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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Putin And Zelenskyy May Meet, Trump Open To Sending U.S. Troops; Trump Walks Back Ceasefire Demand After Putin Chat; Trump Signals U.S. Open To Security Guarantees For Ukraine; Trump Plays A Throwback Declaring To Lead A Movement Eliminating Mail-In Ballots. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired August 18, 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, war games in front of Ukraine. And after his Russia chat, Donald Trump changes his tune.
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: I want a ceasefire.
Pretty soon, have a full ceasefire.
I don't think you need a ceasefire.
PHILLIP: Also, boots on the ground?
REPORTER: Your team has talked about security guarantees. Could that involve U.S. troops?
TRUMP: We'll let you know that maybe later today.
PHILLIP: The political and geopolitical risks of security guarantees in a MAGA world.
Plus, please, Mr. Postman.
TRUMP: We got to stop mail-in voting, and the Republicans have to lead the charge. The president demands a revolution without a crisis. And the U.S. suddenly rejects people from Gaza, including sick and wounded children based on more advice from a far right provocateur.
Live at the table, Bakari Sellers, Joe Borelli, Christine Quinn, Rob Bluey, Josh Rogin, and Sam Seder.
Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here, they do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP (voice over): Good evening. I'm Abby Philip in New York.
Let's get right to what America's talking about a sequel better than the first, at least for now, months after Volodymyr Zelenskyy's last Oval Office visit where he was ridiculed for his attire and lectured for his attitude, the president today played nice. It comes 72 hours after Donald Trump's summit with Vladimir Putin as the U.S. searches for an end to Russia's war with Ukraine.
The big headline out of all of this is that Putin and Zelenskyy are in talks now to meet in the coming weeks. Trump did not rule out sending American troops to Ukraine to guarantee its security, and he changed his tune on a major sticking point that echoes Russia.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: And I think we'll probably end up at some point getting a ceasefire in the not too distant future.
I want it to end immediately. I want a ceasefire now.
Pretty soon have a full ceasefire.
KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: He has made it clear to both sides that he wants to see a peaceful resolution and a ceasefire as soon as possible.
TRUMP: I'd like to see a ceasefire. I want to see a ceasefire.
I don't think you'd need a ceasefire. You know, if you look at the six deals that I settled this year, they were all at war. I didn't do any ceasefires.
But we can work a deal where we're working on a peace deal while they're fighting. They have to fight.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: That stance contradicts European leaders who also visited the White House today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FRIEDRICH MERZ, GERMAN CHANCELLOR: To be honest, we all would like to see the ceasefire. I can't imagine that the next meeting would take place without a ceasefire.
EMMANUEL MACRON, FRENCH PRESIDENT: Your idea to ask for the truth or ceasefire at least to stop the killings, as we discussed, is a necessity.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: It certainly is a necessity that Putin agrees to stop bombing Ukraine. But, Josh Rogin, I mean, is it progress that perhaps there could be a meeting with Zelenskyy and as the Secretary of State Rubio said tonight that Putin in the past would not even be in the same room with Zelenskyy because he doesn't believe that Zelenskyy is like a real person in charge of a real country. The fact that he's willing to do that, is that progress? JOSH ROGIN, LEAD GLOBAL SECURITY ANALYST, WASHINGTON POST INTELLIGENCE: Well, I think it's very true that this was a much better meeting than the last time. He didn't insult Zelenskyy. He didn't dress him down in front of the crowd. They left on good terms. Okay. That's, well, well and good. But I think it would be going too far to say that Putin has agreed to a meeting with Zelenskyy. In fact, the Kremlin put out a statement right after this meeting and they said, no, we'll have meetings at a high level, but they didn't say with Putin and Zelenskyy. And then they said, oh, yes, we're totally against U.S. -- or, I'm sorry, NATO troops in Ukraine.
So, the two big deliverables out of this meeting, Russia has already rejected, which kind of gets to the core of the issue, which is President Trump said 50 times today that he believes Putin wants peace. And I don't know, call me skeptical, I don't think that's true. I just don't buy it. And I'm basing that on all the evidence, everything Putin says, everything Putin does, everything we know. And that's what you see those European leaders doing. They're testing that. They're saying to President Trump, if he gives you a ceasefire, if he's going to stop killing Ukrainians, at least for a couple days, then maybe he's serious. If he doesn't, then he is not serious. And that's what's really going on.
PHILLIP: And that seems imminently reasonable.
[22:05:00]
I mean, if Putin were serious, he would be willing to stop the killing.
ROB BLUEY, PRESIDENT AND EXECUTIVE EDITOR, THE DAILY SIGNAL: Yes, absolutely. I mean, Vladimir Putin is somebody who we shouldn't just naturally trust based on what the Russians are putting out after today's meeting. I do think that we need to be very skeptical about what he's saying.
At the same time, he's trying to negotiate, as Rubio said, Secretary Rubio said over the weekend, both sides are going to have to give and get here. It's not that Russia's going to get everything it wants and Ukraine's probably not going to get everything that it wants. And so that's part of the negotiation.
I think some of us expect Donald Trump to wave a magic wand and solve these problems very quickly, when, in fact it's going to take days, if not weeks, to ultimately get to some sort of resolution.
