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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Trump's Agenda Runs Into Republican Blockade; Elon Musk Retreats From Politics: I've Done Enough; Revelations Surface About Biden Inner Circle's Efforts To Hide His Decline; CBS Waiving SOS As President Trump Takes On The News Operation. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired May 20, 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]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST (voice over): Tonight, the big squeeze. Donald Trump hits the Hill, drops the F-bomb, and threatens Republicans who don't think his big bill is all that beautiful.
REP. MIKE LAWLER (R-NY): I'm not going to sacrifice my constituents and throw them under the bus.
PHILLIP: Plus, he came, he saw, he squashed. Now, the DOGE slasher tries fading away from the ashes.
ELON MUSK, CEO, TESLA: I think I've done enough.
PHILLIP: Plus, Joe Biden's campaign staged a fake town hall to shut down fears about his age, except his performance was so dark, it never saw the light of day.
And as the head of CBS news quits does Paramount's likely settlement with Trump amount to bribery. Senators demand answers.
Live at the table, Scott Jennings, Charles Blow, Xochitl Hinojosa and Shermichael Singleton.
Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here, they do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP (on camera): Good evening, I'm Abby Phillip in New York.
Let's get right to what America's talking about, get in line or else. The President's agenda on the brink tonight, and he is threatening members of his own party who are standing in the way. Here's the bottom line. Donald Trump's budget wants to make his tax cuts permanent, which critics say disproportionately benefit the rich.
The plan puts more money in the border and the Pentagon and less money into programs like food stamps. And even though Trump told Republicans on the Hill today, don't F around with Medicaid, his plan will do just that by enforcing work requirements that would result in millions losing coverage.
On the politics, some Republicans think the cuts don't go far enough, but if you ask Trump, all's well in threats and sausage-making.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: I think we have unbelievable unity. I think we're going to get everything we want.
That was a meeting of love. Let me tell you, that was love in that room.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: But that love did not spill out of the room.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ANDY HARRIS (R-MD): The president, I don't think, convinced enough people that the bill is adequate the way it is.
MANU RAJU, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: How are you going to vote?
REP. RALPH NORMAN (R-SC): I don't know. I'll read it and see.
RAJU: Yes.
NORMAN: Well, it was a moving target?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I couldn't go from this bill right now. It doesn't cut spending.
REP. WARREN DAVIDSON (R-MO): I ran on balancing the budget. I don't know that I could sleep at night if I don't stick to that.
LAWLER: I'm not going to sacrifice my constituents and throw them under the bus in a bad faith negotiation.
REP. ANDY OGLES (R-TN): I would say that if the vote we're held right now, it dies a painful death.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Joining us in our fifth seat at the table is Steve Moore. He is a former Trump economics adviser and the author of the Trump Economic Miracle. Steve, good night to have you here.
Look the question of whether this bill actually cuts the debt is, no, it doesn't do that. It increases the debt, it also increases the deficit. So, if you are a fiscal hawk and you are a budget hawk, how could you vote for this?
STEVE MOORE, FORMER TRUMP ECONOMIC ADVISER: Well, first of all, it'll be of a little bit of an economic miracle. Trump can actually get this through Congress given the given the slim majorities that the Republicans have in the House and the Senate. And so, unfortunately, not a single Democrat, it looks like, will vote for this bill, which is bad. Because if we don't pass this, you know, the average American's going to face about a $3,000 tax increase next year. And I don't think anybody wants that.
Look, Trump is -- it's Trump's party right now. He's kind of cracking the whip here, and that's exact -- I think he should have probably done this two months ago and said, come on, let's get this done. It's a must-pass Bill. We can't allow a $4 trillion tax increase on January 1st. And, again, most Americans don't know that, that if they don't pass this, we're facing the biggest tax increase in history.
Look, I object a little bit to this language, for example, that work requirements are going to throw all these people off unemployment and --
PHILLIP: But isn't that the point?
MOORE: I mean, we did this -- Abby, we did this under Bill Clinton. He was the last part. And it was one of the -- it was extremely successful. 75 percent the people got work.
PHILLIP: But, Steve --
MOORE: And they climbed the economic ladder. What's wrong with that?
PHILLIP: Be that as it may. Isn't the point that they need to get to a certain number in savings, and in order to do that, they need fewer people to get benefits, is that not the point?
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. Isn't it the point that you want people to go to work?
PHILLIP: Okay. No. That's not --
JENNINGS: Or do you want them trapped in this forever? Is that not the point?
PHILLIP: Scott, I'll ask you the exact same question I asked Steven.
[22:05:02]
Isn't it the point that they want to save money?
JENNINGS: Yes.
PHILLIP: So, in order to save money, you got to get people off the program. How is that not taking people off the program?
JENNINGS: Because the goal of Medicaid is not to trap people. It's not supposed to be a lifestyle. It's supposed to be a temporary deal. So, yes, we don't want to trap people on Medicaid. We want them to go to the workplace. And, I mean, there's able-bodied people all over this country who do nothing.
PHILLIP: When Trump says, don't F with Medicaid, is this just to get a headline?
