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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
New Evidence Undercuts Candidate's Claims About Nazi-Linked Tattoo; Trump Blows Up Canada Talks Over Reagan Anti-Tariff Ad; Plan For Trump In 2028 Says Steve Bannon; Mamdani Defends Muslim Faith Against Negative Remarks From Cuomo; New Episode Of "Have I Got News For You" Airs Saturday At 9:00 p.m. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired October 24, 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, new evidence undercuts a Democratic candidate's claims that he didn't know his tattoo was linked to the Nazis. Is this disqualifying?
Plus, fight one for the Gipper.
RONALD REAGAN, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: Then the worst happens, market shrink and collapse.
PHILLIP: Instead of tearing down this tariff wall with Canada, Donald Trump slaps barbed wire on top of it after a troll.
Also --
STEVE BANNON, FORMER TRUMP ADVISER: Trump is going to be president in '28, and people just ought to get accommodated with that.
PHILLIP: -- as a MAGA plots, are Republicans strong enough to stand up against it?
And Andrew Cuomo's remark against Zohran Mamdani has been called racist, Islamophobic, and disgusting. Now, the frontrunner is calling it revelatory.
ZOHRAN MAMDANI (D), NEW YORK CITY MAYORAL CANDIDATE: I will not change who I am, how I eat, or the faith that I'm proud to call my own.
PHILLIP: Live at the table, Scott Jennings, Jemele Hill, Lydia Moynihan and Xochitl Hinojosa.
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. We are back in the test kitchen at the Food Network, our sister company, for Fall Fridays, and we'll, of course, catch up with the crowd and our chefs over there preparing food for us later in the show.
But, first, let's get right to what America is talking about, a tattoo, the internet, and a high-stakes primary election for Maine's Senate seat. And tonight, old social media posts may be coming back to haunt Graham Platner. He is the Democratic hopeful looking to fill Susan Collins' seat.
And this week Platner said that he covered a chest tattoo that some people said looked like a Nazi symbol. And here's what it looks like right now. You can see it there.
He claims that he didn't know what it meant when he got it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you a secret Nazi?
GRAHAM PLATNER (D), MAINE SENATE CANDIDATE: I am not a secret Nazi. We did what Marines on Liberty do, and we decided to go get a tattoo. And we went to a tattoo parlor in Split, Croatia, and we chose a terrifying looking skull and crossbones off the wall because we were Marines. And, you know, skulls and crossbones are a pretty standard military thing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: But CNN's K-File dug up Platners now deleted Reddit posts from six years ago that undercut that claim. In one thread, Platner weighed in on a conversation about the a totenkopf, which is the Nazi version of the skull and crossbones. And someone else in the thread brought up the fact that some of the Navy SEALs used the Punisher skull as their emblem. And Platner writes in part, when I was in Ramadi as a Marine grunt, the SEAL platoon we worked closely with for the deployment all had the Punisher skull spray painted on their armor carriers.
CNN also spoke to an acquaintance of Platner's from more than a decade ago who said that he spoke about his tattoo resembling a Nazi symbol, and a second person told CNN that the acquaintance told them that Platner had described it as a Nazi-style design.
Platner's campaign declined to comment on this story, but it goes from bad to worse. What now, Xochitl, and why are so many Democrats unwilling to say, this is not going to work, this is not acceptable?
XOCHITL HINOJOSA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I think this new reporting might change things, and I think that he actually needs to think about getting out of the race. You just mentioned, this is a high-stakes race. Democrats don't want to be talking about this next fall. This is a seat that potentially Democrats could flip that could cost us potential control of the Senate.
And so I think that there needs to be a little bit more pressure on him to resign. I think that it has gone too far and the fact that we are a year from the election. And we are talking about a scandal involving, you know, something that at this point is solvable. If he were to get out of the race, Democrats could potentially have another rising candidate and could go ahead and beat Susan Collins. But at this point, if he moves forward, Democrats aren't winning the seat.
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I hate to break the news to you, but he's winning the primary by 30 points. Getting a Nazi tattoo made him more popular, more popular among Democrats. You've got a guy running for attorney general in Virginia who wants to murder Republicans, and he raised $500,000 off of it.
[22:05:05]
You got Nazi tattoo guy in Maine. I sat out here for a year, two years listening to every Democrat at this table say, Donald Trump's a Nazi. Elon's a Nazi, and your party is now in love with a guy with a Nazi tattoo who trained a left wing paramilitary group and called himself an Antifa super soldier on the internet, and he's going up every day. Good luck getting him out.
HINOJOSA: Your president --
JENNINGS: Good luck getting him out.
HINOJOSA: The person you nominated 1,600 insurrectionists. I don't think the Republican Party has --
JENNINGS: You're not going to wash away now the Nazi tattoo with the old talking point. It's not going to work.