PHILLIP: It's interesting that you say that because I will give Trump credit for a little bit of self-reflection here because he has gone from saying, hey, this will be all over in 24 hours, to saying something very different now. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: If I'm president, I will have that war settled in one day, 24 hours.
I'll get that done within 24 hours. Everyone says, oh, you can't. Absolutely, I can.
It'll be done within 24 hours. You watch.
I will have the horrible war between Russia and Ukraine settled before I even take office.
I will get it settled and I will prevent World War III.
I've ended six wars and I thought this maybe would be the easiest one. And it's not the easiest one. It's a tough one.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: A lot of people could have told him that. A lot of people did tell him that. Look, why did it take six months into an actual presidency for him to realize.
JOE BORELLI, FORMER REPUBLICAN LEADER, NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL: You had some campaign bluster from Donald Trump, but what you didn't put on that screen just now is what the president of Finland actually said to Donald Trump today at the meeting, which was, I saw more progress today in two weeks than we did in two and a half years. And I think we all have a memory and the ability to Google, and we can look back between February 2022 and January 2025 and see that absolutely nothing happened under Joe Biden towards this peace process. Today, I was damn proud to be an American, damn proud to be a Trump supporter, and I'm optimistic of the future of that region.
BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, Let me just -- let me also say this. I mean, my memory goes back pretty good. And we remember how we got here. We remember the fact that Bill Clinton negotiated for nuclear weapons to be taken out of Ukraine. And we remember how Boris Yeltsin and Bill Clinton actually had a deal that was reached so that there was no incursion and no invasion from Russian to Ukraine. That's memory. And then you had Vladimir Putin come across.
You know what my memory also tells me, Vladimir Putin is a thug. He's a war criminal. He should not be trusted, and he plays Donald Trump like a fiddle. All four of those things are true. And so when you have those four things and you're dealing with this thug, you're dealing with this war criminal, and you're dealing with someone who's not able to display that strength on a world stage.
The problem is, yes, we all want peace around this table. Democrat, Republican, black, white, New York, South Carolina, we all want peace around this table. The problem is that you don't have even honest brokers at the table. And that, for me, is a fundamental problem where you have people that are -- they just have their self-interest at heart.
And I am proud to be American every day, but you know what I don't want? I don't want American troops on the soil. I want to support Ukraine and everything we do. But until Donald Trump, not Pete Hegseth, but Donald Trump can unequivocally tell me that he's not marching down the path of Lindsey Graham and others and U.S. boots won't be on the ground, I don't that's --
ROGIN: I don't think you have to worry about it. I agree with everything you said. I don't think you have to worry about Trump --
SELLERS: You agree with me?
ROGIN: Yes, except for the part about U.S. troops --
PHILLIP: We'll get to the part about boots on the ground in the next conversation. I just want to put a (INAUDIBLE) on that one, but go ahead.
ROGIN: There's a reason that these European leaders are pretending that they think Donald Trump is doing a great job with these negotiations because they're trying to convince him that they're not the problem and that Putin's the problem. So, he won't do something crazy like pull all the support for Ukraine.
CHRISTINE QUINN (D), FORMER SPEAKER, NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL: And they want to protect Zelenskyy. They didn't want him to go alone.
ROGIN: I'm saying, yes, there was no actual progress today.
QUINN: We don't know.
BORELLI: But I want to respond to what Bakari said. Bakari left out, what was the progress? Bakari left out one little point in history. I remember that's great picture of Barack Obama looking really mean and really stern to Putin like that. You remember that picture. It's a famous picture. What happened with Crimea? He objected diplomatically. And what happened here? He gave Crimea away with some scant diplomatic pressure, and he was asked, he was actually asked here on this network in 2023, why he was so eager to give away Crimea. And he said, the view was there was some sympathy to the view Russian was --
(CROSSTALKS)
ROGIN: And you should be against that.
QUINN: But Biden said --
BORELLI: I'm not in favor of it. I'm not a Barack Obama support. I think that was the wrong thing.
ROGIN: No. Donald Trump wants to give away more of Ukrainian territory to Putin. That's his whole idea.
(CROSSTALKS)
QUINN: Obama is not the president anymore. Forget Obama already.
PHILLIP: I mean, Josh, I am curious about this because look, at the end of the day, Ukraine is going to have to -- there's going to be some land that's going to be maintained in Russia's hands.
ROGIN: Maybe the land they already took, but not the land they didn't. PHILLIP: Right. I mean, that's what I'm asking.
ROGIN: Yes.
PHILLIP: Is that in your view, what is appropriate and what is not in terms what they need to give?
ROGIN: In my view, and it's not my view, in the Ukrainians view, let's talk about the Ukrainian view, since it's their country, they lived there, they fought for it.
[22:10:00]
BORELLI: Zelenskyy has to agree to this.
ROGIN: What the Ukrainians say is that we've got hundreds of thousands of people living in this land and they don't want to live under Putin's cruel rule. Because they know if Trump gives away their land that their men are going to be killed, the women are going to be raped and their children are going to be sent to Siberia to live with some people they never met before, okay? So any plan that involves taking 300,000 Ukrainians and handing them over to certain death and abduction and rape is not going to go well with the Ukrainians. They're not going to do it.
So, you could freeze the lines, but you cannot give away Ukrainian land on behalf of the Ukrainians. They're not going to do it. They don't want to live on their knees, so it's not a real thing. The Europeans are pretending it's a real thing because they're just trying to get past this meeting to prevent Donald Trump from doing something even more crazy. That's where we are. It's pretty sad.
