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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Judges Order Trump Administration To Fund Food Stamps Amid Shutdown; Trump Tells Republicans To Go Nuclear, End Filibuster Now; Trump, Democrats Face First Major Electoral Test In Second Administration; Heritage Foundation President Sparked Outrage On The Tucker Carlson Interview With A Far-Right Activist; Trump Administration Touts Renovation Works One Month Into The Government Shutdown. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired October 31, 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, 40 million Americans facing hunger with food stamps about to expire. Trump shrugged it off as the Democrats problem.
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: When you're talking about SNAP, if you look, it's largely the Democrats. They're hurting their wrong people.
PHILLIP: But after courts weigh in, Trump now says he'll fund it.
Plus, the first report card on the Trump's second term comes in four days. How will Americans vote in key races across the country? And will seeing this guy back on the trail energize Democrats?
Also, Tucker Carlson platforms Hitler-admiring Nick Fuentes. Now, The Heritage Foundation is leaping to Carlson's defense.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The venomous coalition attacking him or sowing division. Their attempt to cancel him will fail.
PHILLIP: Mitch McConnell, Ted Cruz and even Laura Loomer are firing back.
And the big reveal in this episode of extreme makeover, White House edition, the new Lincoln bathroom. What would honest Abe think? Trump says he'd approved.
Live at the table, Cari Champion, Marc LoPresti, Charles Blow and Katie Frost.
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 at the test kitchen of the Food Network, our sister company, for Fall Fridays, and we'll catch up with that crowd a little later in the show.
But, first, let's get right to what America's talking about, the survival of food stamps, at least for now, two Federal judges telling Trump that it's required to use emergency funds to cover at least some of the food stamp benefits for November.
Now, the money is going to run out tomorrow, and that reserve fund has more than $5 billion in it, but nearly $9 billion is required to cover next month's benefits. Still, the White House has claimed that that money is not accessible at all during a shutdown.
But the judges weren't buying that argument in Massachusetts. The judge ruled that the White House's decision to suspend benefits next month was, quote, based on the erroneous conclusion that the contingency funds couldn't be used. And the judge in Rhode Island agreed, adding that the shutdown of the government doesn't do away with SNAP. It just does away with the funding of it.
But tonight, it appears that Trump is backing down. He posted on Truth Social that the White House lawyers are unsure if they have the authority to move the money around, and he instructed them to, quote, ask the court to clarify how we can legally fund SNAP as soon as possible. Then he said, quote, if we are given the appropriate legal direction by the court, it will be my honor to provide the funding, just like I did with the military and law enforcement.
Now, that is quite a 180 in less than 24 hours.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: They really have become a very radical left part then. And they've lost their minds. They've lost their minds. All they have to do is say, the government is opening. That's the end of it. And, you know, largely, when you talk about SNAP, you're talking about largely Democrats, but I'm president, I want to help everybody.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: And, of course, I mean, SNAP benefits are not given largely to Democrats. I mean, when you look at the map of where people are on food stamps, a lot of those places are in Republican states. And it does seem that Trump recognized that when he changed his tone. He was like, well, I'm going to do for these benefits like I did for the military and law enforcement. And that's really not the posture that he and Republicans had. I mean, are they recognizing that this is really something that also affects their voters?
CHARLES BLOW, THE LANGSTON HUGHES FELLOW, HARVARD UNIVERSITY: I was really shocked at how they were handling this and writing off these low income voters, because that was a large part of Trump's base. And, you know, his standing among low income voters was crashing. There was one poll that was taken in August, then taken again in September. He had -- you know, the difference was like 44 percentage points between the way he had lost on his approval and what he had gained in his disapproval. This is a crash.
And I don't think that people were fully recognizing how low income people process politics.
[22:05:04]
They're not sitting on -- time is a luxury. Time is a commodity. Low income people don't always have it in the same degree that other people do. So, they don't sit around worrying about every little nook and cranny of the political debate. They're not necessarily figuring out who the players are. They're just saying, what do you mean the money's not going to be here to get the food next week? What do you mean? And that is where I thought they were making a real political miscalculation for themselves.
PHILLIP: Katie, was it a cave and was it right to cave?
KATIE FROST, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Well, I don't see it as a cave, but I will tell you what's really been frustrating to me is that there have been over 13 votes where Senate Democrats could have voted to reopen the government, which would've done the SNAP funding.
What I really want to see is U.S. reopen the government, fund these programs, and then let's have a conversation about how we have a country where 40 million people don't need to be on these programs. Let's create a country and an environment and an economy where people don't need supplemental assistance from the government, but they can provide for their families from a good paying job. That, to me, needs to be a Republican position going forward.
