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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Harris Speaks At Border, Blasts Trump For Fanning Flames; Israel Targets Hezbollah Leader In Potential Game-Changer; Trump, Standing Alongside Ukraine's Zelenskyy, Praises Putin; New York City Mayor Eric Adams Pleads Not Guilty To Federal Corruption Charges; MAGA Pastor Says V.P. Kamala Harris Engages In Witchcraft; North Carolina Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson Is Rushed To The Hospital. Aired 10- 11p ET
Aired September 27, 2024 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[22:00:00]
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR (voice over): Tonight, Kamala Harris runs for the border to flip the script.
KAMALA HARRIS, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT, DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: We have a duty to set rules at our border and to enforce them.
PHILLIP: But critics say it's a stunt on the stump.
Plus, he's called Volodymyr Zelenskyy nasty, a salesman. And now, with Ukraine's fate in the balance, Donald Trump praises the country's invader to Zelenskyy's face.
DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I also have a very good relationship, as you know, with President Putin.
PHILLIP: Also, Gotham's mayor gets his mugshot, and Eric Adams suggests the charges are President Biden's payback.
And days before his V.P. debate, J.D. Vance is set to appear with a MAGA pastor who claims Kamala Harris engages in witchcraft.
Live at the table, Chuck Rocha, Erin Perrine, Leigh McGowan, Shermichael Singleton, and Jemele Hill.
With 38 days to go, Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here they do.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIP (on camera): Good evening, I'm Abby Phillip in New York. Let's get right to what America is talking about this Friday. Kamala Harris suddenly sounding like a hawk on one of her weakest issues. In her first visit to the southern border as the Democratic nominee and her first in three years, the vice president says that she is going to be tougher on the border than her boss. It is a direct challenge to Donald Trump and to Republicans who spent the last several years criticizing her for not making more visits to the border.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: V.P. Kamala Harris crisscrossing the country, but fails to visit the border.
SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX): She's been to the border a total of one time in her four years.
KELLYANNE CONWAY, FORMER TRUMP ADVISER: Kamala Harris also has no plans to visit the southern border.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't think she knows where the border is.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Without making a single trip to the southern border.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Vice President Harris has refused to visit the border.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: All right, well, she's there, but now Fox and Republicans are upset that she actually did go to the border.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MONICA CROWLEY, FORMER ASSISTANT TREASURY SECRETARY: It's a huge strategic mistake for Kamala Harris to go to the border.
SEN. RICK SCOTT (R-FL): This is just a photo op to act like she cares.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This visit, four years late.
SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS HOST: Now she's headed to the border for a campaign photo op with 39 days to go.
JESSE WATTERS, FOX NEWS HOST: I'm sure it has nothing to do with the election.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So, do we want the photo op? We don't want the photo op? I mean, which one is it?
SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I mean, she's doing this because of the election. I mean, our poll came out, Donald Trump is double digits ahead of the vice president on this particular issue. You stated in your monologue that the vice president says she's going to be tougher than her boss. Well, she's the vice president. Why not try to persuade your boss after three and a half years to be tougher on this particular issue? That's what Republicans are going to say. And then ICE released -- they released some numbers. The numbers are insane, 10 million-plus recorded illegal entries into the U.S. In 2022, we saw the highest number of illegal immigrants coming into the country under the Biden-Harris administration.
Now, look, some people may criticize some of Donald Trump's policies on this particular issue, but if the administration would have left some of those policies in play, this probably wouldn't be that big of an issue.
LEIGH MCGOWAN, SOCIAL MEDIA HOST AND CONTENT CREATOR, POLITICSGIRL: It wouldn't be that big of an issue, honestly, if we had passed a border bill back in 2013, when the Gang of Eight had their border bill.
PHILLIP: Which is what Vice President Harris said today.
MCGOWAN: Right. I mean, literally, it wouldn't be a big deal if we had passed the border bill back in 2013, but the Boehner House decided not to take it up. It wouldn't be a big deal if we pass the border bill in January but the House refused to take it up. So, we're in this position right now because we refuse to keep taking up the position.
The issue is better off being unsolved for the Republicans. And you can't win for winning, right? She's not at the border, she goes to the border. This is bad. This is bad. She can't do anything right. And, really, of course it's about campaigning, right? She's campaigning for elections. So, she's going to go do the things. We know we kiss babies, we do the things, we go to the border, right? We go to the border.
ERIN PERRINE, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST, AXIOM STRATEGIES: Let's be clear. The previous immigration bill that was put up under Senator Lankford, Republicans had policy disagreements with that. It's true that Donald Trump came out against it, and that was part of the calculus as well, but letting in a certain number of illegal immigrants every day and then deciding to close the border was something Republicans pushed back.
[22:05:00]
But they had policy disagreements with that.
PHILLIP: I get what you're saying, but there are policy disagreements every single day on Capitol Hill.
PERRINE: Right, but Donald Trump disagreed with the C.R. and they still passed it.
PHILLIP: Bakari is not here, so I'll do the whole conjunction junction at that point. The whole point of Congress is that they have policy differences and the compromise is where one party has policy differences, the other one has policy differences, and they pass a bill in which they don't all agree. And that is functionally what happened.
