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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip

Democrats Celebrate Election Wins as GOP Grapples With Losses; FAA to Cut Flights at 40 Airports If Shutdown Continues; U.S. Government Shutdown Reaches Day 36, Longest in History. SCOTUS Justices Question Trump's Imposition of Tariffs; FIFA Wants Donald Trump a Peace Prize. Aired 10-11p ET

Aired November 05, 2025 - 22:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[22:00:00]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR (voice over): Tonight, the day after a blue wave, Trump weighs in.

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: Remember I've said we will never have a socialist elected to any posts in our country. We skipped socialists and we put in a communist instead.

SIDNER: Not true, but Mike Johnson is doubling down, saying it's coming to a town near you next. Are Republicans just mad and missing the message?

Plus, shutdown turnaround.

TRUMP: It would be good to open it up, take care of the people with jobs that aren't going to get paid and aren't getting paid.

SIDNER: Are Republicans willing to go nuclear? And end the filibuster in the Senate to meet Trump's demands?

Also, Supreme skepticism.

TRUMP: One of the most important cases in the history of our country.

SIDNER: Trump's tariffs argued before the highest court in the land. What it all means.

Live at the table, Ben Shapiro, Ana Kasparian, Isabel Brown, and Bakari Sellers.

Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here, they do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER (on camera): All right. Good evening. I'm Sara Sidner in New York in for Abby Philip. Let's get right to what America is talking about the path forward. Tonight, Democrats are doing something rare these days. They're celebrating big wins across several states. Republicans are now in the blame game. A blue wave swept across the country in key races last night. Voters sent a direct message to President Trump voting in big numbers for Democrats up and down the ballot, and electing candidates across the party's ideological spectrum.

It was the first major electoral test of Trump's second term, and he's not too happy with what happened. He spent his day outwardly running through what could be described as the classic stages of grief.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: If you want to see what Congressional Democrats wish to do to America, just look at the result of yesterday's election in New York where their party installed a communist as the mayor.

All we want is voter I.D. You go to a grocery store, you have to give I.D. You go to a gas station, you give id. But for voting, they want no voter I.D. That's only for one reason because they cheat.

Well, let's see how a communist does in New York. We're going to see how that works out. And we'll help him. We'll help him.

And the shutdown was a big factor, negative for the Republicans.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: But some Republicans, including his vice president, are shrugging off the wins, J.D. Vance saying it would be idiotic to overreact to a couple of elections in blue states, and House Speaker Mike Johnson echoing that sentiment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): There're no surprises. What happened last night was blue states and blue cities voted blue. We all saw that coming. And no one should read too much into last night's election results. Off-year elections are not indicative of what's to come. That's what history teaches us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: All right. We have a great panel here. I want to start with this idea, because I was thinking about it, as everyone has been talking about where the Democrats are going, looking across these races. So, I guess the question, and I'll start with you, Bakari, why can't the Democratic Party be both Mamdani and who is an outward Democratic socialist, he said it himself, and Spanberger, who is more moderate? Why can't that be the Democratic Party and stop saying like we are going to be this or this?

BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I mean, I think the Democratic Party is that what you said, and it is a big tent, and we are that tent does have those somewhat, as you kind of dictated in your question, extremes. But I also want to push back on the framing of that because that framing is more in line with what J.D. Vance was talking about. That framing's more in line than what Donald Trump was talking about. Somehow people perceive that this was an election that just happened in New York City, and, God forbid, to all my New Yorkers that life happens outside of there.

But the fact is, we kicked Republicans ass not just in New York, but we beat them in Mississippi, where we actually broke the super majority. Two public service commissioners won, not one, but two statewide in Georgia. We beat the only, well, the last Republican city councilperson in Orlando, Florida.

[22:05:01]

We actually took back the mayoral race in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. So, not only did we just win in Virginia and New Jersey and New York, where people want to make this race about, we won up and down the ballot.

Now, is this just a snapshot of time? Maybe I don't want to get out over my skis, but let's not make it seem like we just won in blue places. We won all over the country.

SIDNER: Ben, to you, are Republicans missing something here? Because you are hearing some Republicans who are saying, this is not a big deal. This just happened, as you just heard, in blue states. This is -- everybody just calm down.

BENN SHAPIRO, AUTHOR, LIONS AND SCAVENGERS, THE TRUE STORY OF AMERICA: Well, I mean, I think that this is the launch of the midterm election cycle, obviously, and as Bakari says, Republicans did not do well last night. And it's also true, obviously, that Democrats were very likely to win Virginia or New Jersey or New York. But, obviously, Republicans don't take into account the fact that this is now a Republican-owned economy and that this is a Republican-run country. I mean, the Republicans do run both House of Congress and the presidency, and so if there's a backlash, it's going to obviously happen to the Republicans, and that is always the most likely scenario.

I mean, I think that the question is going to be margins. Right now, there aren't that many vulnerable seats actually in the House. The number of challengable seats is extremely limited. So, I don't think you're going to get a wave that's 40, 50 seats because I'm not sure that's possible anymore given redistricting and given the big sort that's been happening.

But for Republicans not to take some alarm at the fact that obviously these exit polls, which are showing economy still as the number one concern and inflation still is the number one concern, if they don't take that seriously, obviously, there are going to be some serious effects in the midterm.

