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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Trump Nemesis John Bolton Indicted After DOJ Charges; Bolton Becomes third Trump Foe to Be Indicted in Three Weeks; Judge Scolds Trump Admin Over ICE Tactics, I Am Not Happy. Leavitt Faces Backlash For Claims She Made Against Democrats; NYC Mayoral Rivals Debate For The First Time. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired October 16, 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 ANCHOR (voice over): Tonight, before and after.
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: He's, you know, a tough cookie.
He's a terrific guy.
He's highly respected.
He's doing a very good job.
Sort of a low life.
PHILLIP: Donald Trump's DOJ charges another nemesis. This one involving secrets, AOL and his wife.
Plus, a judge scolds the administration over scenes like this.
Now, she's demanding answers about whether ICE is ignoring her orders.
Also, the first face off to be king of the hill, top of the heat.
ZOHRAN MAMDANI (D), NEW YORK MAYORAL CANDIDATE: What I don't have in experience, I make up for an integrity. And when you don't have an integrity, you could never make up for an experience.
ANDREW CUOMO (I), NEW YORK MAYORAL CANDIDATE: He can't stand up for Donald Trump who knocked him right on his throat (ph).
PHILLIP: Who gets the ticket to ride Gotham's train?
And the White House that lectures about rhetoric ignores its own advice.
KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The Democrat Party's main constituency are made up of Hamas terrorists, illegal aliens, and violent criminals.
PHILLIP: Live at the table, John Avlon, Jim Schultz, Ameshia Cross, and T.W. Arrighi.
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. A federal grand jury has indicted one of Trump's sharpest critics, his former national security adviser, John Bolton. He is facing 18 charges and is expected to turn himself in as soon as tomorrow.
Now, prosecutors say that Bolton shared thousands of pages of classified information over email with two members of his family and sources tell CNN that they were his wife and daughter. The investigation also centers around notes that Bolton was making to himself in an AOL account, at times writing summaries of his activities, almost like diary entries.
Now, Bolton becomes the third high-profile political enemy of Trump's to be indicted in less than a month. And when asked about it today, Trump made no secret about just how he feels about this former ally.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: John Bolton was just indicted by a grand jury in Maryland. Do you have a reaction to that?
TRUMP: I didn't know that. You tell me for the first time, but I think he's, you know, a bad person. I think he's a bad guy. Yes, he's a bad guy. He's too bad.
REPORTER: Have you reviewed the case against him?
TRUMP: No, I haven't. I haven't, but I just think he's a bad person.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Elie Honig is here, and he's with us in our fifth seat. Elie, this indictment is pretty detailed and and it has a lot of bad facts for John Bolton.
ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, it sure does. Look, I know it's obvious Donald Trump and John Bolton despise each other. It's clear that Donald Trump is delighted at this indictment. That said, this is different than the indictments of Letitia James and Jim Comey. What John Bolton is alleged to have done here is deadly serious would get anyone charged.
Let me just go through the highlights. What the allegation is that when John Bolton was the national security adviser, right, one of the most important positions in our government, he would take notes daily on what he had learned that day on a yellow legal pad, go home at night, type up these long, detailed memos, amounting to over a thousand pages, and then disseminate them to two people who we now are reporting were his wife and his daughter, and send it out over AOL. That AOL email gets hacked by Iran.
When his team reports that hack to the FBI, they don't mention the fact that he was using that email to disseminate this highly classified information about military strikes, about weapons, about tactics, about sources and methods. He's putting it out there to outsiders with zero security clearance. That kind of conduct is going to get anyone indicted.
PHILLIP: Yes. And some of those documents, according to the indictment, were ended up being printed and were found in his home. That's one of the reasons that when they executed, it seems like this search warrant of his home, they found them, and it led to these charges.
HONIG: Well, keep in mind, sorry, if I can, two, search warrants are approved by two different federal judges. So, now two federal judges and a grand jury have found probable cause.
JOHN AVLON (D), FORMER U.S. CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE, NEW YORK: Look it, the law needs to be enforced without fear of favor. If John Bolton broke the law and he put national security secrets at risk, putting them on an AOL account, which was subsequently hacked by Iran, there should be consequences.
The problem is there is a selective prosecution emphasis at this administration targeting the president's enemies pretty consistently.
[22:05:05]
Just weeks ago, he posted mistakenly on Truth Social admonition to his attorney general to indict his enemies, two of which were Jim Comey and Tish James.
Now, this may be a different case and it should be judged on the substance, but let's not ignore this president's own behavior of taking classified information and showing no regard for it, and then putting a premium and direct orders to prosecute his enemies. So, it needs to be understood in that context as well.
JIM SCHULTZ, CNN LEGAL CONTRIBUTOR: This is not a good case for selective prosecution, not even close. Plus, you have Kelly Hayes, who's been a career prosecutor in Maryland. She's worked through numerous administrations. She's got a great record. She's a career prosecutor. This is not a person that is going to take pressure from anybody in order to bring an indictment. And I think it's important to note that this investigation started during the Biden administration. To say that it was terminated or paused or any of those other things, I think, is a bit ludicrous. I think this thing's been ongoing for some time.
