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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Justice Official Resign In Protest Of Order To Drop Adams Case; 14 States Sue Over Elon Musk's Unconstitutional Authority. HHS Secretary RFK Jr. Wants To Be The One Who Reprograms Americans To Eat Differently; Clay Travis Gets Graphic With His Words. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired February 13, 2025 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[22:00:00]
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: Tonight, a letter and the law. Manhattan's top prosecutor quits, but not before writing out her reasons why, and accusing Trump's Justice Department of accepting a quid pro quo to go easy on New York City's mayor.
Plus, a photo op between India's president and Elon Musk renews questions over if the billionaire is pulling the strings of President Trump. Also, would you like some kale with that? RFK Jr gets sworn in as Republicans learn to love telling everyone what they can and cannot eat.
And measuring the men --
CLAY TRAVIS, OUTKICK FOUNDER: Who is the most masculine Democrat right now in America?
PHILLIP: -- in the Democratic Party.
TRAVIS: Democrats for men are (inaudible).
PHILLIP: A MAGA shock jock diagnoses Democrats with low T. Live at the table, Arthur Aidala, Cari Champion, Roy Wood Jr, Jeffrey Toobin, and TW Arrigi. Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here they do.
Good evening. I'm Abby Phillip in New York. Let's get right to what America is talking about.
The lawyer, the mayor and the president, and the letter connecting the dots to an alleged scandal. Tonight, Manhattan's top prosecutor has quit after refusing to obey an order from Washington to dismiss the federal corruption charges against the New York City mayor, Eric Adams. Danielle Sassoon was just appointed to lead the Southern District of New York. And she is the exact kind of lawyer that conservatives would probably love. A Harvard and Yale pedigree, a Federalist Society member and a former clerk who for the Supreme Court for Justice Antonin Scalia.
But she does not possess the one quality that appears to be required to survive in a second MAGA presidency, the willingness to subvert her principles in subservience to the boss. Sassoon was directed to make the charges against Adams just go away, and she didn't listen. She wrote this letter instead. She describes the process that led to this order as "baffling, dangerous, breathtaking," and that it ignores the new evidence that she had actually planned to use in a superseding indictment against the mayor.
She also accuses the government of striking a quid pro quo, trading a dismissal of Adams' charges for opportunistic and shifting comments on immigration. She alleges that what reads like a hastily arranged cover up, that according to her, the acting deputy attorney general, Emil Bove, ordered notes from a meeting with Adams' lawyers in which the alleged quid pro quo was discussed. He ordered those notes be collected at the end of the meeting.
So facing all of this, Sassoon resigned before, of course, she would be fired. The reason for showing her the door, according to Emil Bove, is what he labels as insubordination. He says this, "in no valid sense, do you uphold the Constitution by disobeying direct orders, implementing the policy of a duly elected president?"
Now, remember, Adams met with Trump even though they say the indictment wasn't discussed in that conversation. And Trump's favorite thing to talk about these days is a weaponized Justice Department, so is Adams'. But ask tonight about this entire affair and Trump pleaded ignorance about it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
The US attorney has resigned over the DOJ's request to drop the case into Eric Adams. Did you personally request the Justice Department to drop that case?
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES: I know nothing about it. That US attorney was actually fired. I don't know he or she resigned, but that US attorney was fired.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: We are pleased to welcome Roy Wood Jr back to the table in our fifth seat. The second season of have "I Got News For You" premieres this Saturday. But we're going to start with the two lawyers at the table here, one of whom I should disclose is a friend of Mayor Adams'.
But, Jeffrey Toobin, this is extraordinary because in part, so many now of these US attorneys and federal lawyers have said, I'm not touching this. I think we're up to five resignations now of people who have been asked to drop these charges and won't do it.
JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNNCHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: This is a travesty, what has gone on. Eric Adams was indicted. He was charged with a series of crimes.
[22:05:08] The Justice Department has now demanded this case be withdrawn, why? Not because there isn't evidence against him, not because there was prosecutorial misconduct, but solely so that he will help President Trump advance his agenda on immigration. That is something that has never happened before in American history, that they drop a case because of a political agenda on the part of both the President and the defendant. And, you know, it's a black mark for the Justice Department.
PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, it's very clear that Adams is going to give them something that they want and so the charges are going to go away. They're not even honestly trying that hard to hide that part of it.
ARTHUR AIDALA, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Let me be the criminal defense attorney here, and why this is a joyful day for the criminal defense bar, we very rarely, as criminal defense attorneys, get to see how the sausage is madeaAnd we're seeing now how Washington, and a particular US Attorney's office, the Southern District of New York, are like fighting with each other.
That's always stuff that goes on behind the scenes and we don't know it. And as much as the aspersions that she's casting against Washington, they're casting it not against her. She wasn't in charge, but against Damian Williams and his office, and the way they handled the mayor's case.
They write in a letter to her, your office was overly aggressive. Your office lied to Eric Adams' lawyers and said he wasn't a target of the investigation, he was a subject of the investigation, when they had already written a memo saying he was a target and they invited him, Eric Adams, to come in and tell us your side of the story when they had already decided they were going to indict him. That is absolutely unethical.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know what --
AIDALA: So both sides look horrible. It's a horrible day for our justice system.