PERRINE: Right. But in the Senate, they didn't have the votes because of the policy disagreement, and there wasn't the policy conversation. I've been in the Senate. I've been there for hard legislation getting passed. I worked in Senate leadership. I know what this looks like firsthand. There wasn't a broader conversation where more parties were brought in.
Yes, Lankford is a conservative senator. Nobody's going to argue the fact of the matter that James Lankford of Oklahoma is a conservative senator. But he is not the conservative voice for all the conservative senators. He didn't bring more on board because they had the policy disagreement.
PHILLIP: Don't you think that if Donald Trump had sent a tweet or a Truth Social that said, let's take this deal because it's going to build more border wall, it's going to do, you know, whatever, it's going to tighten up -- you know, it's going to close down the border at a certain point. Don't you think that Republicans on Capitol Hill would have agreed and would have passed it?
PERRINE: You might have had more, but this was still a bill coming out of the Senate and going to the House. And so even if it had passed the Senate, getting it through the House, where there are much more conservative hardliners than there are in the Senate still would have been a problem. And if by some fabrication of the world, they had passed it in the House. It still would have had to go to conference between the Senate and the house to bring the two bills together before it was put through for final passage.
This would not have been the final piece of legislation the way it was written that Democrats are putting it out there. And to say that this would have solved everything and to be clear --
MCGOWAN: No one is saying it would have solved everything. No one's saying that. In fact, Abby, said it's going to be a compromise.
PERRINE: Well, the American people still think Republicans are better on the issue than Democrats.
MCGOWAN: How can you be better on an issue when you've done nothing for 11 years? How can you say you're better on an issue when you've literally been passing nothing for 11 years?
PERRINE: That's exactly because they watched 10 million people over the semester.
JEMELE HILL, CONTRIBUTING WRITER, THE ATLANTIC: Well, and not only that, it's the language that they're using as they try to present this issue to the American people. I mean, listen, whether she went to the border or not, people were still going to have that perception anyway.
And there was a guy that when I worked at ESPN, he used to coach all of us about how to do good interviews. And the one thing that he said -- John Sawatsky -- the one thing that he said was everybody always thinks the tougher you sound in the question, that that means that you're really holding your interview subject to their feet to the fire. Donald Trump just sounds tough. That's really what this is about. He sounds like, hey, I'll -- you know, I'm going to close the border day one. I'm doing this day one. It's about the language and the rhetoric around this. And I don't know that she can fight against that.
PHILLIP: Can I just make one note before you jump in, Chuck, I mean, because one of the interesting things is that you're right, Erin, the American people right now, 53 percent say that Donald Trump is more trusted on this issue. But if you look at this, this is going back to when Joe Biden was the candidate. He's basically in the same place. This was supposed to be Vice President Harris' weakest issue. Wouldn't you imagine that those numbers would be better than they are?
CHUCK ROCHA, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST AND FOUNDER, NUESTRO PAC: You would, and that's why she's there. And I think everybody has made a point that brings this home. As a resident Mexican redneck here whose family's immigrants come Mexico here, I'll tell you this, people, that makes me sick.
PHILLIP: I know you're last person to (INAUDIBLE).
ROCHA: That's what I'm saying.
MCGOWAN: I am also -- wait a minute. I just came from the north.
ROCHA: I just got out here from Washington, D.C.
Anyway listen the thing about being tough is exactly right. I cannot stand that we let them have this issue when immigration is at an all- time low, when we're trying to do something, when there's bills, whether they have got past or not got past, at least by God, we was doing something. The thing about this is she goes down there and she takes on a bully face-to-face.
As somebody won't shock nobody here, but maybe in a prior life I was a bouncer in a bar. The first thing you know is a bully likes to run their mouth all the time and they like to poke. And when you cower down, that's playing into the bully. They're being tough. When she goes down there, she's picking it right to them. It may not be perfect, but she's not going to be bullied.
PHILLIP: All right. So, I'm going to stick with you for a second because I want to play this. This is the evolution of Vice President Harris on this issue. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We had a very spirited debate on this stage last night on the topic of decriminalization of the border. If you'd be so kind, raise your hand if you think it should be a civil offense rather than a crime to cross a border without documentation. Can we keep our hands up so we can see them?
HARRIS: Those who cross the border unlawfully will be apprehended and removed and barred from reentering for five years. We will pursue more severe criminal charges against repeat violators.
(END VIDEO CLIP) PHILLIP: That's a complete and total shift.
ROCHA: And smart politics. Today, she put out an ad talking about the border policy that she will send to millions of people.
[22:10:03]
Absolutely, people change their positions on different positions. Today, 38 days out, she's running an ad saying, look, I've been in this administration. I've seen what's going on at the border and now we're going to do something about it.
In politics, you can have all a master's degree and talk about all the policy you want. It's about where you are today when folks are voting and folks started voting.
HILL: Yes, I'm not offended by that either. Like I'm not offended by her --
PHILLIP: Hold on, finish your thought.
HILL: Yes. I was saying, I'm not offended by her changing her position. However, this reeks a lot of what we see often when it comes to crime, right? You have Republicans accusing Democrats of being soft on crime, soft on crimes. And what happens? The Democrats then start to move closer to what the Republican positions are, and they wind up doing things out of reaction, and they wind up doing things on the defense, as opposed to sitting there and thinking, am I actually solving the problem?