HINOJOSA: And what did just say? What did I just say? I said that he should resign.
JENNINGS: Good luck.
HINOJOSA: And I think that Democrats should also speak out --
PHILLIP: Scott, are you making an argument that he should stay in? You seem to be very eager to defend his strength --
JENNINGS: I am but a humble political analyst. And I will just tell you that when you're winning a race by 30 points, if a pundit on television tells you what you need to think about dropping out, you laugh in their face.
PHILLIP: I don't know.
HINOJOSA: This is a year out.
PHILLIP: I feel like you ought to take the agreement when it's happening. I mean, she's saying pretty clearly --
JENNINGS: No. I want Democrats to be who they are. This is who they are. This is who they are.
HINOJOSA: Hold on. You're saying that Democrats are Nazis? Is that what you're saying?
JENNINGS: I'm saying it's very on brand right now. It's very on brand.
PHILLIP: Hold on one second. Hold on. Scott. Really, like are you suggesting ingesting that like a person who wears a Nazi tattoo because he was in the military or whatever is representative of the entire Democratic Party? Is that the --
JENNINGS: I'm only reading the polling, Abby. When all this story broke and he started talking about it, he literally got more popular. He's beating the incumbent governor by 30 points.
PHILLIP: You realize that he's running in one state in Maine, and you're also saying that because of that, he's representative of the Democratic Party? You said this is who they are. Who is they?
JENNINGS: Look at the polling, look at the energy.
HINOJOSA: This is not about the poll.
(CROSSTALKS)
JENNINGS: Bernie Sanders wants him. The beating heart of the Democratic Party, where their energy is, wants the Nazi tattoo guy. That's what they want.
LYDIA MOYNIHAN, CORRESPONDENT, NEW YORK POST: The 95 percent of Democrats polled in that state did say that he stands with their value, and that was after the initial --
JENNINGS: What was the number?
MOYNIHAN: 75 percent in RealClearPolitics. So, that was after. And, again, who knows, maybe this ultimately will be disqualifying what the K-File has reported, but nothing thus far, even very incriminating reports haven't been enough to assuage or concern voters and encourage him to drop out, and it's an interesting point, because, you know, Bernie Sanders, a lot of folks, even just this morning, continue to stand by him. So, we'll wait to see what this new report does.
PHILLIP: Let me play what Bernie Sanders has said about this. Let's play the Bernie clip.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT): I think if this country is about anything, it's about understanding that every person, me, you, everybody else has gone dark moments in our history and we go on.
REPORTER: So, you're standing by your endorsement?
SANDERS: Absolutely.
JEMELE HILL, CONTRIBUTING WRITER, THE ATLANTIC: That's embarrassing.
PHILLIP: So --
HILL: I'm sorry, that's embarrassing because, look, I understand that why the reason so many Democrats are holding the line is because they're looking at the Republicans and they're saying, they always hold the line and it doesn't matter how embarrassing, how awful their candidate is. And so they're saying, we need to do the same thing.
And I'm saying, no, don't do the same thing. That dude doesn't represent me. We need to assess our entire America political value system. Being -- having a Nazi tattoo should be disqualifying, period in the sentence. Like this guy doesn't represent the values of the Democratic Party. He represents maybe the values of Maine, which is frightening enough. And I'm just saying that like, I don't think the way that you return fire with the Republicans is by going as low and as ridiculous as they do, like you can't stand yourself apart. You know, what they say about arguing with a fool? From a distance, you can't tell who is who. And right now it's like the reason that people make those arguments about both parties being the same is because of stuff like this.
PHILLIP: You know, you acknowledge that some of this polling that we're talking about is before all of this. There are two things that you should keep in mind. One is that he initially claimed that he didn't know the connection between the tattoo and Nazi symbols. He said, while he was in the military, he enlisted in the army. It involves a full physical exam of all the tattoos that he has. It never got flagged. He passed a full background check to receive a security clearance to join the ambassador to Afghanistan security detail, not flagged in any of those situations.
However, CNN's reporting today finds that in a 2020 online discussion that he said that the SS Lightning Bolt tattoos were a culture marker within Marine scout sniper units. That is something that is probably worth scrutiny, if that is true. He also says he has no idea what they're talking about the criticism of it, and I will be sure to inform the black guys I know with Bolts that they're Nazis now.
So --
HILL: I got a black friend who --
PHILLIP: So, again, look I do think that this new information is new information.
[22:10:04]
And it will be interesting to see what happens to some of that polling once voters have this information, because I do think it shows a bit of a different picture of, first of all, his truthfulness, I think that's in question, but, secondly, whether or not he was fully aware of what he was getting into when he went there.