TOOBIN: So what? So what about the negotiations between the pre- indictment negotiations? The fact is he was indicted and they dropped the case solely because of the --
AIDALA: But, Jeffrey --
TOOBIN: -- you know, the political agenda of the President --
AIDALA: But, Jeffrey, you in the office --
TOOBIN: -- and that's just not how it's supposed to work.
AIDALA: You were in the office, not that office, the one next door. You know once there's a breakdown in trust between the defense bar and the prosecution bar, the whole system collapses.
PHILLIP: If don't think the system has anything -- CARI CHAMPION, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Yes.
AIDALA: If you think prosecutors --
PHILLIP: I feel like this doesn't have anything to do with that. I think this is straight up. They want Eric Adams as cooperation --
AIDALA: But that's not what's in writing.
PHILLIP: OK. But they want Eric Adams cooperation on immigration, and they are dropping the charges against him in order to get that cooperation. That's in script (ph) black and white.
TOOBIN: What they did is, was they dropped the charges without prejudice. That means they could bring them back. So --
PHILLIP: Right. Which is very key (ph)
TOOBIN: -- which is even more disgraceful. So Eric Adams is now going to be dancing on the string of Donald Trump in order not to get indicted again. I mean, it's a shameful way to conduct --
PHILLIP: The acting us Attorney who quit, Danielle Sassoon, she wrote about partly about this. She says no one in the Justice Department has expressed any doubts as to Adams' guilt. And even in Flynn, the President ultimately chose to off the extended and embarrassing litigation over dismissal by granting a pardon.
She's suggesting, why not just grant him a pardon if you think he's so innocent? And the answer might very well be what you're saying, that they want this to be held over his head to ensure compliance.
TW ARRIGHI, VICE PRESIDENT, PUSH DIGITAL GROUP: When I see the evidence of that, I will believe it hardcore. You said it's not black and white, I haven't seen it in black and white quite yet. Donald Trump knows firsthand what it is like to be on the receiving end of a weaponized Justice Department.
You say he's hanging over Eric Adams, again, both sides are saying that is not the case here, so that will be seen in the days moving forward. But I am not ready, and I'm not a legal scholar like you gentlemen. I will defer to that.
AIDALA: No, but you're making excellent points.
ARRIGHI: But --
AIDALA: If I may say, thought, you're making very excellent point.
ARRIGHI: -- I'm trying my best.
PHILLIP: I'll take it. I'll take it.
ARRIGHI: Yes. But, yes, like I said, they both are saying something completely different. Donald Trump -- and by the way, it's Bill de Blasio who said this was a bad case that shouldn't have been brought up. It is not just --
PHILLIP: Yes, but dismissing a bad -- I mean, look, if it's a bad case, try it and lose. I mean, that's actually how the system is --
ARRIGHI: Or don't spend the resources on --
TOOBIN: Or make a motion to the judge and have the judge to dismiss it.
PHILLIP: And make a motion to the judge, exactly.
AIDALA: But that motion was quoted. The motion is quoted by the judge saying, it's like a razor thin case. The judge almost threw it out. But it's so hard to win in that courthouse. You have to understand, for a criminal defendant, their conviction rate is 97 percent, 97 percent is their conviction rate.
PHILLIP: Roy?
ROY WOOD JR, COMEDIAN: This is indicative of what they did with Trump once he was elected, and then they started dropping charges against him. And now we're just going to start picking off soldiers from state to state and city to city who also are dealing with corruption issues and just turning those people into foot soldiers for the Trump administration.
[22:10:01]
They're not going to bring those charges back. Like -- otherwise, they would have said that. And that's the part that I really hate about this, is that you'll charge someone and then you'll go, well, you can't send me to jail, I'm still doing my job right now. Because that's normally what Trump was trying to say to justify not even going to jail in the first. Well, you can't send me to jail, I'm the president.
Well, no, if you stealing that McDonald's, you don't get to keep working the grill, we're going to investigate whether or not you're stealing, and then let you get back on the grill.
PHILLIP: Well, the interesting thing about the federal government's position here, meaning the Justice Department, is that they are explicitly putting in writing that they want Eric Adams cooperation. That's part of the reason they're doing it. Emil Bove says this about whether or not Eric Adams can cooperate with the government and why he can't when he's under investigation.
He says, because of the pending prosecution, he cannot communicate directly and candidly with city officials. He's responsible for managing, as well as federal agencies trying to protect the public from national security threats and violent crime. He can't cooperate fully with the federal government in a manner. He deems appropriate to keep the city and residents safe.
The situation is unacceptable and directly endangers the lives of millions of New Yorkers. You know what the solution to that problem is, Eric Adams could resign facing these.
AIDALA: And then you have Jumaane Williams as the mayor of the city of New York.
PHILLIP: He could resign. And you know what, that Kathy Hochul, the governor, has the ability because of some the bizarreness of New York law. She has the ability to actually fire him. And she was answering a question about that tonight and said she's concerned considering it.
CHAMPION: Well, here I thought the question or I thought the idea was whether or not we believe he made a backdoor deal with the President, and this is why this is being his everything -- his case is being dismissed. And this lady wrote a eight page letter, single spaced, with extreme details, which sounds extremely credible. And I think that if we think about what she was sent there to do, she can't say OK.