And so while I understand why she moved the way that she did, there's a part of me that says, see, that's why you don't become the dog chasing the tailpipe. That's why you don't do that.
PHILLIP: Erin?
PERRINE: I completely agree. This is the thing. This is what Democrats don't believe, is that all of a sudden, Kamala Harris is now this defense hawk on the southern border. Now, in her ad, the ad you're talking about, she says, I'm going to hire more border agents to help secure the border.
MCGOWAN: Well, there were more border agents in that bill, though, that you guys had tried to --
PERRINE: I understand that. Let me finish. She also said that when there was that photo of an agent on a horseback at the border where he was not whipping people, she had kinned that to slavery in the United States. So, all of a sudden, we're supposed to believe that there has been this big, dynamic, heart believing policy shift because she's running for president of the United States. Now, she wants to hire more agents, but she never apologized to the agents that she vilified who were dragged through the mud for doing their job riding on horseback with what are called split reins. It's a western style riding, and wasn't whipping immigrants at the southern border, it was the photo. MCGOWAN: But I think that hiring more people at the border has always been part of the plan. It was part of the plan in January.
PERRINE: It wasn't when she was calling them --
MCGOWAN: but it was part of the plan in January. She has evolved her position, and I think that's what we want politicians to do, right?
PERRINE: Then we want an apology.
MCGOWAN: We want them to listen to the people. And the people are saying, we are very upset, and we are very nervous about the border. And she said, I'm hearing you. I'm going to make it more -- I'm going to do this. I'm going to change this. We're going to do this because I'm listening to the people. Is that not what we want our politicians to do, to listen to us?
PHILLIP: On the sheer politics of it, Shermichael maybe it's a -- I mean, it's a clear 180-degree shift.
SINGLETON: Oh, it is.
PHILLIP: But she's doing it because they think that there's an opportunity to bring undecided people into her column. Trump is maxed out. That's kind of what the polling shows.
SINGLETON: I mean, look, they're looking at voters who may have this issue as a top four, top five. And I'm wondering if the vice president can speak with some level of command on this issue with some suggestions of what she would do if elected, they will potentially vote for her.
I think the risk, though, and this is a risk, I would argue, Chuck, do you run the possibility of turning off some progressives who may say this is too far to the center, this is too Republican lite, we don't like this? What do those voters do if they feel that this is a turnoff?
MCGOWAN: They're certainly not going to go farther to the right.
SINGLETON: Well, no, that's not what I'm saying. That's not what I'm saying. But do you run the risk of some of them potentially saying, you know what, I really don't like her as a candidate. This was my issue. I'm going to stay home, right? I mean, so I don't know. I think you run the risk of turning people off.
PHILLIP: We'll leave it there. But, I mean, listen, the, in the conversations that I've had with Democratic voters right now, something tells me that they're willing to give her a lot of rope on this issue and on a lot of issues.
But everyone stick around. We've got a lot more ahead, more breaking news tonight. A potential game changer in the Middle East, did Israel just kill the leader of Hezbollah?
Plus, a surreal photo op between Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in which Trump repeated old grievances and praised Vladimir Putin. How these two stories could ultimately impact this election.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:15:00]
PHILLIP: Could the infamous October surprise in this year's election actually be coming from overseas? There is breaking news tonight in the Middle East as fears of an all-out war grow. An Israeli strike may have killed the leader of Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed group that is based in Lebanon. We'll have more on that in just a moment.
But elsewhere, Donald Trump and Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, they came face-to-face after days of criticizing each other. And in short, Trump doesn't think the U.S. should be spending another dime on Ukraine against the Russian invasion and has left an open question about whether Russia should be allowed to keep the territory that it has seized in this war.
But the photo op turned surreal when Trump brought up old grievances, his polls, and guess what, he praised Vladimir Putin, the one who is responsible for this bloodshed.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We have a very good relationship, and I also have a very good relationship, as you know, with President Putin. And I think if we win, I think we're going to get it resolved very quickly. I really think we're going to get it resolved quickly.
VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT: I hope we have more good relations.
TRUMP: Oh, I see. Yes, but, you know, it takes two to tango, and I think the fact that we're even together today is a very good sign.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Jemele will be back with us in just a moment, but joining us in our fifth seat right now is CNN's Alex Marquardt on tonight's breaking news. Just, Alex, put us in the right frame of mind here to understand what's going on, because this is really serious and really important what Israel is doing when it comes to Hezbollah.
ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: I mean potentially historic and we should say we do not know whether Hassan Nasrallah has been killed or not. It is really suspicious that we haven't gotten any confirmation, one way or the other, from Hezbollah or from the Iranians.
[22:20:01]
We know that obviously the Israelis and the Americans are going to do their due diligence, but they dropped a huge set of bombs on Southern Beirut today because those Hezbollah commanders apparently were so far underground and under these residential buildings. But my goodness, if you had told me a few days ago that Nasrallah was going to be targeted by the Israelis, I'm not sure I would have believed you because of the incredible consequences and ramifications it could have for the entire region. We've been talking for months, Abby, at the about the possibility of this war expanding. We are here now. And so it will beg all kinds of questions about what the Hezbollah response would be, they have tens of thousands of fighters and rockets left, and then what Iran's response.