MOYNIHAN: Yes. Well, now he's lied about it. That's on the record. But I'm not confident that we're going to see Bernie Sanders or some of these folks call on him to drop out, but I guess it is too soon to tell.
HINOJOSA: Bernie Sanders -- hold on. Bernie Sanders isn't the head of the Democratic Party. I think -- JENNINGS: He's not?
HINOJOSA: He's absolutely not at all. Don't even --
JENNINGS: Where's the energy? Where's the energy of the party?
HINOJOSA: Here is what I will tell you, Scott.
JENNINGS: Schumer wants Mills. Sanders wants this guy and he is winning by 30.
HINOJOSA: Let me tell you, this -- when polling happens at this stage in a race, these are very engaged voters. These are not necessarily -- and even then, not all voters right now are completely engaged in this race. So, I will say that it will be interesting to see where the polling goes. Republicans will rush to try to make this person the head of the Democratic Party.
And I will just warn you, I don't know how many times over the last few months you guys have said that it is dangerous whenever you're calling Donald Trump or anyone else a name like a Nazi or any sort of other names, and it leads to violence. I would be careful to frame all Democrats as Nazi --
JENNINGS: Wait, you're blaming us for the tattoos?
HINOJOSA: He literally is not telling you that the party, that is not the position of the entire party.
JENNINGS: Okay.
HINOJOSA: And so if you're going to sit here --
JENNINGS: He's winning by 30.
HINOJOSA: -- and say -- it doesn't matter when he's winning. He is not reflecting the entire party.
JENNINGS: Listen, I understand you don't want to have this guy, and I wouldn't either. He is a totally unknown guy, comes out of nowhere. He's got the full support of the left wing, progressive Sanders wing of the Democratic Party. And he's beating --
HILL: Is who supports is Barney Sanders?
JENNINGS: Yes. Look at the polling. And here's the most important thing. He's beating the incumbent governor of the state by 30 points. This isn't happening in a vacuum. People are comparing an establishment figure like Mills and this insurgent left wing radical like Platner, and they're like, you know what, we'll take the Nazi tattoos. It's fine.
And I just -- I think you -- look, it could be early but people are following this race and the polling is pretty clear, it's not that close. PHILLIP: Look, I think this is not obviously the first time that we've had an unsavory candidate endorsed by the establishment despite his passwords. That happened in an --
JENNINGS: He's not endorsed by the establishment. She is.
PHILLIP: Excuse me, but I'm saying like you're suggesting that this is representative of the Democratic Party. I'm just saying, in the past, you know, there was a Senate race in Alabama in which Donald Trump endorsed the candidate who had said all kinds of inflammatory things, all kinds of skeletons in his closet, and they ended up losing that Senate race to a Democrat. So, it's happened before. This wouldn't be the first time.
And, by the way, I mean, I do think both of you seem reluctant to take yes for an answer at this table, at least. You have two Democrats basically saying, this guy should go, and you guys are very insistent.
JENNINGS: I'm glad they are.
PHILLIP: But he's representative of the Democratic Party when they're making it clear that he's not.
JENNINGS: I just don't think this guy -- look, he doesn't answer to you. I mean, I wish he did and I wish you were in charge. He answers to the energy base in your party. And right now, the energy is behind these left wing progressive kinds of candidates. This is who they want.
MOYNIHAN: We're talking about this at the end of the show. Zohran Mamdnai feels like another example. Obviously, he doesn't have a Nazi tattoo, but there's a lot of alarming reporting coming out about his ties to terror sympathizers. So, it seems like there is at least --
PHILLIP: Ties over terror sympathizers. All right, as you noted, we will talk about it later on in the show, so we'll get into all of that.
Next, Donald Trump blows up talks with Canada over an ad using Ronald Reagan's words. Are they legit or out of context?
Plus, one of Trump's biggest MAGA allies makes a declaration that's forcing liberals to (ph).
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BANNON: Trump is going to be president in '28, and people just ought to get accommodated with that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:15:00]
PHILLIP: Tonight, Donald Trump freezes Canada out. He says he canceled trade negotiations with them over an ad featuring Ronald Reagan paid for by Ontario's government. That has been airing in the United States for a while now, and here's just part of it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REAGAN: Throughout the world, there's a growing realization that the way to prosperity for all nations is rejecting protectionist legislation and promoting fair and free competition. America's jobs and growth are at stake.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: The Reagan Foundation says the ad misrepresented the words of Ronald Reagan, and they're looking into legal action. Trump claimed the ad was fake and that Reagan actually loved tariffs. Well, we'll let you decide for yourself. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REAGAN: When someone says, let's impose tariffs on foreign imports, it looks like they're doing the patriotic thing by protecting American products and jobs. And sometimes for a short while it works, but only for a short time. What eventually occurs is, first, homegrown industries start relying on government protection in the form of high tariffs. They stop competing and stop making the innovative management and technological changes they need to succeed in world markets.