JENNINGS: I would consider --
PHILLIP: Because the bill is going to mess with Medicaid, for sure.
JENNINGS: But it messes with it Medicaid in a good way because it forces people to go to work. Do you want a country where nobody works or do you want a country --
(CROSSTALKS)
CHARLES BLOW, AUTHOR, THE DEVIL YOU KNOW: (INAUDIBLE) people on Medicaid already work. What Republicans are not saying is the devastation is going to cost to communities, is going to -- it will lead to the closing of many rural -- let me finish, I let you -- did I let you finish? Let me finish. It's going to lead to the closing of more rural hospitals that are already on the brink, many of them depend on people who receive Medicaid to be part of the ecosystem that keep them alive.
My mother had a stroke a couple of years ago. Rural hospital, she's in the middle of nowhere. There's no hospital in the town, but there's one 15 minutes away. It's on the brink. That hospital closes, the next one is 40 minutes. The only reason is she survives that stroke and doesn't have complications for her because she got treatment within 15 minutes and not 40 minutes.
What you guys don't want to acknowledge ever is that there is a community problem here, not just an individual person who is not going to work --
PHILLIP: Hold on, let me let Steve respond just because they're --
MOORE: No one who is eligible for the program is losing benefits. No one. I mean, we have the government's own auditors --
BLOW: They're changing the eligibility.
MOORE: We're talking about the government's own auditors who've told us that there's $500 billion a year in people ripping off these programs. So, you talk about rural hospitals, you're saying that unless they give benefits to people who are not eligible for the program, the hospital will close down? That doesn't even make any sense.
BLOW: Exactly, because what the estimates say is that 8.5 -- up to 8.5 million people will lose benefits, right?
MOORE: Do you think illegal immigrants should get benefit?
BLOW: Yes, I let you finish. What is the point of this? I don't understand what you're doing.
MOORE: Yes.
BLOW: So, if 8.5 people are going -- 8.5 million people are going to lose benefits, that is going to hurt communities of people. In Louisiana, I'm from Louisiana, Mike Johnson is from Louisiana, 60-plus percent of the people who give birth, those births are covered under Medicaid.
When you start to eat away at the structures that support that, a lot of them are rural hospitals with the structures that deport that you have more sick kids, you have more children born with disabilities and health problems, you have mothers who die, many of them black. That is the problem of undercutting the support system of the entire program. And it is going to be detrimental to the entire program.
SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: So, this is why nuance really, really matters here. I mean, Charles is correct. There are people who do work who are still eligible for Medicare because they don't make enough. I mean, thresholds exist. We all know this, if we're being politically honest here.
Trump's point though of saying don't F around with Medicare is because -- Medicaid, rather, excuse me, the argument from Republicans are that the CBO, I believe, estimates there's around 2 million people who are eligible who really could work, they could maybe take less money or no money at all. And Republicans are saying we want to specifically target those individuals based on the estimates from the Congressional Budget Office.
The president, however, I think is correct in saying as we be specific and nuanced in our targeting, let's not inadvertently target people who may rely on Medicare who don't quite make enough, and I get that. So, that nuance matters.
PHILLIP: That is -- as far as we know in the reporting, that is not what is happening, okay? What is happening is that they are changing the eligibility requirements. They are. They are changing the eligibility requirements -- no, they are changing the eligibility requirements. They are also doing what you're saying. But they are also trying to appease some of the people who want the cuts to happen sooner.
SINGLETON: Who that's eligible for the program that are trying to change the eligibility, Abby, based on CBO's estimates, not just random numbers?
PHILLIP: The point is when Trump says, don't touch it, they are touching it, that is not being transparent with the American public.
MOORE: Well, that's not true.
PHILLIP: If what you are saying is true, why not just be honest about he's doing?
MOORE: Anyone who is eligible for the program as legislated by Congress is not being cut off from the program. The people are getting being cut off the program are the people are ripping off the program, just like unemployment benefits you've got people ripping off the program, just like happened in so many of these programs where people -- you know, some people getting Social Security benefits that are eligible for that. We can't continue that way.
BLOW: That is not the case. States also help to determine who in their state is going to be eligible for Medicaid.
[22:10:00]
Many of them make the right decision to say that that group people is very wide, including some immigrants, right?
And let me finish, in the country, legally or not, because a disease does not ask your status in the country and a disease does not ask to look at your resume. A disease hurts the community overall.
JENNINGS: This is the core of the debate.
(CROSSTALKS)
XOCHITL HINOJOSA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think if we are talking about the politics, just to simplify all of this, it's not only are prices going up, but 13 million people are going to lose coverage. 18 million children are going to be off food assistance at their schools. Put all of this together, this is why you have hard -- or this is why you have vulnerable Republicans right now that are worried about how all of this looks and can't go back to their constituents and sell it.
So, I think that the problem here more broadly is that we saw what happened last time around when they try to force ACA cuts and the repeal of the ACA, and every vulnerable Republican had to vote on it. And what happened? It didn't end up passing. And then what happened in the midterm elections, they ended up losing.