SELLERS: There are two points I want to make along the same lines that Ben was making. This probably will be the only time we agree with.

SIDNER: You all are agreeing right now? SELLERS: We're going to start off with a bang here. But, yes, we have to think about the fact that -- take Virginia, for example. Every single county in Virginia swung to the left, every single county, not just one. And we're talking about 2, 3, 4, sometimes 15, 16 points swung to the left. In Georgia, what you saw around Atlanta, Fulton County, Gwinnett, Cobb, I mean, those folks came out to vote. And so you're starting to see those things.

And last but not least, the issues that were at the forefront, and Democrats have to realize this, the issues that were at the forefront, like you said, where the economy affordability won, number two, healthcare. A distant third was immigration. You know what was not in, in those top five or six issues? These culture wars, which Donald Trump pulls us down in and we can never win them.

ANA KASPARIAN, EXECUTIVE PRODUCER AND HOST, THE YOUNG TURKS: And, usually, I think the Democratic Party takes the bait, and this time around they didn't. So, I think the Virginia governor's race is a good example of that. You know, you have Winsome Earle-Sears kind of focusing part of her campaigning on the transgender issues. Spanberger didn't focus on that, and she did focus on affordability, and I think it helped her win that gubernatorial race.

But I will say this. You know, I'm glad that Ben is pointing out to the fact that, yes, economy is top of mind for most Americans, and what I heard from House Speaker Mike Johnson and from Vice President J.D. Vance is a lot of what I heard from Democrats in the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election, when immigration was definitely something that Americans were concerned about.

SELLERS: And crime.

KASPARIAN: And crime. And they pretended like, nope, it doesn't exist, it's all made up. It's just right wing fear-mongering. No, you need to listen to your constituents because your constituents are the ones who are concerned about this.

ISABEL BROWN, PODCAST HOST, THE ISABEL BROWN SHOT: Well, in fairness, I don't think the vice president or the speaker of the House were saying these issues don't matter or they don't exist. That certainly isn't what they were saying. They're explaining that it's an off-year election and that Republicans didn't necessarily feel the same impetus to go vote, as we likely are going to see in the next presidential election and certainly in the midterms coming up next year. So, I think that's a bit of a mischaracterization.

KASPARIAN: Well, Trump is underwater when it comes to pretty much everything, including immigration, by the way. But Larry Kudlow today was shocked at how underwater he is when it comes to the economy. 61 percent of Americans disapprove of Trump's handling of the economy. Don't underestimate how much of an impact that's going to have on the midterm elections.

SELLERS: And even the voters that -- you know, the fraction of black male voters that people were looking at in the 2024 election, you know, all those voters came back home. And the biggest flop you saw last night, or flip flop, whatever, however the word is said, was Hispanic voters. So, all the gains, it looks like every gain that Republicans made in 2024 through immigration policy reform, that people don't like what they're seeing on T.V., or whatever it may be, they lost all of that last night.

Now, again, Democrats, one of the things we like to do is run victory laps that last like 365 days. I mean, you have to figure this out because this isn't the only headline today. I don't want to get ahead of myself, but we are literally in 36 days of a shutdown. And people are extremely, extremely -- they're hurting right now. And that hurt was what we saw in the election last night.

SHAPIRO: I mean, I think the biggest thing in all of this, and I think you saw it Trump winning over Biden, I think that you're seeing it now, is that people don't like the status quo. And after they change the status quo, they don't like the new status quo. Because the reality is that all these problems that are now deeply embedded in very real ways in our economy, for example, things like the national debt, things like the fact that we've had, you know, enormous pressing by the Federal Reserve for a while here and in both directions. First, it was too slow to react in one direction, then it was too slow to react in the other direction. You know, all of this is leading to just a systemic unease that everyone has with everything.

[22:10:03]

And whoever gets elected next, I mean, good luck to Zohran Mamdani because he's not going to be able to solve all the issues that he is talking, certainly not with the policies that he's currently proposing. And then he's going to be the one on the chopping block.

SIDNER: I do want to ask you, because young people voted in very large numbers in the -- particularly in the mayoral race here in New York, and they were part of the change that happened here with Zohran Mamdani's sort of sweeping into office with over 50 percent of the vote. But I want to talk about what we've been hearing from the president and some others in the Republican Party who keep calling him a -- not a socialist, Democratic socialist, which he has said he is, but a communist. And there are big differences between the two. That scare tactic did not work when it comes to Mamdani.

And socialism, some people will look at it and say, look, we have some socialist programs here in the United States, things like Medicaid and Medicare, things like, you know, the SNAP program, things like public school, where we all pay taxes. But even if you don't have kids, your kids need to go --

SELLERS: Compulsory program.

SIDNER: -- yes, to school for free. What sort of is the idea that Republicans have that this is a communist that they can keep pushing this idea when people should be rejecting it.

BROWN: Yes, certainly. Look, there is a fundamental difference between outright socialism, where the government seizes as the means of production and tries to artificially control the market, which we've seen many times play out throughout human history and social welfare programs. Having social welfare programs available in a country does not inherently make your society a socialist society.

