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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
RNC Chair Says GOP Facing Certain Defeat But Need Trump; Wall Street Journal Column Says, Trump May Be Losing His Touch; New Pics From Epstein Estate Show Trump, Clinton, Bannon; Governor Newsom Laments Trump's Remaining Years Of His Second Presidency; Trump Administration To Put The President's Face On A $1 Coin. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired December 12, 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, Donald Trump's handpicked RNC chair predicts doom is coming as new cracks emerge in the president's armor.
REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): He is not a lame duck. He's the most powerful president of this generation.
PHILLIP: Plus, new pictures from Jeffrey Epstein's estate drop shows his world was both secret and bipartisan.
Also --
GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM (D-CA): This is their role model? A guy calls someone a retard. A guy calls someone a piggy.
PHILLIP: Gavin Newsom gets emotional about Trump's venom, even though he's adopted many of the same tactics.
And he's put his face on buildings, walls, and park passes. Now, the president wants his 2 cents on coins.
Live at the table, Charles Blow, Brianna Lyman, Lance Trover and Congressman Jared Moskowitz.
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 at the Food Network.
Let's get right to what America's talking about, panic politics. As Democrats keep winning elections across the country, there are some new signs that the president is starting to lose his grip on the party. Indiana Republicans this week rejected Donald Trump's demands to change the political maps to help the GOP. Now, that is a state that he won by 19 points. And a Wall Street Journal column argues that Trump may be losing his touch ahead of the midterms. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is already predicting a blue wave in the upcoming November elections. And Trump's handpicked chairman of the Republican National Committee is trying to be optimistic about all this while acknowledging that history does not bode well for his party.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE GRUTERS, CHAIRMAN, REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE: And I like her chances of midterms. But let me put in perspective. Only three times in the last a hundred years has the incumbent party been successful winning a midterm.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Wow.
GRUTERS: 4 times in the last 150. We're facing almost certain defeat. The only person that could bring the nose up and help us win is the president of the United States, Donald J. Trump.
You'd hit the nail on the head. This is a absolute disaster. You know, no matter what party's in power, they normally get crushed in the midterms. And so what do we have to do? Well, the president started last night. The president's going to brainstorm the country. It's about communication.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Now, where have I heard that before? It's always usually the answer that Republicans are going to bring Trump out. But back in 2018, they tried to do the same thing, putting Trump from front and center, keep Trump on the trail, Trump people to death was one of the things that they talked about in 2018. Do you think this is a winning strategy, Congressman?
REP. JARED MOSKOWITZ (D-FL): Well look we try to do it with Obama also. We try to put Obama on the ballot to try to boost our midterm turnout and we wound up losing in that first midterm. I know Joe Gruters. I served with Joe in the Florida legislature. He's a good guy. I think he's just being honest. If you talk to Republicans in the halls of Congress, when the television cameras are not on and the microphones are not picking up, they'll tell you the same thing. There's 150 years of history, right? That's what they're saying. We're up against 150 years of history that the likelihood is they're going to lose.
And what have we done? It's like the least productive Congress only to be compared to the last Congress, which was the least productive Congress, both run by Mike Johnson. And so there's no agenda from the Republicans. They're going to let all these people lose their health insurance. I have 160,000 people on ACA in my own district that are going to lose the subsidy. And so, you know, they're talking about affordability as a hoax. They got to support the president on that.
I mean, it's not going well. They're -- you know, the elections in a year. That's the best news they have going for them.
PHILLIP: Yes. Brianna?
BRIANNA LYMAN, REPORTER, THE FEDERALIST: I actually don't disagree with the Congressman to the extent that Republicans have -- what have they done? We have the one big, beautiful bill, which, yes, is a legislative accomplishment. And then we got a resolution condemning socialism. Yes, that is not what Republicans voted for --
MOSKOWITZ: I've voted for that one, by the way.
LYMAN: Thank you. And I think it's a good thing to vote for, but it's not worth the time. Republicans were elected with a trifecta last November and they had a list of things that conservatives wanted them to do. Pass the Save Act. End the H-1B visas. Codify President Trump's executive orders, like protecting girls in sports. Codify DOGE cuts. There is a long list of things they can do. And the only thing they have done besides the one big, beautiful bill is pass a resolution condemning socialism.
So, I wouldn't be surprised if they lose in November because what is making Republicans feel galvanized to turn out.
PHILLIP: Can I ask you why do you think that's happening? Why is it that Mike Johnson and maybe the White House doesn't want anything else to get done?
LYMAN: Well, I don't think it's the White House that doesn't want anything to get done.
PHILLIP: Well then, I mean, if Trump wanted it done, wouldn't it be done?
LYMAN: I think Trump wants all these things done, and I think he's spoken about it both publicly and privately. And I think that there are members in the Republican Congress who care more about winning their race rather than doing what they were elected to do.
[22:05:00]
PHILLIP: Charles?
