the election to that celebrity's audience, and it's a politician's responsibility to move them. But Republicans are like, Nicki, Nicki, Nick, and then the left has a more cultural moment on the Grammys and they're like, wah-wah-wah. It's like, just be -- keep it straight, keep it a buck. You all thought for a hot second you all had the culture after 2024. I was telling you all it was not going to run out. The culture is Kendrick Lamar, the culture is Bad Bunny. The culture is led by black American, people of color. And guess what? MAGA people listen to that. So they might turn on Kid Rock, but they also are going to watch Bad Bunny, because Bad Bunny is not the best artist in the world without having MAGA people support him.

PHILLIP: That's probably true.

All right, next for us, the panel will give us their unpopular opinions, what they are not afraid to say out loud.

And a quick programing note for you. Tonight, a look at global superstar Bad Bunny before he performs, a CNN flash doc, "Bad Bunny and the Halftime Show, Rhythms of Resistance," airs at 10:00 p.m. on CNN. Or you can watch it on the CNN app.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:54:05]

PHILLIP: We're back and it's time for your unpopular opinions. You each have 30 seconds to tell us yours. Charlie, you're up.

DENT: Yes. Labubu, I never heard of it. I saw women having this little Labubu doll on their purses. Now, I thought women have enough stuff in their purses to begin with, enough junk. Why contaminate the outside with this? It's kind of annoying.

PHILLIP: I should have brought mine if I had known you were going to.

DENT: Yes, but it's one of those things. I mean, what? Oh. Oh, it's like the Furbys and the pet rocks. I mean, please, spare us all.

PHILLIP: It is weird, I will give you that. Astead.

HERNDON: I'm buying Bad Bunny stock. I think the politics world has spent a lot of time talking about the controversy. I think it's going to be irrelevant come tomorrow at halftime. Bad Bunny not just mixes politics and art, but makes music that's universally applicable. And I think come the end of tomorrow, we'll all just be talking about how much fun we had. No one will care about the dance. No one, frankly, I think the politics will also look a little small too. I think it's going to be a legendary one.

[10:55:01]

PHILLIP: All right. Ashley?

ALLISON: Well, tomorrow lots of people will eat pizza and hot dogs, but I think there are two types of pizza and hot dogs that should not be eaten tomorrow, and that's Chicago style. I think Chicago style pizza, I think Chicago style hot dogs got to go.

HERNDON: A personal attack.

DENT: That's good. She's a smart one. You got a good guest here.

(LAUGHTER)

HERNDON: I'm too shocked to speak.

PHILLIP: All right, Joe.

BORELLI: The cult of Olympic figure skating. Like we don't give a about Olympic figure skating for three years, 11 months. Then we're all supposed to follow every, you know, stage of drama about these people that we don't -- we won't even remember them come March. We won't even remember their names. And we're all supposed to be part of this cult for the next month following Olympic figure skating.

PHILLIP: That's the joy of it, though.

BORELLI: To you, to you.

PHILLIP: I love every four years --

HERNDON: I remember curling?

BORELLI: And curling. Two weeks, everyone brushing the ice.

PHILLIP: That's the whole point. All right, everyone, thank you very much.

And thank you for watching "TABLE FOR FIVE". You can watch me every weeknight at 10:00 p.m. eastern with our Newsnight Roundtable, and anytime on your favorite social media, X, Instagram, and on TikTok.

In the meantime, CNN's coverage continues right now.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)