PHILLIP: Trump also has this ever abiding view in the, I guess, the goodness of Putin and his desire to do something nice for him. There was a hot mic moment that was caught. Let's play it for you. And listen very closely.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I think he wants to make a deal for me. You understand that? As crazy as it sounds,
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: I think he wants to do a deal for me. Putin doesn't want to do anything for Donald Trump. He wants to do things for Putin. So, why does Trump continue to believe that there is something -- I don't know. I mean, Putin is trying to do him a solid.
BLUEY: Well, as you heard him say, I mean, he's very proud of the six other deals, the peace deals that he's helped broker, and let's not forget the Abraham Accords from his first term. I mean, Donald Trump has a history of bringing peace to these countries that have been warring for years. And so why would he not want to engage directly with Vladimir Putin.
PHILLIP: Because you think that Putin -- he thinks that Putin wants to help him get his Nobel Peace Prize? Is that the idea?
QUINN: Look, the reality is here Putin is a KGB-trained, that's true individual. He knows how to play people who are hard to play. And it's not hard to play Donald Trump. If you compliment him, if you suck up to him, if you tell him he's smart, he's effective, blah, blah, blah, you play him like a fiddle.
And this is a guy who knows how to do that. And, clearly, he did it in Alaska because he thinks one of the worst people in the world is out of the goodness of his heart of stone going to give Donald Trump a deal to help him.
BORELLI: But he doesn't believe that. He even said in the context of that comment --
QUINN: He said it on the hot mic.
BORELLI: In the context of that comment, you heard him say, I think he wants to make a deal for me. Do you have any idea how crazy that is?
ROGIN: It does sound like --
BORELLI: But that was the -- it wasn't like Trump was fooled by Putin. Trump was actually pointing out that he, in fact, was not fooled by him.
PHILLIP: Wait. I'm confused. Are you saying that Trump believes it or he doesn't believe it?
BORELLI: The context he spoke to, I believe --
PHILLIP: This unbelievable thing that no one would really believe is actually happening, is actually doing him a favor.
BORELLI: Based on what he said.
PHILLIP: If he actually believes that, then he's taking the bait.
BORELLI: But based on what he said that you all heard just three seconds earlier on the hot mic, he's saying, do you have any idea how crazy that is?
QUINN: It's so crazy, you wouldn't repeat it.
BORELLI: Hes not validating the point. He's challenging the point.
SELLERS: But why does -- let me ask you a question.
ROGIN: And that's obvious.
SELLERS: I mean, with Barack Obama's failures on Crimea, one of the things that Barack Obama did do was sanctions on Russia, right? And, basically --
BLUEY: That Donald Trump has kept in place. SELLERS: And basically turn Russia into just a barren, frozen oil field with maybe a nuclear weapon, right? So, they really didn't have any economic standing in the world. Their economy was falling apart. But for the life of me and many others, we can't understand why Donald Trump cannot be equally as tough or tougher against Vladimir Putin, someone who does not have our own interest at heart?
BLUEY: Wait a second. He just got the European leaders to agree to increase their defense spending to 5 percent of GDP. Remember in his first time, it was barely --
SELLERS: That's not -- you're moving the ball here.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: I actually think that's a fair point. I mean, you can talk about Obama putting sanctions on Russia, but that's after the fact. That's after he already took a bite out of Ukraine. And I do think that the NATO piece of it, the strengthening of NATO, I think most people at this table could or probably should agree, that is one thing that Trump's bullying of NATO countries actually -- like he got -- he actually got that -- you have to give him credit for that.
SELLERS: You're making my point because Donald Trump bullies NATO countries and treats Vladimir Putin out of a spoon. He's not somebody we should --
PHILLIP: I'm not defending the tactics. I'm just saying the end result was something that is perhaps the most important thing when it comes to actually putting your money where your mouth is, when it comes to Russia. Yes, it doesn't help Ukraine.
QUINN: If you take the NATO example, he bullied, he bullied, he bullied, and he got the end results he wanted and he deserves credit for that, not the tactic, but the results. But here with Russia, he says, if there's no ceasefire, there will be repercussions, or whatever his word was, right, stood strong, severe consequences.
[22:15:08]
That didn't happen. And then there are no severe consequences. So, we caved, unlike how he did it with NATO.
PHILLIP: All right, let's hit pause on this because more ahead.
Donald Trump says that he is go open to putting U.S. boots on the ground in Ukraine, but how would Americans react to that, particularly his MAGA base?
Plus, the president is big mad over mail-in voting after talking with election integrity expert Vladimir Putin and he vows that he's going to kill it all together. We'll debate that.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:20:00] PHILLIP: Tonight, an extraordinary scenario floated by the president. Donald Trump now says that he is not ruling out putting American boots on the ground in Ukraine.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Your team has talked about security guarantees. Could that involve U.S. troops? Would you rule that out in the future?