PHILLIP: But, I mean, that's -- I think that's totally reasonable, but the time is probably not now to have that broader conversation, I mean. At the end of the day yes, it is a total indictment on this society, that we have people who are working, by the way, and who cannot make enough money to put food on the table for them and their families. However, it's November 1st, tomorrow, and they got to pay their bills. They have to go to the grocery store. They've got to feed their kids so they can go off to school. Like that is the imminent issue.
CARI CHAMPION, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, yes, they -- time is a luxury for a lot of us, and they don't have the time and they don't understand. What I really find very interesting is here we are in the midnight hour and he, you know what, once they clarify how I can get these out, I'll try to do it as soon as possible, but I hope that we can get it. There will still be some delays. If, in fact, he wanted to do this, he would've done this a long time ago.
PHILLIP: And they've done it before.
CHAMPION: And they've done it before. There's been a precedent. So, for you to say, I get it, yes, I would love in whatever world we live in, to have a wonderful conversation about us changing the way in which people are on SNAP and making a world so that we all don't have to feel that way, or taxpayers don't feel like they have to take the brunt of that, but that is not where we are today.
And I think it's really disingenuous of the president to come on and say, soon as they show me how to do it, I will do it. I'm going to get right to it. I just don't believe that. He could have done it when he wanted to do it. And it's not a Democratic problem. It's not a Republican problem. It's a humanity problem and he doesn't see the humanity in me.
MARC LOPRESTI, CEO AND SENIOR MARKET STRATEGIST, MARKET REBELLION: Well, hunger in this country, of course, is a humanity problem. It's not a Republican or a Democrat problem. And the country is rich and prosperous and successful as ours. It's an embarrassment. It's a national embarrassment. There's no doubt about that. But I think what the president was trying to do here was get at some of the problems with these programs. We know there's a lot of fraud that's part of the -- unfortunately, part of the SNAP problems. There's abuse. There's waste.
PHILLIP: But that support that's out there 1 percent fraud in that problem.
LOPRESTI: There are varying reports, Abby.
PHILLIP: I mean, obviously there's fraud in everything, but, I mean, a 1 percent rate of fraud is a pretty low rate of fraud. I mean, people --
CHAMPION: To your point, 83 percent of people are either children on SNAP, Americans with disabilities or elderly.
LOPRESTI: Listen, the program has its place and it does need to be funded. I think part of the question though here is, is this really something that the court should be deciding or is this something for Congress?
And when we talk about time, that's part of the reason why we saw this change, I think, in tone because we ran out of time politically. We do have that first popularity contest on Tuesday, and you got to think the president's concerned about that.
PHILLIP: And we'll talk about that. But Trump is also now saying the Republicans should go nuclear, Katie. He's saying, it's time for Republicans to play their trump card and go for what's called the nuclear option. Get rid of the filibuster and get rid of it now. For those who don't know, the filibuster is what requires essentially 60 votes in the Senate in order to get a bill passed. And this has been this political football for a long time, and Republicans, even today, House Speaker Mike Johnson, here's what he said when he was asked about Trump pushing for getting rid of the filibuster in the Senate. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): But the filibuster has traditionally been viewed as a very important safeguard. If the shoe was on the other foot, I don't think our team would like it. The Democrats, look, they've said what they would do. They would pack the Supreme Court. They would make Puerto Rico and D.C. states. They would ban firearms. They would do all sorts of things that would be very harmful for the country. And the safeguard in the Senate has always been a filibuster. (END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: I mean, Congress is already a doormat right now, so Trump wants it to be even more of an open door for him to do whatever he wants. Is Mike Johnson right or is Trump right?
FROST: When I look at something like removing the filibuster, it's one of those, you know, short-term gain, long-term pain potential options.
[22:10:00]
Yes, you might be able to get some things you want passed in, you know, the short-term, but what are the long-term implications for the chamber? And never do anything when you're in power that you aren't okay within the other party doing when they are in power. So, if I was a member of the Senate, which I'm not running, just to clarify, but if I was a member of the U.S. Senate, I would be wanting to keep the filibuster --
PHILLIP: Trump does not subscribe to that.
BLOW: No.
PHILLIP: He does not. We know.
BLOW: They don't have the votes to do this even if they wanted to try it. But this is my (INAUDIBLE) moment. Like please do it. Please do it. Because Democrats wanted to do it last when Biden was in office. They wanted to do it in order to pass the voting rights protections and to pass the police reform bills. But they didn't do it because Manchin and Sinema held out and Biden also did not want to have it done. He was a more of an institutionalist, didn't want it to have it done. But if they ever, you are right, the tide will shift and there will come a moment when all of that will be very easy to pass when Democrats are back in control, assuming we do have fair elections going forward. And, you know, Democrats will get exactly what they had been asking for and what they were asking for under Biden.