PHILLIP: So, I mean, you talk to administration officials all the time. I mean, are they really surprised by what Israel is doing right now? Is this plausible deniability? I mean, I'm just wondering is the Biden administration really on the back foot here waiting to see what Netanyahu's going to do?
MARQUARDT: Well, I definitely think that there is some frustration here. They're on the same page in terms of the goal. They want, obviously, quiet to return. They want the tens of thousands of Israeli and Lebanese civilians who have been displaced to return to their homes. Where they differ is how to get there. And what we've seen from the Israelis, when it comes to Hamas, when it comes to Hezbollah, is they believe that military pressure will get them there, while the U.S. has been pushing, certainly in this case, for a pause, an end to the fighting, to get to a place where they can start negotiating so that this doesn't spiral out of control.
So, they are not on the same page. We saw this embarrassing situation this week where the Biden administration put forward this 21-day ceasefire proposal, and Prime Minister Netanyahu essentially said, no, we're going to keep going ahead with it with our plans.
And so from what we're told, the administration did not know, did not participate in this. And, yes, it could be plausible deniability, but that, but the Israelis also know that the U.S. would not have been on board with this.
PHILLIP: Right. So, let me play what Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker, said about all of this today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): We're on the verge of World War 3. This is the most dangerous time since World War II, and you have to have steady hands at the wheel. You've got to have strength. You have to have a leader in the White House that our adversaries fear. And that's not what's happening right now. The reason we're in this situation is because of the way that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have handled this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: When he says steady hands, is he talking about Donald Trump?
SINGLETON: I think he's talking about the Biden-Harris administration. I mean, look, Iran, I don't know how far they are with their nuclear weapons program, but that's something we need to be aware of. I think there's a possibility that Hezbollah will use terrorists to self- detonate themselves to kill more Israelis. Maybe they'll decide to start having those attacks against the west because we're supporting Israel.
I mean, where does this end? And what is the administration's strategy to stand behind, I would argue, our closest ally in the region? I'm not certain what that strategy is.
PHILLIP: But I guess I think he's making a case here for an alternative to Biden, and the alternative right now is Donald Trump, who --
SINGLETON: Who would support Israel.
PHILLIP: Let's be honest. I mean, he -- steady, I don't think, is a word that you would describe how he even approaches foreign policy.
SINGLETON: Well, sure. Okay, that's semantics. We can argue over that. But I think you look at one political party and you're seeing an increase in anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism. That's coming from the Democratic Party. And I think the point of the speaker is that the former president, if re-elected, would probably be stronger in the Republican Party, will be stronger in terms of supporting Israel, without any doubt. And you're not seeing that on the Democratic side.
PHILLIP: I don't want to -- look, there's a broader conversation to be had about anti-Semitism for sure. But you really, I don't think can argue with a straight face that Joe Biden as president has not been very forceful and supportive of Israel?
SINGLETON: Well, what I can argue with the straight face is when you look at what occurred on college campuses several months ago, when you look at -- but that's within the Democratic Party. But it's within the Democratic Party that there's an issue with --
PHILLIP: Hang on Shermichael, we're talking about the geopolitical situation that we're facing here, which is a very significant moment, a very big deal. And it's a question of leadership and the choices that are at play here.
MCGOWAN: And he has the steadier hand, is what we're saying here. It certainly isn't going Biden.
SINGLETON: We haven't seen that.
MCGOWAN: We're not going to have President Biden.
SINGLETON: Or Kamala Harris, who's been teetering all over the place.
PERRINE: Yes. I think that Israel is showing time and again, especially in recent, whether it was the pagers and the walkie-talkies or this attack on Hezbollah here, that they do not trust the Biden administration. And why do I believe that? Because they don't tell the United States before they are doing this. If we fully believe that Israel is our strongest ally in the Middle East, and they are, hard stop, no question on that, they do not trust the United States to have their back ahead of the decisions they're making. And I have to tell you, Israel, I mean, in this case against Hezbollah, really stacked the deck against them. The pager explosion, these walkie-talkie explosion, then Netanyahu leaving the country, though. But then he got them all together and then bombed all of them --
PHILLIP: I want to let Alex weigh in on that, because you've covered this region for a long time.
[22:25:00]
So, what do you think?
MARQUARDT: Yes, I think it's hard. Netanyahu -- Biden is such a stalwart supporter of Israel. He is someone who comes out all the time saying, I'm a Zionist. He talks about his relationships with Israeli prime ministers going back to Golda Meir. He has given Israel every single thing that they have wanted, say, for one small shipment of 2,000-pound bombs and gotten a lot of blowback for it from within his own party.
I think that it is a difference in terms of policy where the Biden administration really wants to see these conflicts end, you know, after a year. But there are truly different philosophies about how to get there, where the Biden administration is, saying we need to negotiate these ceasefire deals, and that these ceasefire deals are possible, and Netanyahu just doesn't believe that it's going to be done that way.
PHILLIP: Let me just -- one other thing, because I do want to get to this because it's also extremely important. Let me just play what Trump said when he was meeting with Zelenskyy of Ukraine today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: The president wants it to stop. And I'm sure President Putin wants it to stop. And that's a good combination. So, we want to have a fair deal for everybody.
REPORTER: What do you envision is fair?