TRUMP: We'll let you know that maybe later today. We're meeting with seven great leaders of great countries also. And we'll be talking about that. They'll all be involved, but there'll be a lot of help. When it comes to security, there's going to be a lot of help. It's going to be good. They are first line of defense because they're there, they're in Europe. But we're going to help them out also. We'll be involved.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: That was during his meeting with Zelenskyy and European leaders who all stressed the importance of guarantees for Ukraine's security. Now, Trump did not commit to anything in particular, right, nothing specific, but it marks a significant shift for the president who campaigned on America first and promised to keep U.S. forces out of foreign conflicts. And already, those comments and the developments, which are still frankly happening as we are sitting here are reverberating in MAGA world.
So, Zelenskyy has said that part of the security guarantees will be that they would be able to purchase $90 billion in U.S. weapons funded by Europe. Ukraine would sort of reciprocally manufacture drones, which the United States would purchase. I'm sure that's something that Donald Trump would like.
But let me just play for you what Steve Bannon is saying about all of this today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEVE BANNON, HOST, BANNON'S WAR ROOM: These same demons that are coming to the White House today, and they're demons. If you want Ukraine to be a European country and the Ukrainians want to be a European country, God bless you. Do it. We're not going to stand in the way. We're saying, hey, go with God, go do it, but not with our money, and certainly not with our boys and girls.
I get if you want 25,000 combat troops, I can give you where to send them right now. New York, Chicago, L.A. and then hey, Baltimore, St. Louis, Detroit, boom. We got plenty of places we can send them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So, how's this going to fly, Joe, with MAGA world?
BORELLI: Look, Steve Bannon has an opinion. He shares it on his television and radio programs. Not everyone in MAGA has the same opinion. I personally am not going to Ukraine to fight. I do not want to see American troops in Ukraine to fight, but we have to be realistic about what do you think guarantees the security of peace in Ukraine. It's not mean tweets. It's not the endless sanctions. It's not another a hundred billion dollars. It is the threat that the U.S. military would use its force, perhaps not even boots on the ground. We have, you know, planes and bombers and missiles and rockets and everything in between, but it's the guarantee of American sovereignty and rather the projection of American sovereignty that would guarantee --
ROGIN: I agree with Joe.
PHILLIP: That's right.
ROGIN: I agree with you that's what would be needed to give the Ukrainians enough assurance to make a deal. The problem is that that's not a new idea. And the framework that's been discussed for a very long time is that European troops supported by American intelligence and American logistics. That's not a new idea.
There's one really important reason why it hasn't happened, because Vladimir Putin would never agree to it. He will never agree to it. It's not a real thing because it can't be part of a peace deal because Putin won't agree to it because he wants to have control over Ukraine. And the whole reason he launched the war was to get at the root causes, which is NATO troops entering Ukraine.
So it's a kabuki diplomacy where we pretend to have a security guarantee so Ukraine could pretend that they're okay with some sort of deal. And then it looks like Vladimir Putin's rejecting it so they can shift the blame to him, but it will never happen.
And this is what's kind bizarre about this whole exercise that we're going to.
PHILLIP: There's a weird lack of detail and a kind of shifting of the goalposts around what even security guarantee, what does that mean.
SELLERS: But Republicans are just on this issue. They -- I mean, even my good friend, Joe, just put himself in a pretzel. Because if you would've asked him six months ago, or any Republican six months ago about putting boots on the ground, you have Donald Trump talking about winning a Nobel Peace Prize, you know, what's the antithesis to peace? Our boys and girls going and fighting in Ukraine, that's the antithesis to peace.
And so, look, there are many people like myself who says, continue giving the aid, $90 billion, $90 billion worth of aid. Give as much aid as necessary to Ukraine to make sure that they keep their sovereign. But there is a hard and fast line among many Americans. Look, I know you guys want to put National Guardsmen in major cities. Hell, they're in Washington D.C. right now defending Lululemon. I mean, I hope you guys are proud of yourself, right? Yes, because Lululemon's not burning down. I mean, like, okay, whatever.
So -- but you're also saying that not only do you want them to defend the Lululemon at Union Station, but now you also want to put them on the ground in Ukraine? There's nothing that makes sense about traditional conservative value supporting this president and his foreign policy when it comes to the kabuki theater that we saw today.
BLUEY: Okay. I think one thing that you should keep in mind, though, Donald Trump and his negotiations could have floated this idea simply as a threat that he was making to Putin. So, before we get too far down the road of actually sending troops --
[22:25:02]
SELLERS: What threat has Donald Trump made to Vladimir Putin? No. Let me finish. What threat has he made to Vladimir Putin that he's followed through with? Name one.
QUINN: Right.
BLUEY: Trump always --
SELLERS: No. We got time before commercial name one.
BLUEY: We talked about it before the commercial. We talked about increasing Europe's participation when it came to defense spending to defend --
SELLERS: How does that benefit --
BLUEY: That is a direct challenge to Putin because, as Josh just said, those are the countries that are on the frontlines.
And, by the way, we are, the United States, we should remember, has tens of thousands of troops already in Europe, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom.
SELLERS: How many are at war?
BLUEY: They're not at war.
SELLERS: That's my point.
QUINN: That's different.
ROGIN: I don't think he's going to do it.
SELLERS: He's not going to do it.
ROGIN: He's not going to do it. It's a bluff. He's It's a bluff. Everyone knows it's a bluff. Putin knows it's a bluff.
QUINN: Then why say it?
ROGIN: Because it makes us get to the next meeting.