[22:20:00]
And then while all this is going on, something even worse occurs. High tariffs inevitably lead to retaliation by foreign countries and the triggering of fierce trade wars. The result is more and more tariffs, higher and higher trade barriers, and less competition, so soon because of the prices made artificially high by tariffs that subsidize inefficiency and poor management, people stop buying. Then the worst happens, markets shrink and collapse, businesses and industries shut down and millions of people lose their jobs.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: That was Ronald Reagan, in his own words, a very clear argument against protectionism, against tariffs, Scott.
So, why is Trump so mad about this? Why is he so triggered by this Reagan quote?
JENNINGS: Well, I think he was triggered mostly because he had Canadians running attack ads against him while he's in the middle of trying to negotiate a trade agreement with Canada. So --
PHILLIP: You call that an attack ad or Ronald Reagan --
JENNINGS: Well, he had the government or one of the provinces of Canada, you know, spending money to message against the U.S. trading position while the two nations are trying to work out a trade deal. Yes, he had a negative reaction to it. PHILLIP: He's quoting a United States president and showing images of the U.S. flag next to the Canadian flag and suggesting that we should just be friends. How is that an attack ad?
JENNINGS: If the Canadians want to run negative ads against the United States while we're trying to negotiate some trade agreement, be my guest. They actually don't, because when Trump raised an objection to it, the guy in Ontario, Ford, pulled it down because I'm sure, you know, the federal government, Canada was like, wait a minute, you're messing up our -- we just had a great meeting with Trump the other day, and you're messing up.
PHILLIP: The other issue is that, you know, Ronald Reagan was right. He was right about tariffs. And he makes a really important point, which is that when you see tariffs as a permanent economic solution to American companies not being competitive against the world, it only makes them less competitive in the long run.
And the problem for Trump is that he could argue that tariffs should be of a short duration for a particular goal, but what he really says is that tariffs are good, they help us raise a lot of money, and they should be here basically as a basic premise for how we organize our economy. That's the part that I think he's probably triggered by.
MOYNIHAN: Well, I think that ad is a little unfair because it is taken out of context. The context of that is that, yes, Reagan was promoting free trade, but the prime minister of Japan was just about to come to the White House, and Reagan had actually placed tariffs on a number of goods from Japan.
And if you listen to the full speech that Reagan says, he says, as I've often said, our commitment to free trade is also a commitment to fair trade. So --
PHILLIP: Yes, nobody is arguing against targeting --
MOYNIHAN: He was also levying --
PHILLIP: Yes, but nobody -- that's exactly my point. Well, no, that's exactly the point that I was making. No one's arguing against targeted tariffs because Joe Biden did the same thing. Other United States presidents have used tariffs in a targeted way to achieve particular economic goals. But you're glossing over the part where Donald Trump has made it clear the tariffs are not meant to be temporary. They're meant to just be a permanent state of affairs in how we conduct business in the world. That's what Trump has said with his own mouth. And you can't gloss over that even in this example, when Ronald Reagan was basically saying, we don't want to put tariffs on Japan. We're doing it in this particular instance so that you change your trading policies. Trump is not saying that in the cases where he's slapping tariffs on the entire world.
MOYNIHAN: I think it depends on a case-by-case basis. I think he's trying to get a better deal for --
PHILLIP: But you acknowledge that he's -- (CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: But you acknowledging he is also slapping tariffs on the entire world?
MOYNIHAN: As I think a means of trying to leverage and get better --
PHILLIP: There have been countries that have lowered tariffs and Trump has still levied tar tariffs on them, right? How is that not just putting tariffs on because in his mind it's a way of raising money for the United States?
MOYNIHAN: And he has raised $200 billion.
PHILLIP: Well, guess where it's coming from? Tariff costs -- this is from a CNBC report, tariff costs U.S. companies $1.2 trillion just this year, and we're not even at the end of the year, with consumers taking most of that hit. There is a cost. Americans are paying higher prices. Inflation is back up now to 3 percent year-over-year. That's an increase, the highest increase in several months.
HINOJOSA: Yes, that's right. There is an affordability crisis in our country right now, and I think what Donald Trump heard was the truth in that ad, which is this is bad for business, this is bad for consumers, and this is bad for workers. And the reason why he was so triggered right at this point is because we are less than two weeks away from critical Supreme Court oral arguments that decide the fate of his tariff policy.
And so for him, I think he sees this as, I am -- this might take a massive hit to my potential tariff policy if Americans -- if there is this ad running it across the country or wherever it was running, I'm not sure exactly where it was running, and if people learn the truth about this.