So, I'm saying please do it. If you think you want to do that, please do it.
FROST: Well, and also President Biden had been in the Senate for pretty much what, two thirds of his life.
BLOW: Yes, he was an institution.
FROST: I mean, he was definitely someone who had seen the changes that happened, different parties coming and going.
PHILLIP: But the way that Trump governs is not with ever the idea of the shoe being on the other foot. He has done a number of things as president that if this were done when a Democrat is in the White House, Republicans would be crying foul. But that's not really how he's governed. So, it doesn't surprise me that he's like, who cares? Power is power. Win while you can. LOPRESTI: I think at the end of the day though, Abby, some of this, and I've been pretty candid with you on this show about President Trump, this is part of his negotiating strategy, right? If you guys are going to push it so far, then we'll get rid of the filibuster. And, of course, a lot of the Republican contingent has said, not so quietly, hey, wait a second, that's not a great idea.
But I think it's important just to look at some of the statistics on the filibuster and the composition of the Senate. Since 1970, the average winning Senate majority has been 55 seats. So, that filibuster has actually been an important tool for both parties to maintain some level of ability to legislate effectively and not have the Senate just turn into the House.
PHILLIP: So, how does this end, Cari? The polling has been kind of stagnant. There's been a slight shift toward Republicans between the beginning of October and now, but very slight, like within the margin of error to the point -- almost within the margin of error, to the point where you can basically say not much has changed. So, who is going to, who is going to give in first and should it be the Democrats?
CHAMPION: You know, this is such an interesting question because we talk about it all the time. I don't necessarily know if either will give in. I definitely feel as if the Democrats are holding onto the little bit of leverage that they have and so that's why they are --
LOPRESTI: They've admitted it.
FROST: That exact word. They refer to people not getting paid --
(CROSSTALKS)
CHAMPION: Yes. And I don't mind that. I have no problem with that. Let me tell you why I have no problem with that. Because the way that we just talked about the way this president governs, it's his way or the highway, he does not -- if his shoe was on the opposite foot, he would not be giving in. He would be holding fast. So, why not do the same thing.
BLOW: And let's not pretend that Johnson and the Republicans have not in front of a mike said that they're doing this for leverage.
CHAMPION: Yes.
BLOW: They literally went into court and argued, we would like to let these people starve so we can maintain leverage to take away their healthcare and let them die. That is the crux of that argument.
CHAMPION: And I don't think the president really changed his mind, Abby. I think he's saying, well, if you say that I must do this in the high courts, I guess I'll do it, because I want everyone -- he does not. That is not true. He could care less about these people, and you know that.
LOPRESTI: I can't agree with that. I think that's a very, very draconian and very terrible view of a president and where we are as a country.
CHAMPION: It would be a horrible thing for someone to do that. But have we not seen a president --
PHILLIP: I also, I mean, I don't think Trump is stupid about his voters. I think he understands exactly what Charles laid out earlier, which is that a lot of these people are his people. Most people receiving food stamps are white folks. You look at the map, a lot of them are in the south and in the Sunbelt. But, look, I mean, I think Trump is about Trump. Republicans in Congress are about the Republican Party. And I think he is seeing what's good for him politically. And this is an open door for him to sort of to break with this strategy that, frankly, I don't know, was even working to begin with, to hold food stamps hostage in this debate.
FROST: But I'll tell you something. When I look at what's been happening and how different people have responded to the shutdown, one of the things I'm reminded of is Fred Rogers look for the helpers. As we see SNAP benefits starting to run out, I have seen food banks being overrun, not with demand, but with people showing up to volunteer, with people wanting to give donations. I've got local GOPs in my state, they're adopting families. If you're losing your benefits, let us know we're going to come and provide you with food.
[22:15:03]
So, yes, there's chaos in D.C. but the beautiful thing I believe about America is that when the government fails, we step up and we help our neighbors.
BLOW: That is not a beautiful thing. What that shows is --
FROST: You don't think helping your neighbor is a beautiful thing?
BLOW: You're framing it wrong. What is happening is that the people are saying the government is about to let you starve. So, I'm going to come out and put some cans in a basket and give it away to the food bank. That is not a beautiful thing. That is trying to avert tragedy. And the government should never put these people in a position where they say, I have to put a -- make a bag of canned goods in order to keep my neighbors from starving to death because the government won't do what they said they're supposed to do.
People on food stamps are not -- as you just said, they're not -- most of them, 80 percent of them, they're not people sitting around twiddling their thumbs, waiting to go shopping and buy crab legs. So, these are people who are disabled. A lot of them are children.
PHILLIP: Single mothers.
BLOW: That's a lot of people. They're not just sitting around. And what the government is saying, and the Trump administration went into the course and said was that we want the option to not pay right now as a tactic.