SELLERS: But not only why say it, because now you have Joe, my friend, having to defend it. BORELLI: The pretzel that's been spun is that if -- the pretzel that's been spun kind of crazy is if this talk completely failed, if the meeting with Putin failed, the meeting with European leaders failed, we'd be -- you know, you guys be cheering. You have to give him some latitude to make some statements to increase American position in the negotiation.
PHILLIP: Does he know what Josh said, Trump? Does he know that Putin would not ever do it? Actually, this is important because I am not sure that Trump knows that Putin is not interested with in actually doing this.
QUINN: I agree with that.
ROGIN: He thinks Putin really wants peace, right? And he is wrong. And he is the president of the United States. That's a huge problem because all these European leaders have to pretend that he is not wrong, but we all know he is wrong. And that's the crazy conundrum that we're in. That's how we got into this mess.
QUINN: Trump thinks, like he said --
ROGIN: It's bizarre and it's really bad.
QUINN: Trump said, when I walk into the meeting, I'll know in two minutes if Putin and I are going to have a good meeting. And if we're not, I'm going to walk out. He thinks he is the KGB-trained individual. He thinks he understands Putin, but he does not at all. Putin is continuing to play him and pushing him in directions that he doesn't believe in.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: The other -- it's Trump, but -- okay. But let me also play, this is Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, who I think, dispositionally, is very much like Trump because they're coming from the business world, they're doing these negotiations. But here's how he described what was agreed to on Friday in Alaska.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEVE WITKOFF, SPECIAL ENVOY TO THE MIDDLE EAST: We agreed to robust security guarantees that I would describe as game-changing.
We got to an agreement that the United States and other European nations could effectively offer Article 5-like language to cover a security guarantee.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Those are some pretty bold claims. And I should just note, Marco Rubio, who has been around the block a time or two was not like that. He did not say that, right?
ROGIN: Because Putin said right afterwards that's not true, that he didn't agree to any NATO troops anywhere near Ukraine. And, secondly, Steve Witkoff seems to think that the Russian Duma passing a law means something, and it doesn't because it's a fake parliament and it's not real, and they've passed that law before and it didn't work the last time. So, the fact that we have a president who believes Putin's promises, that he really likes him and they're really good friends and they're going to make a good deal, and then we have an envoy who doesn't understand that the Russian parliament is a rubber stamp parliament, doesn't mean anything when they do anything, that's bizarre. That's -- we're through the looking glass here, people, okay? We're having a negotiation based on a bunch of assumptions by the president of the United States that aren't true and all the European leaders are pretending that they are true just to get through the meeting, okay? That's a really bad situation.
QUINN: You know what does appear to be true?
ROGIN: That can't work quick. That's not going to work.
PHILLIP: Quick last word, Christine, and the we got to go.
QUINN: Is that we seem to have given Putin a veto on who gets to join NATO. That does seem to be true, and that is incredibly dangerous, not just as it relates to Ukraine, but as it relates to our future, as a civilized world.
PHILLIP: All right, everybody. Josh Rogin, thank you very much for joining us.
And next for us, Donald Trump is on the war path tonight to kill mail- in voting. But would this hurt his party more than he thinks? We'll debate.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:34:04]
PHILLIP: Tonight, Donald Trump plays a throwback, declaring that he'll lead a movement to eliminate mail-in ballots.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Mail-in ballots are corrupt. Mail-in ballots -- you can never have a real democracy with mail-in ballots. And we, as a Republican Party, are going to do everything possible that -- we get rid of mail-in ballots.
We're going to start with an executive order that's being written right now by the best lawyers in the country to end mail-in ballots because they're corrupt. And you know that we're the only country in the world, I believe, I may be wrong -- but just about the only country in the world that uses them because of what's happened. Massive fraud all over the place.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Mail-in ballots are not corrupt. Fraud rates in federal elections are tiny and dozens of countries use mail-in voting despite what Trump claims. So, why is the President suddenly so amped up about this again?
[22:35:00]
Well, apparently someone, just someone got in his ear. Someone with a history of fair elections and a wealth of knowledge when it comes to election integrity.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Vladimir Putin, smart guy, said you can't have an honest election with mail-in voting. And he said, there's not a country in the world that uses it now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Yes, Mr. President, he would know because you'll recall that Vladimir Putin changed Russia's constitution to remain in power. Many of his opponents are either dead or in prison or in exile. Russia is notorious for vote tampering, restrictions on monitors, and rampant voter intimidation.
And yes, Russia has interfered with America's elections. But perhaps the most important point is that it's unclear what the administration could actually do to end mail-in voting since that power belongs to the states. Just ask the Constitution.
Joining us in our fifth seat at the table is Sam Seder, host of "The Majority Report". I don't know if President Trump forgot that he did this, but let me just play it. This is September 2024, about a year ago, when he said this to his own supporters.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: You know that absentee ballots are about to go out in North Carolina. In other words, it's time to start thinking about let's vote. So important. This will be the most important election in the history of our country. So, whether it's mail-in ballots, early voting, voting on the day, you got to get out and vote. We want to save our country. We're the only one going to save it. That other group of people, they're going to destroy our country. We can't let that happen. Go out and vote for Trump.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Mail-in ballots. He was fine with it.
SAM SEDER, "THE MAJORITY REPORT" HOST: Well, it was because his Republican strategists were panicking because they realized that they were going to lose without getting those mail-in ballots now. And I would imagine this time around, those same Republican strategists are also panicking because if he goes out there and starts to spread the word that mail-in ballots aren't going to work, and he's going to be real problem in the midterms for those Republicans.