CHARLES BLOW, THE LANGSTON HUGHES FELLOW, HARVARD UNIVERSITY: I think part of the problem is what they haven't done. But part of the problem is what they actually have done. People are souring on Trump's handling of the economy. At this A.P. poll that was released yesterday, 70 percent -- nearly 70 percent of people do not agree with the way he's handling the economy. People are souring on the way he's handling immigration. People don't want to see this much cruelty.
Even if you want the border to be closed down, if you want better immigration policy, no one wants this. No one wants to see people tackled in the street. No one wants to see people being shipped away to third continents, not even countries. That's just a cruelty that a lot of people cannot stomach. And I think a lot of that is what is coming through in the public, where people are just saying, yes, I get it, but they're overplaying their hand.
And politicians keep doing this, election after election. No one in the last 50 years since Nixon in '72 has won more than 60 percent of the popular vote, and yet people always act like and even say that they're operating some massive mandate. The American people have told us that they want us to go out and do all these things. No, they haven't, and they keep getting punished in those midterms.
That is not the way that American people want it to work. They want you to listen to them, not tell them that they're lying when they go to say that things are not affordable. That's just a lie. I can't use that lie to buy a steak instead of baloney. I can't use that lie to keep the lights on and the house warm. I can't use that lie on a mortgage application unless, of course, you're Donald Trump, you can use it.
LYMAN: Or Letitia James, right?
BLOW: No. Well, they didn't. They grand jury had a real hard time, right?
LYMAN: Yes, in a (INAUDIBLE) district with like an 80 percent Democratic district.
PHILLIP: Well, you're making it --
BLOW: Okay, yes, but it didn't happen.
PHILLIP: Two interesting points that you're making. I mean, I think, one, this overinterpretation of the Trump mandate. I mean, he won despite the Electoral College in terms of actual votes, fairly narrowly in line with a lot of the close elections of the last decade and more. But then also, here's what Peggy Noonan wrote about the immigration piece. She says, the president's border triumph will likely weaken his and MAGA's political position.
He shut down illegal immigration on the southern border, which had more or less been open for decades, but it was anger at illegal immigration that kept his base cleaved to him and allied with each other. This is the paradox of politics. Every time you solve a major problem, you're removing a weapon from your political arsenal.
So, he solves that problem. Then he goes to this type of sort of indiscriminate deportation, which is unpopular and I he's losing the plot is essentially what Peggy Noonan is saying.
LANCE TROVER, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: RealClearPolitics average today 44 percent approval rating for the president of the United States, exactly where he was when he got elected a year ago. He has a 90 percent approval rating with the party. That to me is far from being a lame duck.
When it comes to immigration, yes, he closed the border. We passed a tax cut bill. He's holding institutions accountable. He's doing things that he promised. I'm going to disagree with you all a little bit and say, no, he's actually done a lot and what he promised he would do. And so I think when it comes to some of this stuff, he would need to give him a little breathing room, because, remember, you guys -- taxes would be going up if you guys had your way come January 1st. That's a fact. You voted against the big, beautiful bill. No tax on tips, no tax on overtime. All of that stuff is coming on January 1st.
Are things tough right now? Absolutely. I'm not going to argue with that at all. But the only solution here is to put the president out there to talk about these successes that he has had. And I saw NBC this week, going back to the immigration issue, abolish ICE is coming back into the lexicon of the left.
(CROSSTALKS)
TROVER: So, the left is going to come back --
BLOW: It says to voters, just have faith in Donald Trump. It may be painful now, but two weeks from now, two months from now, next quarter, next year, it'll get better for you. That's what you hear in church.
TROVER: Well, no.
BLOW: Your life is hard right now. But in the future, in the by and by, it'll get better. People cannot -- people can't buy things with that. They can't keep the lights on with that. This faith argument is wearing thin.
LYMAN: Well, hold on. It's not just --
TROVER: If you have $1,200 more in your pocket next year because of the tax cut, you're saying people can't buy more with that, when you're not getting paying taxes and overtime or tips, I mean, what are you talking about here?
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Lance, (INAUDIBLE) arguing with because the voters are saying no. They're the ones saying that Trump is responsible for the current economy. They're the ones saying that the costs are going up. They're the ones saying that things are worse now than they were a year ago. So, you can all the numbers you want, and I don't even -- that $1,200 figure, not totally sure where it's coming from. It hasn't really been validated with any hard data. But voters are saying, it's not good enough. They don't feel -- it's not just that they don't feel that. They actually think that their lives are getting worse. That's the problem.
[22:10:00]
MOSKOWITZ: The sentiment's clear. And, by the way, the fact we talked about taxes real quick. You have taxed the American people. It's called tariffs, okay? Those tariffs are a tax. The reason why inflation has not come down faster is because of the tariffs. That's empirical data. That's number one. Number two is, listen, if you think things are going great, I don't want to correct you. Keep doing it. Keep crushing it for the next year. Change absolutely nothing. Keep telling people affordability is a hoax. Keep telling them the stock market is high. Keep telling them all of these things, rell them how to feel. Keep doing it.