FROST: Democrats have the option to say right now if they voted to fund the government.
BLOW: Yes. So, Democrats could say, yes, we'll vote for this and we'll also let these subsidies run out for healthcare, so you're going to die one way or another. Either you're going to starve to death or you're going to die because you don't have health insurance.
CHAMPION: The money was available. We didn't even have to be here. The money was available in reserves. Why are we here right now at the midnight hour trying to figure out how we give money to these? And here's what's beautiful. The beautiful part is that the citizens are just tired of the government not doing anything.
FROST: And if these programs didn't exist, we would take care of our neighbors. That's what I think is a beautiful thing.
PHILLIP: Next for us, the Trump administration will get its first round of feedback from Americans in some states on Tuesday as they cast their votes. We'll discuss that.
Plus, an interview with a white nationalist is revealing deep divides within MAGA. What does this mean for the movement going forward? We'll debate that as well.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:20:00]
PHILLIP: Tonight, the final countdown begins. President Trump might not be on the ballot but key races in Tuesday's election will serve as the first major test of his agenda. Now, those races include Virginia, New Jersey's governor's race and New York City's mayoral race, also California's redistricting proposition that was made in response to off-year redistricting efforts in Texas and other red states.
And so this is going to be a consequential Tuesday but it's kind of a mixed bag in the sense that all of these different races represent different things. And I'm not sure that there's a big blanket statement that you can make coming out of it but it will test where the energy is perhaps on both sides of the political spectrum.
FROST: Oh, it definitely can. Like a friend of mine who's not very political. She asked me, she goes, why are they talking about Virginia and New Jersey on T.V. all the time? Like, well, it's the first statewide elections after a presidential election. And the people that are paid to talk about politics on T.V. live in New Jersey and Virginia, so they want to talk about their states a lot. That's why you're hearing it.
PHILLIP: Yes. And it's a very nerdy thing to talk about off-year elections.
FROST: It is a very nerdy thing but we're at a table of nerds tonight.
PHILLIP: Yes, so here we are.
FROST: So, that's what we do. When I look at things like, so Virginia, for example, it is absolutely always the case, except for twice in the last 50 years here, I'm being a nerd, only twice in the last 50 years have we seen the party that wins the White House then win the governor's mansion. It happened in 2013 with Terry McAuliffe, and then it happened in 1973. Other than that, it just flips back and forth, back and forth between whoever wins the White House, you lose the governor's race in Virginia. That's just how it goes.
New York, we're going to talk about that mayoral election. I know that's a big one, a lot of people pay attention to. And then you have states like New Jersey, another one of those states that it doesn't always align with their statewide elections with how they vote in presidential races.
So, Virginia and New Jersey are different states, but they do have some similarities there. I would say don't write the eulogy of the Democratic Party, the Republican Party if things aren't good in Virginia, because these are seats that Democrats should naturally win. And if Republicans are making a good play there, I think --
PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, I think New Jersey is also a place where if Republicans are still -- I mean, they are competitive. There's no question that's a competitive race. But if they're doing really well there, that might be a red flag. But in New York and in California, this is going to be a test of how excited the base is.
But, you know, one of the interesting things has been that Obama -- President Obama -- former President Obama is out on the campaign trail. And, you know, that's a bit of a change for him. He doesn't always come out in these off-year elections, but here's what someone close to him said. He doesn't want to be the leader of the party. He was the leader of the free world, but it feels like sometimes he's got to speak his mind. No one expected this, this person said, this bad, this ugly, literally, the rule of law in play every day, to which many people say, actually, many people predicted that this would happen. So, if I guess this person close to Obama is surprised, that would be unusual.
LOPRESTI: I mean, I think this speaks more to how concerned the Democratic Party is in New Jersey about the possibility of Jack Ciattarelli actually beating Mikie Sherrill for the governor's seat. And if you watch how those polls, they've gotten that more and more and more and more narrow, and Mikie's lead over Jack is only a couple of percentage points. I spoke to a couple of people that are political insiders in New Jersey.
President Obama expected to come out in support of Mikie Sherrill in Newark actually tomorrow, if I'm not mistaken, on Saturday, I think it speaks to just how concerned they are that New Jersey, which traditionally votes Democrat, has been a Democratic stronghold in recent years, is really concerned about the possibility of losing that seat to Jack Ciattarelli, who is a Trump conservative Republican, fiscally conservative guy who's been inside New Jersey politics for many, many years.
[22:25:25]
FROST: Many years. And an interesting point from the polling is when they broke it down, they asked people, how do you plan to vote? Are you voting early? Are you voting absentee by mail? Are you voting on Election Day? And Ciattarelli is absolutely dominating election day votes. So, if there's a good turnout on Election Day, there could be a surprise to talk about on the show Wednesday morning.