Just last night, we talked about the thriving economies over the last several years of Scandinavian countries, like Norway, Sweden, Denmark, that on the economic index freedom scale are actually more capitalist than the United States of America, have far more free market opportunities for people who live there than even we do here in the United States.

Where I think there is a valid criticism, and what's going to be interesting to see if this can even play out here in New York City are these very radical ideas with extreme expansion in government, stuff like state-run grocery stores or taking over housing here in New York City, specifically with the decommodification, as we saw specifically campaigned for by Zohran Mamdani on the campaign trail, where the government will plan to go in and purchase private housing in the quest to make housing more affordable here in the United States.

You know, I think that's an interesting policy idea. It certainly is prescribing the wrong solution, but for an accurate complaint, right? People are struggling to afford life here in Manhattan and around our country. We all reasonably should be coming to the table with solutions for this. But is more government involvement the solution? Time and time again throughout human history, the answer has been no. And I think we have the scorecard to prove that.

SIDNER: There is --

SELLERS: This isn't about decommodification.

SIDNER: It's about rent services (ph)?

SELLERS: No, it's not even about that.

BROWN: Well, there was an ad put out by Mamdani. He advocating for that. So, I think, let's be honest.

SELLERS: Let's be extremely honest about what this is. Republicans had Barack Obama, who was now a little long in the tooth and he's on the sideline. They had Kamala Harris, who is now recuperating from a race. They had Joe Biden, right? They do extremely well with picking a boogeyman out, and that is what they're doing. I mean, we cannot fall for that. I mean, they're simply otherizing Mamdani. They're saying whatever they want to say.

KASPARIAN: And it's not working though. That's the thing. Like the more they attack him --

SELLERS: But, I mean, it's like -- but it's like it's a refreshing --

(CROSSTALKS)

KASPARIAN: Calling him a jihadist when he's not a jihadist. That's a good example. SELLERS: But, I mean, also -- but like, I mean, for every Zohran Mamdani, there is a Mary Sheffield, right? There is somebody else who you can see she's the first black mayor of Detroit, Michigan, where young people came out in large swaths and voted for.

SHAPIRO: So, then the question becomes why they're focusing on Mamdani, and I think the answer is because of Mamdani's own words. If you watched his victory speech last night, his one line in particular that sort of left out and left off the screen when he said that there is literally no problem -- this was his line. There is no problem too big for government to solve and no matter too small for government to care about. I mean, that is what totalitarians would say, is that they're literally -- and then the two people he quoted, verbatim aside from Mario Cuomo, which was a, you know, I thought a delightful little slap at Andrew, I thought was, it was a little nasty, but he quotes Eugene V. Debs, who's a socialist, and then he quotes Nehru, another socialist. And then he says, I am a socialist, from the stage.

So, you know, saying that President Trump is somehow going overboard when he has campaigned is this, when he -- the Democratic socialist of America, which is it -- which it based from which he springs into whom he answers in many ways is openly socialist.

(CROSSTALKS)

SIDNER: But the president's been calling him a communist, not a socialist.

(CROSSTALKS)

SELLERS: 99.99 percent of America did not watch his speech. 99 percent of America literally don't care who Eric Adams is or Cuomo is, or who the mayor of New York is. But what is happening though is Democrats do something that we don't normally do, which is harness the energy of young people. And we -- Zohran Mamdani had the issue that carried the day yesterday.

[22:15:00]

Everything else -- set aside everything else about how you feel. He talked about affordability in a way that communicated to voters and resonated. But Zohran Mamdani is a part of the future of the Democratic Party. He's not the face of the Democratic Party, or he is not the Democratic Party.

KASPARIAN: Well, something to also keep in mind is, yes, calling him a socialist didn't hurt him in this election. Because if you look at Democratic voters, many of whom live here in New York City, they are super skeptical of capitalism because of the crony capitalism they've been dealing with. They don't see a future for themselves in this country in terms of being able to afford a house, be able to get married and have children. So, young Democrats who are very much galvanized by Mamdani were not put off by his message of socialism. They liked it. And that's something important to keep in mind.

SHAPIRO: But Republicans are not campaigning in New York against socialism. They're campaigning nationally against socialism. And what they're saying is that the Democrats -- I mean, don't fall for the bait is I guess what I'm saying to you guys. I shouldn't give you -- I mean, I hope you fall for the bait but don't fall for the bait of making Mamdani the face of your party.

SELLERS: We're not.

SHAPIRO: Because the reality is that Abigail Spanberger won by a larger margin in Virginia than Zohran Mamdani won in New York last night, and, by the way, he was running against another Democrat, okay? That's how much he was disliked, right? I mean, he's running -- Andrew Cuomo, who's a deeply unpopular person in New York, won 800,000 votes in that race last night because there were so many Democrats who didn't like Zohran Mamdani.

SELLERS: Right.

SHAPIRO: So, this idea that Zohran Mamdani is like overwhelmingly popular across the -- if you include a country that includes half of Republicans, not a city like New York, where perhaps seven people are Republicans, and like three of them voted for Curtis Sliwa in the end, like, I'm sorry, it's not a representative sample (ph). It's like saying that AOC is representative of the broad spectrum of American politics and she isn't.