[22:25:11]
The other thing I'll say is this made it worse. Donald Trump cutting off negotiations with Canada only raise this issue for all Americans to hear, and now everybody knows about this ad, to where I am not sure your average family was going to pay attention to this ad anyway. Maybe they were going to, maybe they kind of blow it off, change a channel, whatever, but now let me tell you, I can guarantee you more Americans have heard it now than they were going to when Donald before when it just started running.
JENNINGS: Here's the key issue, and you raised it. It's this Supreme Court case. I've spoken to the president about this when I interviewed him this year. He does not just view the tariffs as economic policy. He views them as foreign policy. He thinks maybe half or more than half of the peace deals that he's negotiated were done, in part because he had the power to use tariffs to get people to the table, and he believes that it will dramatically weaken the presidency and therefore the United States if they rule the liberation day tariffs --
PHILLIP: Well, thank you for saying that because I think, again, it just bolsters what I was saying earlier, which is that this is not a Reaganesque view of tariffs. He thinks of tariffs as just his play tool. And that might be nice for him to think about that, but there is a constitutional issue with it, which is that the power to tariff does not lie with the president. It lies with Congress.
HILL: And, again, it's about the effectiveness of it. And also, let's be honest with the way that he's talked about Canada, the way he has disrespected them, it feels like this ad, frankly, was a soft response given the way that he has treated them. I mean, this has been our neighbor. They have been nothing but good to us. They've helped us out in times of crisis. And so, to me, they're owed a little pettiness. They are owed this kind of response because the reality is that the president has gone out of his way to embarrass this country as much as possible.
And so I'm not surprised that they would take this avenue in order to alert the American people of the larger issue. They're trying to win the narrative war. They understand what's at stake. I don't know if our president does.
PHILLIP: There's a lot of pettiness to go around here in this tariff fight. We'll see how those oral arguments go. It's a really important point that it's coming up very soon.
Next for us, liberals are freaking out tonight over Steve Bannon saying there is a plan to get Trump a third presidential term. But would Republicans stand up against that?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:32:13]
PHILLIP: Could Trump 2028 be a reality? He's, of course, floated the idea for months, but supporters have brushed it off as a joke or a way to own the libs. Steve Bannon though doesn't sound like he's joking about it at all.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEVE BANNON, FORMER WHITE HOUSE CHIEF STRATEGIST: He's going to get a third term. So Trump '28, Trump is going to be president in '28 and people just ought to get accommodated with that.
ZANNY MINTON BEDDOES, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, THE ECONOMIST: So what about the 22nd amendment?
BANNON: There's many different alternatives. At the appropriate time, we'll lay out what the plan is, but there's a plan, and President Trump will be the president in '28.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: I've covered Steve Bannon long enough to know you don't just flip off what he is saying. Do you think that this is actually something that they're going to try to attempt and should they? MOYNIHAN: No, no. I mean, Bannon has no formal involvement with the
Trump White House and if you look at all the stories, the White House declined to comment. The White House rarely declines to comment. So this is him.
PHILLIP: Although I --
MOYNIHAN: I don't know --
PHILLIP: I would argue that the White House response ought to be, no, the president is going to follow the Constitution. He will not be running for a third term.
MOYNIHAN: He has no formal involvement --
PHILLIP: I don't know.
MOYNIHAN: -- at the White House.
HINOJOSA: Can I -- I'm going to dispute this just a little bit. The week before -- the week's leading up to January 6th, Steve Bannon was saying all hell was going to break loose if Donald Trump was not necessary -- they didn't certify the results for Donald Trump. Look at what happened. We had an insurrection. Since then, and I mentioned, and I say, well, as much as I can, is he has not only pardoned 1,600 people that are out on the loose and waiting for their orders.
And when Steve Bannon says that Donald Trump is potentially going to serve another term, he is sending a signal not only to those 1,600 people that rioted and caused an insurrection at the Capitol, but all of MAGA. And so my hope is that we will have a Supreme Court that will end up stopping this. But I actually think that Steve Bannon believes, truly believes that this is the case and he is sending a signal to MAGA that Donald Trump should be the president of the United States in 2028.
PHILLIP: Let me play. So you brought up the Supreme Court. I'm going to play for you what Amy Coney Barrett said in an interview recently when she was asked about this issue. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRETT BAIER, FOX NEWS HOST: The 22nd Amendment says you can only run for office for two terms.
AMY CONEY BARRETT, SUPREME COURT JUSTICE: True.
BAIER: And you think that that's cut and dry?
BARRETT: Well, that's what the amendment says, right? You know, after FDR had four terms, that's what that amendment says.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: She sounds like someone who thinks that this will come before the court and doesn't explain more on the legal sort of underpinning of this.
JENNINGS: Well, there's not much to explain. It's pretty clear. I mean, you can't.
PHILLIP: I agree.