Plus the fact that he has no authority to do this. I mean, he tried to pass an exec -- or he wrote up an executive order a couple months ago to deal with the voting, and he got shot down by two different federal judges. So, there's really no -- there's no path for him here, and it's sort of fascinating that, all it takes is one suggestion from Putin. I mean, what were they doing talking about 2020 during these meetings? Like, he's like a cat. No object permanency.
PHILLIP: Where were -- where were the staff to remind the President that it's actually not true what he claimed, which is that the federal government is -- let me just read it actually. "Remember, the states are merely an agent for the federal government in counting and tabulating the votes. They must do what the federal government as represented by the President of the United States tells them for the good of our country to do." That is not at all what the Constitution says. You know that because you're a conservative.
BLUEY: Abby, I agree with you. States have a huge role to play when it comes to elections. We also know that in 2020, as a result of the COVID pandemic, a lot of states went very aggressively in the direction of mail-in ballots.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Which they are entitled to do because they are in charge of the time manner -- a manner of the elections. They're in charge of that.
BLUEY: Even the U.S. Election Assistance Commission has studied mail- in ballots and said that there are a certain percentage, I believe like half a million, that probably aren't ultimately delivered to their final destination. So, I'd put this question to all of you. If you won the New York lottery, would you mail in your million dollar winning lotto ticket or would you want to take it physically to the office to cash it in? I think if anybody wants to ensure that their vote is counted, the best way to do it --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: That is not a good analogy.
(CROSSTALK)
BLUEY: Well, then, what about the Democrat Attorney General of New Jersey who just an hour from here in Paterson, Jersey, there was corruption and there are investigating voter fraud because there was a politician who used mail in ballots to try to steal the election.
(CROSSTALK)
SELLERS: So, voting --
(CROSSTALK)
BLUEY: That's in Paterson, Jersey.
(CROSSTALK)
SELLERS: -- voting is a -- I like the lottery -- let's talk about why that analogy was just terrible. So, like, voting is a right and playing the lottery is a privilege, right? Those are two vastly different things and the right means that you should make it free and fair. Everyone should have access to it. We should actually be trying to make voting as easy as possible so that we're more inclusive.
Things like Oregon is what we should be talking about where they have Tobias Reed and automatic voter registration. That's where we should be going with this. Not necessarily trying to crack down on it. Yes, we want to eliminate voter fraud, but if we want to go back to 2020 and the great irony, the great irony in this, and I haven't heard either one of you all, neither one of you all have said a bad thing about Vladimir Putin tonight. Neither one of you all.
And Vladimir Putin is someone who literally has killed his enemies -- has killed his political opponents, has pushed him off roofs and poisoned them and all of these things, and he is the one who said that this is something you should deal with.
[22:40:00]
And he went on Sean Hannity and --
(CROSSTALK)
BLUEY: I want to say, by the way, that I believe the first comment I made was that he was a tyrant and shouldn't be trusted.
BORELLI: You're drifting from -- you're drifting from --
(CROSSTALK)
SELLERS: I give you credit. I was really talking about --
(CROSSTALK)
BORELLI: This is not about Vladimir Putin. This is about voter fraud.
SELLERS: Say something bad about Vladimir Putin.
SEDER: That is about voter fraud.
(CROSSTALK)
SEDER: Let's hear one example.
BORELLI: I am. I'm going to give you five. Paterson, New Jersey --
PHILLIP: Hold on. Okay.
BORELLI: -- is the one.
PHILLIP: Just five?
BORELLI: No, more.
PHILLIP: That's it? BORELLI: I just, found a bunch.
UNKNOWN: How many votes are we --
BORELLI: Sioux City, Iowa,
PHILLIP: Okay.
BORELLI: -- North Carolina, nine, 2018, Appalachia, Virginia, 2006. Miami mayor
PHILLIP: Okay.
BORELLI: -- was overturned in '97. Bridgeport, Connecticut was just overturned.
PHILLIP: Okay.
BORELLI: Not every ballot -- let me finish, Abby. Not every ballot --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: So Joe, tell me the degree to which mail-in voting fraud --
BORELLI: I'm telling you.
PHILLIP: -- was enough to change the result of a presidential election. Where is that?
BORELLI: In -- I can't pronounce the name, in Michigan, in Miami.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Presidential election?
BORELLI: But not every election is about the presidential race.
PHILLIP: Okay.
BORELLI: We also elect people at the state, federal, and local level.
PHILLIP: Yeah, but where --
BORELLI: The point I'm trying to make is, Abby --
PHILLIP: But Trump is making this statement based on own experience.
(CROSSTALK)
BORELLI: Let me finish the point. Not every ballot mailed in is fraud. But it's almost always the case where you have fraudulent ballots. It's done not just by mail ballots, but paper ballots, absentee ballots. So, if the President wants to secure ballot integrity in a better way, I am 100 percent for this. Now, you all, last segment, were so worried about the MAGA base and how they would react to troops on the ground. (CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Can I just ask a question of you, Joe?
(CROSSTALK)
BORELLI: MAGA base is thrilled about this.