JENNINGS: So, do you think --
(CROSSTALKS)
HINOJOSA: I never said that. I never said that. What I am saying is Republicans are in charge. And under their leadership, they will end up, not only are they -- hold on. I'm not -- you guys have had a long time to talk.
MOORE: Well, I just want to know. Do you guys think that illegal immigrants --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Let me let her finish her point and then you can respond, okay?
HINOJOSA: Let me tell you. So under --
MOORE: Because no one's asking that question.
HINOJOSA: I actually do not. But what I will say is that, more broadly, Americans will see not only costs going up, people kicked off of health insurance, and our children who are going hungry. And all of those things together, you cannot tell me that as soon as those things happen, Democrats are absolutely going to be running ads in all of those districts to make sure they're losing.
SINGLETON: But in terms of austerity in our fiscal order, should we not, at a minimum, look at the estimates and assessment by the Congressional Budget Office that Republicans and Democrats typically rely on? And if they're saying there are 2 million individuals that we could remove, save money because they are eligible to work, why wouldn't we want to move in that direction based on that data?
BLOW: I don't think Republicans can even have a conversation about austerity when they're trying to add trillions of dollars to the deficit with tax cuts and also increase the military spending. I don't believe that you have a leg to stand on when you talk about austerity --
SINGLETON: I'm talking about austerity, Charles.
BLOW: -- in that environment.
SINGLETON: And I think that's a reasonable point to make.
MOORE: All we're doing in the bill is making sure that everybody's taxes don't go up next year.
BLOW: No, that is not all. That is not all that you're doing. That is not all you're doing in this bill. There is absolute -- right. First of all, the tax --
MOORE: The tax on tips.
BLOW: The tax -- what? Can I say? Can I? What are you doing? Okay. So, you understand that it is a regressive tax plan. You're going to sprinkle a little money at the bottom so that the guys at the top can drive away with truckloads of money. That's how the first Trump tax cut was structured and then how this one is structured.
JENNINGS: That's false.
BLOW: Not false. Not false at all.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Hold on a second, Scott. I'm going to actually respond. I'm going to get to what he just said. Because what he's talking about is extending the tax cuts, which includes for everybody, which even some Republicans have suggested maybe let the taxes go up for the wealthy so that you don't have to do as much to cut for people who don't make very much money. That includes SNAP cuts, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. That includes Medicaid cuts. So, he's not the only person raising this possibility.
Republicans are in charge. They can structure this however they want, including to allow the tax cuts to expire on the wealthiest people, but they've chosen not to do that.
JENNINGS: Yes, that they can't pass --
PHILLIP: So, for Charles and other Republicans --
JENNINGS: No. What he said is the tax cuts were for the wealthy.
BLOW: I said they're regressive.
JENNINGS: So, at the time that this passed, we had this exact -- Steven remembers. We had this exact same debate. Democrats went out and argued time and time again, we're only cutting taxes for the wealthy and even The New York Times, who you used to work for until recently, was forced to write an article that said, face it, you probably got a tax cut from the Republicans. It's simply not true. You pay taxes and you work and you pay taxes, you got a tax cut. And if they don't pass this bill, it will go up for everyone.
PHILLIP: But I think you're skirting the question of whether, as a policy matter, Republicans had an option to allow the taxes to expire for wealthy individuals.
JENNINGS: Because that's a terrible idea.
PHILLIP: Why was that not ever on the table to avoid the deepest cuts for the poorest people? Yes.
MOORE: We did it in 2017 and the economy boomed, just like people like I said it would. We got millions of new jobs. If you increase tax on businesses, you're going to get less jobs. We want to help the economy. That's why.
SINGLETON: Well, the president did float around with that, if you remember a couple weeks ago, he decided to change his mind. I'm with more of the fiscal hawks in Congress. If you're going to cut taxes, you have to absolutely cut spending. There's no way you can cut taxes and maintain the same spending.
As someone who runs a business, this makes zero sense to me. The CBO says, in ten years, our current deficits, Abby, will be the largest line item on the federal books.
[22:15:00]
By 2050, 180 percent of our GDP will be debt. We won't be producing enough to pay this off.
So, to me, passing tax cuts alone is nowhere near enough to get our fiscal house in order.
PHILLIP: Yes. I think those numbers are basically correct. It's -- deficit's going to go up a lot if this passes the way it is.
Coming up next -- Steve Moore, by the way, thank you very much for being with us. Everyone, don't go anywhere.
Up next, Elon Musk took a match to the government and has essentially walked away. Why he says he's done enough.
Plus, as we learn how far Joe Biden's advisers went to hide his health, we are learning tonight that the campaign staged a fake town hall. Alex Thompson is going to join us at the table. That's ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:20:00]
PHILLIP: Tonight, follow the money. And in the case of billionaire Elon Musk, the trail will no longer lead to politics.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MUSK: I think in terms of political spending, I'm going to do a lot less in the future.
REPORTER: And why is that?
MUSK: I think I've done enough.
REPORTER: Is it because of blowback?
MUSK: Well, if I see a reason to do political spending in the future, I will do it. I don't currently see a reason.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: In 2024 alone, the world's richest man spent more than $290 million to help President Trump and his Republican friends get elected. But after his time in the White House as the DOGE slasher, Musk is now facing some very, very real consequences.