PHILLIP: Let me read two statements, one from Bolton. He says, these charges are not just about the focus on me or my diaries, but his intensive effort to intimidate his opponents, he's talking about Trump here, to ensure that he alone determines what is said about his conduct and that his lawyer, Abbe Lowell, says that like many public officials throughout history, Ambassador Bolton kept diaries. That is not a crime, although I do think that is probably something that maybe people would disagree with. We look forward to proving once again that he did not unlawfully share or store any information.
I mean. I don't know. It may be -- it might be a crime to keep diaries about classified information. I mean, it might have not --
HONIG: It technically is. I think prosecutors, if it was just diaries kept in the drawer, would probably have decided it's not worth it. The problem is the dissemination. The problem is that emailing not just once but dozens or hundreds of times of highly sensitive information over AOL. He knew it. By the way, we've all seen the clips. I mean, John Bolton's entire brand publicly since he left office five, six years ago has been to go on air and castigate anybody, from Hillary Clinton to the people who use Signal, to Donald Trump, how dare they? They should know better. How dare they? The shame, shame, shame. And now, look, this is so awful.
PHILLIP: Yes. Well, let me play what some of what Bolton has said about classified documents. And you're right, it's about Hillary Clinton, about Donald Trump, about a lot of people.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN BOLTON, FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: If you're conscious of the need to protect classified information, you remember what the rules are.
If I had done at the State Department what Hillary Clinton did, I'd be wearing an orange jumpsuit now.
You simply don't use commercial means of communication, whether it's supposedly an encrypted app or not, for these kinds of discussions.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMESHIA CROSS, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Do as I say, not as I do. I think he was predicting his own future with that orange jumpsuit commentary. I think that with John Bolton, it's very different than others who have kept diaries because that is something that is quite common. But keeping a diary in one that has the type of information that his has, but in addition to that, sharing that information, who knows why he shared it with the two family members that he shared it with, but that doesn't matter. This is a guy who knew better. This is a guy who called it out when he thought anybody was sharing classified information or not, you know, keeping secure information secure, and also who still uses AOL.
HONIG: I use Yahoo!.
PHILLIP: That's an overriding question in this case. This was like 2017, 2018.
SCHULTZ: It was so hurtful that the prosecutors use that self- righteous inundation against them.
PHILLIP: Yes, that was literally in the indictment. T.W. ARRIGHI, VICE PRESIDENT, PUSH DIGITAL GROUP: This is when arrogance and hubris comes back to bite you in the rear end. You can't find a more sanctimonious individual than John Bolton. And, look, I think we need to get back to a role here where we are very, very selective about obviously the treatment of classified information, but also then how we prosecute it. That's why I'm glad this is happening.
But, look, this is -- as you pointed out, this is far from a new revelation. I was being told in the previous Trump administration when this book was coming out, they wrote in 2020, there's classified information in that he went around the normal channels to verify that, to get that stuff in the book. This has been around for a long time. I'm glad that the chickens are coming home to roost and he'll have his day in court.
PHILLIP: You know, the other part of this is that, you know, the John Bolton situation. These facts are plain as day in some ways, and obviously he's innocent until proven guilty. We'll see what the courts say. But the backdrop of Trump's efforts to prosecute his political opponents is still there. And I just want to play, this was on the Dr. Phil's show during the campaign last year, and Dr. Phil was almost pleading with Trump to sort of abandon this idea of revenge. And here's what happened.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PHIL MCGRAW, HOST, DR. PHIL: I think you, you have so much to do. You don't have time to get even. You only have time to get right.
TRUMP: Well, revenge does take time, I will say that.
MCGRAW: It does.
TRUMP: And sometimes revenge can be justified, Phil, I have to be honest.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[22:10:01]
PHILLIP: You know, it just seems like if the Trump administration were to just be on the up and up on all of this stuff, they would have a lot more credibility. But there is, you know, the specter of Trump promising retribution and then asking for it literally in a public message on social media.
HONIG: It's important context. John was making this point before. There's no question that the prosecutions of Letitia James and James Comey, both of whom I've been sharply critical of, I thought Letitia James lawsuit against Donald Trump was an outrage, that said this spiral, this downward spiral of retributive prosecutions is only going to lead us to a bad place.
But this is part of the problem now. Now that Trump has done this and announced he's going to done do this, it's hard to tell the legitimate indictments, which the Bolton indictment appears to be, from the purely retributive ones.
AVLON: But that's our job. That's your job, right? Read it. Do the balls and strikes. The problem is the DOJ has been fundamentally corrupted by the president's own public admonition.
And take a step back. Imagine if Joe Biden or any other president had put a public statement out to his attorney general saying, prosecute my enemies. Where is that? That is such a disgrace and we've become numb to it. We're not talking about it, but it is the background music to all of this.