SIDNER: Fair enough. All right, coming up next, the FAA is warning if the shutdown continues, flights will be cut back at 40 major airports. Is this the last straw that finally forces Congress to end the shutdown?

Plus, how do you pay back $90 billion in tariffs? That was just one of the skeptical questions from a Supreme Court justice today, and a hugely important case on Trump's tariffs and presidential powers.

Those stories more ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:20:00]

SIDNER: I got some bad news for you. Expect more delays in canceled flights. That is the warning coming from the Federal Aviation Administration, as you know, the FAA. It will be reducing the traffic at 40 airports by 10 percent starting Friday if the government shutdown is still in place.

There were some negotiations finally taking place today on the shutdown, but so far no deal. Today, a new record is being set for the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. What does that mean? You know all too well. For the first time in history, millions of Americans aren't getting the food stamp benefits they need, and roughly 1.4 million federal workers aren't getting their paychecks, some of whom have to work throughout this anyway, and the economy is losing billions of dollars each day that it remains closed.

The president though says America is too strong to struggle. Listen. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: They don't like it to be reopened because we're setting records. They think it's -- actually, I don't think anything's going to hurt this. We are so strong now that I'm not sure that anything's going to hurt, but it would be good to open it up, take care of the people with jobs that aren't going to get paid and aren't getting paid.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: Now, in a closed door meeting with Republicans today, Trump said that the party was being, quote, killed politically by the shutdown. He renewed his calls to eliminate the filibuster, meaning that the Senate would only need 51 votes to open the government. Senate Majority Leader John Thune has resisted that, but some Republicans appear to be open to that possibility now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOSH HAWLEY (R-MO): if you're going to put me personally to the choice between providing food assistance to 42 million needy Americans or defending some arcane rule of the Senate, I'm going to choose people. So, I would just warn my Democrat colleagues, if they think they can just do this in perpetuity, we're just never going to open back up the government, we're never going to give people food assistance, we're never going to pay the military, that is not a sustainable position. And you're putting me to a choice between people and Senate rules, and I'm going to choose people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: All right. I'm going to start with you, Ana, this time. Should Senate Republicans go nuclear, no, not literally, but that's what it's called, and go ahead and say, you know what, we're busting the filibuster and we're going to go for this?

KASPARIAN: I'm on the record and I want to be consistent on this. I absolutely loath the legislative filibuster in the Senate. I think it should be majority rule and I'm okay with them nuking it.

SIDNER: There you have it.

SELLERS: I mean, I think that somebody has to be an adult in the room. I think that most Americans see that people are hurting. And I think that people -- you know, the question that I always get is, whose fault is it? And that's really a political class question. How are people viewing it? Whose fault is it? Is it Democrat or Republican's fault? Well, if you are in a food bank line, I don't really think you care whose fault it is, right? I think you want government to work for you.

And I think that also I heard Tommy Tuberville the other day talk about the individuals who he perceived to be receiving SNAP benefits. I mean, people have this belief in their head that it's this, you know, oversized single mom with multiple kids and a couple baby daddies who doesn't work, and I'm like, wait a minute. I mean, let's actually reframe this discussion and see that all Americans are hurting because of the decisions that are being made in Washington, D.C., now because of TSA, you know, it's a bit of a removal between SNAP benefits and food banks and things like that. And now TSA people who fly first class, concierge key, et cetera, their lines are going to be four, five hours long. I mean, I think that mean everybody's going to feel the pain is my point.

[22:25:00]

KASPARIAN: What about the TSA agents? Like I feel terrible that these people are expected to work without pay. I mean, this is going to be now the second paycheck that they're going to miss because of the government --

SELLERS: I mean, they've also been getting paid and working with Nancy Mace. But that's a whole --

SHAPIRO: I mean, the reality is that the Republicans have multiple times proposed single issue bills in order to, for example, extend at least partially the SNAP benefits and also to extend payment for certain classes of federal workers. And those have been rejected by Democrats as well. So, there really isn't an impasse.

Actually, I'm going to take the opposite side, shockingly, of Ana here. I think the Senate filibuster is actually quite important because I think that if you do not have the Senate filibuster, what you end up with is a country that is already pendulum side to side doing so even further with 51 votes in the Senate ramming through massive changes to the system of government itself. I mean -- and I think that Republicans should be wary as Democrats should have been wary about the judicial filibuster and were not, and then ended up with Merrick Garland not on the court and several Trump-appointed justices on the court. The very same thing could happen to Republicans if Democrats end up in control of the Senate.

Now, I think that the argument that President Trump has used is Democrats will do it anyway when they get the first opportunity, so we should go ahead and do it.

KASPARIAN: But they've never done it.

SHAPIRO: And I'm not sure that's true. I think if he truly believes that, then what actually should happen if there are enough senators who agree with the idea of the filibuster being extended is actually a constitutional amendment to enshrine the filibuster in the Constitution. And then you say, if it doesn't pass, then a certain period of time, we're going to do it because --

SIDNER: Good luck getting it across.

(CROSSTALKS)

SHAPIRO: But, seriously, it takes two thirds of the votes.

SELLERS: No, I hear you. SHAPIRO: No, the filibuster 60.

SELLERS: Yes.

SHAPIRO: So, theoretically, if it has wide support, you could do something like that as a piece of leverage to get people to sign in on this.