We tried it for a year leading up to the election and it was a complete failure. But if you want to adopt Bidenomics and call it Trumpnomics and you want to tell people how to feel, good luck. Do it.
PHILLIP: So, let me play. Hold on, let me play --
TROVER: I agree with you.
PHILLIP: Go ahead.
TROVER: No, I just want to say, look, we have a sales job to do. That's my whole point in all this. And the only solution, as was noted by the RNC chairman today, is that the president has to go out and do a sales job on what has happened, closing the border and passing a tax package to remind voters that he has kept his promise.
BLOW: It's not a sales job. It's a snow job. It's a lie.
LYMAN: Okay, hold on. Let's not even go into the January 1st, what's coming in with the one big, beautiful bill. Let's talk about purchasing power has increased 1 percent under Donald Trump compared to dropping 4 percent under Joe Biden. Inflation, yes, is not where we'd like it to be, but it's certainly lower than under Joe Biden. So, things are on the right trajectory. So, we're not selling them a pile of snow. We're telling them that we hear your pain and frustration and we're working in the right direction.
BLOW: I want you go to a local Kroger's with somebody checking out their groceries and give them all those numbers and see if they --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: I think the Republicans have a risk. They run the risk of lying to themselves with statistics. Because when you just say the Biden years and you take the worst of inflation, which it was under Biden, I think what you're missing is that in that last year of Biden, GDP was actually higher than it is now under Trump. And so what people are comparing today to is a year ago, not four years ago.
And Republicans, I think that Talking Point works in this kind of setting. But what people are comparing their lives to was, what was it like before Donald Trump was inaugurated? What was it like six months ago? What was it like eight -- well, no. I mean, look --
LYMAN: It was really bad a year.
PHILLIP: Hold on. A year ago, around this time, gas was about the same that it is now. The GDP was higher than it is now. Inflation was about the same as it is now. So, just real talk, I think that Americans are not -- they understand how bad it was under the Biden years. They voted him out because of that.
But Republicans run the risk of using the stats of the last four years to say, oh, it was so bad but not realizing that people are saying, well. I'm comparing January when you told me things were bad to today when you told me things were going to get better and they haven't gotten better. That's the reality.
LYMAN: Right. And what I'm saying is that we can acknowledge the pain and suffering, which I think everyone at this table has acknowledged that things still don't feel amazing. But if you are to look, and I get that people aren't sitting around the table being like, look at that GDP tonight, honey, they're not doing. But if we are looking politically at this, things are headed in the right direction.
And, again, President Trump is the president that's going to keep us on track. And I have faith that he, by November --
(CROSSTALKS)
BLOW: What do you mean, to look politically at it? Because the people are --
LYMAN: We're looking at the statistics.
BLOW: That doesn't mean anything to people.
LYMAN: I just said -- yes, no crap. I just said, I'm not talking about the people at the kitchen table.
BLOW: But did none of that.
LYMAN: You can't turn my argument around.
BLOW: Then none of that matters. This idea of like, oh, but, politically, we're sitting here and bouncing around a bunch of numbers in the Food Network where there's plenty of food and we don't have to pay for it, that sounds great.
But for people who do have to pay for the food and they feel it, and they're looking at the bill, at the end of the checking out the food, and they're looking at the man on the television saying, this is all a Democratic hoax, that everything is affordable, affordability is a hoax by Democrats, it's insanity. You cannot do that to real people.
LYMAN: But your party could do it for four years? You guys redefined a recession.
BLOW: You literally did not learn the lesson. You guys attacked Joe Biden for Bidenomics.
LYMAN: Has he destroyed the economy?
BLOW: You attacked him for it. You said this doesn't work. You can't tell people how to feel. And then you turn right around in less than a year and start trying to tell people how they feel. It's insanity.
MOSKOWITZ: Look, I'm from the future, and I can tell you it's not going to work. We did it and it failed, okay? Period.
PHILLIP: Maybe the lesson of this is, look, Republicans won. They won on this issue. Learn the lesson that you taught Democrats. I think that's basically what's happening here. And a failure to do so might be hubris in this moment, but it could be politically a disaster. It could be practically a disaster for Americans going into this next.
MOSKOWITZ: A-plus, plus, plus, plus, though.
PHILLIP: All right, next, those new pictures from Jeffrey Epstein's estate, they're revealed today and they show Trump, Bill Clinton many other powerful and rich players. We're going to discuss that.
Plus, Gavin Newsom gets emotional when he's talking about the impact that Trump is having on society and kids and why the U.S. can't keep this up for three more years, he says.
[22:15:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: Tonight, another document dump, House Democrats have released new photos from Jeffrey Epstein's estate, where the convicted sex trafficker is seen with rich and powerful men like Donald Trump, former President Bill Clinton, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, billionaires Bill Gates and Richard Branson, Prince Andrew, and former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, Lawyer Alan Dershowitz, and Director Woody Allen.