JENNINGS: So, I don't know why you would want to talk it to death.
[22:34:56]
PHILLIP: Why do you think Steve Bannon keeps saying this and that Trump keeps putting, you know, the 2028 hat on the desk and all that?
JENNINGS: Well, he keeps it in the, you know, on the hats and stuff because he's trolling his opponents and he knows how crazy it drives them when he does these kinds of things. Bannon, I don't know. I don't know him personally, I don't know him well at all. Maybe he believes this, maybe he doesn't. I just know what the Constitution says.
I know what most Republicans would think about it and I know what the Supreme Court would do about it. So, I don't really think this is true.
PHILLIP: So, just to get it on the record, Scott, if this came up and there was a real attempt to give Trump a third term, would you be for it or against it?
JENNINGS: I'm long on the record of opposing violating the 22nd amendment to the Constitution.
PHILLIP: This is kind of interesting. You know, Maggie Haberman, who has -- she's covered Trump for a very long time so she understands how this works. She agrees with you on the trolling. She says, "He clearly enjoys knowing that it bothers Democrats that he says this and there's a trolling aspect to it. But the thing with all of his trolls is they start out that way, like Canada as a 51st state, and then he socializes them. They take on a life of their own or he breeds more life into them."
I've covered Trump as well. She is right about that. Steve Bannon is not in the White House, but he's constantly speaking directly to Trump, to people around Trump. These things do take on a life of their own in Trump's own mind. And often that is all that is needed, the permission structure, to figure out one way or another how to make things happen.
JEMELLE HILL, CONTRIBUTING WRITER, THE ATLANTIC: I mean, they've already pretty much understood what the vulnerable points are when it comes to the institutions. As I continue to say, the institutions are only going to work if the people within them are willing to defend them. And considering that he put together this Supreme Court and he did it for a very specific reason because he knows the things that he tries to do that are outside the lines, that if it gets there, he understands that he has crafted the perfect scenario and its checkmate. And so like for people to take this seriously, I think we absolutely should. And I'm sorry, I don't understand this game that we play with him, is like, oh, when he says things that are very dangerous, he's kidding, but then when he actually does it it's like oh, I guess he meant it. It's like I'm not going to play the whole what does he mean game and all he's just trolling when he has shown time and again that he's very serious about the things that he says.
HINOJOSA: Well --
HILL: Everything is a test.
HINOJOSA: Yeah.
HILL: And he's just going to continually see how far he can get with everything and to see how far he can go. And yeah, considering how hard it was to get him out of the White House before, why do we think that this will be any different? He -- we see who he admires. He admires dictators. The dictators don't leave. So, like why would we think that he was joking?
PHILLIP: What does this say about the support for like a J.D. Vance who's widely seen as perhaps the next person in line that someone like Steve Bannon continues to suggest that it's not going to be the next guy. It's not going to be Don, Jr. or J.D. Vance. It has to be Trump. Let me just play a little bit more from this interview with "The Economist" where Bannon kind of expounds on that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BANNON: The only way President Trump wins in 2028 and continues to stay in office is by the will of the American people. Okay? And the will of the American people is what the Constitution embodies. And so I think we're going to be in good hands there. We need to finish what we started. And President Trump is the instrument, a providential instrument to finish that, to finish this job.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Lydia, if you're J.D. Vance what do you think it right now?
MOYNIHAN: I think he thinks that Steve Bannon is trolling. I don't think he takes this seriously the way that we are at this table. That's just the reality. And even Bannon said he thinks it's the will of the people. The will of the people's clearly not supporting that whatsoever, so.
HINOJOSA: The Republicans need to speak out and I'm not sure we are going to get Republicans actually telling trump this is not a good idea or Steve Bannon, and I think that's the problem.
JENNINGS: Trump is not saying it's a good idea. I mean, he said just a few weeks ago, well, I'm not running in 20 -- I mean, he's poo pooed this.
MOYNIHAN: It's clickbait headline. JENNINGS: He has poo pooed this.
HINOJOSA: But you would -- you would call Trump if he is considering this and tell him this is a bad idea?
JENNINGS: If he asked me, I would tell him this is not -- isn't -- you can't do this.
PHILLIP: Well --
JENNINGS: That would be my advice.
PHILLIP: -- just as I said in the first segment, let's take yes for an answer in terms of agreement at the table here from our conservative friends and we'll see what happens. We'll see what happens. I mean, ultimately, I do think to Jemele's point, you've got to take this stuff seriously because often these words become actions and that's what will really matter at the end of the day.