His company, Tesla, has had a rocky couple of months and its board reportedly searched for a new CEO. He's also become a political liability with a recent poll showing most Americans have soured on him. And one Republican operative told Politico, he's finished, done, gone. He polls terrible. People hate him. The question was, where is Elon Musk? And the answer is, he's getting out of DOGE.
JENNINGS: I don't hate him. I think he's great. I think he --
PHILLIP: We know you don't hate him.
JENNINGS: I think he helped Donald Trump win the election. And for that he does any Republican would say, thank you for what you did. I think he lit a fire under a lot of cabinets to look for stupid things that were going on in government, to try to root out waste, fraud and abuse.
And, you know, I interviewed him for this book that I have coming out and we talked about how he's taken some of these conversations that he's had with Republicans in Washington about what his real interest is. And what he told me was his real interest is in making sure the country doesn't go bankrupt.
And, frankly, I don't think he's super happy with some of the Republicans who don't share his passion and zeal for saving the country from going off the fiscal cliff. So, when I hear him say, if I see a reason to spend in the future, I will. I think what that means is I'm looking for people who want to be aggressive as I do about saving the country from bankruptcy and saving western civilization. So, if those candidates come along, my guess is he'll be in.
HINOJOSA: Well, I think that if you're a Democrat right now in a vulnerable Republican district running against that Republican, you would pray for Elon Musk to go to that district. Look at what happened in Wisconsin. He single-handedly lost them that election. Yes.
JENNINGS: Oh, come on.
HINOJOSA: Yes.
JENNINGS: Single-handedly?
HINOJOSA: Absolutely.
JENNINGS: That guy was nowhere in the ballpark until Elon got involved.
HINOJOSA: Absolutely.
SINGLETON: And at the very last minute, by the way.
JENNINGS: He is nowhere near winning.
HINOJOSA: He spent millions of dollars in that race.
JENNINGS: He was way behind and nearly gotten it.
HINOJOSA: And if you talk to voters --
JENNINGS: And it was the exact same result as the previous Supreme Court race.
HINOJOSA: Scott, if you talk to voters in that state, what they will tell you is, no, that they do not appreciate the wealthiest man on the planet going in and saying --
JENNINGS: You like your billionaires but not ours?
HINOJOSA: Well, we won. We won that election. So, you know what, I would love for him to go into battleground states and go and campaign.
JENNINGS: Would you love for him to go into the presidential election?
HINOJOSA: And go and -- well, we will win that one too because of Trump's policy.
JENNINGS: You will.
HINOJOSA: But what I'll tell you right now is because right now it is looking like the Democrats will win back the House because of Donald Trump's policies and what they're doing not to Americans. If Elon Musk wants to add on to that and go and spend money and go and campaign for these officials, then have at it. All he has done is ensured that government officials are unemployed. He has, headline after headline, has shown that he's a destructive force within the White House. And I think --
JENNINGS: Destructive?
HINOJOSA: Yes, absolutely.
JENNINGS: The only destructive force are the people who were burning down Tesla dealerships. Those are the destructive forces.
PHILLIP: One of the biggest problems for Elon Musk is that the thing he was in charge of did not actually do what he said it would do, DOGE specifically. Headline after headline, DOGE removes dozens of resurrected contracts from its list of savings after The New York Times asked for them.
He promised $2 trillion in savings. They've only been able to substantiate $170 billion, and some of those, not even all that real. When it comes to actually making those cuts real, the White House and House Republicans have basically said, not so fast. That's only for $9 billion of the total that he has said that they have found.
So, DOGE is a bust at this point.
BLOW: Right. So, the math works out to 8 percent. His success rate is 8 percent of the total he said he was going to save the country. Now, if he had saved that sort of money in some sort of way, I would be probably less exercised about that the fact that they're adding trillions of dollars to the deficit. But he didn't save the money. And also they're going to plow ahead with it adding this question (ph) to the deficit. That's a problem.
But I guess after you buy a presidency and after you and your rug rats run around the government digging into everybody's data, and we still don't know what the implications of that are, whether or not it will be used nefariously, politically, or even if they kept some of it or captured some of it and could be used in a kind of corporate setting, we don't know any of that.
[22:25:06]
But he has climbed the mountain, so he's off to find another mountain.
SINGLETON: I mean, Charles, Democrats have a lot of billionaires who also invested on the Democratic side as well. They have to spend over a billion, and they didn't win the election.
Look, Elon Musk really was a part of, I would argue, one of the greatest comebacks considering everything Donald Trump experienced and still was re reelected, returned back to the White House. None of it worked. The court cases, trials, et cetera, none of it worked. Getting rid of Joe Biden, bringing in Vice President Harris at the last minute, it still didn't work.
So, if I'm advising Elon Musk, I'm saying, look, dude, you don't -- you can take your victory lap. You have been a part of a significant comeback. You still have the opportunity to give money to Republicans whenever you see fit. Yet he's running three incredible companies that are doing great things for the American economy, hiring hundreds of thousands of American workers. Why should he feel embarrassed or feel an onus to do more at this moment? I don't think he has. He's done enough.