Now, it's important to note that none of these photos depict any sexual misconduct, and the women in the photos aren't believed to be underage. The White House responded to the release though saying, once again, House Democrats are selectively releasing cherry-picked photos with random redactions to try to create a false narrative.
[22:20:010]
Now, a reminder, just one week from today is the deadline for the Justice Department to release its files on Epstein, as required by the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which was overwhelmingly passed by Congress. If there's anything that this demonstrates more information coming out, but this is not a one-sided partisan situation. You know, you've got people from all walks of life, business, Hollywood, politics, left and right, and they're all in there. And so I do think that that kind of punctures a lot of the narratives.
And also, to me, I'm kind of perplexed by the White House statement because nobody comes off looking good. Democrats don't come off looking good. Republicans don't come off looking good.
TROVER: Well, I think the complaint is that they are cherry-picking. They have 90,000-some photos and they're cherry-picking those photos. And, for example, the one they put out today was just a picture with the president and women who were not underage. There was Jeffrey Epstein, who is not in the photo.
LYMAN: Hawaiian tropic girls.
TROVER: They redacted their faces and, but the Epstein estate had already put that out with their faces. And so it kind of just leads to this question, it looks -- makes it look skivvy (ph) when it's not. I mean, I agree with you, this is bipartisan.
PHILLIP: But I guess my thing is that I don't think that necessarily looks skivvy. It's just a photo of Donald Trump. I don't understand why --
TROVER: Selectively releasing photos and redacting it from the Democrat, yes, I think it is meant to make him look -- I think it makes them look terrible. Look, if they've got something they should just put it out there, the House Democrats, put it out there. Why are they cherry-picking this on a Friday morning and just throwing some photos out? I mean --
BLOW: What makes them look terrible is months of resisting releasing these files and only doing it after he was pressured to do it.
Listen, for decades, Epstein did this over a thousand girls and children, some as young -- reported as young as 12 years old. And we want to believe that all these powerful men were around him in that orbit, including Donald Trump, and no one had a clue that this was happening. It strains (ph) credulity.
And the only person of the people who've been put out today in these photographs who has complained about whether or not to release things is Donald Trump. He has made himself look bad. He has made himself look guilty, has nothing to do with Democrats.
MOSKOWITZ: He signed the bill. The photos, it's all coming out next week.
BLOW: Under duress.
PHILLIP: Let me just -- to your point about whether people knew what was going on, Danielle Bensky, she's an Epstein survivor, she was on CNN earlier tonight, here's what she said about the spaces that she saw that she recognized from those photos. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DANIELLE BENSKY, EPSTEIN SURVIVOR: But he did threaten me so severely in that moment, and it happened in that office. And then to see a political figure who should be protecting our country sitting in that very spot is really appalling. And I think that like there's no way that you could be in that house and be, I mean -- he was -- like the way the design and the architecture was, he was literally like right across the hall from the massage room. So there's no way that you could enter that house and not know what was going on.
So, at the very least, you're witnessing something and you're complicit in it.
(END VIDEO CLIP) PHILLIP: Yes. She's saying there's no way you could have been there, no way you could have been in that office, in the house without knowing. I mean, do you agree with her?
MOSKOWITZ: Yes. I mean, listen, if you were at a college and we were teaching a class on political malpractice, you could teach a whole semester on the fact that the president and Republicans on his behalf try to cover this up for eight months for, for apparently at this moment, no particular reason that we are aware of, okay? And so that's why they are where they are.
I mean, remember the president was going to war with his own party. He had told every Republican that this was a Democratic hoax and not to fall for it, again, the hoax word, okay? He told Republicans that they were going to get primaried over this. He tried to scare them, bully them from voting for this thing, okay?
To tell you how bad the politics were, that it's before it even got to the Senate, physically got to the Senate that unanimously just got it out of their chamber and sent it to the president because they realized how poorly this had been managed for eight months.
I mean, some of these photos are very strange. Obviously, you see, you know, the president's got --
PHILLIP: And some of the congressmen who've seen all of them say that there are some photos of sexual acts in the photos that they did not release. There are a lot of people that they can't identify. That's one of the reasons they haven't released more photos. So, there are things that there that are in the possession of Congress right now and more that will come out.
Meanwhile, James Comer is calling the Clintons to appear in early January for an Oversight Committee hearing, the Clintons and only the Clintons.
[22:25:03]
Why? There was Steve -- We saw Steve Bannon right there across from Jeffrey Epstein. Steve Bannon was a free man. He can comment anytime you want.
LYMAN: Well, I actually have first have a question to Charles and the congressman. How many Epstein files did Joe Biden release? I think it was zero. Donald Trump willingly released thousands of Epstein files, and now we have Congress who already approved the release of more. So, don't sit here and pretend like President Trump has been stonewalling this when we have had several presidents in the past 20 years and not a single one has done anything for these victims to bring awareness.