To your intro, she's not following the boss. She's the one brave soldier who knows for a fact that this is absolutely corrupt and she will not be a part of it. To her I say kudos and thank you for doing that.
If there are more people who are like this prosecutor who say this is what I came here to do. My oath is to stand up for those.
AIDALA: I totally agree with you. I totally agree with you.
CHAMPION: I'm still talking.
AIDALA: I totally agree with you
CHAMPION: Hey, friend. Hey, friend. Still talking -- no, you can but let me finish because I allowed you to, okay?
PHILLIP: She's almost done.
CHAMPION: Didn't I? Distracting.
AIDALA: I just -- It's very right. I agree with you.
PHILLIP: Let her finish.
CHAMPION: The point is that, I do believe what she did was what heroes do. Today, I know that she may not feel that way and people are attacking her, and I just don't want to get the word salad mixed up. I want to say to her, thank you for standing up against something that I believe that was really difficult for her to do.
And I know there are a lot of people who are worried about their jobs, and she's the one person who's saying, no, not today, not on my watch.
AIDALA: Look, I predicted this a week ago. I said, if they're going to ask Eric Adams case to be dismissed, I don't know her personally, but I know she worked for Justice Scalia for a year. And I knew Justice Scalia very well. He was like an uncle to me. That man -- when you surround yourself with him, the integrity was just -- it was immovable. And I said, there's no way, unless she believes that it should be dismissed, but she's going to listen to someone tell her what to do, and she didn't.
And I agree with you. I give her kudos for having the strength to stand up for her beliefs.
PHILLIP: So what is, TW, what is with so many of these officials in the Trump administration basically saying that the law is not what you follow. Donald Trump is what you follow. They keep calling it the policy of the president.
Why is it that she, as a US attorney, is not actually following the law as it's written and has to follow the policy of the President?
ARRIGHI: Again, I'm going to defer to the inner workings of the DOJ, to the two legal experts. But when the President directs the Department of Justice to drop a case he feels is not fit after, by the way, he was running all through courtrooms throughout Manhattan for two years on cases that were dubious at best, put forth by the attorney general of New York, put forth by federal prosecutors, he's seen the system work against him. He doesn't want to see it continue against Eric Adams --
PHILLIP: I guess my point is that, the Justice Department isn't supposed to be at the beck and call of the President. You were mad when Joe Biden pardoned his son, right?
ARRIGHI: I would have done it if I were a father. I thought it looked bad.
PHILLIP: Wow.
WOOD: Trump doesn't strike me as the type of person to look at the intricacies of Eric Adams case and make a decision based on the evidence that it should be thrown out. He gave his dawg the hookup so his dawg can do exactly what he needs him to do. I mean, dawg, d-a-w-g (crosstalk). I'm not calling Eric Adams a dog.
PHILLIP: All right. Everybody, hold on. Coming up next, we've got some more breaking news tonight. There are 14 states now suing over Elon Musk's "unconstitutional power" as we learn who is policing him. Plus, RFK Jr is now in charge of the nation's health, and the same Republicans who are embracing his healthy living ridiculed Michelle Obama when she asked for the same thing. We'll discuss.
[22:15:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: Tonight, cause and effect. Elon Musk is using the power vested in DOGE by Donald Trump to remake the federal bureaucracy as he sees fit. And now 14 states are suing to stop him, accusing Musk of acting like a monarch in everything but name. Musk's team has been slapped on the wrist by judges over and over again just in the last few weeks, which explains why he's tweeting this tonight, "If any judge anywhere can stop every presidential action everywhere, we do not live in a democracy."
So is Trump keeping watch over Musk? Well, he says he is.
[22:20:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Will he secure any new government contracts while he is working on DOGE?
TRUMP: No, not if there's a conflict. If there's no conflict, I guess what difference does it make?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you personally checking to make sure there's no conflicts of interest --
TRUMP: Yes, I am.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He answers to you?
TRUMP: Sure.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: While we have Jeffrey at the table, I just want to mention --
TOOBIN: We're working.
PHILLIP: Sure. Well, I was going to mention your new book.
TOOBIN: Well, please, I don't mean to interrupt that.
PHILLIP: "The Politics of Presidential Mercy," it's out now. But, Jeffrey, I do -- I mean, lot of things going on here. First of all, judges being able to stop things that are against the law is actually how a democracy is supposed to work.
TOOBIN: But only since 1803 had that been the rule. In Marbury vs Madison in 1803, the Supreme Court decided that it's actually judges who make the final decision in our country about whether something is constitutional or not. So that's the rule we are talking about here that Elon Musk apparently either doesn't know about or doesn't like.
And that's what's at stake in all of these controversies, which is who decides what's constitutional and what's lawful. And so far, quite a few district judges have decided that how the Trump administration is proceeding is not lawful. Now, those cases are going to be appealed, they'll go up to the Supreme Court. But the principle that judges decide what's constitutional is a very important one.
PHILLIP: Yes. Look, I would like to offer a high school US history class to my friend Elon Musk. Because I think it's extremely important. I mean, this is basic stuff about how our system work
But on the fox guarding the henhouse aspect of this, of Donald Trump saying he is going to be the one to decide if Elon has any conflicts. How does that work in your mind, Roy?