PHILLIP: And, of course, we can't forget that the sitting defense secretary used Signal to disseminate damn classified information on an active, you know, operation that was happening in the Middle East, and that wasn't even looked into, let alone investigated.
But, I mean, I guess, that's not surprising, right? They're not going to investigate their own, but they probably should if they were concerned about classified information.
SCHULTZ: Correct. I mean, who were they communicating with? Other people who had, you know, ability to --
HONIG: And a journalist.
SCHULTZ: Right.
PHILLIP: Yes.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Right. I mean, Jeffrey Goldberg part of it is actually just a symptom of why that is not a place where you would do that kind of communication. The fact that he was on there could have been anyone in the world, and it ended up being a journalist, which is how we all found out about it. It just makes you wonder how much more of that is going on in this administration.
But next for us, a judge goes off on the administration over its ICE tactics, questioning whether agents are simply ignoring her orders.
Plus, Democrats are livid tonight. They're calling these comments by the press secretary dangerous.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LEAVITT: Democrat Party's main constituency are made up of Hamas terrorists, illegal aliens, and violent criminals.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:15:00]
PHILLIP: I am not happy, that from a judge tonight scolding the Trump administration and demanding an ICE director appear in court to explain scenes like these that played out on Chicago's Southside where agents can be seen deploying tear gas on crowds.
Now, last week, Judge Sara Ellis issued an order requiring officers to wear and use their body-worn cameras, and now she's calling into question their compliance with that order. New video shows agents tackling a U.S. citizen outside a Chicago Walgreens store.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He's a citizen. He's a citizen. He's a citizen. He's a citizen. That's my brother-in-law.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get the (BLEEP) away from me. You don't know what's going on, so get the (BLEEP) back.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Back up. Back the (BLEEP) up..
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: That 19-year-old man whose sister-in-law can be heard screaming, he's a citizen, was later released. A ProPublica report released today reveals more than 170 U.S. citizens have been held against their will by federal agents in the course of these ICE raids.
And, Elie, I'll come back to you on this because there are a few things happening here. There's what the judge has asked of ICE agents, and then there's also just the conduct of these immigration incidents and the fact that so many American citizens are getting caught up in that.
HONIG: There is a way. There would have been a way that the Trump administration could have gone about enforcing immigration law aggressively, but fairly, and they've gone over the top. I mean, the scenes like, like we just saw, we've seen way too many of those. That's not good law enforcement. Most, you know, good cops don't like to see that. And there's no need to be pepper balling a preacher outside of a facility. So, I think they've made a mistake. I think they've overstepped.
That said, I don't know where this judge thinks she gets off essentially becoming the chief of ICE operations. I mean, she cannot micromanage, tell them you have to wear body cameras. I mean, that might be a good idea, but that's an overstep. She's going to get reversed by a court of appeals eventually, maybe the Supreme Court, maybe the circuit court. Because what are the -- they're cops essentially, right? They're immigration cops. Are they supposed to go to her and say, well, your Honor, we want to take a door. Do we have your permission? Your Honor, when should we have our body cameras on? Do we need it during breaks? I mean, this is the kind of stuff that the chief of police or the ASAC would do federally.
PHILLIP: Are they supposed to have the body-worn cameras on?
HONIG: So, federal policy varies by agency on that, different municipalities. Most municipalities require it. But, again, for the judge to just -- this is a perfect example. For the judge to say, you must have body cameras and have them on at all times, that's bad policy. Because what if you go into the home of a domestic violence scene and somebody doesn't -- a victim doesn't want to be shown on camera? I've done these policies. You have to enable the police officer to turn them off, to protect victims, to protect privacy. This is why it's a mismatch for a federal judge to try to micromanage the street level operations of ICE or any police force.
CROSS: Well, they don't need to be in Chicago anyway. As somebody who is a native Chicagoan and a Southsider, there is a level of offense that is taken with not only the behavior that they are exuding. When you talk about the southeast side of Chicago, that community is 98 percent black.
[22:20:02]
So, a lot of the people that they are encountering and a lot of the people that they are deciding to throw in the backs of trucks to not say who they are while they're accosting them, the people who are standing outside, who are being citizen journalists right now, because real journalists, the ones who are actually at ABC, NBC and other local entities, have also been jumped by these ICE raids.
It is very frustrating to watch, but the argument that they should not, or that, you know, she may be overstepping with body cam, I understand, however, there has to be. Some level of accountability, and currently they do not have it. They are not showing their faces. They do not have badge numbers. Most of the people who are encountering them don't know who the hell they are. You could be anybody with an ICE jacket on your back and they are being taken away, some for hours, some for days to places where they don't know where they're going. They are -- you know, many of them have their I.D.s on them, but are not even given them when they're released.
PHILLIP: And in many cases their charges are dropped or they are thrown out in court.
John, you were shaking your head when Elie -- or you were reacting when it --
AVLON: Well, look, I mean, you know, I appreciate, you know, the necessity of if there's a domestic violence circumstance, but this ain't that, right? And what we're seeing is something that is such an egregious departure from the general the civility in which good police officers go about doing their job, protecting and serving. We got masked men in the streets of America taking down and arresting American citizens. And it is cruel, it is chaotic and it does violence to the Constitution and it damages due process.