Second of all, I didn't hear a peep --
PHILLIP: I think you can call this willingly when Trump --
LYMAN: Willingly, Donald Trump released --
PHILLIP: He explicitly said --
LYMAN: -- a massive proof of documents --
PHILLIP: This is not me. He explicitly said several times that he did not think that they should be released. He had private conversations that were revealed by Marjorie Taylor Greene where he urged her to drop the issue. And on top of that, I mean, they was an active case involving Ghislaine Maxwell during the Biden administration that, according to experts, would have prohibited the Biden DOJ from releasing a lot of these documents in that time.
So, all of this being said, I don't think that Trump releasing the Epstein files because Congress forced him to under duress is willingly. I don't think anyone would describe that as well.
LYMAN: You can't ignore the fact that he willingly released with Pam Bondi, and maybe it wasn't to your satisfaction of what kind of documents it was.
(CROSSTALKS)
MOSKOWITZ: Wait. Hold on. Pam crushed it. Pam crushed it. She created part one binders that she gave to (INAUDIBLE). Then the list was on her desk and there was no list. Yes, Pam crushed it with the Epstein files.
LYMAN: It was more transparent than Garland and Joe Biden that any of them gave.
PHILLIP: And then they released a bunch of a content.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Hold on a second. What did you say, Lance?
TROVER: It is a political cover. That is what the Democrats, to your point, Joe Biden did absolutely nothing for four years about this.
MOSKOWITZ: Now verb Joe Biden. When do we stop that?
LYMAN: He sucks. We got to talk about it.
TROVER: You can talk about the president the entire time but let's be --
BLOW: You asked us a question and you didn't let us answer. You answered it yourself. But I would let you answer this one. Do you feel confident that Donald has nothing to hide, whatsoever?
LYMAN: With the Epstein files?
BLOW: Yes.
LYMAN: 100 percent.
BLOW: Then why don't you tell him that? Then why don't you tell him that? Because he doesn't believe that. He doesn't believe in it.
(CROSSTALKS)
LYMAN: That's ridiculous.
BLOW: You believe it somehow, but he doesn't.
PHILLIP: We are going to leave that conversation there.
Next for us, Gavin Newsom gets emotional talking about Trump's impact on American society, including his use of slurs, but as the governor adopting some of the very same tactics that he says he hates.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NEWSOM: We can't keep this up. We're polarized. We're traumatized. We're exhausted.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:30:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: Tonight, Gavin Newsom is lamenting the remaining years of the Trump era. In an interview with the "New York Times," the California governor got emotional about Donald Trump's rhetoric. I can't even conceive of three more years of this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM (D-CA): It really is. What's happening to our kids? Their brains are already being scrambled by social media and everything else we didn't talk about.
But this, this is their role model? A guy who calls someone a retard? A guy who calls someone a piggy? This is our role model, the President of the United States?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Over the last six months, Newsom has been emulating Trump's brash, all-caps laden, and often A.I.-generated social media persona. And it's not just Democrats, listen to these Republicans who rejected the President's demand for a new map in Indiana.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEAN LEISING (R-IN), STATE SENATOR: The efforts were mean-spirited from the get-go. So, you know, I think they get what they get. I wish that President Trump would change his tone.
MIKE BOHACEK (R-IN), STATE SENATOR: I had released a post about my displeasure over some slur that the President used. Words have consequences. And for me, it was just added to a litany of reasons of why this was just bad policy and not good timing. And it wasn't deserving of my support.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: That last Indiana lawmaker that you just heard, one of the reasons that he said that he rejected this map was when he heard Trump use the R-word slur, he has a child with a disability. And I wonder if Gavin Newsom, you think Brianna, is hitting on something that is bubbling up here. When you have Republicans saying Trump is going too far, is that a sentiment that could hurt Trump and Republicans going forward?
BRIANNA LYMAN, REPORTER, "THE FEDERALIST": I don't think so. I think to the state senator, Bob Bohacek, who just spoke, I can understand why a parent with a child with Down syndrome would be sensitive to the use of the R-word. And I completely agree.
But I do think to his point about words mattering. Words matter, but policies matter more.
And if he cares about the dignity of people and children with Down syndrome, then he should want to make sure Republicans have a good, fair fighting chance in Congress. Because it's parties like Congressman Moskowitz's party, who votes against legislation that would ban abortion solely on the base of Down syndrome.
And so if you want to focus on the dignity of those with Down syndrome, words may hurt, but policies will hurt more. So I think he should have voted with the Republicans to redistrict.
[22:35:01]
CHARLES BLOW, THE LANGSTON HUGHES FELLOW, HARVARD UNIVERSITY: Not having insurance is also going to hurt.
PHILLIP: So you're fine. You think it's important for, you know, on the abortion piece, for children with Down syndrome to have a chance of life. But when they are here, you're fine with the President denigrating them with a slur?