BLOW: But there is a thing that we should keep an eye on, which is, it does speak to on the statewide races whether or not the Trump policies are penetrating in some way, because a lot of people in Virginia are people who work in the government, been laid off, people been laid off, stressed out about their jobs. A lot of people in New Jersey worried about infrastructure projects that have been held up or canceled. These are kind of people who are dependent on the institutions that Trump is basically going at and attacking. So, I think we should keep an eye on that.
And I think on the Obama side, you know, the Democratic Party's still a big tent. You know, there's still constituencies that he speaks very well to. He may not be all the young, most progressive people, but there are people he speaks very well to. And, personally, you know, he's about to open his big presidential center. You know, I think he feels like he needs to also be part of the politics at the moment, so it doesn't look like, oh, I did this big grand thing after this was over, but I didn't show up for -- to campaign --
(CROSSTALKS)
LOPRESTI: It's a recognition that the Democratic Party needs leadership now. He's the man. He's the man.
BLOW: I don't think he even wants to be that.
LOPRESTI: I don't disagree with that.
BLOW: He doesn't want to be that.
PHILLIP: Maybe even if he doesn't want to be, by default, the absence of a leader means that --
CHAMPION: He has to step up. And the last time they ever saw any type of success was with him. And they still, and this administration consistently refers to him all the time as if he's still in office when people want to criticize. And I also believe that this is what he's saying, all right, it's time for me to do it.
I don't necessarily know, though, if in fact his leadership is going to change anything. But I do know it makes sense for him to step up and say, all right, let's guide us somewhere until we find someone else who is the shining star.
BLOW: I get that point. But with any president, they exist -- they win because they're the right person at a moment in time. They're matched to the moment. They would not have won ten years before. They probably wouldn't have won ten years later. But in that moment, they're matched. His moment, he was matched to the time. Right now --
PHILLIP: Not so much right now?
BLOW: Not so much right now. And I don't think he wants to -- I don't think he wants all that on his shoulders. I think he wants to contribute.
CHAMPION: Yes.
BLOW: And that's --
PHILLIP: And then where he's going, I think, also makes sense. I mean, he's going where -- he's not in New York, right? He's involved in California in that proposition. But he's in the places where they want the sort of moderate candidate, centrist candidate to win on the Democratic side. So, that tells you a lot about where he thinks he can be helpful.
FROST: As a Republican, when I see President Obama out on the campaign trail, to me it's like he's in case of emergency break glass. When the Democratic Party are concerned, they deploy one of their remaining popular --
PHILLIP: Although, I will say, he's been breaking the glass a lot more often lately partly because --
BLOW: Nobody tells him what to do.
PHILLIP: Well, partly because there's not really many other Democrats who have as much pull as he still does have.
LOPRESTI: They do.
CHAMPION: And nothing's wrong with that.
PHILLIP: Next for us, a new interview is unearthing a fracture in MAGA world. What does it mean for the future of that movement brought to the president's office? We'll debate.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:30:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: Tonight, the fallout from Tucker Carlson's interview with white nationalist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes is highlighting a deepening divide in MAGA World. Outrage from all corners about Carlson giving Fuentes a platform pushed The Heritage Foundation to defend the stunt in which America's support for Israel was discussed.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KEVIN ROBERTS, PRESIDENT, THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION: Christians can critique the state of Israel without being anti-Semitic. Conservatives should feel no obligation to reflexively support any foreign government, no matter how loud the pressure becomes from the globalist class or from their mouthpieces in Washington.
I disagree with, and even abhor, things that Nick Fuentes says, but canceling him is not the answer either. When we disagree with a person's thoughts and opinions, we challenge those ideas in debate.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Obviously, that didn't help. Conservative David French responded, saying, "The fringe is now the mainstream, and one of the most powerful institutions in the American right is bending the knee."
Roberts from Heritage trying again tonight, posting that they denounce Fuentes, but the task at Heritage is to confront those ideas and not cancel them, but to guide the conversation and be confident that the best ideas will prevail.
[22:34:57]
This is kind of amazing, because Nick Fuentes used to be, or at least should be, somebody who was on the fringes of our political society, and to have The Heritage Foundation so invested in defending this, that they would put out a video and then a tweet, not really saying a whole lot different, basically saying, we're not going to cancel him, when really he probably should be canceled. That's amazing. I'm shocked.
LOPRESTI: Yes, not a good thing for the Republican Party. I certainly don't agree with this. I think what really the focus should have been on is Tucker's conduct during that interview.