So I think we got to -- you know, I appreciate your point about, you know, judges can't be dictating the cameras, but the reason it's to have a degree of transparency. We had a case where one young woman was filming the ICE officers, right? This is citizens journalism, slammed up against a wall and then arrested for, you know, resisting arrest and then that was thrown out.
HONIG: Yes, I agree with that. Just it's not a judge's place to come in and say, the fix is going to be I am now the chief.
AVLON: Where's the fix?
PHILLIP: But, I mean -- but let ask --
HONIG: We can bring individuals.
PHILLIP: I want to -- maybe I'll ask you this and you can weigh in, but, you know, what if part of the problem is that in cases where some of this video camera footage is evidence of what happened in an interaction, ICE agents are turning them off or not wearing them when they have them to try to obscure the evidence of these interactions. And when it comes to people's rights being violated, doesn't the judge have some reason to say, if you have the ability to collect this evidence in these interactions, you should?
SCHULTZ: Well, not in this particular instance. She can't set policy. But also I think it's telling. She said, look, I have a phone. I watch T.V. I see what's going on. I don't know how many judges are using that as evidence in a case on a regular basis, right, or a reason to call someone in court.
PHILLIP: But, I mean, shouldn't they?
SCHULTZ: Well, should they, or a snapshot, or should we be just using real evidence? Should they just -- what happens on T.V. in a few seconds of a video that may not tell the whole story, the give judge's going to rely on that?
PHILLIP: I think the reason why she might have said something like that, because here's a response from the DHS to ProPublica's reporting about the 170 Americans who have been detained. They said, DHS enforcement operations are highly targeted, in all caps, and are not resulting in the arrest of U.S. citizens, which we know is not true. We do our due diligence. We know that we are targeting, who we are targeting ahead of time. And if and when we do encounter individuals subject to arrest, our law enforcement is trained to ask a series of well-determined questions to determine status and removability.
Now, that is a statement in response to the reporting. But if that were a statement that were made to a judge, and you also have evidence that in a lot of these videos that a lot of what they're saying there is not true, that there are roving immigration enforcement operations happening where they're just walking the streets and picking people up, that they are detaining American citizens, that they are, for example, raiding an entire apartment building and arresting everyone in the building to find two, maybe, Tren de Aragua members. Wouldn't the judge say, yes, I mean, you're making statements to me, but I can see with my own eyes that some of those things are not true?
ARRIGHI: Look I'm all for accountability as it's written in the law and what the stipulations are. I think Elie did a really good job breaking that down.
But, look, I think we're at this point, and I understand the sensitivities around this a lot. A lot of those videos are jarring. There's no question about it. But we are in this spot because of failed policy of the last four years and beyond in the lack of comprehensive immigration reform to make this happen.
Look, the ICE agents are there to enforce immigration policy. And, yes, there have been agitators and protesters against them, some of which are legal, but some of which are there to antagonize and get cameras in their facing in clout chase.
PHILLIP: Also legal. That's also --
ARRIGHI: Sure, but not if you interfere with the activities of law enforcement.
[22:25:00]
PHILLIP: Sure. But being there with a camera is not illegal.
ARRIGHI: No, I'm not saying that. But here is my biggest takeaway, I think, in a lot of this, because in reading a lot about the ICE arrest and stuff that ICE publishes, you read the rap sheets of a lot of the people they're picking up. Not all of them.
CROSS: Not the majority.
ARRIGHI: Hold on a second. But we don't know that because I don't think ICE has been clear enough and mission-focused enough to say, look, here is exactly what's going on. Here is who we're arresting. Here's who we're pulling off the streets. If -- and by the way, and I agree with you, I'm going to preempt what you're about to say. I agree, they should not be targeting people just because of how they look. They should be following the law.
AVLON: Thanks for that.
ARRIGHI: Yes. Well, look, the name Arrighi didn't exactly appear on the Mayflower roll, okay?
AVLON: There you go.
ARRIGHI: We're all parts of immigration.
CROSS: It's also beyond how they look, because they're also going after African Americans on the southeast side of Chicago. The building that got raided two weeks ago where they zip tied those children, that was the building I used to live in at 75th and South Shore. So, when I see this, these are people who are targeting areas that are largely home to black residents who are American citizens, and they are also putting a target on their backs. They are scaring people in the middle of the night. They are disappearing them. They do not give a damn, whether they're American citizens or not. ICE is on a different type of mission.
PHILLIP: Increasingly, the statements of DHS officials coming from ICE about some of these raids are also coming up against scrutiny because sometimes they -- many times now, they are saying things that are just are not true and are proven later on to be false. You know, there was a case of someone that they charged, she was filming an ICE arrest. They charged her with assault on an ICE officer, that she was acquitted in that case. And in the trial there were issues with whether or not she was even the aggressor in that situation. So, that's just one example, but there are many others.