But as far as the government shutdown goes, I mean, right now, it is clear that a clean C.R. is an easy way forward here. Democrats, if they believe that they've already won the political battle, because they've shown that Republicans are uncaring about Obamacare benefits or about SNAP benefits, then I don't see why they are continuing this fight. They should just give up the goals (ph) and they should say, all right --

SIDNER: Yes, let me speak to that just really quickly.

SHAPIRO: Sure.

SIDNER: I spoke earlier this morning, very early this morning, with the mayor of Oklahoma City who has joined other mayors to come out and say, our constituents, our residents are really desperate. And he was speaking particularly about SNAP after the president had come out and sort of said that there are too many people on SNAP, Biden let everybody get onto this program and we need to think about that. Here's what the mayor of Oklahoma City had to say about that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR DAVID HOLT (R-OKLAHOMA CITY, OK): I think that's entirely reasonable under normal conditions to talk about eligibility, but, no. Right now we have people who have expectations. They have been told by their federal government that they'll receive these SNAP benefits, and this is no time to pull the rug out from under them. These are people who use this as a lifeline, who depend on this.

This is playing with people's lives and it's completely unserious. It's based on politics and it needs to stop.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: Politics and it needs to stop. And he was really passionate about this because he is -- mayors, I feel like they have the hardest job in America because they are very close with their constituents. It's very easy to get in touch and to see them in the community. What do you make of his comments and how he is reading the room and reading the electorate?

BROWN: Playing politics is a perfect characterization of everything that we've seen for the last 36 days. Well, let's not forget the government didn't need to shut down in the first place. This was the very first time in Chuck Schumer's entire career that he voted not to put forward a continuing resolution and to shut down the government.

So, we've had now, what, 14 votes in the United States Congress, where we've seen a bipartisan effort from a very small handful of Democrats being willing to link arms with their Republican colleagues and create an opportunity to move forward to serve the American people and reach them where they're at. But there is an insistent game being played by Congressional Democrats in leadership to play politics.

Now, that may have worked for Election Day, but here we are on Wednesday, there are millions of people still not collecting paychecks, millions of people still looking for a path forward, and there is no end in sight.

SELLERS: I just find it ironic that he just complained about people playing politics when you started that way.

SIDNER: He's a Republican, by the way.

SELLERS: No, he's a Republican and then you came back kind of playing politics. Well, the fact is where's Mike Johnson?

BROWN: In what context?

SELLERS: No, where is he? No, where is he? I mean, where is his leadership --

BROWN: Calling for additional votes to reopen the government repeatedly.

SELLERS: No. Actually, he's not, because what he did was he sent everybody away.

KASPARIAN: He sure did.

SELLERS: He sent everybody home.

BROWN: So, having 14 votes to reopen the government.

KASPARIAN: He doesn't want to swear in --

SELLERS: And the question is -- and he doesn't want to swear in the young lady from -- yes, thank you, from Arizona. But even more importantly we are seeing now healthcare premium spike. And so can we have a conversation about that? I mean, I think --

KASPARIAN: Apparently not, apparently not.

(CROSSTALKS)

SELLERS: So, you want to talk about --

BROWN: So, why (INAUDIBLE) shut down the government in the first place is my question.

KASPARIAN: Well, first of all, this is the one instance in which Democrats in Congress have a little bit of leverage and they put up this fight on something that I think matters.

BROWN: So, it's playing politics. KASPARIAN: Which is playing politics to advance a left-wing agenda.

BROWN: Yes, it's playing politics.

KASPARIAN: And Democrats have been historically weak in terms of using whatever leverage they have in the situation in which they don't have majorities in Congress. And I think that for the first time, and this is something that Democratic constituents wanted from Democratic leadership in Congress, they actually put up a fight and they put up a fight on the right ground on something that really does affect Americans.

[22:30:08]

SELLERS: I disagree. I disagree with both of you guys, because if you literally cannot afford to go see a doctor and or you live in a rural part of this country and your hospital or your health care provider has completely shut down because of these cuts, that's not playing politics.

I want you to know that that is literally what people perceive to be a fundamental right in this country. We can argue what's in the Constitution, all those other things. But access to quality care is something that people hold, they hold sacrosanct.

So, no, that's not playing politics. What that's saying is that you deserve no matter if you're black, white, Democrat, Republican from the north or south to have access to care.

KASPARIAN: There was a piece that came out in which Democrats, of course, anonymously spoke to reporters and said, we're a little bit worried about suffering the ramifications of this government shutdown. We kind of want to just open the government, but we're worried about our constituents being angry with us because they want us to fight.

SELLERS: True.

KASPARIAN: So that's politics.

SELLERS: But I'm also saying that it's just a bigger, I just look at it fundamentally as a bigger issue because the issue that we're talking about is not something like congressional pay.

KASPARIAN: I agree with you on that. Yes.

SELLERS: It's abstract. This is something that people can touch.

KASPARIAN: Yes, it's super important.

BEN SHAPIRO, PODCAST HOST, "THE BEN SHAPIRO HOST": This is the first time in recent memory that I can remember with regard to a government shutdown in which there has been an attempt to blame the party that wants the clean CR for the shutdown.