TRUMP: Well, it's too early to say that. I mean, I have my own ideas and I'm sure the president definitely has his own ideas, but it has to be fair.
ZELENSKYY: This war shouldn't be started. And I think that the problem that Putin killed so many people and, of course, we need to do everything to pressure him to stop this war.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: I'm not sure you can find a more pained 30 seconds.
ROCHA: Oh my God, right?
PHILLIP: It's extremely difficult for Zelenskyy to stand there and hear Trump say a fair deal when the fair deal would involve taking a chunk out of Ukraine.
ROCHA: I was waiting for Zelenskyy to look over and say, if we're such good friends, I'd like for you to show me Ukraine on a map, because I promise you he couldn't. It was really, really bad when he was like it takes two to tango, and I was thinking, why? This was not Ukraine going in anywhere, right? I think the -- we're 38 days before an election and people in focus groups right now that I'm talking to all over the country, this is a big deal going back to what you all were just talking about, bombs dropping, it's on our T.V.s every day and voters. These are one of the things that Donald Trump don't have on voters. It makes them nervous for him to think he's in charge, because they think he's a little crazy.
Yes, they think gas and groceries were a little cheaper under him, but they think he's crazy in the focus groups that I'm doing, and that's what's a big concern.
MARQUARDT: I think what's clear, and back to the earlier point is, yes, it is probably likely that Prime Minister Netanyahu would prefer Trump to win in this election, because he would be much more lenient when it comes to Prime Minister Netanyahu and the Israelis.
What is clear, made very clear today here, is that Zelenskyy does not want Trump to win this election. I mean, I think he's shuddering at this thought. The Ukrainians have been so careful, or generally so careful, about now trying not to become a partisan issue, and yet it really has.
And we know that the Trump folks are pretty ticked off at Zelenskyy about what he said in a recent New Yorker interview about Vance being a radical, and Trump actually not knowing how to end this war, because Zelenskyy knows that if Trump did try to end this war, you're absolutely right, Abby, that it would likely mean the U.S. asking Ukraine to give up a lot of territory and really compromise.
PHILLIP: Yes, we're watching, as you can imagine, world leaders navigating around a really hotly contested U.S. election that is basically a tie right now. And they're trying to figure out what they're going to do once one of these candidates wins. That's all playing out right in front of our eyes.
Alex Marquardt, thank you very much for joining us.
Everyone else, hang tight for us. Coming up next, as New York City Mayor Eric Adams took his mugshot today, he is pointing the finger at President Biden for the corruption charges against him. We're going to discuss that.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:33:03]
PHILLIP: Eric Adams is making it clear he does not plan to go down without a fight. The embattled New York City mayor appeared today in court and he pled not guilty to federal corruption charges. Adams has remained defiant amid this investigation. And during a July appearance on Sirius XM, he alluded to race playing a factor in the moves around him by the DOJ.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAYOR ERIC ADAMS (D-NEW YORK): When you're doing analysis and get away from the headlines and doing analysis, okay, so what has this brother done? It is mind blowing what we delivered for Black and Brown, picking a city. And we just want to continuously go into that to, you know, when, just as they did with David Dinkins turning their base against him as he was delivering for us. This is the same script, man. They pulled out the same book.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: And this week, Adams further invoked those claims, holding a post-indictment press conference surrounded by New York City's Black leaders. But it did not go over quite the way he thought it would with one heckler saying this during the presser.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNKNOWN: This is not a Black thing. This is a youth thing. This is a youth thing, Eric Adams.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Jemele is back with us at the table. Welcome to New York. This is the city and -- but Eric Adams, I mean, it's not subtle at all, okay? He brought the pastors, he brought, you know, the Grand Dom of New York City politics standing right next to him.
HILL: Listen, I know a lot of Black New Yorkers and you know, I'm sure that he does have his supporters but I've never gotten that sense from the Black New Yorkers. I know that they are willing to ride or die for Mayor Adams.
[22:35:00]
And to me, it's disgraceful in this instance to, you know, sort of -- racism, as we know, is very serious business. And for him to invoke it in this manner is undermining what racism actually is. I mean, when you look at the indictment and what he's being accused of, hey man, when you in office as the mayor, you can't take all the hook-ups. That's what it is. This is when taking hook-ups goes wrong, allegedly, I got it.
And so, for him to do that and to sort of play on the sympathies of Black people who have been through some real things and then to compare himself to David Dinkins, are you serious? I mean, I know I was born in the 1900s and everything, but like, I wasn't born last night. I thought that was very disgraceful and very disingenuous on his part because he's had issues from the beginning with Black and Brown citizens in New York.
PHILLIP: Yes. I mean -- and some of it has to do with his law enforcement background.
HILL: Correct. Mr. Stop and Frisk -- oh, suddenly he wants to pull a race card? It's a very serious thing.
PHILLIP: I mean, that's -- that's actually what I hear the most from Black and Brown people in this city. But the other part of what he is saying which is about the immigration aspect of this, he is saying that because he has criticized the Biden administration over the migrants who have come to New York City, that this is essentially payback for that.