HONIG: ICE has a credibility problem right now in the courts. I mean, there was also in one of the National Guard cases, I think the one in Illinois, actually the judge basically said, what you're telling me, DHS, is contradicted by the facts.
And to Ameshia's point, let's remember, there was a Supreme Court opinion. It was the emergency docket, so it was one of these two- paragraph opinions about a month ago, that actually shocked me, we talked about this before, that said it's okay for ICE in making immigration arrests to consider skin color, language and where the people are, if they're at a Home Depot or a car wash.
Now, I think that's an outrageous decision, but it's, to your point --
PHILLIP: And Kavanaugh said in that case, if the officers learned the individual, they stopped as a U.S. citizen or otherwise lawfully in the United States, they promptly let the individual go, which, again, also we know has not been happening.
AVLON: It has not been happening. We know from that from that ICE statement, denying the reporting from ProPublica, that's a credibility problem. It's not a communications problem. I mean, Axios reported that the DHS has spent $51 million of taxpayer money this cycle to try to put out ads to make people feel good about what they're doing. That's a misuse of campaign money, but a misuse of taxpayer dollars, to my mind. But more importantly, it's not going to erase the credibility problem if you're fighting the facts and trying to demonize journalists and citizens.
PHILLIP: All right. Next for us as the White House lecturers about rhetoric, the press secretary just call the Democratic base Terrorists and criminals. We will discuss.
[22:30:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt is facing intense backlash tonight for these claims that she made about Democrats.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Democrat Party's main constituency are made up of Hamas terrorists, illegal aliens, and violent criminals. That is who the Democrat Party is catering to. They don't stand for anything except for catering to their far left base, which as I said, includes anti-Semites, includes Hamas terrorists, illegal aliens, and violent criminals who they want to let off freely to roam in American streets.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Now, it's interesting to hear all of that coming from an administration with a history of lecturing others about rhetoric.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LEAVITT: A radical fringe of the far left base who want to dehumanize every person they disagree with.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: That violence and murder are the tragic consequence of demonizing those with whom you disagree day after day.
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R) SOUTH CAROLINA: An effort by the radical left to dehumanize the MAGA movement.
REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R) SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: You can't call the other side fascists and enemies of the state and not understand that there are some deranged people in our society who will take that as cues to act and do crazy and dangerous things.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Joining us in our fifth seat at the table is Emily Ngo. She is a reporter for "Politico" and co-author of Politico's New York playbook. Karoline Leavitt was responding to Zohran Mamdani in that clip and the comments that he made in the interview when he was asked about Hamas and Israel. But then she broadened it to encompass the entire Democratic base, calling them terrorists and criminals. What do you make of that?
EMILY NGO, "POLITICO" POLITICAL REPORTER: I hear their comments now and I should be shocked, but they don't sound foreign to my ears. There are a lot of the same allegations, accusations that Republicans have been making about Democrats at large -- Democrats who are their fellow Americans, weaponizing language that makes them seem much scarier and paint them with a much broader brush than they need to be. And it's just indicative of the climate that we live in now, the political climate, where it's no holds barred effectively if you want to have political edge.
AMESHIA CROSS, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: I think Emily's right because this rhetoric is not dissimilar from what Donald Trump did with those A.I. videos just over a week ago.
[22:35:03]
The ones that got a lot of attention with the sombreros and all the crazy talk. The rhetoric is the exact same with the edition -- the new edition of Hamas. The other things that she listed off are the exact same things that he made in four consecutive A.I. videos that went all over social media just a couple weeks ago.
PHILLIP: I mean, Hillary Clinton was raked over the coals, perhaps justifiably so, about the deplorables comment in the campaign. This is basically of the same ilk. And Democrats are saying -- Chris Murphy, "This is grossly dark. These people are broken." Dan Pfeiffer says, "It is so effing dangerous." And Greg Casar says, "Karoline Levitt should resign." Your thoughts?
T.W. ARRIGHI, VICE PRESIDENT, PUSH DIGITAL GROUP: Look, I think there's ways of uh going after Zohran Mamdani Even today, took him an hour plus of the debate to really denounce Hamas in strong terms and globalize the intifada and other things like that. I think there's ways of saying it without painting the entire party as a brush. But I sort of understood.
JOHN AVLON (D) FORMER U.S. CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE: You think?
ARRIGHI: Yeah. But I understood what Karoline was saying. But let's not also forget, look, this doesn't just live on the right. You know, Lindsey Graham mentioned dehumanizing the MAGA movement. We've had so much put at Donald Trump. Two attempted assassinations, the death of Charlie Kirk. We had the guy in Virginia talking about killing his opponent and children.
Look, and I've said this on show many times, I am all for civility. I think you all are great Americans. I would never, you know, say anything but that. And look, it's a shared responsibility. But I don't want to just pick it all on Karoline Leavitt like it just lives there. Karoline Leavitt was making a point that they're catering to an audience that is more sympathetic to that. She shouldn't have phrased it like that. But it just doesn't live with --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: It's also just not true.