PHILLIP: You said you're all for what the President wants to do, but he is saying he wants to -- federally, he wants the President by decree to ban mail-in voting in this entire country. Are you for that?
BORELLI: No idea how he's going to do that.
PHILLIP: Okay, are you for that because you just said that you're for what he wants to do.
(CROSSTALK)
BORELLI: I'm willing to wait for the executive order and see if --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: You just said you're for what he wants to do.
(CROSSTALK)
BORELLI: If he figures out a way to meet the requirements of the court that struck it down previously, if he figures out a way to do it, I'm for it.
SELLERS: He can't.
BORELLI: If he can't, then he can't. But it's a thing that I would hope and I've actually supported the New York state legislature.
(CROSSTALK)
SELLERS: Let me ask you.
BORELLI: I would write a check --
SELLERS: Let me ask you a question.
(CROSSTALK)
SELLERS: Let me ask you a question. Are you in favor -- are you in favor of when you turn 18, you're automatically registered to vote?
BORELLI: Yeah, but you're acting like --
(CROSSTALK)
BORELLI: -- you're acting like mail-in ballots are something universal. Trump was wrong. It wasn't one country. You were wrong, too. It's not dozens. It's 12. Twelve countries on planet Earth have --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: No, no. That's not -- no, no. It's --
BORELLI: -- twelve have universal -- 22 have other ways of getting it not universal. So, that's 34.
(CROSSTALK)
UNKNOWN: We also --
BORELLI: That's 15 percent of the country's --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: We also don't have universal mail in ballots. We don't have that.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: So, the idea that - listen. It's not 12, okay, but there are over 30 countries in the world that have mail-in ballot voting, A. And B, to your point, Sam, Donald Trump is messing with something that his voters use, okay? Twenty four percent of Republicans used mail-in ballots in the 2024 election.
That is a little bit down from 2020 when there was a pandemic, but it just goes to show that you then take those voters, some of them are in the villages in Florida. They're in Utah where they have -- they automatically send mail-in ballots to every registered voter.
QUINN: Right.
PHILLIP: You're taking those Republican voters and you're saying to them, we're going to make it harder for you to vote. That doesn't make a lot of sense.
QUINN: Because Putin said it was a good idea. Like also, if you're going to get away with eliminate all mail-in voting, then what happens to the individuals who in New York state are on the permanent absentee list? Those who are disabled, those who are senior citizens who can't get to the poll. So, are disabled people then totally disenfranchised if they're unable to get to the polls? Is that what the President really wants to do?
I mean, this is bad for him politically, but it is bad for democracy. And the just -- absurdity that it came from a meeting with Putin just -- and adds insult to injury.
(CROSSTALK)
BLUEY: But wait. Conservatives have been --
(CROSSTALK)
BLUEY: -- this fight.
(CROSSTALK)
BLUEY: We can do this voting -- we can do this for the military, as well?
(CROSSTALK)
QUINN: But he said it. He said --
(CROSSTALK)
QUINN: Yes, that's right.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: The military votes.
BORELLI: In the last iteration of this it wasn't --
(CROSSTALK)
SEDER: Well, I don't understand. If it's not secure for citizens, why isn't it not secure for the military?
BORELLI: Again, I'm not saying anyone can make a -- an election completely secure from any fraud. I'm just saying that in many instances, which I laid out earlier, just the top 10 I could find, right? The universal method was through paper ballots whether it's, again, whether it's absentees or whether it's mail-in ballots.
SELLERS: So, now you want to get rid of -- now you want to get rid of all --
(CROSSTALK)
BORELLI: Don't put words into my mouth.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: We got to hit pause on this --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: We got to hit pause on this conversation. We're going to continue this after a quick break. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:49:09]
PHILLIP: We're back. Let's continue where we left off. Bakari, you were saying --
SELLERS: I don't know, I was just probably saying Joe was wrong about something. (LAUGHING)
SELLERS: But we do need to move to a place in this country where we expand access. That's so important. So, it's not just automatic voter registration when you're 18, but we also should do same day voter registration. We should have early voting. We should have extended hours. We should talk about making sure that this process is not only free and fair, but available for everybody to participate.
PHILLIP: Let me -- let me play what Donald Trump would say to that. He's talking here about mail-in voting, but I'm sure he would apply that to all the other things you mentioned.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: It's time that the Republicans get tough and stop it because the Democrats want it. It's the only way they can get elected.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SEDER: The real story here, it seems to me -- because you've got just a CNN poll out a month ago showed Democrats 75 percent more enthusiastic than Republicans at 50 percent. So, if you're talking about getting to the election poll sites, the side that has more enthusiasm is more likely to get there in the first place.
This is Donald Trump worried about the midterm elections and trying to set up reasons why the Republicans are going to lose. I mean, this is a two-pronged thing. We're seeing it in terms of the redistricting and then the other parties already start to build in the excuses. I mean that's what's going on here because he knows he's not going to get this past the federal judge.
PHILLIP: There is a reason that the framers of the Constitution put this in the state's hands, right? And not so long ago, this is what the Republican Party platform in 2016 said. "Federalism is a cornerstone of our constitutional system. Every violation of state sovereignty by federal officials is not merely a transgression of one unit of government against another. It is an assault on the liberties of individual Americans."
Now, here we are in 2025 and Donald Trump is saying the states are just vessels to do what I want them to do.