KASPARIAN: Yes. SHAPIRO: Usually the shoe is on the other foot. Usually the

Republicans are the ones who are responsible for the government shutdown because they're asking for changes. This happened during Biden, it happened during Obama as well.

And the idea was that they were pushing for changes because exactly what you're saying, it's their only place of leverage. And the blame typically fell on--

As soon as the situation is changed, suddenly the blame still falls on Republicans?

SELLERS: There's only one big difference. That is, the Big Beautiful Bill passed just a few months ago. That is vastly different than what we saw in the last shutdown because the Big Beautiful Bill is the reason that these premiums are now spiking, that health care costs are going up.

ISABEL BROWN, PODCAST HOST, "THE ISABEL BROWN SHOW": Which enough Democrats agreed to get passed in the first place. And then a few weeks later, now they're playing the political game to advance a left- wing agenda. It just seems to me if health care premiums are already going up and Americans are struggling across the board.

SELLERS: That's a left-wing agenda. If access to quality care and a reasonable price, a left-wing agenda--

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR AND SR. NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We're going to talk about it.

Up next, what do you call the government having to try and repay $90 billion in collected tariffs? According to one Trump appointee of the Supreme Court, it's called a mess. We will debate what is happening there at the Supreme Court looking at this case coming up next.

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[22:35:00]

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SIDNER: Tonight, Supreme skepticism, including from the justices on the high court that Donald Trump picked. Today, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments over the Trump administration's ability to impose global tariffs. And even the conservative justices questioning the President's authority this time.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN ROBERTS, SUPREME COURT: The vehicle is imposition of taxes on Americans, and that has always been the core power of Congress. If a tariff is imposed on either automobiles, who pays them?

JUSTICE AMY CONEY BARRETT, SUPREME COURT: Can you point to any other place in the code or any other time in history where that phrase together, regulate importation, has been used to confer tariff imposing authority?

JUSTICE NEIL GORSUCH, SUPREME COURT: Congress, as a practical matter, can't get this power back once it's handed it over to the President. It's a one-way ratchet toward the gradual but continual accretion of power in the executive branch and away from the people's elected representatives.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

SIDNER: The Trump administration is citing an emergency powers law that does not use the word tariff and that no previous presidents have used to impose them. Trump lauded today's arguments as a success.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRETT BAIER, "SPECIAL REPORT" ANCHOR: How worried are you that they may unwind this thing?

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Well, I heard the court case went well today, but I just heard that a little while ago because, as you know, it was just two hours ago that they finished up. But I will say this. It would be devastating for our country if we lost that.

Devastating. I think it's one of the most important, maybe the most, but one of the most important cases in the history of our country.

If I didn't have tariffs, we wouldn't we were right now the entire world would be in a depression.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: In arguments today, justices on both sides expressed concern over the Trump administration's disregard for the powers held by Congress.

Joining us in our fifth seat at the table is attorney Donte Mills. He is a law professor at Temple University. The owls, right?

OK. Well, I'm just -- I'm with it.

Let me start with you. What stood out to you from the arguments that you listened to? It was actually really interesting listening to the different justices ask the questions. And there were some pointed ones coming from all sides of the court.

DONTE MILLS, CIVIL AND CRIMINAL ATTORNEY, AND LAW PROFESSOR, TEMPLE UNIVERSITY: There are very pointed questions, but we can just start with Chief Justice Roberts. Why not? He's the chief justice, as he mentioned. Generally, the Congress has the power to tax and it's a power that's reserved only for them.

Trump's lawyers or the administration lawyers are saying that this isn't a tax. What they're doing is essentially regulating imports. This is more about foreign policy. And what they're doing is trying to bring manufacturing jobs back to

the United States. So they're regulating import to allow that to happen and that any taxes that comes from that is incidental.

The lawyers on the other side are saying it's BS. This is a tax, and only the Congress has the right to do that. Now, it is of note that Justice Alito did bring up that in emergency situations, the president does have more power.

[22:40:02]

And we're going to hear this question answered of, Trump has this notion now that he can decide when it's an emergency and he's tried to use that with immigration. He's tried to use that with terrorists. I think we're going to get an answer as to whether or not a President can unilaterally decide when it's an emergency so he should get more power.

SIDNER: The President has won something like more than 20 cases that have come up to the Supreme Court. Do you see this as a time after sort of hearing some of the questions that are being asked where the presidential -- the idea of more presidential power for this president in this case won't fly?

SHAPIRO: Well, I mean, I think that one of the characterizations of the court that I always find suspects when people say even the conservatives on the court are saying that, O.K., the conservatives on the court tend to be textualist, which means that they're actually looking at the text of the Constitution as opposed to sort of a vague peripheral understanding what the Constitution means.

And so when you're looking at the textualists and they are saying the President does not actually have emergency authority to simply impose tariffs on the basis of trade deficits, which is essentially what he's been doing, that is a very conservative position.

I've been critical of the President, very critical of the President on his tariff policies themselves, which I think are actually economically wrong and I think are actually damaging to the country in a lot of ways on foreign policy, actually. But that's not what's at issue.