WOOD: I don't know how that works. I really feel like I look at this Trump-Elon relationship, you hear me? Have you ever had a homeboy who had a girlfriend nobody liked --
PHILLIP: All the time.
WOOD: -- and he has to act like everybody is -- no, we're fine, we're happy. It is going to take a consecutive series of brave people to keep this administration from going off the rails from some of the decisions. To Cari's point in the last break, you have a brave district attorney. Well, you're going to need a bunch of brave judges because he's going to come for their heads, too.
And whichever FBI agents get replaced by the Jan 6 FBI agents that are eventually going to get fired, you're going to need brave ones there too, to keep standing up to this. It's --
PHILLIP: I'm not sure that is happening. I mean, there's a lot of infatuation with Elon Musk. He also -- I just want to play this because he was at the World Government Summit in Dubai, or virtually, he was speaking virtually. And it's unclear what capacity he was speaking in because he was saying things like this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ELON MUSK, HEAD, DEPARTMENT OF GOVERNMENT EFFICIENCY: I think we do need to delete entire agencies as opposed to leave part of them behind, because if you leave part of them behind, it's easy. It's kind of like if they are leaving a weed. If you don't get remove the roots of the weed, then it's easy for the weed to grow back.
There's like National Endowment for Democracy but I'm like, OK, well, how much democracy have they achieved lately? You know, I don't know. Not much. The United States has been kind of pushy in international affairs. I think we should, in general, leave other countries to their own business and basically America should mind its own business.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: I mean, look --
WOOD: He wearing a t-shirt on a Skype at a conference.
CHAMPION: LOL.
PHILLIP: He's the richest man in the world. He can do whatever he wants.
CHAMPION: Yes.
PHILLIP: But really, it's a serious question. Is he Elon Musk's special government employee, the most powerful man, maybe second to the President of the United States? Or Elon Musk, the billionaire, most wealthy businessman in the world, speaking to potential investors?
ARRIGHI: He's a special employee appointed by the President United States, who ran around the country with Donald Trump, who said, if I get elected, I'm going to let this man run crazy through the government and toss it. He says there's a lot of agencies. Yes, there's more agencies than there are years that we've been a country. Most of which most Americans have no idea what they do.
For every new law, there is 18.5 new regulations, according on average, by DOGE's numbers that are added onto the books. That lawsuit that was brought up to me was bananas. They said he's an agent of chaos. You know what's chaotic, a debt of $36 trillion and a Treasury that has no way of accounting and rectifying their bills. That's chaos in a history lesson.
You said the AG's made a note in there that our founders would be sick at seeing Elon Musk. If they showed up and saw a government that was functioning like it is now, and growing at the size it is now, and hiring as many faceless bureaucrats who are making these crazy, you know, shipments of cash overseas for crazy, you know, ideas, they would be horrified. And they say, burn it all.
PHILLIP: Well, They would be horrified also because the United States is so much larger and more expansive now than it was then.
[22:20:00]
TOOBIN: And here's an idea. If the government is so out of control, why don't you have Congress pass a law or pass a budget shutting down the agencies they don't like?
ARRIGHI: Well --
TOOBIN: Instead, you have Elon Musk on his own deciding what's -- what agencies --
AIDALA: You can't ask Congress to do anything. They have been dysfunctional for a decade.
PHILLIP: You cannot ask them --
AIDALA: They have -- they haven't done their job.
PHILLIP: Republicans -- by the way, Arthur, Republicans -- you remember that Republicans right now hold all the levers of power, right?
AIDALA: But it's -- it's --
PHILLIP: They control the House, they control the Senate, and they control the White House. Under what circumstances would that not be a recipe to pass laws? AIDALA: Because they just -- they just don't -- they don't look at the
bureaucracy. This huge thing, Elon Musk is on the spectrum. He's the first one who says it. He's got a special brain. He figures things out that Jeffrey Toobin and I have not figured out. How to get a thing into space, how to have --
TOOBIN: How to be so rich.
AIDALA: Yes.
TOOBIN: I wish I figured that out.
AIDALA: Well -- and he goes, so they put a guy in charge and they said, look, find why we're paying $100,000 for a bolt in this crazy agency and save us taxpayers who pay 53 percent of our monies in taxes, save us some money. Do I think he should be doing with a scalpel more than a hatchet? I do, but maybe the only way to do it is with a hatchet and then, like, start giving some of the money back.
ARRIGHI: Let's not forget Bill Clinton came into office and says, wherever the president, it says the president shall, the president will. He said, I want to cut government by 12 percent, the employees -- the government by 12 percent. He said he started wanting to roll agencies into each other. He started that process.
That's what Elon Musk is doing with USAID.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Yes. I think that's actually a very good --
CHAMPION: No one's arguing that point.
PHILLIP: -- because Bill Clinton did do that, and he -- but he didn't do it the way that's happening right now. He did it like through a process.
CHAMPION: Abby, I want to -- I want to --
PHILLIP: He actually did (crosstalk). He actually did shrink the government. And I think one of the challenges here is, you know, a lot of this is good show, but how much money is really being saved --
CHAMPION: And where is it going?
WOOD: Yes.