Next for us though, Zohran Mamdani, emotionally stood by his faith after Andrew Cuomo seemed to suggest that he'd cheer on a terror attack. And tonight, Cuomo is calling him an actor.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:40:00]
PHILLIP: Faith is in the spotlight as the race for New York City mayor sprints to the finish line. Tonight, Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani defended his background in a tearful speech after his rival Andrew Cuomo didn't push back on a radio host who had said that Mamdani would cheer on a terror attack.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ZOHRAN MAMDANI, NEW YORK MAYORAL CANDIDATE: I want to speak to the memory of my aunt who stopped taking the subway after September 11th because she did not feel safe in her hijab.
[22:45:05]
I want to speak to the Muslim who works for our city. There are 12 days remaining until election day. I will be a Muslim man in New York City each of those 12 days and every day that follows after that. I will not change who I am, how I eat, or the faith that I am proud to call my own.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: That was his response to Cuomo's sort of laughing, I guess, quiet acquiescence to what was said on that podcast. I want to play what Cuomo said in response to that video that we just showed you. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ANDREW CUOMO, NEW YORK MAYORAL CANDIDATE: Zohran is an actor. Today, he's playing the victim, but in reality, he is the offender. What he has done has so offended the Jewish community in this city.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Well, where do we go from here? I mean, I have to say, by the way, this is like the most classic of New York City political campaigns, right? Like we could not be more in, you know, parody territory here. But Mamdani is clearly realizing there's an opportunity to sort of paint Cuomo as a bigot in this case.
HINOJOSA: Yeah, that's right. I think that what Cuomo did was terrible. We should never be targeting anybody for the color of their skin or their religion. And if we disagree with Mamdani on issues, what he has said previously that still does not make his comments and his targeting okay. I will say that there are many women who are offended with what Cuomo has done as well. And so I think that it is -- it was right for Mamdani to speak out about how he's grown up. We remember a time, 9/11, where Muslims were targeted and it was a very, very scary time for them. And he, I am sure, him and his family faced all sorts of threats and that is something we shouldn't take lightly.
And Cuomo, if he cannot act like a mayor, then he should not be mayor. This is -- I mean, he should not be going to this level of criticizing and going after him for his religion or the color of his skin and it's unacceptable.
MOYNIHAN: No one is attacking Mamdani. We are not attacking Mamdani for his skin, for his -- but he continues to ally himself with people who are terror sympathizers. Last week, he posted a photo of himself smiling his arms around this imam calling him a pillar of a community. This guy has said America is filthy, it is sick. He has applauded jihad. Meanwhile, he's asked can you tell Hamas to lay down their weapons? He won't do it, he won't condemn globalizing the intifada.
And so he has this pattern of continuing to celebrate people who are sympathetic to terrorizers. That is alarming and you can raise the alarm bells about that without being sexist or racist or any of these offenses that we're leveling against Cuomo.
PHILLIP: I just want to make a note because I mentioned this last night, but this particular imam that you're referring to, the last mayor or the current mayor actually of New York City, Eric Adams, gave him an award as mayor. He met with Bloomberg when in 2009 Bloomberg later said they weren't aware of the full context. But my point is only that --
MOYNIHAN: Mamdani is aware of the full context.
PHILLIP: Well, let me just -- well, hold on a second.
MOYNIHAN: And he's choosing to pose with him in the weeks before the election. That is an intentional decision.
PHILLIP: Listen, it's not a defense of this individual who was what you're referring to is that he was named in an indictment as a possible co-conspirator in a long list of people. That list was criticized by many people as being overly broad.
MOYNIHAN: But there are also videos surfacing --
PHILLIP: But I'm just pointing --
MOYNIHAN: -- of Americans sick and --
PHILLIP: But hold on a second. I'm not defending him. I'm just adding a little bit of context here. And also making a note that again, the guy who's the current mayor, has also been associated with this same imam. So that's part of the context of the situation politically in New York.
HILL: And that's an important not to make because why didn't Eric Adams faced the same criticism? It's like it's a very easy bullseye to play on Mamdani's back because of his faith. And Andrew Cuomo is not stupid. He knows what he's doing. He's playing to everybody's faith. He's making sure that people are reminded, hey, the Muslim guy is running for mayor. And if you don't want any of these other things, this is why you can't vote for him.
Like, I think there's plenty of things to criticize and make aware about Mamdani that have nothing to do with his face. His lack of experience, other things that can become the highlight. But when he goes the bigoted route, what it makes you do is not pay attention to the other things. That's why it's a bad strategy to employ, especially in a city that has, what, a million Muslims.
[22:49:58]
PHILLIP: And right now, I should note that today, Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader in the House, did actually, after a long time, endorse Mamdani saying, "Mamdani has relentlessly focused on addressing the affordability crisis and explicitly committed to being a mayor for all New Yorkers, including those who don't support his candidacy. In that spirit, I support him and the entire citywide Democratic ticket in the general election."