LYMAN: Abby, I think everybody at this table, at least for my generation, the lexicon unfortunately uses the R-word not to smear or malign anybody.
PHILLIP: Yes, on a playground in fifth grade, not the President of the United States.
LYMAN: No, Abby, I'm telling you right now that is a word that unfortunately is just thrown around as if you're calling someone an idiot or a moron. I'm not defending it, but I'm saying that President Trump certainly was not using it to attack someone who has a legitimate disability.
I think we all know that, too. Calling Tim Walz the R-word is not trying to say Tim Walz is Down syndrome.
PHILLIP: Well, look, Tim Walz also has a child with disabilities, so there's that, too. But Charles, you were saying?
BLOW: I mean, I think, you know, we're in the wicked season, and we got used to Trump defying gravity. And we thought, you know, a lot of people thought that that was going to happen forever. I think that gravity is now taking hold.
I believe that there's a political gravity that's happening with Donald Trump because people are getting exhausted by it. I think this is what was happening at the end of the first term, and I think this is where Newsom has to tread a little bit more lightly here because emulating Donald Trump, by the end of his presidency, people were exhausted by Donald Trump.
They did not want exact replica of Donald Trump, they wanted something completely different from that. And I think that, you know, Gavin Newsom has to figure out if he wants to continue the next three years of being anti-Trump by being kind of a mirror image of him.
PHILLIP: Yes, can he do both?
LANCE TROVER, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Ezra Klein has an interview with him basically saying he is the front-runner for the Democratic Party.
Yet what did he put out? An A.I.-generated photo of the president of the United States in handcuffs this week. He told the Indiana governor, get down on your knees today in a post on X.
So, I don't know, the President can't do it, but yet Gavin Newsom is now the front-runner for the Democrats?
PHILLIP: Wait, I don't know, this is sort of a chicken-and-egg kind of situation.
TROVER: What are you talking about? No, we're talking about verbiage.
PHILLIP: No, I'm saying what's chicken-and-egg is that you're sort of implying that Gavin Newsom started it and that it's fair for Trump and Republicans to continue it.
TROVER: I didn't say Gavin Newsom started it. We all know how the president speaks.
PHILLIP: Yes, exactly.
TROVER: We all know how the president speaks. He got re-elected with 77 million votes.
PHILLIP: Do you remember this? This is a Trump post from 2024 where he reposts a truck with Joe Biden, hogtied, on the streets and Trump flags flying. So, I mean, Gavin Newsom's point is, and trust me, I think part of the question I'm asking is, can he do this, right?
But his point is that Trump does this every day. Now, all of a sudden, Republicans are up in arms.
You've got Republicans like Peter Navarro saying, I went to prison defending the Constitution because of woke assholes like you who weaponized our justice system. This isn't close to funny. All you're doing is inciting more violence.
Was it violence when Trump did it? And why are Republicans suddenly so offended?
TROVER: Look, I can't speak to those Republicans, and I'm not arguing with you. We know how Donald Trump speaks, and he's very blunt. That's one of the things that people of America like about him. Sometimes he uses words I don't always agree with.
But I'm just saying, for the media and others to now prop up Gavin Newsom and say he's great when he's putting out A.I.-generated photos of our President in handcuffs on a sidewalk, what's the difference?
PHILLIP: You sound offended by it.
TROVER: I'm saying what's the difference? I'm saying what's the difference? You guys want to slam the president constantly.
PHILLIP: Are you offended by someone saying that their political opponent should be put in jail? Okay, well, let's roll the tape.
LYMAN: It's not about being offended. You should never just preemptively assume your opponent should be in jail like that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, 45TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: For what she's done, they should lock her up.
Hillary Clinton has to go to jail, okay? She has to go to jail.
You should lock them up. Lock up the Bidens. Lock up Hillary.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Alright, so, tale as old as time. Lock her up.
This was 2016. This was four years before Joe Biden. This was four years before the alleged lawfare.
Lock her up. What are we talking about here?
LYMAN: First of all, he said, should. Did Donald Trump weaponize his Department of Justice to lock Hillary Clinton up? No, he didn't.
But did Joe Biden lock up Peter Navarro so you guys could try Donald Trump? Yes.
PHILLIP: The reporting is, in his first term, he certainly tried. And he had a different government at the time, a different cabinet at the time, and it didn't work. But my -- Listen, I'm not defending any of this, but I just think it is so interesting that memes and that threats of -- or not even threats, just memes about locking up your political opponent are suddenly so offensive to the other side of the aisle when it was fine and Trump didn't.
REP. JARED MOSKOWITZ (D-FL): I mean, listen, A for effort on that lock her up thing. Okay, but here's what I would say, right?
[22:40:00]
At the end of the day, the game has changed. And what Democrats have decided is we may not like the game, we may find it morally reprehensible.
But what Gavin has decided is he's going to play the game. Because if you don't play, you automatically lose.
And so you can play the game while also saying, I don't like the game.