Let's just remind people what the DOJ has been up to. They have been prosecuting Bob Menendez, a Democrat, Henry Cuellar, a Democrat, Hunter Biden, the President's son, T.J. Cox in California, Mr. Michael Madigan. I mean --
SINGLETON: I mean, Merrick Garland is going after everybody. I mean, if we want to be fair, right? I do understand the argument of immigration being an issue in New York, a lot of reporting on that even in places like Harlem.
But I'm not necessarily sure that the mayor has the support from Black New Yorkers in part because of stop and frisk. As a Black man, as a law enforcement official, mayor of the city, he should be well-aware of the implications of stop and frisk on people who look like us.
What happens if a Black guy happens to have a legal firearm which is now legal in a place like New York? How does the police respond? I don't want to just be walking down the street and a police officer decides, oh, you look suspicious, let me stop this guy. Like that is just not okay.
So, the support that he probably would have had from Black people is going to be diminished because a lot of Black people don't trust that he's had the interest of Black people at heart during his tenure.
MCGOWAN: Can I ask a question? Because I'm not a New Yorker. What he's been accused of, I understand, is taking basically $10 million in bribes that was matched by New York City, right? So, stealing from New York City.
PHILLIP: That's a big part of the allegations in addition to several other things.
MCGOWAN: Yes. So, as a New Yorker, if you were sitting here watching this, you would say, so you basically took $10 million of our money at the same time you're saying we can't afford schools, we can't afford libraries, that kind of thing.
And then when you get caught doing that alleged crime, you then turn what you're calling the race card or what you're talking about, immigration, suddenly, or it's Joe Biden's fault. And it just doesn't feel like there's a lot of accountability for actual actions.
ROCHA: Look, I've been talking to people all day that are in the Latino community in New York and in the Black community, and it's not just these leaders. Folks have told me today, this city is in crisis.
Not only that you have the police, you have the chancellor of the schools, you got a lot going on in this city. And some of the poorest folks, mainly Black and Brown people all over this city are really frustrated right now to see the turmoil which leads to, as one of the only people around this table who's still running elections every single day, there's an election here in six months. One of the only.
PERRINE: Excuse me, excuse me.
ROCHA: We don't count Republicans. So, when you think about it --
PERRINE: I got a job, too.
ROCHA: When you think about it, I'm glad you're employed. When you think about it, those folks are frustrated. And there's going to be a primary here in less than six months. Another election is going to happen here. There's folks already announced. That's why he thinks that it's a set-up and that he thinks people who are running for office are doing this against him.
MCGOWAN: Or he thinks saying it's a set-up will work, right?
HILL: Does he know how you don't get set-up is that you don't actually do the thing --
PHILLIP: But by the way, I mean, it's been interesting to see how many Republicans are kind of backing him up on this whole immigration argument. I mean, I don't know, it's just very convenient.
PERRINE: Well, Republicans are going to say, look, there's a bunch of immigration issues in the United States, and look, there's a Democrat who agrees with us in the moment. There will be Republicans who will play to that politically. And Democrats would do the same thing if there was a a topic in their favor.
But here, I think to your point, Chuck, there is so much chaos in New York City right now in the top tenor of the leadership. The mayor, FDNY, NYPD -- this is -- there seems to be, allegedly, a systemic issue in New York right now.
And this is such an incredible city. And growing up and remembering 9- 11 and growing up in that era in the United States, and I grew up in Western New York, I'm not from the city. It's one of the few states in the country where you say, I'm from New York and people assume a city and not the state. Where you got to say, I'm from the rest of it. It hit us so hard.
You want to see the greatness of this city and every city in the country. And the fact that there are investigations and charges being put forward, I trust the legal system in the United States to get this right, to make sure that this is litigated appropriately. And that the final outcome, if it's through appeals or whatever, is the right outcome.
[22:40:02]
And that the city gets back on its feet with leaders who want to put the people first and not them. PHILLIP: So, the governor, Kathy Hochul, she has a decision to make.
She can -- to get them out of there.
PERRINE: Which is wild, to me.
PHILLIP: She can and Al Sharpton -- Reverend Al Sharpton, he's convening New York's Black leaders to talk about this because Eric Adams is invoking them, so they need to make their position clear, but where do you think this goes?
HILL: Well, I will say this. If you're the governor, I mean, I think you're probably at a point, even though I do believe that his ability to lead the city is completely compromised, and the fact that from a leadership standpoint, as you said, when you're in that position, part of the job is putting the job, the people before yourself. And it feels like if he stays in this job, that's exactly what happens.
But on the other hand, if you're the governor, especially now that he's in vote race, I realize that that puts her in a very tricky position because she doesn't want to be the White governor that removes the Black mayor in the city of New York --
PHILLIP: Yes.
HILL: -- which is, you know, he's sort of following a Marion Barry- esque blueprint in many ways, except for -- the people don't have his back the way that they had Marion Barry.
SINGLETON: He's being strategic.
HILL: But he's being very strategic in trying to box her in.
PHILLIP: Yes. All right, everyone, hold on, hold on for that story. Coming up next for us, why J.D. Vance is attending an event hosted by a pastor who said this about Vice President Harris.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LANCE WALLNAU, EVANGELICAL PREACHER: She can look presidential and that's -- we'll go to this later. That's the seduction of what I would say is witchcraft.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:45:56]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WALLNAU: She can look presidential and that's we'll go to this later. That's the seduction of what I would say is witchcraft. That's the manipulation of imagery that creates an impression contrary to the truth but it seduces you into seeing it. So, that's -- so that spirit -- that occult spirit, I believe, is operating on her and through her.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Tomorrow, vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance is going to appear with that guy, that MAGA pastor who says, Kamala Harris engages in witchcraft. The event is happening just three days before his debate against Tim Walz. We're back at the table. The occult was invoked.