BLUEY: Well, the states are a laboratory of democracy.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Okay, that's not what he's saying.
(CROSSTALK)
BLUEY: I'm going to tell you what I --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: He is, well, I'm asking you about what he is saying. He is saying the states are agents for what I want.
BLUEY: I don't know if that's the correct interpretation, Abby.
PHILLIP: It's either right or wrong. Is it right or is it wrong, is really the question I'm asking you.
BLUEY: Well, here's what we should be striving for.
PHILLIP: You don't want to answer that question.
(LAUGHTER)
(CROSSTALK)
BLUEY: Here's what we should be striving for.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: I'm just asking you, what, like, no. Hold on, one second. Because listen, I presume you were a Republican before Donald Trump was. So, is it right or is it wrong what he said in that post about the role of states and specifically the role of states when it comes to elections?
BLUEY: No, states should be in charge of elections. I agree with you on that one.
PHILLIP: Okay.
BLUEY: I said that. So, what I think we should see, you outlined a whole bunch of policy ideas. I think one that I would add, and I hope you would agree, is that we should clean up the voter rolls, which when you automatically add people and people leave the state, I think you would want to remove them, correct? I mean, that seems like a common sense solution.
(CROSSTALK)
SELLERS: I mean, there have to be checks and balances, because what's happening right now when you look at states like Georgia and massive voter roll purges, there are individuals who may not have participated in the last election or maybe didn't get their mail or maybe moved. And the problem with voter purges, just so you're extremely clear about it is it disproportionately affects poor people, people of color, transient folk. And that for me is a fundamental problem. So, if there is a way to do it efficiently --
(CROSSTALK)
BLUEY: Well, let's -- I'm sure with the technology we have -- the last point I'll make, Abby, on this is the Heritage Foundation has an election integrity scorecard in which they grade the states based on.
(CROSSTALK)
BLUEY: Yes. And when you look at that, the states compete against each other based on you can see how each state ranks on their -- you may disagree. Look, a group on the left can come up with their own scorecard. My point is that I agree with you. Let's have the states figure out the best solution for voting and then we can have them compete against each other.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Yeah, look, mean to your point about the Heritage Foundation, here's some, a bit of a sampling of what they found. They looked at 25 years of Arizona voting and found 36 cases of fraud. Georgia, 27 years, found 34 cases of fraud, so on and so forth. Not saying that there's no fraud, but A, that a lot of times, most of the time it gets caught, and B, most of the time --
(CROSSTALK)
BORELLI: How do you know most the time?
PHILLIP: Hold on. Okay.
BORELLI: That's an assumption.
PHILLIP: Well, provide some evidence to the contrary.
BORELLI: Well, I can't, but you can't either. That's my point.
SEDER: Well, how do we know there isn't fraud throughout the entire election? Listen, it's been 20 years -- 20 years the Republicans have been trying to do this.
(CROSSTALK)
BORELLI: It probably is. But listen, I'm in favor of the country's way you have to your hand in the ink --
(CROSSTALK)
SEDER: George Bush fired a bunch of U.S. attorneys because he insisted that they find voter fraud in their states. And when they couldn't find voter fraud, they ended up firing a bunch of them.
PHILLIP: You don't think that all these Republicans who have -- to whoever's point that was, for decades been railing against mail-in voting, who've been looking for voter fraud. You don't think that after --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Hold on a second. After all these years, you don't think that someone would have come up with that massive fraud that you're claiming? Even Donald Trump, who in 2020 claimed that in this fabulous conspiracy that there was so much fraud that he --
(CROSSTALK)
BORELLI: But massive is subjective. PHILLIP: -- just needed to find just enough votes in Georgia that he would have won the election.
(CROSSTALK)
BORELLI: Massive is subjective.
PHILLIP: Why would they have not found the fraud, Joe?
(CROSSTALK)
BORELLI: I pointed out -- I pointed out a number of instances where elections were overturned based on fraud. Maybe that's not massive by your definition. That's massive -- that's massive by my definition.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: But it's not -- it's not --
(CROSSTALK)
BORELLI: You could wait.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Just give me one second on this because, Joe, you laid out -- I'm just going acknowledge what you laid out. There have been some cases where this has turned elections. But it's turned elections in cases, very local places, where we're talking about a handful of votes. And yes, so absolutely --
BORELLI: It did matter.
PHILLIP: It matters. I'm not saying it does not matter. But what I'm -- what I'm talking about is a policy from the President that is saying that we should ban a practice nationwide because of his invented belief that there is so much fraud, that it is poisoning every election in this country. That is -- is fiction.
[22:55:06]
(CROSSTALK)
SELLERS: Can I chime in -- can I chime in just for one second because I think we're using the wrong metric. This is what's been bothering me the last two segments and it's finally clicked. Like, we're talking about the remote instances of voter fraud when we should be talking about voter participation.
And if you want to talk about -- if you want to talk about -- if you want to talk about mail-in ballots and where it's done well, all you have to do is look at the state of Oregon. Everybody in Oregon gets a mail-in ballot. They had 80 percent in 2020, 75 percent voter participation.
QUINN: And no evidence of rampant fraud. SELLERS: And no evidence of rampant fraud. Americans can actually get
their ballot and mail it back in.
PHILLIP: All right, I've got to leave it there. Everyone, thank you very much for being here. We'll be back in just a moment.