The issue here is whether the President has the emergency authority to do this sort of stuff. And I thought that the best question that was asked came from Justice Gorsuch, in which he actually said to the lawyers for the President, if, let's say, the next President decides that on the basis of emergency authority, climate change is an emergency, and therefore he's going to slap or she is going to slap a 50 percent tariff on all automobiles coming into the country. Would that president have the authority to do this?

And the attorney for the president, President Trump, said, yes, they would have the authority to do this. I do not believe that the court I've said this since literally day one when President Trump announced liberation. I said that day, this is illegal. The Supreme Court is going to strike this down, he does not actually have the constitutional authority to do this.

SELLERS: I think it's also going to be very disruptive to the economy as we get through this. I mean, let's just say.

BROWN: It already has been.

SELLERS: I mean, but it has been. But I'm just.

SHAPIRO: It'll be the best thing for the economy.

SELLERS: Well, let's.

SHAPIRO: It'll be great.

SELLERS: That's what he says.

SHAPIRO: No. If tariffs are struck down.

SELLERS: Oh, well. But I'm saying functionally, we have a question that we have to ask ourselves, which is how do -- we what do we do with the tariffs that have been collected? What do we do with the funds that have been collected?

SIDNER: By the way, some of them have been spent already there.

SELLERS: So those are illegitimate, illegal funds that we have now collected. I mean, I don't, I'm not sure how that works.

MILLS: And I don't think the Supreme Court should be concerned about that. That's a political issue. I think that's legally the court has to decide if there's legislation that gives the authority to the President.

If it is, he can do it. If not, they can't look at the consequences of it or what the outcome is. They have to decide, is that power baked in? Yes or no.

SELLERS: But the consequences will still be there. And I'm just saying that if we have a government right now that is highly inefficient, that is not working, that is going to be a political question that somebody is going to have to be a grown up in the room and have to answer to figure that out.

SHAPIRO: One of the things that will be fascinating is if the court does strike it down. Watch the stock market absolutely explode.

Seriously, you'll watch the S&P 500 jump like nobody's business. And the President is then going to be in the awkward position of having to explain why the markets are boosted by the rejection of his policy.

SELLERS: The best example of that is going to be our American automakers. I mean, you're going to see their stock just explode. You're going to see those people who are doing that type of work, for example, who are building cars from Canada, the United States and Mexico working together.

Their stock, to your point, their stock is going to go through the roof.

SIDNER: Let me let everybody hear what we heard from Justice Amy Coney Barrett on this issue of if they decide that this is not legal for the president to impose these tariffs. What happens next? Here's what she said.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

CONEY BARRETT: If you win, tell me how the reimbursement process would work. Would it be a complete mess?

NEAL KATYAL, LAWYER FOR BUSINESS CHALLENGING TRUMP TARIFFS: It's a very complicated thing. There's got to be an administrative protest. There was a harbor management case earlier that this court was involved with in the United States Shoe in which, you know, the refund process took a long time.

There were any number of claims and equitable relief.

CONEY BARRETT: So a mess.

KATYAL: So it's difficult, absolutely. We don't deny that it's difficult.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

SIDNER: Is there a possibility, this is to you or anyone at this table, is there a possibility that the court looks at this and says, we don't want this mess, so we're just going to rule a certain way?

MILLS: No.

KASPARIAN: I can't imagine that happens. And I really hope it doesn't happen because I think setting a precedent like this is actually dangerous.

We're supposed to have co-equal branches of government. Obviously, Congress throughout the years has ceded a lot of power to the executive branch. But using emergency powers to essentially make policy in the executive branch is wrong.

And so and on top of that, you know, I understand that it is going to be a mess. I mean, think about the farmers.

The farmers have been hurt quite a bit as a result of these tariffs, and it's going to cause long-term damage to these farmers. But in the meantime, the Trump administration has decided to use some of the revenue from these tariffs to help make these farmers whole.

So to your point, yes, a lot of that money has already been spent already. I don't know how the refunds are going to work. I don't really care. What I care more about

[22:45:01]

MILLS: One of the points that was made by a justice is if this power is given, how do we get it back?

You can't get it back. So they're not going to give this power because it's difficult to figure out because once it's out there, there's no President that's going to relinquish that power.

SHAPIRO: It's almost as if bad and intrusive government policy that affects huge numbers of people turns into a mess, actually, as just a general rule.

SELLERS: Have you advised Trump on any of this?

SHAPIRO: I've been saying this clearly and openly before Liberation.

SELLERS: He's not listening.

BROWN: Interestingly, it's a fascinating conversation about the expansion of the administrative state, which we talked about kind of on a microcosm level here in New York City when it comes to affordability for people.

SELLERS: It's always back to Montgomery.

BROWN No, not necessarily, but there is an appropriate conversation for us to be having about affordability.

SHAPIRO: It's a Birkenstocks stamping on the human face forever.

BROWN: Of course, there's a lot of experts going back and forth on whether tariffs are the right answer for this. But I do think it's important that we are seeing executive leadership on this when it comes to making America whole and making sure that we are not being taken advantage of on the global scale. That is important.

So I'm hopeful that that conversation continues beyond this particular case. I know the Trump administration is very passionate about this. And frankly, heck, from a fiscal conservative perspective, if tariffs could replace, I don't know, the federal income tax someday, I would be cheering for that from the rooftops.

SIDNER: Good luck to you.