PHILLIP: Can you?
MOSKOWITZ: You're making my point. You're making my point.
PHILLIP: I would say, Congressman, I don't know if that's true. I don't know if you tell Americans that, like, you know, we're going to just normalize this whole thing.
MOSKOWITZ: It is normalized.
PHILLIP: I'm going to go, you know, when they go low, I go lower. That's the thing that people are saying these days. The actual representation of that is this.
How do you go to the American people and then say, kick those people out and put me in instead?
MOSKOWITZ: Because it's the politics of escalation. That is what is going on in the house that I serve in. That's what I see every single solitary day.
I mean, again, right? You remove one person from committee on one side, the next year they remove two. You remove two, they remove four. They don't like what Biden's DOJ did, what Trump's DOJ is worse.
Okay? And so it's the politics of escalation. And so Democrats could decide not to play. But then we lose, hold on, but then we lose in the communications game.
Then Democrats say, we're not fighters, we're not fighting. The reason Gavin is rising is that they look at him as a fighter. They may not like the game, but he's playing to win.
PHILLIP: All right. Very quick.
BLOW: Okay. I think that I was off this to two other liberals out there. The tipper-tatting with the memes feels good. Eventually someone's going to have to wake up and realize that this is fascism that's approaching.
It's not going to just be a meme that's going to be the response. There's going to have to be more people in the streets. There's going to have to be more really hard decisions made about how you want to live and what your future should look like.
And that's not going to just be yelling back at the guy who's yelling at you.
PHILLIP: Next for us, the National Trust is now suing Donald Trump to stop his ballroom construction. Do they have a case? Plus, he's now putting his face on the $1 coin from the treasury. We'll discuss that next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:45:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: Tonight, he is putting his face on buildings, walls, and park passes. And now Donald Trump is skipping the line, breaking precedent and putting his face on American currency. The Trump administration plans to issue a $1 coin featuring Trump's likeness next year in a move that no sitting President has considered in nearly a century.
So, instead of issuing previously recommended coins honoring abolitionists, suffragettes, and civil rights icons to celebrate America's 250th birthday, the treasury will instead issue quarters honoring white men from the 18th and 19th century, already well represented on currency. You see them there.
Neither the treasury department, which has final approval over the coin designs, nor the U.S. Mint responded to questions about the change from CNN.
The Trump administration was sued this week also for replacing images of national parks on some annual passes to, as you see there, a face of Donald Trump.
I don't know. He must really like himself. He likes the images of himself.
Brianna, do you want to take this one? What are we doing?
LYMAN: Am I taking the pass or the coin?
PHILLIP: Yes, I don't know. You guys are like looking at each other like, who's going to do it?
LYMAN: Look, when it comes to the coin, love him or hate him, Donald Trump has fundamentally changed American history and he is going to be remembered one way or another, whether in 20 years, he's passed on, he's likely put some kind of resolution forward or something, however this works, to put him on a coin.
So do I think Donald Trump might eventually get nominated for a coin or be put on one? Yes.
Whether he should be put on one now, I personally have no big qualms. It's not like I'm going to be out there paying with Trump change.
TROVER: We were commemorative, right?
LYMAN: Right. I'm going to put it on my dresser, maybe.
TROVER: Yeah, I mean.
PHILLIP: Patrick Douglas, you know, Women's Right to Vote, Ruby Bridges, I mean, there are so many things that can and should be commemorated, but Trump seems fixated on making sure that his face is on everything, his name is on everything, that his holiday is marked at National -- His birthday is marked at National Park as a holiday.
LYMAN: It's a flag day.
PHILLIP: Yeah, but --
LYMAN: National holiday.
PHILLIP: But, yeah, they could have said, oh, flag day. They labeled it on the National Park's website as flag day slash President Trump's birthday.
I mean, I don't know. It's ego. It's whatever.
I don't know what it is.
BLOW: But, you know, branding has worked for him in his life, and it has worked for him in sometimes in politics. So when he insisted on his name going out on the Trump checks that people continue to call them, that actually helped because people did. A lot of people who were struggling didn't quite understand all the background and who had gotten the checks approved and at what amount.
They just knew a check showed up. It had his name on it, and that connection was made immediately, and that really resonated even until the last time he was elected. This is a different time because this is just kind of the branding of buildings and the branding of things.
None of it is alleviating the stress that people are under. People still need to buy the groceries. People still need to fill up the car and figure out if they can buy a house.
None of that is happening, but we're building a new ballroom, and we're putting his name on coins.
[22:50:05]
None of that feels good to people who are struggling. That is a negative for him more so than a positive.
PHILLIP: Lance?
TROVER: Yeah, I'm with you. This isn't really moving me. I hear what you're saying, too, but this is something that doesn't move me.
That's why when I saw the Democrats today putting legislation out to bar him from doing it, it's like, why are you guys wasting your time on that?