AVLON: Yeah.
PHILLIP: It's just not true.
ARRIGHI: Zohran Mamdani is --
PHILLIP: No, she said the Democratic base is -- Hamas terrorists and criminals. Like, that is just factually untrue. And --
ARRIGHI: But you said she was talking about Zohran Mamdani.
AVLON: No.
PHILLIP: She was responding to --
ARRIGHI: Okay.
PHILLIP: -- she was responding to a conversation about Mamdani's comments. But then she made her comments broadly descriptive of the Democratic Party space. That's really the problem with what she said.
AVLON: from the --
PHILLIP: and --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: -- from the White House loyalists.
(CROSSTALK)
AVLON: From the White House lawn. Thank you. And this is not about -- I've no problem condemning someone who has, you know, it -- that needs to be dragged to condemn Hamas or anything like that, or the Virginia attorney general candidate, right?
ARRIGHI: Yeah.
AVLON: The whole point is we need to start practicing the politics the golden rule again.
ARRIGHI: Agree.
AVLON: And we're just treating other people's you'd like to be treated. But what we see to up in this White House is castigating one side and then beginning very offended when the rhetoric comes on the other side. But that the White House Press Secretary said the base of the Democratic Party is terrorists, is so deeply offensive, so deeply destructive. And we can't -- I think we've normalized it. It's not normal.
NGO: The days of John McCain standing up for Barack Obama in a debate when someone in the audience that says something untrue and malicious about him, or just so far behind us have just come to report it to expect, you know, in the halls of Congress covering on the campaign trail for people that say things that are blatantly untrue.
PHILLIP: And you, Emily, you were a part of the reporting team on those tech -- on those group chats, right? That is also part of this picture of just where we are in our politics, where this stuff just gets said publicly, but not even just -- I'm less concerned, honestly, about what's being said in those private chats and more the fight that it's created among Republicans about whether you even condemn it or whether the act of condemning it really gives fuel to the other side. Why can't people just condemn bad things and just say this is bad and let's move on without this stuff in our party?
NGO: I can see the goalposts slowly day by day led by J.D. Vance, the vice president. We had Republicans even before we published that exclusive investigation about those sort of slur-filled GOP chats condemn it and be part of the initial story, condemn it as we were calling them for comment. But now with Vance saying that it's kids and it's sort of like a kinder locker room talk, I see that that gives permission to some in the Republican Party and other parts of the country to sort of say well, what are Democrats going to do about this?
PHILLIP: Jim?
JIM SHULTZ, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE LAWYER: It needs to be toned down. Period, right? both sides. You know, it's a problem on both sides. The rhetoric needs to be toned down. They can't get out of her skis and say things like she did. I would have said it differently than she did. I think that you would have said it differently than she did. We would have all said it differently than she did. And making an argument whether we're arguing against one party or the other.
(CROSSTALK)
AVLON: I appreciate that.
CROSS: She's being led by the President of United States. Nothing that she said within that statement -- I condemn all of the crazy she said. But this is something that the President has said himself on more than one occasion within the past two weeks. So, if the President is saying it, he is giving her the credibility to go out and repeat it. He's also giving the credence to all of his followers, all of the Republican Party to stand on it.
[22:40:00]
AVLON: And that's the point about J.D. Vance refusing to condemn the excellent reporting that your team did. You know, weeks ago, he was righteously denouncing violent rhetoric from the left. And I think we should all be able denounce anything, you know, violent political rhetoric, violent political violence has no place our society. But when he refuses to denounce people, know, these are by the way, this is not kids, this is people who were in their 30s.
(CROSSTALK)
AVLON: In fact, saying, you know, general counsels of the young Republicans saying, you know, praising Hitler. If you can't condemn that, first of all, what is the bar? Second of all, it's that dangerous idea that there are no enemies to the right. And this is the vice president of the United States.
SCHULTZ: And there weren't people on the left when President Trump and then candidate Trump was running and got shot that weren't sharing that. That happened all together, time and time again.
(CROSSTALK)
AVLON: Find me -- find me high-level elected Democrats.
SCHULTZ: But, okay --
(CROSSTALK)
AVLON: Vice president of the United States of the United States. You're talking about a chat room.
SCHULTZ: I'm talking about --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Look, I don't know. Look, I can't speak for the fringes of this world -- the stock world sometimes that we are in. But I don't know that there were any Democrats. I certainly didn't know any, and I don't know if there were any Democrats who were elected or in any other positions of power who were cheering when President Trump was almost assassinated.
I mean, I think that was a really dark time for the country, just like it was a dark time when Charlie Kirk was assassinated. I mean, the real people in this country are not --
(CROSSTALK)
SCHULTZ: There were plenty of people on social media when Charlie Kirk was killed.
AVLON: As far as the United States.
PHILLIP: Again, I just -- I just think that when we bring those fringes into the center of our politics as if they are the dominant viewpoint, I think that does a disservice to the vast majority of Americans who didn't know such things. So, I just -- that's the only point that I'm making on that.