PHILLIP: He certainly does not.
BLOW: Billions in American contracts.
PHILLIP: Up next, one of the authors of that controversial new book on Joe Biden is going to join us right here at the table, as we learn his campaign staged a fake town hall and his top aide was paid $4 million to advise him on that presidential run.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:30:00]
PHILLIP: More damning revelations tonight about the Biden inner circle's efforts to hide his decline, including a scene in which the campaign staged a fake town hall. Why? Well, to quell concerns about his age and ability to interact with people.
Joining us in our fifth seat at the table is the co-author of "Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, It's Cover Up, And His Disastrous Choice To Run Again". That is Alex Thompson. He's also a CNN political analyst and an "Axios" National Political Correspondent. And, Alex, the fact of the fake town hall is not actually the worst part of the story that you report in the book.
ALEX THOMPSON, CO-AUTHOR, "ORIGINAL SIN": Yes. Other campaigns have used fake town halls. Now, I would say those town halls usually are in addition to real town halls. Joe Biden was doing neither. This fake town hall was in order to film it so they could make into campaign commercials. They filled it in -- they filmed it in Delaware with supporters.
But Joe Biden at this point, this is the spring of 2024, Joe Biden's town hall which was closed to press was so bad that campaign officials determined that it was not usable for a campaign commercial. So, they took 90 minutes, two hours out of the President's day. They filmed an entire town hall and they determined that it was not usable.
Now, some people say this was because Joe Biden was incoherent. He could not really articulate his thoughts in a pithy or even semi- normal way. Some people just said like the lighting was bad. They -- that was sort of the -- the two points of view. But the point is it shows how like, what the campaign status was in the spring of 2024 when they were trying to, you know, deal with a candidate that wasn't a decline.
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Wait.
PHILLIP: Yeah.
JENNINGS: Someone told you the lighting was bad?
THOMPSON: That's one of the excuses.
JENNINGS: You're saying that they spent millions of dollars to stage a town hall? Well, we didn't get the lighting right.
THOMSPON: That was one of the excuses.
JENNINGS: Unbelievable.
PHILLIP: And this -- this comes back to the question of how many people were aware of things like that but said nothing? And in fact, perhaps, publicly said quite the opposite that Joe Biden was fine, that everything was great, who's perfectly capable of doing this job for another four years.
(CROSSTALK)
XOCHITL HINOJOSA, FORMER DOJ PUBLIC AFFAIRS DIRECTOR: Absolutely. I was at the Justice Department at the time when we released the Hur Report, and he was -- the entire White House infrastructure at the time was calling the report gratuitous and said that Rob Hur should have never called him a well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory.
And you could -- every Democratic pundit, many reporters were out there saying that it was inappropriate for Rob Hur to say that. And the reality is -- is the whole reason why he put that in is because it was his whole reason not to prosecute.
So, it's really infuriating to hear this happening in the spring of 2024 around the time that the Hur Report was released. And certain aspects in Alex and Jake's reporting really talk about the time frame being fall of 2023 whenever he did his interview with Rob Hur, as well as early2024 when the release of the report.
And so, it's just -- it's really frustrating. I think as a Democratic Party hearing now that they were lying to everybody, and not only were they lying to everybody, but they were bashing their own cabinet when it came to their report.
PHILLIP: One of the, top Biden aids is Tom Donilon, and I'll play a little bit from Tom in -- in a minute. Or I'm sorry. Mike Donilon. I'll play a little bit from Mike in a little bit, what he said after the election. But the nugget that came out about him was that he was paid $4 million to be a part of Biden's campaign from basically February to November.
And the -- Jen O'Maley Dillon was the next highest paid person at $300,000 plus a bonus. How does something like that happen? And when you told people that this is what you found out, what was the reaction in the Biden world?
THOMPSON: It happened because Biden insisted it was going to happen. When Mike Donilon went to the campaign in early 2024, there were obvious objections among Biden's inner circle on the campaign of paying Mike Donilon $4 million. But the President was insistent, pay Mike what he wants.
You have to remember, Mike Donilon's been with Joe Biden since 1981, and he insisted, and that was the way it was.
[22:35:02]
And you said from February to November, Mike Donilon went back to the White House after Joe Biden.
PHILLIP: It didn't even get that far.
THOMPSON: Yeah. He was no longer the nominee. And there was a lot of internal anger and frustration and there still is about this.
PHILLIP: Charles?
CHARLES BLOW, AUTHOR, "THE DEVIL YOU KNOW": Well, well, there's so many things. Number one is, you know, I think a lot of us were -- are kind of shocked and we're in the dark. I -- I wrote a column about like, oh, this is -- this is not -- this is all kind of like, made up, you know, like that that they're trying to present him as a weaker candidate because of political reasons.
And to find out later that that was not true, that I, as a journalist was also part of that ecosystem of people questioning the motives is really, really hard for a lot of people who did not, you know, believe that Joe Biden is a good guy, but also just did not want this guy, right? That -- that anything was better than Donald Trump because even if Joe Biden is declining, he's not trying to destroy the country. Cannot say the same for the person who is now in the White House.