To me, it's like always opposing Donald Trump, which is to oppose everything he does. I don't think a lot of people are... To your point, I just don't think a lot of people--
PHILLIP: You don't think it's weird that he's putting his face on currency?
TROVER: I think it's been done throughout the years. Calvin Coolidge did it 100 years ago right next to George Washington. It's not without precedent.
PHILLIP: It was so unpopular when Calvin Coolidge did it that they minted a million coins and 860,000 were returned to the mint and just melted down.
TROVER: Maybe --
PHILLIP: Here's the reason why Americans don't like things like this.
Because we literally were founded on not having kings. We literally were founded on not having the person who's ruling us slap their face on the currency like they do in some other parts of the world. So, yes, maybe it's not the most important thing in the world, but it certainly sends the wrong signal about this kind of thing.
BLOW: For Republicans who have made a big deal of bragging about how there has been some drift among some minority groups, including African Americans, towards the Republican Party, taking Frederick Douglass off of a coin or not putting him on or Ruby Bridges.
It would have been one thing to say we're going to add Donald Trump to these other ones and continue to go ahead and print these, but then to say, no, we're not going to print Frederick Douglass, we're going to print Donald Trump instead. We're not going to print Ruby Bridges, we're going to print Donald Trump instead.
All that drift, I think that Republicans are doing -- Donald Trump, the chief among them, doing a horrible job of holding on to it. I think all that drift is going to be eroded.
TROVER: Let me suggest a compromise. What if we put his face on the penny?
MOSKOWITZ: That's funny.
That might be a good idea. They're actually going to print some more pennies next year.
LYMAN: I thought they stopped.
PHILLIP: Just to say that they're ending. It's a whole thing. All right. Next for us, the panel gives us their nightcaps, alter ego
edition, and it looks like Chef Ginevra has some real nightcaps for us tonight. Don't go anywhere, we'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:55:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: Our friend, Chef Ginevra Iverson, the executive chef at the Food Network, is here with us to tell us about these plates that we've been digging into here in the break. Chef?
CHEF GINEVRA IVERSON, EXECUTIVE CHEF, FOOD NETWORK: Yes. So tonight we did a lobster roll BLT.
Just a twist on a regular lobster roll. It's the holidays. It's fun, it's a special sort of treat.
What I love about it is you can always swap out crab or shrimp or something that's not quite as expensive if you're trying to mind your budget during the holidays, but it still feels rich and decadent. Good thing for a holiday party.
PHILLIP: It feels like a new summer staple, even though it's supposed to be for the holidays. I'm thinking ahead to next summer when I will be making this. You can scan the Q.R. code on the screen for the BLT lobster roll recipe.
Now for our nightcaps. Actor Timothy Chalamet is fueling speculation that he is secretly the masked British rapper EsDeeKid. He's dodging questions and teasing that all will be revealed as fans recall his old rap persona, Little Timmy Tim.
So for tonight's nightcap, if you had an alter ego, who would you want to be? Chef Ginevra?
IVERSON: Mine is not very exciting, but it would probably be a Sicilian winemaker off the grid somewhere, far-away.
PHILLIP: You stole mine. Go ahead, Brianna.
LYMAN: So, just this season, mine would be Rudolph because Rudolph, I feel like an outcast when I come on this show, but at the end of it, it's fun. We're all staying along, eating food together, so it works.
PHILLIP: Not Rudolph.
What is Lance Chopped Liver? He's your buddy over here.
LYMAN: It could be Bumble.
PHILLIP: All right.
BLOW: I would have been one of the dancers at the end of "The Wiz" when they're walking around in that circle so they wouldn't be caught dead in the end. They were like jacked out. They're the coolest people on the planet.
PHILLIP: I love it.
MOSKOWITZ: I would have been Dark Helmet from "Spaceballs."
PHILLIP: Explain that one to us.
I want to say Darth Vader, but I'm the size of Rick Miranda as Dark Helmet in "Spaceballs." I would like to be Darth Vader, but it's probably more like Dark Helmet.
PHILLIP: Yes, that helmet looks pretty significant there.
TROVER: You're right. That's good. This was no question.
Jimmy Buffett, despite my level of energy on this show, I'm actually a very chill person. I know when I walk outside, the only thing I'm going to think about is I want to go where it's warm, to quote Buffett. These lobster rolls kind of help too.
PHILLIP: Jimmy, are you going to sing?
TROVER: You do not want me to sing. I mean, I could, but your ratings will go zzz.
PHILLIP: Speaking of singing, I think my alter ego, I'd be like a backup singer for someone.
BLOW: Who?
PHILLIP: I don't know. Not for Lance. I'd be a backup singer for somebody who can sing really well. That's why I don't have to do that much work.
Okay, so that's what we're doing here. All right, guys.
Thank you very much. Thank you, Chef Ginevra, for this delicious food.
Thanks for watching "NewsNight." You can catch our Saturday show, "Table for Five," tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. Eastern time. You'll see Congressman Moskowitz there again.
"Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