CHAMPION: Why are we -- why are they -- why are we not asking --
PHILLIP: No, seriously, how much money --
CHAMPION: And where is it going? And then where is it going?
PHILLIP: They're not touching anything that actually accounts for the largest spending. CHAMPION: But, TW, to your point, I agree, bloated. Everyone's not
arguing it's definitely an issue. No -- mismanagement of funds, no one's arguing that. No one at this table, no one's saying -- no same person is saying that.
What I am saying, and I want to focus on the word you use, was this infatuation. While, yes, he is the richest man in the world and arguably has a brain that's different and special than all of ours, where in the world does that give him the authority and the agency to operate a government? What world do we live in?
AIDALA: That's not the answer.
CHAMPION: What I'm saying is if you ask -- if you ask what qualifications does he have, I don't want to hear because he's rich and he's smart. There's a lot of rich smart people that aren't doing what he's doing and going about it the way he's doing it.
My issue is only, and the lawsuit that you had, you took issue with earlier. There was something that I thought was interesting, and I'm taking this from the complaint. We're talking about Elon. His limitless and unchecked power to strip the government of its workforce and eliminate entire departments with the stroke of a pen or a click of a mouse would have been shocking to those who won this country's independence.
Because where do you come from? And as I've said often on this platform, you don't even go here, sir. What is your vested interest in making sure that our government --
PHILLIP: Not you.
CHAMPION: Not you.
PHILLIP: Not you, not you. (Crosstalk)
ARRIGHI: I know what I'm doing, I make the rockets fly.
CHAMPION: It just doesn't make any sense. Let's normalize -- and let's normalize saying that it doesn't make sense because it doesn't make sense. If the administration was Democratic and Joe Biden did anything like this, Republicans would be up in arms, and you know it.
ARRIGHI: I very much disagree with that. I think --
CHAMPION: And that's fair.
ARRIGHI: Thank you. Elon's goal isn't to run the country. His goal is --
CHAMPION: Sure it is.
ARRIGHI: No, it is (inaudible) waste, fraud and abuse, and streamline what government as he post that --
CHAMPION: And put more money in his pocket. ARRIGHI: He posts that meme all the time of an engine going from this
super complex thing to this more sleek, powerful option. That is what he is doing. And he is unleashing programmers into departments --
PHILLIP: All right (crosstalk). Roy, before you go -- before you weigh in, I just want to show everybody this picture of Elon and the Prime Minister of India, Modi. You were just saying he doesn't want to run the country, but sure looks like --
CHAMPION: Sure he does.
PHILLIP: -- might be the guy running the country. Roy?
WOOD: Yes. I just -- I just don't think that we can assume that everything Elon is doing is just out the goodness of his heart. I'm just here to renovate your government a little bit. This is a --
AIDALA: Maybe he wants to be the first trillionaire. You know, you said he wants to line his pockets. His pockets are pretty full.
(CROSSTALK)
AIDALA: You're maybe right --
ARRIGHI: Have you ever met a rich person who says --
CHAMPION: That's like, I don't want any more money.
TOOBIN: This is enough. I don't want any more money.
AIDALA: Yes, Jeffrey do.
PHILLIP: Guys, we got to go. But look, I mean, the one thing that money can't buy you really is power. He's getting pretty close, though, and I think that might be the other thing he wants.
Everyone to hang tight, RFK Jr is now officially in charge of the nation's health and apparently Republicans are totally on board with healthy food now. That's a big change from the days when Michelle Obama was talking about it. We'll discuss.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: Tonight, not your body, not your choice, newly confirmed Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wants to be the one who reprograms Americans to eat differently.
[22:35:02]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR., SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES: We want to do a number of things but not take away choice from people. The one place that I would say that we need to really change policies is in the SNAP program and food stamps and in school lunches, because there the federal government in many cases is paying for it and we shouldn't be subsidizing people to eat poison.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: MAGA lawmakers want the man. But not too long ago, Republicans didn't want the policies when they were being put forward by the Obamas.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GLENN BECK, FOX NEWS HOST: When I heard this, I thought, get your damn hands off my fries lady. If I want to be a fat, fat fatty and shovel French fries all day long, that is my choice.
SEAN HANNITY, "HANNITY" HOST: We're going to have, you know, the government finding us if we use salt.
UNKNOWN: A new report finds that Americans are consuming a dangerous amount of salt and right now, the FDA is pushing to regulate how much salt is in certain foods. But is salt always a bad thing?
UNKNOWN: I hate the government getting involved in telling me what to eat or not.
UNKNOWN: Good police.
BILL HEMMER, FOX NEWS HOST: Do you think the government should regulate the ingredients in the food we eat.
UNKNOWN: Can't we make our own decision about whether or not we want to salt our food?
HANNITY: An Obama government obesity task force. Does every American family need a dietitian appointed by the government to tell them that this food is going to make you fat and this food is not?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Make America healthy again, as they say. That sound you heard was Michelle Obama's head exploding because she's wondering where were all these people? When she was just saying, let's make sure that our kids in schools are not eating garbage.
CARI CHAMPION, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Yeah, was it Let's Move? Was that the --
PHILLIP: Let's Move.
CHAMPION: Yeah, that initiative, that was part of it?
PHILLIP: That was part of it, the 2010 --
CHAMPION: Yeah.