And so that is, for a lot of us, I think really hard appeal to swallow. But I think you have to swallow. I think that is -- that is one of the things that I think separates people of honor, is that you can understand that -- that new information and make a change. I think that that is really important for a lot of Democrats to do at the same time as saying anything but this guy who's in the White House right now.
PHILLIP: Let me -- let me play Mike Donilon. He was asked at Harvard University about whether Joe Biden was cognitively impaired and here was his response.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MIKE DONILON, CHIEF STRATEGIST BIDEN 2020, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNS: I watched him every day. You know, there's this view out there and -- and you see it written as like it's fact. Oh, Biden was mentally impaired. I didn't see that. And I sat in a room with him for hours and hours. I don't know how much time any of those people spent with Biden. I know how much time I spent with him. I know what I saw.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Alex, is he just lying? Because you've detailed a lot of examples in this book where people around him saw him unable to carry out parts of the job in terms of understanding information --
THOMPSON: Yeah. PHILLIP: -- sitting in meetings, things like that. Is he just lying?
THOMPSON: I don't know if he's lying to us people or if he's lying to himself. You know, I think in some ways this is a very human story, we've all had aging people and we -- people react to aging people they love in very different ways. Sometimes they realize, man, this person needs help and sometimes they're a little bit in denial about it. And I think it's possible that this could be the case.
BLOW: Is -- is there a difference there, though? He specifically says the words mentally impaired. Is there a difference in your reporting between decline and elderly decline and a mental impairment? I think that -- that -- is there a difference there? And if there is, I think it's significant to say that.
THOMPSON: It could. It certainly depends what he says. I mean, there were moments when there were members of his own cabinet that would have been concerned if a crisis had happened at that moment.
BLOW: Right.
THOMPSON: You know, is that impaired or is that just him being a little out of it?
BLOW: Yes.
THOMPSON: I don't know.
BLOW: Yes.
PHILLIP: Shermichael?
SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON: Alex, let me ask you this question. I haven't read the book, but I've seen the reporting. You guys talked to 200 plus people on the record. They were saying staff members -- some staff members didn't have access to the President. Cabinet members, for months, didn't have access to the President. There was concern.
You just stated if there was a national emergency, the President wasn't in the mental state to be able to potentially handle and make tough decisions. If all of that is true, then who was making decisions for the country?
THOMPSON: Well, I'd say, you know, the President -- the President, there's also the President, and there's the presidency, right? And there is an infrastructure around the president that is making decisions at all times.
(CROSSTALK)
THOMPSON: There are some decisions that always have to go up to the president, but I'm saying that in the immediate circle around that, on the national security side, you're talking Jake Sullivan, Anthony Blinken. On the political side, Mike Donilon, Steve Ricchetti. On the policy side, Bruce Reed and those -- and then also just sort of on the schedule like (inaudible) side -- (CROSSTALK)
SINGLETON: Here's -- here's the conundrum for Democrats here. I -- I get everything you're saying Alex, I'm aware of that. When people vote for a president, yeah, they get -- their staffers, advisors are going to help do the job. They get that.
But they also want to fundamentally know that the person that they voted for, no matter what happens, that 2 A.M. call we always used to hear about, that this guy can take the call. And it's very clear from this book that Joe Biden couldn't take the call for an additional four years, and he probably should not have continued the remainder of his presidency.
PHILLIP: Scott.
JENNINGS: Alex, there's a passage in the book where I think a cabinet secretary says, essentially, the country was being run by a board of like five people, and at best, Joe Biden was a senior member of the board. In your opinion, would it be valid now for Republicans to go back in time and say, were presidential decisions being made in this way valid?
[22:40:02]
Was the President aware of every decision that was made in his name? Isn't that a question that needs to be asked today? And did you uncover any answers to those questions in the book?
THOMPSON: That quote wasn't from a cabinet member, but was from a -- a senior Democrat involved in the White House dealings.
JENNINGS: I see.
THOMPSON: But in terms of your other question, I mean, I still feel that Jake and I -- and I think, Jake agrees that we -- this is the one is the first draft of the story and it's going to continue on.
PHILLIP: You know, President Biden, whether he, you know, nobody's a medical doctor at this table, we don't really know that, but, the -- one of the most concerning things, Alex, in the book is this idea that there were times when they -- people around him didn't believe that he was following conversations.
He couldn't understand the back and forth that was happening in front of him. That to me is a very important functional problem for a President of The United States.
THOMPSON: Well, and some Democratic senators also had concerns that that had policy implications. There's one anecdote in the book with Senator Michael Bennett from Colorado who's at an immigration event, and he basically comes away from this event saying the reason why the immigration policy seems to be a bit incoherent is because Joe Biden is not able to sort of manage the varying, you know, the varying factions of the Democratic Party and sort of bring them together.
JENNINGS: Alex --
PHILLIP: We have to -- we do have to leave it there, unfortunately.
JENNINGS: Can I ask one more question? No.