Mamdani despite the criticism from Cuomo is still polling with about 30 percent of Jewish voters in the city. So there is a bit of a split happening here. It's clearly not a universal view that he can't gain the support of some Jewish voters, although a majority are with Cuomo.
JENNINGS: Yeah, and you know are very liberal Jewish voters in New York City, that's for sure. You know, look, I think that Cuomo's best vector is the experience vector. But it is true, Mamdani, he has allied himself with certain people, a lot of the people that surround him, the people involved in this Democratic socialist organization. They may have said more than a handful of eyebrow-raising things when it comes to their views of America, their views of Jewish people, and so on and so forth.
He knows that. He does align himself with them. He doesn't really distance himself. Today he has this press conference. I watched a good chunk of it. I didn't hear any words for the victims of 9/11, but he found the real victim, his aunt. You know, I mean, the victims of 9/11 were in the Twin Towers. Those were the victims.
PHILLIP: Is the implication here that he has to answer for the terrorists who attacked 9-11?
JENNINGS: No. I think if you're going to have a press -- if you're going to run for mayor of New York City, if I have any position in New York City and you're going to talk about 9/11 or invoke 9/11, you darn sure better start with the people who died in the Twin Towers. That's what I think. And he didn't do that and he kind of, you know, he made it about his experience and his aunt and all this.
My advice would be if you're going to want to be the mayor of this town, and by the way, he's probably going to win. That moment in our history, you cannot lose sight of what happened. People died in those Twin Towers. They did not deserve to die. We did suffer a terrorist attack and we can't really forget the moment making it about him and his family, okay. There were almost 3,000 people that died there. It's a big deal.
HILL: Yeah, but he was just -- I understand he trying to personalize it, but we also pick and choose when we want to take the allegiances that people have to mean that they adopt those same values. There's a lot of allegiances the president has that are very questionable. So it's not okay to do it there, but it's okay to do it here. I mean, who the president has surrounded himself with, that's totally fine.
That's supposed to not be indicative of what he believes, but in this case, whoever he surrounds himself with or takes a picture with, that's supposed to mean something. It's like, we've got to be consistent about who your circle is and how that reflects on you.
PHILLIP: All right. Coming up next, Chef Ginevra has some night caps for us. Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:55:00]
PHILLIP: The comedians of "Have I Got News for You" are back and they're reacting to this morning's arraignment of the New York Attorney General, Letitia James.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROY WOOD, JR., COMEDIAN: MSNBC confirmed the existence of a memo written by one of the career prosecutors who was fired by Lindsey Halligan and the memo doesn't look great for the prosecution's case.
UNKNOWN: Remember the prosecutors alleged that the profit that James made on this mortgage, favorable interest rate they alleged that she got on the second home amounted to about $50 a month.
PAULA POUNDSTONE, COMEDIAN: In the picture there, it was -- with a sketch artist, right? Of all the things that we've done to our justice system where it's just not right. They were still hanging on to that no cameras, no cameras in the courtroom. I feel like coming out naked except for band-aids over your nipples, you know what I mean? Like at this point, who cares if there's cameras in the courtroom? It doesn't matter. There's born to sketch guy, now, okay, you can only see him in charcoal. That's just silly.
WOOD, JR.: Hey, Paula Poundstone, not a fan of the sketch artist union.
POUNDSTONE: That's not what I'm saying.
WOOD, JR.: That's what you said. I heard you taking jobs away from sketch artists. Not what I heard.
POUNDSTONE: I have a background in courtroom sketch artists.
WOOD, JR.: Now on to Halligan's other case --
POUNDSTONE: My whole family was in courtroom sketch.
(LAUGHTER)
There was the criminal element of the Poundstone family and then there were the sketchers.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIP: You can catch an all-new episode tomorrow at 9:00 p.m. right here on CNN. But here in the Food Network, Chef Ginevra Iverson, Food Network kitchen's executive chef. She's here with us to tell us about these beautiful plates we have in front of us. Chef, what do have here?
GINEVRA IVERSON, EXECUTIVE CHEF, FOOD NETWORK: Yes. We went with a theme of Oktoberfest for tonight.
PHILLIP: Okay.
IVERSON: And so this is a sauerbraten. This is from FoodNetwork.com. We pickled the meat for a couple days and then braised it with aromatics and it has a lot of red wine and red wine vinegar and served with spaetzle and some braised vegetables, a little bit of red cabbage as well.
PHILLIP: You pickled the meat.
IVERSON: Yeah.
PHILLIP: I have never heard that (inaudible).
IVERSON: Yeah. I think it probably it was to preserve it initially, you know, back when there wasn't refrigeration.
[23:00:00]
And so, it's carried on. It's like half vinegar, half red wine, and you marinate it for a couple of days.
JENNINGS: You braised it with what?