PHILLIP: There was actually a bill, the Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act.
CHAMPION: She had a lot of success, and her entire goal was making sure that we attack this epidemic of obesity, especially without children. I think about things I ate. I was on a free lunch system when I was a kid, and the things I ate were so disgusting. Like I think of it now and I'm like, oh, if my child was eating that, I'd be disturbed.
What's so interesting is that we, I want to give it up to the Republicans in the marketing strategy. I mean, the message is consistent and it is always the same. And they've made you think that anytime someone speaks who doesn't think like them, it's woke policy or it's DEI or it's not what America has built about. It's not making America great again.
And I think that the Dems, I'm just taking this time, they have to find a new strategy to combat this because there's no way they're going to do this with every single policy. There is absolutely no way that I can sit up here and say, well, Michelle was right. And what she said was right and what she did was right without someone saying, well, DEI defending it, that's why.
And I also just don't believe that they are going about this the right way. They're always going to disagree with the Democrats. They just are. There's nothing that's going to happen. I'm not surprised they're saying, now let's do this when Michelle Obama actually had success in doing this, but we're forgetting that.
ROY WOOD JR., COMEDIAN: How much do you all think that Democrats are always having a message and a slogan and an initiative? RFK just came out, I was like, yeah, sugar's bad, seed oil's bad, no dyes. And everybody's like, yeah.
CHAMPION: But the other part of RFK is that we can question about what he eats, what he does. What -- he's like, this is the same man who feels like COVID-19 had different resources in terms of how we attack black people differently versus white people.
PHILLIP: RFK Jr. -- there are a lot of issues with him, and the worst of which is his ties to these kook, you know, kook science, his lies about vaccines. But let's just take this as the thing that maybe is the most popular thing. It was something that if we had done it 12 years ago, we wouldn't be in this position.
ARTHUR AIDALA, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Bloomberg tried to do it.
PHILLIP: Bloomberg tried to do it and he was vilified for it.
AIDALA: He was.
PHILLIP: The Healthy and Hungry Free Kids Act that basically echoes what RFK said about school lunches, almost every Republican voted for it, including some of the people screaming, "Make America healthy again now."
Vern Buchanan -- "Bobby will bring an outsider's perspective that prioritizes nutrition and have healthy living." He voted against it. Cynthia Lummis, she voted against it Marsha Blackburn, she voted against it. Bill Cassidy, he voted against it. All of these people, where were they?
AIDALA: But that's what happened to our country. That's what -- that's the saddest part of our country the last 25 years. It's like if Jeffrey says something, no matter what he says, I'm going to disagree and if I say something, no matter what I see, he's going to disagree. That's what we have spiraled into from when it was Reagan and Tip O'Neill and they would get together, a Democrat and Republican, and fix things.
Now, I mean what Michelle Obama said was a hundred percent correct. And what -- RFK is a hundred percent correct, and Bloomberg was a hundred percent correct. We do -- we shield people, kids all the time. You got to wear a helmet. You got to wear a seatbelt. You got it with the government always is watching our health and they should do the same thing with food especially the food that the kids can't afford and we're giving to them should be the healthiest food we could possibly provide.
T.W. ARRIGHI, FORMER COMMUNICATIONS AIDE, SENATOR LINDSEY GRAHAM: I want to be a little bit more optimistic than that because that was 15 years ago.
[22:40:00]
And I remember, when I was in college and that became an issue, I was -- I spoke out against it.
AIDALA: You were in college 15 years ago?
ARRIGHI: Yeah, I was.
AIDALA: (inaudible) older than you --
PHILLIP: Hold on, I want to hear this. So you were, you were picketing against the healthy food?
ARRIGHI: Well, because like the Bloomberg thing, getting rid of the Big Gulps, I thought was ridiculous. That became the symbol of the entire thing, right?
UNKNOWN: Wow. Get your hands off my Big Gulp.
AIDALA: Yeah, except kids who have been chewing on diabetes have gone through the roof.
ARRIGHI: Here's the thing, here's the thing. In that time, me and so many others have learned so much about health. The biggest influencers on the planet are health influencers. You get so much information. And look, before RFK said that, what did he talk about? The nasty marriage between the pharmaceutical industry, the ag community and HHS. He talked about the food pyramid, one of the biggest scams ever perpetrated.
CHAMPION: But none of that is new.
UNKNOWN: Yeah. ARRIGHI: Sure, but you learn more.
PHILLIP: No, no, but that's all --
CHAMPION: Are you trying to say 12 years ago we didn't care about -- 15 years ago we didn't care about working out?
JEFFREY TOOBIN, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Let's remember why so much garbage is served in schools. It's because it's used -- it's produced from corn and corn is cheap and it's made by big companies that have tremendous influence in Washington and they are -- they are supported by the farm state senators. And that -- it's not like the agenda here is to give bad food to kids. The agenda here is to make money for agribusiness.
UNKNOWN: I agree with you. I agree with you.
PHILLIP: (inaudible) because I think this is important. It's a question of trust. Does Donald Trump really believe this? And I ask that because at the same time that, you know, RFK Jr. wants to take fluoride out of our drinking water, Donald Trump is doing this when it comes to forever chemicals.