(CROSSTALK)
UNKNOWN: Agree. Agree.
PHILLIP: But next for us, the New York mayoral race and its debate tonight, fiery from the start.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CURTIS SLIWA (R) NYC NATIONAL CANDIDATE: There's high levels of testosterone in this room.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:46:34]
PHILLIP: Tonight, the race to be New York City's next mayor heats up. The three candidates, they faced off in two, in the first of two debates, and the two front runners didn't hold back and made it very, very personal.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANDREW CUOMO (I) NEW YORK CITY MAYORAL CANDIDATE: He literally has never had a job. On his resume, it says he interned for his mother. This is not a job for a first-timer. Any day, you could have a hurricane, you have, God forbid, a 9-11, a health pandemic. If you don't know what you're doing, people will die.
(CROSSTALK)
UNKNOWN: Thank you, Mr. Cuomo. We have to --
(CROSSTALK) CUOMO: Yeah.
UNKNOWN: Mr. Mamdani, you want to respond?
ZOHRAN MAMDANI (D) NEW YORK CITY MAYORAL CANDIDATE: And if we have a health pandemic, then why would New Yorkers turn back to the governor who sent seniors to their death in nursing homes? That's the kind of experience that's on offer here today. What I don't have an experience, I make up for in integrity. And what you don't have in integrity, you could never make up for an experience.
CUOMO: Yes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Oh boy. Emily, so you've been covering this. This -- I'll just start by saying, I mean, this race is Mamdani's to lose, it seems at this point. What do you think happens after this debate? How do you think it helps or hurts his campaign?
NGO: Well, I'll start by saying that in this debate, considering that he's ahead by double digits, it has been in virtually every public poll, the bar for him was don't F-up. And he certainly didn't do that. There were attacks that didn't land and he defended himself pretty well and he didn't make a big gaffe. What comes afterward is him trying to sell New Yorkers on his policy.
The campaign is by and large done. It's what he's good at. He's charismatic. He could speak well. But it's time to help business leaders to help skeptics understand what his vision is and how he seeks to accomplish that. Tomorrow, already, he's poised to hold a reverse town hall where he's asking questions of New Yorkers so they can understand their needs and wants
PHILLIP: That's interesting. I mean and to your point, I mean, this latest Fox News poll has Mamdani over 50 percent or 52 percent. Cuomo is pretty far behind at 28 percent. So, he's starting to -- if the question was, can he bring undecided people in, it sounds like he's starting to do that. And to Emily's point, I mean, now this is going to be, what kind of mayor is he going to be?
AVLON: Let's wait till election day, right? I mean, think the problem is we act sometimes, you know, whoever wins a Democratic primary is coordinated mayor. There's not, you know, winning a Democratic primary is important, but less than 10 percent of voters of all New York City voted for him. Look, I think Mamdani is an incredibly talented campaigner, clearly. He's quick. And he won tonight's debate on style points.
I actually think Andrew Cuomo won on substance, though, because there are issues about his policies and his experience that are absolutely relevant to take into account. Never having a job, never having run an executive office when you're taking on, you know, a $119 billion budget in a 300,000-person office.
PHILLIP: Don't you think New Yorkers know that at this point? AVLON: No, I don't know that they do.
PHILLIP: I feel like that's the whole story behind Mamdani is that he is inexperienced.
(CROSSTALK)
AVLON: Well, there's stuff that we feel good about. I just, you know, this is -- I, you know, this is like there was a line tonight. Cuomo's been pushing this about, you know, Mamdani not publicizing it, but it believes in decriminalizing prostitution. And he was pushing them on that. And Mamdani said, well, look, I don't think it's an issue of economic opportunity. I don't know that that's going to land terribly well. And I also think that this is --
(CROSSTALK)
CROSS: Have you seen the 'Only Fans" users (ph)?
(LAUGHTER)
AVLON: You know what?
PHILLIP: Okay, that's actually a fair point because, yeah, at this day and age, yeah.-
(CROSSTALK)
SCHULTZ: I think you're right. I think America knows what his positions are. America knows that he's not particularly qualified.
[22:50:01]
America knows the positions he has taken on as it relates to Israel. And I'm not sure the New Yorkers, by and large, are showing that they care, that his campaign style, his energy, all the things that go along with them seem to be outweighing all the negatives. And you know, I know we have an election to come up with, but it doesn't look like -- it doesn't look like Andrew Cuomo's catching up.
AVLON: Just saying, like, you know, we've seen polls be awful lot. I'm not making any predictions here. I'm just saying this is a hardcore executive job. And your policies matter. And your experience matters. And those are rational things to take into account when people go to the polls. And let's not count anything --
PHILLIP: Let me just play real quick. This is Trump's threat to New York. If Mamdani wins, he's made the start a couple times now. And you know, I think New Yorkers probably also have to take this into consideration.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We have a communist who's 33 years old, doesn't know a damn thing. Practically he's never worked a day in his life. And he's sort of caught on, right? And I'm not going to send a lot of money to New York. I don't have to. You know, the money comes all through the White House and if they're going to be sending us stupid policies, I mean, communist policies, we're not going to ruin one of our great cities because we'll make that great.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Can he do that? Should he do that? I mean --
ARRIGHI: Well, I'm not exactly sure how much that every dollar passes through the White House. I'm not really sure how that --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Barely, this administration -- every dollar --
(CROSSTALK)
ARRIGHI: Yeah.