SELLERS: When I was in the legislature, an old state legislator once told me we were having a discussion about fees and taxes, and he said they're both three-letter words that take money out of your pocket. I mean, you can add tariff to that as well because tariff is simply just a tax.

MILLS: But there's other ways to regulate imports. I think that was part of the conversation today. If that's what you want to do, President, you have the right to do that without imposing a tax.

SELLERS: Correct.

MILLS: And the tariff here is a tax.

SIDNER: All right, Donte Mills, thank you to you. Everybody else, you're going to have to stick around. Sorry. No sleep

for the weary.

Next, President Trump has been lobbying, as you know, for a Nobel Peace Prize. But there may be a peace prize he is up for now, and it has to do with FIFA. We'll discuss today's interesting announcement.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:50:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SIDNER: Tonight, it appears President Trump may be closer to getting a peace prize, just not the one he has been lobbying. FIFA announced today it's going to be creating its own Peace Prize. It will be awarded in December during the draw for next year's World Cup.

That event coinciding and coincidentally is taking place at the Kennedy Center and Trump has said he will attend. No announcement has been made about who will be receiving the award.

But Trump and FIFA president, the FIFA president, have a very close relationship. That is not a secret. And Fantino has made many appearances with Donald Trump at important events, including the inauguration and the Israel-Hamas ceasefire signing in Egypt this year.

FIFA also just appointed Ivanka Trump to the board of a $100 million education project. All right. CNN reached out to the White House to see if they had a comment about this possibility.

All right, how about it. It went from the Nobel Peace Prize to the FIFA Peace Prize.

SHAPIRO: First of all, he should have won the Nobel. But I've got to say that as an American, the President must reject this. Soccer is un- American, this is not one of our sports.

Take it back to Europe, go away with your soccer ball. This is an America first presidency, damn it. And I will not accept a soccer prize being handed to our president.

SIDNER: All the soccer moms are mad at you right now.

BROWN: As the wife of a former D1 soccer player, there are a whole lot of soccer fans here in the United States. I'm all for this. First of all, President Trump, more than any other president in my lifetime, has gone out of his way to make his ultimate legacy trying to bring peace throughout the world in so many different conflicts all across the globe.

Just today, he made a major announcement that he would be designating Nigeria, a country of particular concern based on the slaughter of more than 50,000 Christians that has taken place in the past 15 years. And that's just one of literally dozens of examples of the President's leadership on this issue. I don't care if you are right, left, or center.

KASPARIAN: He's ramping up a war with Venezuela as we speak. Like, literally as we speak. Like, what are we talking about?

SELLERS: But I just like the fact that, I mean, I just think it's--

KASPARIAN: He left his participation trophies.

SELLERS: I was about to say it's an amazing example for your children. If you can't go out and win the award, when you come home, we'll make you one. We will make you an award and we'll make a little paper mache with a little metal and we'll actually make it like a little picture of the Washington Monument and then he can go out and say, I won a Peace Prize and then afterwards, we can shut it down just to pacify it.

SHAPIRO: It's more valuable than that. Honestly, the Nobel Peace Prize is a piece of crap.

KASPARIAN: I agree at this point.

SHAPIRO: It has been for a very long time. And so, I mean, honestly, this is just as valuable as the Nobel Peace Prize.

SELLERS: But also, I've just never seen anybody so obsessed with Barack Obama. I mean, his obsession with the Nobel Peace Prize.

SHAPIRO: Did Barack Obama deserve the Nobel Peace Prize?

SELLERS: He told you that he didn't deserve the first prize.

KASPARIAN: I don't think he did.

SHAPIRO: No one thinks he did. So he also got a nice paper mache prize because he was existing in time in a place.

SELLERS: But he actually got the real prize.

SHAPIRO: He should have rejected it, too.

SELLERS: He actually got the --

SHAPIRO: Obama should have said, this is crap. I know it's crap.

SELLERS: The fascinating thing is, like, you can do anything. If you're, like, a MAGA supporter, you can do absolutely anything. They're like, look, we're going to make up an award for Donald Trump. We're going to hand it out at a soccer game, and you're like, he's done great as he deserves it and it's going to be like a flavor flame chain.

SIDNER: I just want to mention back on the Nigeria issue, I know that Christians have been killed but so have tens of thousands of Muslims and sometimes when you hear these things said people get this idea that it's just one group. But if you look at what's happened in that country there are a lot of people who have who have-- [22:55:07]

BROWN: Absolutely and it's a very clear issue that needs our attention more than anything but unfortunately, I don't see the mainstream media covering it a whole lot. There are very few politicians drawing attention to this right now.

The fact that the President of the United States can get before the world and say we are going to do something about this, we are designating this country.

A country of particular concern, which could lead to sanctions and economic consequences in the future, that matters. And in my opinion, that's worthy of a prize.

SIDNER: We will end it there. Everyone, thank you so much for being here. We'll be right back.

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[23:00:00]

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SINDER: Before we go, a programming note. Take an intimate look at the life of New Zealand's former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in the new CNN film "Prime Minister." It premieres Sunday, November 16th at 9 P.M., it is fascinating, 9 P.M. here on CNN and the next day on the CNN app.

And thank you for watching "NewsNight". "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.