He is halting EPA limits on these forever chemicals in drinking water. This was on its way through. And it's now stopped now that Donald Trump has been elected president. So, does he really care about what's in our water? Does he really care about making everything healthy?
ARRIGHI: Didn't Barack Obama at Hillary Clinton's urging want Bobby Kennedy to run the EPA?
TOOBIN: Never.
ARRIGHI: That was a political headline in 2008.
TOOBIN: Never.
ARRIGHI: With Clinton's backing, Obama considers Robert Kennedy at EPA.
TOOBIN: Never, ever.
WOOD JR.: I don't know if Trump is sincere, but if there's anybody that he will listen to, it's probably RFK Jr. And I think at some point, Democrats have to decide whether or not when Republicans finally do propose something that's similar to a Democratic policy, ether you're going to get behind it or you're going to waste time scolding them about what they could or should have would have back in the day.
If RFK is going to flip high fructose to regular sugar, okay, fine. You're going to get rid of the dyes, fine. If you at least get behind that, then you can focus on the other stuff that you're talking about, oh, he's a little wild on these things.
He said in the confirmation, he'd never said on the record that he's with -- that everybody is entitled to free healthcare, which you should be because half of these companies lie about what's in the food, that puts you in a position to need all the pre-diabetic situations anyway.
PHILLIP: He said a lot of things in those hearings that did not square with his own statements, but it didn't seem to matter. Republicans all except Mitch McConnell voted for him. Everyone, stick around. Do Democrats have a manliness problem? One MAGA host thinks so. We'll discuss that next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:47:37]
PHILLIP: Tonight, a manhood measuring contest of sorts. Clay Travis is a brash MAGA-talker, but now, because of Donald Trump's win, he's being put on panels to talk about serious things and then saying graphic things like this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLAY TRAVIS, "OUTKICK" FOUNDER: Men aspire to be bigger, stronger and faster than we are, almost universally. That's why superheroes are popular, that's why pro athletes are popular. Who isn't the most masculine Democrat right now in America? Mayor Pete? Basically summing it up, Democrats for men are pussies and Republicans aren't.
UNKNOWN: Democrats for men --
TRAVIS: Are pussies. There are no masculine men in the Democrat party.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: All right, don't repeat the word. You heard what he said? Is he right?
WOOD JR.: I mean, Eric Adams is still a Democrat-ish. Right?
AIDALA: He does --
PHILLIP: You think he's masculine?
WOOD JR.: I -- No, he's boss for 63-years old. I was going to say Obama.
AIDALA: You know, when they say right away, who's the boss? Now, he's slim, but he's athletic. He plays ball.
PHILLIP: But is he right that Republican -- well, first of all, let me just show you the numbers, because actually the numbers maybe do suggest this. For young men under the age of 29, the swing from 2020 to 2024 in Trump's favor is pretty significant, 49 to 48 Trump to Harris, it's almost tied with young men. Trump did very well with young people relative to what he normally does. there's something going on here. TOOBIN: No, I mean this was why, you know, Joe Rogan was so influential in this campaign. Joe Rogan has an audience mostly of young men. There was this whole big drama about whether Kamala Harris was going to give an interview to him, wound up not doing it. I think it was probably a mistake, although it probably didn't affect the outcome of the election.
But I mean, I think, you know, what that guy said was pretty dumb, but it is not --it is not a -- it is not true -- it is true that Democrats have a problem, especially with young men. I mean, that is a real fact.
CHAMPION: That's fact.
WOOD JR.: In a way, it validates what Clay Travis is talking about because if you're trying to get young men, you're not going to get them on all policy points and all the -- no, Joe Rogan knows karate and sometimes he talks about drugs. That's good enough for me. Pete Hegseth was in Germany this week doing squats with like 220 on the bar outside for no reason.
[22:50:00]
That's what the Democrats -- I'm being silly, but I'm serious.
PHILLIP: I know, and you know what? One of the other points that Clay Travis made, and I think this is true, we saw this in real time. When Trump had the assassination attempt in Butler, that image of him raising his fist and saying, "fight, fight, fight" was like a shot of testosterone in the arms of a lot of men. Mark Zuckerberg was like, oh my God, he's so cool. Like, and now look at where we are politically with some of these very people really turning politically toward Trump.
ARRIGHI: Those numbers that you just read, it's been happening for 10 years. This has been happening slowly but surely over time. I think that pollster in that clip earlier had said two out of six moderate men voted for Trump. Sorry, sorry, it was the majority of moderate men voted for Trump. Even 20 -- over 20 percent of liberal men voted for Trump.
There has been what is seen as a, I don't want to say a war on masculinity, but there has been this trend in the Democratic Party, or it's at least felt that the left is becoming more and more hostile to things that are typically men.
And you've seen John Fetterman talk about this idea of patronizing calling them bros or that ad that looked like a spoof at the end of the race of like real men do this. It's like, have you ever talked to a dude in your life?
So -- and James Carville saying, you know, we need to have less, like, yappy voices and more men talking. And there are many men in the Democratic party, Westboro or others.
PHILLIP: He has said democratic messaging is too feminine. But Cari, what do you think is the masculinity that they are attracted to in Trump?
CHAMPION: I'm laughing because I just -- no disrespect to you lovely men on this panel.