PHILLIP: We got to go. I'm so sorry.
JENNINGS: All right.
PHILLIP: Alex Thompson, thank you very much for being here. Again, the book is "Original Sin". It's out right now, today. Pick it up. Everyone else, stay with us.
Coming up next, Democratic senators are warning Paramount that they may violate bribery laws by settling a Trump lawsuit against CBS. Another special guest is going to be with us at the table to discuss that. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:46:27]
PHILLIP: Tonight, CBS is waiving SOS as President Trump takes on the news operation. Its CEO, Wendy McMahon says that she is stepping down as the network's parent company, Paramount, considers settling a lawsuit with Trump over what he claims is a deceptively edited "60 Minutes" interview with Kamala Harris.
McMahon's exit is fueling fear and speculation that a settlement is imminent, something that senators are now warning amounts to bribery. They say in part, "If Paramount officials make these concessions in a quid pro quo arrangement to influence President Trump or other administration officials, they may be breaking the law."
Joining us at the table is CNN media analyst Sarah Fisher. Honest to God, I -- this is a real question, not just for Paramount, but perhaps for a lot of media organizations. If you settle with Donald Trump because you want them to not bother you when it comes to a merger, are you starting the line?
SARA FISCHER, "AXIOS" MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: No. I think that this is, like, par for the course at this point. Meta settled. X settled. Like, companies at this point are doing so many different types of concessions to avoid massive regulatory hurdles. Like, there's a reason that Google and all these companies are pouring millions of dollars into Trump's inauguration ahead of DOJ and FTC trials. So, if you're going to say that this is bribery, then where is the line, Abby? So, I don't think that's --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Well, I guess that's a good point. Just because they're all doing it doesn't make it all above board. I think it might be how -- how regular people might look at this. They're all paying, literally paying Donald Trump. So, that Trump doesn't say --
(CROSSTALK)
FISCHER: It's in a civil case.
PHILLIP: Let's hand you some regulations.
(CROSSTALK)
FISCHER: It's in a civil case. I think it's a really tough argument to say that it's something as far as bribery. Now, do you want to say that it's morally bankrupt? That's the big issue and the big question. I think if you're within CBS, you're looking at this and you're saying, are you willing to sacrifice the reputation of our news department?
PHILLIP: Yeah. Especially "60 Minutes", by the way. Number one news program for over 50 seasons for the sake of a merger. I'll put my business hat on, Abby, and tell you how I see this. CBS's deal with Skydance, $8.4 billion deal. If you look at CBS's market cap, okay?
Publicly traded company of the parent company Paramount, not currently, aside from the settlement talks are kind of inflating it, you're looking at somewhere on the $7 billion number. If this merger doesn't pass, what happens next is, one, you're not going to get as good of a deal, we're pending as a possible recession that impacts the ad market. The linear television ecosystem is dying.
But then two, who wants to buy you? Because not only is it a tough buy with a linear TV asset, but also, you're facing a regulatory climate where if we're seeing that Skydance, which is a movie studio, right? There's no foreign money. It's a pretty clean deal. Can't get a deal through because Trump has gripes with the FCC, with -- with CBS. Who wants to show that asset?
PHILLIP: Trump has made this very explicit. He says on April 13, "They should lose their license. Hopefully, the Federal Communications Commission, which is headed by Brendan Carr, will impose the maximum fines and punishment, which is substantial for their unlawful and illegal behavior. CBS is out of control at levels never seen before, and they should pay a big price."
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: It is just -- but it's out in the open. He is saying, I'm putting my guy on you, essentially. And according to Jake Tapper, my -- our colleague here, the -- the settlement with Trump could be for between $30 and $50 million.
BLOW: Yes. So, okay. So, I ought to put this to the side. I have a little bit of a conflict because I do commentaries at the end of CBS "Sunday Morning" sometimes. Put that to the side.
[22:50:00]
The bigger issue here is that one around political accommodation and appeasement, and we see that happening all across government, all kind of institutions, whether they be colleges, whether they be, arts institutions, or whatever, where peep -- where the administration puts pressure and says, we will do something that will impact your bottom line and your ability -- in some type in some cases, your ability to survive and to function.
And people across all those spectrum have to make a decision about whether or not they will try to accommodate that or appease that in a way that gets the heat off of them and allows them to conduct their business the way they want to conduct their business, and in some cases, it allows them to survive.
That is a real problem, a governmental problem that's coming from the Trump administration. The -- the whole kind of muscle gangster put pressure on everyone that you can possibly put pressure on to make them bend to your will -- that is what political accommodation looks like and what in the -- in the extreme, it looks like appeasement of a dictator. That is the biggest problem.
PHILLIP: Shermichael, you good with this? I mean, what do you think?
SINGLETON: I mean, I'm good with CBS doing what it needs to do to sell. I mean, the CBS leadership has a fiduciary responsibility to its stakeholders and if you're at a civil lawsuit, you need to settle that civil lawsuit in order for a transaction to occur.