It's one thing to say that we should give a voice to differing opinions, that we should not oppose free speech, and I'm very much a free speech person, but I think Tucker's attitude, the way that he was sort of nodding and almost implicitly endorsing some of what Fuentes was saying during the interview, I think that's what we really should be talking about, and not just sort of a blanket endorsement that he should have a platform. I think that's where this has gone really wrong.
PHILLIP: So let me just play this other thing that happened, because this is the other part of the context. It's not just the Nick Fuentes thing. It's also what happened when J.D. Vance was at a Turning Point event, and he posed a question about Israel by one of the attendees in the audience.
Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNKNOWN: I'm a Christian man, and I'm just confused why that there's this notion that not only does their religion not agree with ours, but also openly supports the prosecution of ours.
J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: First of all, when the President of the United States says America First, that means that he pursues the interests of Americans first. So when people say that Israel is somehow manipulating or controlling the President of the United States, they're not controlling this President of the United States, which is one of the reasons why we'd be able to have some of the success that we've had in the Middle East.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So Vance takes the premise that Israel is controlling American presidents, and he sort of grants it. He just says Trump isn't being controlled, and a lot of conservatives had a problem with that.
Eric Erickson says, I know what Kevin Roberts and J.D. Vance and others are doing as they dance around some of these guys. They want to attract young Zoomers to their side, many of them male, and think that the way to do it is to punch back hard against critics, refuse to fold to criticism, and show a high tolerance for inflammatory positions that rile up the left.
So there are some people who are saying, why didn't Vance call out this idea that Jewish people are the enemy of Christians and that they control American politicians?
KATIE FROST, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: You know, in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk's murder, one of the things a lot of people expressed concern about is that voices like Nick Fuentes could potentially try to fill that void. He has a similar target audience to the people that Charlie spoke to, Charlie had an incredible following among young men.
It really resonated with him, and they listened to him, and now they're kind of without a home, and they're looking for somebody. Nick Fuentes is not that person.
PHILLIP: Are you worried, though, that that could actually happen?
FROST: I'm hopeful that ultimately good will prevail in this kind of conversation. One of the problems, though, is when you constantly just say, we're not going to talk about it, we're not going to talk about it, and you push it to the side, that emboldens him. And he's like, look, they don't want you to hear what I'm going to say.
You hear Candace Owen kind of use that same thing, like, this is what they don't want you to know. No, we need to confront these head-on, we need to talk about it, and it needs to be put in its place.
PHILLIP: But I mean, I think that's what was being asked of J.D. Vance, perhaps in that moment. But he sort of just treated it as a reasonable premise when it really should have been a correction, and I don't know that the correction happened.
CHARLES BLOW, THE LANGSTON HUGHES FOUNDATION, HARVARD UNIVERSITY: But the bigger problem here is that anti-Semitism is the real thing, and it needs to be confronted and dealt with. What this shows us is that they don't really want to deal with it, the principle of it, they want to deal with the politics of it. They only want to condemn it when it's the liberals doing it, and not when the conservatives are doing it, and that exposes this as a fraud. What the Heritage Foundation says, they don't want to cancel these
guys, Nick Fuentes, I guess Carson too, they don't want to cancel them. But they just did this Project Esther, where they literally said they wanted to cancel college professors because they said that they were Hamas-supporting organizations. They lumped in everything pro- Palestinian into Hamas-supporting organizations, according to Project Esther's website.
You can't say you don't want to cancel this guy, who's overtly saying anti-Semitic things.
PHILLIP: He said, I love Hitler.
BLOW: You can't say you don't want to cancel him, and literally put in your documents that you want to cancel college professors who may support or have sympathies for Palestinians. It doesn't work.
[22:40:04]
CARI CHAMPION, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: There's also the idea that Tucker Carlson is so powerful within this group, and that they didn't want to condemn him, to your point, because you said you didn't like his behavior, how he was nodding, and he seemed almost convinced.
There was a song, maybe you all can help me. Cyndi Lauper had this one song.
LOPRESTI: "Girls Just Want to Have Fun."
CHAMPION: That too. I see your "True Colors," was that her?
LOPRESTI: Yes.
CHAMPION: Like, let me tell you something. They're starting to implode, and you're going to see their true colors.
The reason why I believe The Heritage Foundation didn't want to cancel and or condemn and say anything bad is because they need certain people to be a part of this party, to make them feel like they're legitimate, to reach that group that you said that they might be afraid of losing because there's no more Charlie Kirk, there is still this Tucker Carlson person, and his behavior and how he, your words, how he was behaving almost led us to believe that it was okay.
FROST: I don't think anyone would want to be judged based on their conduct in one interview. It was a two-hour and 12-minute interview.
No, he has interviewed Vladimir Putin. All right. He's interviewed the President of Iran.
PHILLIP: He's also brought a historian on his show that he lauded as this great historian who basically was diminishing the Holocaust. Tucker Carlson did that too.