PERRINE: I mean, I got no problem starting here. That's banana nuts. That's crazy town into the abyss, and there's no place for that. That almost seemed like an SNL caricature of people who say that they are Republicans. I don't know who on the Trump-Vance team failed at vetting before they scheduled this event. But normally in politics, since I still have a job and work, I can't change.
ROCHA: Stop it.
SINGLETON: I like that.
PERRINE: We vet people that you put your candidate next to. You do a full background.
ROCHA: Evidently, you don't.
PERRINE: Apparently, we don't anymore. Apparently, we don't.
MCGOWAN: Well, let me ask you.
PERRINE: It should have been an easy check to not do that. That is a bad idea. Look at us talking about this instead of talking about the bigger politicians driving into the debate.
MCGOWAN: Yes, but let me ask you. Maybe he was vetted. Because where are we right now, right? We are taking rights from women. We are talking about making child brides again. We are talking about getting rid of no-fault divorce. We are taking all these things from women and what is the next evolution of that? Women are witches. There's no way she could have done that debate without using witchcraft.
Oh, now like where are we? She had an earpiece. She had like -- that a woman can't just be competent and up on her game. She has to be using some sort of voodoo on you, you know? That is terrifying.
PERRINE: Hey, I've heard of them Republicans myself.
MCGOWAN: But it feels like part of what J.D. Vance is saying. He's talking about how cat ladies don't have any worth, how the grandmother should probably take care of their grandchildren. We are demeaning women every day in this country and I hope women of America are seeing this. They're saying they really don't respect you. They really don't believe in you.
You're a woman at this table. You're a woman at this table. The fact that he's going to do a debate, a vice-presidential candidate for the Republican Party is going to go in an event with a man who's talking about Kamala Harris being a witch at this point, feels like we're right off the edge except it also feels right in line with where we are.
PHILLIP: Since J.D. Vance is not here to defend himself, let me tell you what I think he would say. He would say, because he said this before, that I don't believe in silencing people, and I'm not going to distance myself from people based on what they say.
That's what he said when it came to Tucker Carlson, who sat next to a, you know, Hitler fan and nodded along and agreed with him and called him a genius historian. And he appeared last weekend with Tucker Carlson after all of that. So, to Leigh's point, I mean, maybe it's not the vetting. Maybe this is just fine.
SINGLETON: I wouldn't advise this. There are a lot of -- when I worked for Dr. Carson, I worked on coalitions, particularly with evangelicals. There are a lot of incredible pastors out there with large mega churches, huge followings, more so than this particular guy. I've never even heard of him before.
UNKNOWN: He's been around for a long time.
SINGLETON: And it would make a lot of sense for Vance to be with one of those individuals if he's trying to appeal to the evangelical community. Halloween is coming up. Maybe that's what this guy was trying to do here. I don't know.
But you know what, look, I think Vice President Harris is a smart woman. I think most people would agree with that. She's talented. Obviously, look at where she's at. Let's debate the issues. This kind of stuff turns off a lot of people.
And while I have some disagreements with some of the points you made, we as a party are having some serious issues with women. And this certainly doesn't help when you're with people who are making those types of statements.
ROCHA: But there's a strategy behind this, you all, and if you watch it, we report it on the news every night about all the crazy things these folks say, and they say it all the time. And there's an old saying in Texas, if you lie long enough about having a horse, eventually somebody will buy you a saddle.
[22:50:00]
That's their philosophy, is if we keep saying it enough, they're going to actually start believing us. It's just about, oh, the immigrants are coming, they're going to hurt you, or this thing is going to happen. Like -- and then you see it repeated on other news channels, not this one, and people start picking that stuff up. That's how you have an armed person showing up in a Walmart parking lot in El Paso.
PHILLIP: Well, I got one more for you. This one is specifically for you, Jemele. Let's play it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROSANNE BARR, ACTRESS AND COMEDIAN: They're full on vampires. They love the taste of human flesh and they drink human blood.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: If you didn't know that was Roseanne Barr and she was sitting, you know, that was what she was with Tucker Carlson at that moment. But you know.
HILL: You see, here's the problem though, is that everything -- many of the points you guys brought up were dead on for sure. The problem is that there's no political consequences for them continuing to align themselves with people.
Like, if I'm somebody who is supporting this party, don't you look at this stuff and say, that's kind of dumb? Like at some, don't you have to say, why am I supporting this and for what? And so, there is no consequences for the --
PHILLIP: Erin -- Erin would like a word, by the way.
PERRINE: I mean, I did. I did.
HILL: I mean, you did.
PERRINE: I am a Republican and I had to --
SINGLETON: I think there have been some consequences.
HILL: What's the consequences?
SINGLETON: Let me say, we should have performed better in the House than the party did. We did not. There were a set of, a slate of Senate seats the House the Republicans should have won. They did not. And if Donald Trump loses the race in November, I would imagine many of us, Erin, would probably say, holy smokes, it's because we're not doing well with women.