No one, no one in hell in their right mind who understands business, particularly the media landscape, is buying any type of original mainstream entity. Whether it's cable, when we're seeing what's going on right now with MSNBC and -- and NBC, or CBS or any of the legacies? No one's buying that because it's not valuable. It's not worth anything. So, if they can't get this deal across, they may be bankrupt in a couple of years.
PHILLIP: What about -- what about what Trump is doing?
SINGLETON: So, I'm with what they're trying to do. They got to get rid of this.
PHILLIP: But what about what Trump is doing?
JENNINGS: What -- what do you mean?
PHILLIP: He's putting pressure on CBS by suing them, and also threatening to sue them for their journalism that he doesn't like. And doing that in exchange for --
JENNINGS: You call what they -- you call what they did journalism?
PHILLIP: No, no, no.
JENNINGS: They're hacks. The way they edited that thing, they're completely total hacks.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Scott. JENNINGS: They tried to put it -- they tried to put their thumb on the scale of a presidential election. They tried to put their thumb on the scale of presidential election.
HINOJOSA: They weren't even talking -- Kamala Harris in that clip that is under -- that everyone is talking about, they weren't even talking about Donald Trump. And guess what? Donald Trump won the election. It did not impact the campaign in any way.
JENNINGS: Yeah. Despite, despite, despite
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: -- I wasn't done either but it didn't stop you.
(CROSSTALK)
HINOJOSA: "60 Minutes" didn't do anything wrong.
PHILLIP: Okay, when the President did that if -- if they settle, that Donald Trump sets here, maybe Joe Biden should sue Fox News for editing.
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: Are you one of those whose impression is --
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: -- this is the first time that our President has pressured a corporation?
PHILLIP: -- for edit -- maybe Joe Biden should sue Fox News for editing a Trump interview to make his answer sound better than it did, which they did just a couple of months before THIS Kamala Harris interview.
JENNINGS: Well, there's -- there's been cable and -- and people that have FCC licenses there.
PHILLIP: I'm just saying -- no, no, no. This is a civil lawsuit.
FISCHER: No, no, no.
PHILLIP: This is a civil lawsuit.
(CROSSTALK)
FISCHER: CBS broadcast does not have an FCC license. That's local broadcast, national broadcast. There's no FCC license that can be pulled. That is something that Donald Trump likes to say all the time about this.
JENNINGS: But don't they have something for the regulatory --
(CROSSTALK) FISCHER: But not for the national network. That is just something that Donald Trump likes to say. I will tell you --
PHILLIP: Thank you for clarifying that.
FISCHER: All this comes down to ports, okay? So, if this is a civil court decision, they can litigate it out. CBS, if the FCC comes at CBS, CBS could sue the FCC and it would come down again to whether or not a court sides with this. That's where the real action will happen.
PHILLIP: All right. That is an evergreen statement. Sara Fischer, thank you very much for all of that. Up next, the panel will give us their nightcaps. They're going to tell us the worst advice that they have ever received inspired by graduation season.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:53:14]
PHILLIP: We're back, and it's time for the "NewsNight" cap commencement edition. This graduation season will deliver speeches from Donald Trump to Kermit the Frog, but not all will get good advice. So, you each have 30 seconds to tell us what is the worst advice you have ever received. Shermichael, you're up.
SINGLETON: You know, there was a journalist I had lunch with years ago and I really wanted to get into media. And I said I want to get into media. I want to get on television. I want to get into ownership. Do my own thing. And this guy gave me some really crappy advice. Ultimately, the summation of it was don't do any of this. It's not going to work out for you. Go do something else.
If I wouldn't have listened to this guy, last year my business partner and I got a multi-million dollar investment from an investor to start a streaming platform pertaining to firearms or the action oriented content, I would not have had the muster to move forward with that idea, which took several years to get across the finish line, if I would have followed that guy's horrible advice.
I hate this person to this day. I got to be honest. I really, really do. My advice to people out there, if you got a dream, you want to be an entrepreneur, go after your damn dream because there's always someone who's going to --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: We got to find out who this guy is. Xochitl.
HINOJOSA: You need to find out. Mine is what every Latino family will tell you when you're growing up. You need to be a lawyer or a doctor. You don't have any other options. So whenever I said, I'd like to be a political consultant, my mom was like, well, I'll be supporting her forever.
PHILLIP: Charles? BLOW: Mine is -- did not come from a commencement address, but when
people would say, fake it till you make it, that's horrible advice. You will go broke. No. Work hard until you make it, sacrifice until you make it. Yes, aspire. Yes, try to emulate the lifestyle that you want to have and the kind of people that you want to be, but do not try to fake it until you make it.
PHILLIP: Scott.
JENNINGS: Yeah. Mine's similar to Shermichael's.
[23:00:00]
When I was thinking of getting into television punditry, I asked an old supervisor for some advice and they said, well, I mean, you should forget about this, they'll never choose someone like you. And, instead of being mad at them though, I'm sort of grateful for it because I was like, F-off, I'll show you. I mean, and, here we are.
SINGLETON: Here we are.
PHILLIP: Haters going to hate. Everyone, thank you very much. Thanks for watching "NewsNight". You can catch me anytime on your favorite social media -- X, Instagram and TikTok. "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