FROST: Is that one interview as well? PHILLIP: But here's the thing. I think that the reason conservatives
are having this argument right now is because there are some conservatives who are worried about what this portends for the future, for the people who are going to run for the presidency the next time around, most notably J.D. Vance. How far are they willing to go to appeal to these young, perhaps disaffected white men and play footsie with some of this stuff?
I mean, I think that is the question. That's the question that Mitch McConnell was asking, that even Laura Loomer is asking, that Ted Cruz is asking.
LOPRESTI: I think what the conservatives are concerned about is that there is no place for anti-Semitism in this country. There is no place for this kind of rhetoric. There is no place for this kind of hatred, just like there's no place for the kind of hatred and rhetoric that led to Charlie's assassination.
There is no place for it in the Republican Party. There's no place for it in the Democratic Party. But there is a place in this country for free speech, and the problem is that free speech sometimes gets uncomfortable when what's being said starts to approach a fringe.
And what we have to avoid doing, and this is where I have a real problem with Tucker Carlson, who I have historically had some respect for, you cannot give a platform in the name of free speech and then tacitly endorse that kind of--
FROST: We also cannot pretend--
BLOW: We're just splitting our hair, though, because rhetoric is speech.
FROST: But we can't pretend like this is a unique--
BLOW: Well, it is, but there are varying degrees. That's the whole thing is about degree. The idea of free speech is to protect speech you disagree with, that you vehemently disagree with.
Listen, if I agree with it, then we need protection. We've got to take that off the table. What we're saying here is there's a hypocrisy issue.
You're saying that anti-Semitism doesn't have a place, but it seems to have a place in the--
PHILLIP: We do have to leave it there, everyone.
Next for us, as the government shutdown nears one month, President Trump revealed yet another White House renovation. We'll show you what that looks like next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:45:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: The government is still shut down, food stamp benefits run out tomorrow, inflation is rising.
And so, of course, today President Trump revealed photos of a newly renovated Lincoln bathroom. Not, of course, the bedroom, which was the site of an infamous donor scandal in the Clinton administration, but the bathroom.
On Truth Social, Trump called the old version totally inappropriate for the Lincoln era. And here's a photo he included of the before, which he said was done in the 1940s. And this is what it looks like now, he called the changes very appropriate for the time of Abraham Lincoln.
Not totally sure how he came to that conclusion. It just looks like a very Trump-inspired bathroom.
CHAMPION: It looks like Mar-a-Lago. It looks like he will turn this White House into Mar-a-Lago Part 2, right? Because everything is being done that way, right?
PHILLIP: And he's busy. He is busy renovating a lot of things in the White House at a time when we are told that we need DOGE--
CHAMPION: Yes.
PHILLIP: -- to cut spending, and we don't have enough money for food stamps and so on and so forth. It's kind of interesting that he does, I guess, honestly, not surprising.
He doesn't care about what it looks like. But in fairness, any other president would not have put out that photo.
CHAMPION: And by the way, today's the deadline to make sure 42 million Americans can get their SNAP benefits. Well, tomorrow, actually. But I don't know how we did.
Let me show you about these photos of my bathroom.
FROST: I don't think there's any president in history who's cared as much about the White House as President Trump has. We haven't had a property developer and someone like him in there before.
My big question is, what would be historically accurate to the time period of President Lincoln in a bathroom?
CHAMPION: Is that really the big question right now?
FROST: Do you really want that in the White House?
CHAMPION: Is that really the big question?
FROST: I don't think so.
BLOW: My big question is, you know, some of this, at least that's done. This East Wing renovation is not supposed to be done until after he's gone.
That worries me. Like, do you plan to leave? That is the bigger question. So when all this is happening, like, do you... No, it's a real question because he keeps answering the question because Bannon keeps bringing up the idea that he wants to run for a third term.
People are writing stories that say lawyers that there's a way that you could do this.
[22:50:07]
CHAMPION: Charles is saying he's doing this house forever. Charles, this is his forever home.
This is his forever home.
LOPRESTI: I was just going to say, and it's little known fact, Lincoln loved marble. He was a huge white marble guy so I think that's part of the reason.
Listen, kidding aside, President Trump acknowledged just a couple of days ago he can't run for a third term. He's not talking about seriously running for a third term.
CHAMPION: You believe him?
BLOW: A couple of days ago, he was on the last 41 minutes. And I don't--
And I don't starve, too. So you can't come out about that, too.
So I don't actually keep up with what he says.
LOPRESTI: Well, perhaps you should.
BLOW: No, I don't.
PHILLIP: Look, he also wants to put Triumphal Arc, the Arc de Triomphe Part II, if you will.