PHILLIP: We do have a lot of men.
CHAMPION: But you men are something. This is, you know. You men are something. And I -- and I can see the appeal of Donald Trump being a very strong masculine man, and I can see him winning over men, because I do agree, the Democratic Party, for all intent and purpose, felt like a place for the others, and they tried to take on every issue that the Republicans didn't want.
If you want to talk about trans, come here. If you want to talk about LGBTQIA, come here. If you want to talk about men and women, you know, in sports, come here. There were all of these things that I felt men wanted to say felt emasculating. It felt like I'm not with that. I don't believe in that. And I'm going to go over here because they're saying what I'm thinking.
PHILLIP: And the abortion issue played a role in that. I mean, I think they did a political calculation that was going to be the big thing.
CHAMPION: I think no one cared about it. I think everyone thought that was the issue. And when it was all said and done at the end of the day, I'm not saying I don't care about abortion. But what I'm saying is when Kamala made that one of her huge, huge talking points, when Michelle -- when Michelle campaigned for her, that was a huge talking point.
And in my mind, I'm all like, well, what happened to these people? I knew that people would be upset about that. And it felt as if it didn't matter. Although it does, it felt as if it didn't matter because the conversation about manly men, as we just saw that young man say on the panel, what is his name again?
PHILLIP: Clay Travis.
CHAMPION: Yeah, I knew that.
PHILLIP: He's a pretty big podcaster, but you know.
CHAMPION: I knew that.
PHILLIP: Everyone, thank you very much. In just a few minutes, CNN will speak to one of the real life people who are facing deportation because of sweeping orders by ICE and a U.S. Army veteran with six years of service is one of those people. Stand by.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:58:11]
PHILLIP: We're back, an all-new season of "Have I Got News For You" premieres this Saturday on CNN. And Roy, it's just you and me now. So, what should we look forward to on this season?
WOOD JR.: We're back, season two on Saturday night. And the same old saying, we're taking everything that happened this week and we're going to make some jokes about it in the form of a fake queer show. Myself, Amber Ruffin, Michael Ian Black -- we haven't locked down the guests yet, but we tape on Friday night. So, we got just a little bit more time.
PHILLIP: Just a little bit.
WOOD JR.: Yeah.
PHILLIP: So, let me ask you, what kinds of guests have you found to be the most funny or do you want them to be funny or do you want to be the funniest?
WOOD JR.: I just want people to be themselves and just come and talk policy. I really would argue that Republican Tim Burchett coming on the show --
PHILLIP: Burchett is actually a very funny guy.
WOOD JR.: I don't agree a lot with what he's talking about but it was still fun to have somebody on the show and have a legitimate dialogue about the policy and sneak in the jokes where you can. So, we'll have some stand-up comedians, of course.
PHILLIP: Yeah.
WOOD JR.: I got a list of friends that I want on. You know, the homie George Wallace who's out promoting with Laverne Cox right now.
PHILLIP: Yeah.
WOOD JR.: I would love to have the O.G. on. But then I also wouldn't mind having Ted Cruz on the show.
PHILLIP: OK. All right.
WOD JR.: I'm just being real.
PHILLIP: Paging Ted Cruz.
WOOD JR.: That's the mix of the show.
PHILLIP: That would be -- that would be really interesting. And I think it's a good opportunity for people to engage with politics in a kind of light-hearted way.
WOD JR.: Yeah.
PHILLIP: But, I mean, you are a serious guy. You love -- you use some policies.
WOOD JR.: I just don't know which way we're going to go. There's been so much that's happened since the inauguration. You've renamed mountains, you've renamed forts. There's been executive orders. The Gulf of Mexico.
PHILLIP: You're going to have to do a segment on Elon pretty much every single week.
WOOD JR.: The Gulf of America, which, outside, Bart, real quick. I want to send a shout out to MapQuest, the only company that has not changed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.
PHILLIP: MapQuest is still around?
WOOD JR.: Apple bent in yesterday. Yes, I didn't know until last week. MapQuest still in it.
PHILLIP: MapQuest.
WOOD JR.: Maybe they didn't update it to Gulf of America because they don't have technology.
[23:00:00]
But point is, thank you to MapQuest. You didn't bend like Google and Apple Maps. MapQuest kept it real. I'm going to print out my directions. I'm going to kick it like it's so true.
PHILLIP: What do people tell you about the show, by the way? Like when you -- when people stop you on the street, and they're like, oh my God, it's Roy Wood.
WOOD JR.: It's a great vibe. It's a great vibe. People who've been watching the show in the first season. Because you know, it's a British, it's a --
PHILLIP: Yeah.
WOOD JR.: -- we're a remake of a British show that's been a 30-year institution. It's their daily show. So, the thing that's really interesting is when Brits come up to me and go, hey Mike, good job. That's not how they sound.
PHILLIP: OK.
WOOD JR.: But you get what I'm saying.
PHILLIP: I get the point.
WOOD JR.: But yeah, people are very appreciative
PHILLIP: Don't miss the premiere of Roy's show, "Have I Got News For You" this Saturday, 9 P.M. right here on CNN and streaming the next day on Max. Roy, thank you so much.
WOOD JR.: MapQuest, we love you.
PHILLIP: And thank you for watching "NewsNight". "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