HILL: What the other part of it, too, is that, like, when you look at both of these camps, you know, Harris and Trump, is that she can add people to the coalition, right? He can't, so he has to dig further down into people who say things like, vampires exist, or that a pastor looks into the camera and says, seduction. Like, he has a special message for her. I was like, you got a crush on Vice President Harris? What is this?
PHILLIP: I don't know what was going on.
SINGLETON: She's beautiful, so he might, he might.
HILL: I'm saying, it sounds like you're projecting. She was in your mind seducing you.
PHILLIP: All right, you all, everyone stay with me. Coming up next, breaking news. The embattled Republican candidate, Mark Robinson, has been rushed to the hospital tonight. We'll have more on that in just a moment.
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[22:56:54]
PHILLIP: Breaking news, moments ago North Carolina Lieutenant Governor and the current Republican candidate for the governorship, Mark Robinson, rushed to the hospital tonight. We are told it was following an incident at a campaign event. That is all that we know at this moment. But as soon as we get more updates, we will get them to you.
PHILLIP: Meantime, back in the studio here, it is now time for our "NewsNight" cap. You each have 30 seconds to say your piece. Leigh, you're up.
MCGOWAN: All right, so this week, Bernie Marino, the Republican Senate candidate for Ohio, said that women over 50 shouldn't care about abortion because they're not going to need abortions. And I think my hot take would be that you don't need to have a personal -- it doesn't need to be an issue personally to affect you for you to care about it.
Like, I don't need to be having an abortion to care that women have access to abortion. You don't need to be a woman to care about women's issues. I don't need to be a worker to care about workers' issues. You don't need to have your civil rights taken from you to care about civil rights issues.
I think at the end of the day, we can care about issues that don't affect us because we care about people. And I think that should be an obvious thing to say in 2024 America but for some reason, it's just not.
PHILLIP: Well, you know what? If you read Leigh's book, you're going to get a lot more of that. And we want to congratulate you on your new book --
SINGLETON: New York Times bestseller.
PHILLIP: Bestseller.
PERRINE: Congratulations. She's a New York Times bestseller.
MCGOWAN: Thank you. She's talking about common sense, which is what we're trying to do at this table, you know.
PHILLIP: Absolutely.
SINGLETON: I love it. I love it.
PHILLIP: Shermichael, you're up.
SINGLETON: Look, I think prosecutors in our country have too much power. I'm thinking about Marcellus Williams, who should have never been charged based on the evidence that we're aware of. This brother had a lot of people come into his defense, including the current district attorney who was saying, we've made a mistake. The family of the victims said, we've made a mistake. And this happens
time and time again, particularly with people who look like me. Black men, younger Black men, where this justice system gives us no level of credibility on anything. We're just guilty and you got to fight like hell to try to prove your innocence. That is not acceptable.
PHILLIP: Yes, I mean, the facts are what they are. Disproportionately represented on death row, disproportionately represented among the exonerated. That's a really serious issue. Chuck.
ROCHA: I don't think we always lived through a hurricane. We want to keep everybody in mind who we lost lives with a hurricane. The hurricanes are getting bigger. They're getting stronger. Climate change is real. And we --voters are talking about it. It's the biggest thing that we're not talking about are these storms.
And the last piece of that is we found that the folks with the lowest income live in the lowest places in these cities. So, it over indexes with Black and Brown folks. We need to have a conversation about climate change and ask these candidates where they are on climate change to make sure they're held accountable because it's real.
PHILLIP: Erin.
PERRINE: Yes, my hot take is that Kamala Harris is running much more like a Republican than she is like a progressive Democrat that we've come to know and love all these years. She went from being the most progressive senator in the United States Senate wanting to decriminalize illegal border crossings to now saying she stands with Border Patrol and wants to make sure we secure the border.
She went from villainizing the Trump tax cuts to now doubling down on the child tax credit and following Trump on the no tax on tips. I get that these are very popular proposals but it's a little funny to see what was the most progressive United States Senator, now all of a sudden sounding much more like a Republican. She uses words like capitalism now. Things you don't usually hear about the progressive and positive terms.
[23:00:00]
MCGOWAN: Shouldn't that thrill you?
PHILLIP: Good old general election candidate.
PERRINE: I'm just saying, these are funny.
MCGOWAN: You should vote for her.
PHILLIP: Jemele.
HILL: All right, I'm going to use my hot take time to draw attention to what I think is an incredible story. It's unfortunate that it's sad. A Marion Smith, who is a 21-year-old college student at Michigan State, also plays football. I'm a Michigan State grad. He's 21, his mother died of cancer last month, and he has legal custody of his four siblings.
So, he's 21 years old, in college, taking care of his four siblings. And a lot of times we debate about the character of athletes. We know we see a lot of money in sports and sometimes you don't hear about the good stories. And while this is not necessarily good because a young man lost his mother. I think the fact that he's taken on this responsibility, he does have a GoFundMe, so people go support it, says something about this young man's character.
And shout out to my man, Larry Lage, with the "Associated Press" who brought this to everyone's attention.
PHILLIP: Thank you, Jemele. Everyone, thank you -- at home. "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