LOPRESTI: Part Deux.
PHILLIP: Part Deux.
In Washington. Not totally sure exactly where he would want it to be, but the Arc is also a big part of his plans. I mean, he is spending, building, bulldozing.
LOPRESTI: Well, it's taxpayer dollars.
PHILLIP: Again, it's an interesting choice at a time when he just came in and he told Americans that the government is spending too much money. Why are we spending all this money now on aesthetics?
LOPRESTI: We're not spending taxpayer money, right?
PHILLIP: I don't know. I will say I don't know. I don't know.
We don't know who's paying for the bathroom and all the other fixer- uppers. And look, some of this stuff, the White House is an old place.
LOPRESTI: It is.
PHILLIP: It's got some things that have been there for a long time and for good reason, and so definitely upgrades are a normal thing. But that part of it is not being discussed.
BLOW: But also saying that private money is going to do it and not public money is not a flex, because the idea that the oligarchs are going to come in and pay for the east wing of the White House is not a good thing. That's not a good thing.
FROST: That's not like Jackie Kennedy redecorating the White House with private donations.
BLOW: I'm sorry, that is not a good thing. When you look at the lineup of the people who financed the ball at the inauguration, you look at the lineup of the people who are financing this, these things keep matching up.
FROST: You mean the billionaires who typically had donated to the Democratic Party before recently and they pivoted to the Republican Party?
BLOW: So you like the oligarchy?
FROST: I'm asking you.
BLOW: Are you a fan of the oligarchy?
FROST: Absolutely not. What I'm saying is, look, the White House always needs to be renovated. That's just a fact.
It got to such a state of disrepair in the Truman administration, they had to completely gut it. The Truman family moved out because when Margaret Truman sat down to play the piano one time, the leg of the piano went through to the ceiling on the floor below.
CHAMPION: But that was a structural problem, too. It wasn't a bathroom problem. It was a structural problem.
FROST: Don't act like Trump is the only person who's redecorating.
BLOW: He's the only person who's demolished the whole wing.
PHILLIP: Well, look, Trump is going to make it look like what he wants it to look like because he just fired most of the commission that's in charge of consulting on these things.
And look, if you know Trump, you know he likes gold. That's what that bathroom looks like, that's what the Oval Office looks like, that's what the ballroom is going to look like. And we'll see what the next President does with it. Coming up next, Chef Morgan has nightcaps for us. Don't go anywhere.
We'll be right back with some delicious food.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:55:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: The comedians of "Have I Got News For You" are back and this week, they check on Malaysia's Prime Minister. He was trying to relate to a fellow world leader. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROY WOOD JR., HOST OF "HAVE I GOT NEWS FOR YOU": This is the Prime Minister of Malaysia, Anwar Ibrahim, who was jailed in 1999 and 2015 for charges that included corruption and sodomy. Does anyone know who he offended?
JENNIFER WELCH, ACTRESS: Is it a felon? Donald Trump?
WOOD: Take a look.
ANWAR IBRAHIM, FORMER MALAYSIAN PRIME MINISTER: We share a lot of things in common. I was in prison, but you almost got there.
WOOD: You got to run it back. You got to play it again and just watch Trump's hair. Just watch the twitch.
IBRAHIM: We share a lot of things in common. I was in prison, but you almost got there.
WOOD: They about to bomb some boats off the coast of Malaysia.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: You can catch the all-new episode tomorrow at 9 p.m. right here on CNN.
Meantime, back here at the Food Network kitchen, Chef Morgan, the lead culinary director of production here at the Food Network, is here to tell us about these delicious plates we've been enjoying. Chef, what are we eating?
CHEF MORGAN, LEAD CULINARY DIRECTOR OF PRODUCTION, FOOD NETWORK: Hi. You're enjoying some delicious pumpkin lasagna rolls. So you have a stuffing of ricotta, mozzarella, and pumpkin with toasted sage and pumpkin bechamel.
PHILLIP: Yes, I had to ask what a pumpkin roll or a lasagna roll was, because I had never really heard that before.
CHEF MORGAN: Well, it's kind of a nice, fun way to make a lasagna. So you take the lasagna noodles, you boil them off, and then you fill them, and you just kind of roll them up, and it kind of makes nice little packets for the lasagna.
Easy to serve. You don't have to cut them like--
PHILLIP: Little lasagna enchiladas.
CHEF MORGAN: Yes.
[23:00:01]
PHILLIP: All right. Not that, not that. Don't listen.
I'm not that. It's really delicious and perfect for the season.
Scan the Q.R. code on the screen for the pumpkin lasagna rolls recipe. You won't regret it.
Thank you so much for watching "NewsNight." You can catch me anytime on your favorite social media, X, Instagram, and TikTok. "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