(CROSSTALK)
ARRIGHI: But this is a man from New York, cares deeply about the city, concerned about Mamdani. Yes, he realizes the political positives that Mamdani's victory has in 2026.
AVLON: For him.
ARRIGHI: Yeah, for him. Look, socialism seems to be part of the word of the day in New York, but it isn't outside of New York and he's going to be a huge benefit for Republicans.
CROSS: Affordability is the word of the day in New York
(CROSSTALK)
ARRIGHI: That's correct.
CROSS: -- and across the country. And Mamdani has somebody who made that the central core of his campaign and never swayed away from it.
ARRIGHI: Agree.
CROSS: So, irrespective of some of the other style issues and policy issues where he may be somewhat problematic, affordability is what people are ready to --
(CROSSTALK)
ARRIGHI: Affordability is always the best thing, but good candidates and good campaigns matter to win and he's both.
(CROSSTALK)
AVLON: It's about authenticity and affordability and those are two things that Mamdani has pushed incredibly effectively. PHILLIP: All right. Emily Ngo, thank you very much for joining us. We
appreciate it. Next for us, the panel is going to give us their nightcaps. They'll tell us their favorite vice inspired by Governor Pritzker's big Vegas payday.
But first, a quick programming note, journalist Julia Ioffe and comedian Gianmarco Soresi joins "Have I Got News For You" to unpack the week's headlines. It airs this Saturday at 9 P.M. right here on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:57:22]
PHILLIP: We're back and Ellie is back with us at the table and it's time for the "NewsNight" cap, double down edition. Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker revealed that he'd won a $1.4 million jackpot playing blackjack in Vegas. Pritzker says he donated the cash. So, you each have 30 seconds to tell us what is your favorite vice. Jim.
SCHULTZ: It's a good cigar. I had one before I came on the show.
PHILLIP: All right. That's mild.
AVLON: That's right. Yeah, not a big fan of gambling, but a good bourbon with good friends and good music. There you go.
PHILLIP: Guys, these are not vices.
AVLON: Are they not?
(CROSSTALK)
AVLON: Okay.
PHILLIP: Go ahead.
ELIE HONIG, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: -- in excess. I'm going to say junk food. I know everyone says they're, you know, too much junk food, but let me be specific with you. These are all things I have consumed within the last week or so. A full tub of Johnson's caramel corn from down the shore. Now, it was a small tub, but I mowed it in 36 hours.
(CROSSTALK)
HONIG: A full nine-ounce bag of Reese's pieces. I did the research. That's 342 pieces. Avlon's gagging. If you ever take Amtrak, you can get key lime pie in a cup. Don't get, not worth it.
PHILLIP: Not good.
HONIG: And finally, before the show, if you go downstairs in this building, there's a place that has -- you can get a banana soaked in caramel, put under the broiler. They dump chocolate on it and put it in a pita. I'm bringing five of them.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: That is nauseating. What is that? Okay.
CROSS: Lord. Sports-betting. I am into Draft Kings. I am super on NFL but also on college, although you know, that athletes being able to pour it out has now caused me some problems.
HONIG: Wait what's your pick for this week?
CROSS: For who?
HONIG: NFL.
CROSS: I'm a Packers fan all-day, all-night.
HONIG: Okay.
CROSS: They may not win this one.
PHILLIP: She's from Chicago and she's a Packers fan.
ARRIGHI: We won't get into that.
PHILLIP: All right. Go ahead.
ARRIGHI: Well, I love everything that everyone has set at this table very, very much. But sorry, mom and dad in advance, but my favorite vice at the moment and no free ads but it's nicotine pouches.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: That's a real lot.
ARRIGHI: I know men and women across the country, I know many who are friends of mine who love to share a nicotine pouch, so I have them frequently.
PHILLIP: I don't even really know what that is, but it sounds bad. No, thank you. Yeah, my vices are gooey butter cake ice cream. I could probably eat an entire tub. It's probably like 2000 calories, but it's fun. And I probably had like five or six sour gummy worms before I got into the studio today.
UNKNOWN: Delicious.
UNKNOWN: I'm with you.
UNKNOWN: My daughters will be so proud.
UNKNOWN: Ice cream is not a vice.
PHILLIP: Sour gummy worms are good. You need a little sugar before you get on set for all the energy. All right, everyone, thank you very much.
[23:00:00 Jim and John, I wish you both better, more vicey vices in the future.
(CROSSTALK)
ARRIGHI: They're going to have those after this.
PHILLIP: Thanks for watching "NewsNight". You can catch me anytime on your favorite social media -- X, Instagram, and TikTok. "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
