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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Trump Addresses Nation Amid Unpopular Economy, Fractured GOP; Trump Touts His Actions in First Year, Teases 2026 Agenda; Trump Blames Economy in Biden, I Inherited a Mess. GOP Passes Health Care Package; New Plaques Installed in Trump's West Wing Wall of Fame. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired December 17, 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)
SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR (voice over): Tonight, the president makes his case.
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: One year ago, our country was dead. Now, we're the hottest country anywhere in the world.
SIDNER: Despite an unpopular economy, a fractured base, and an anxious republic.
Plus centrist Republicans buck their speaker.
REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): I have not lost control.
SIDNER: As America's healthcare hangs in the balance.
REP. MIKE LAWLER (R-NY): I am pissed for the American people. This is absolute bullshit.
SIDNER: And Donald Trump takes his trolling to a brand new level, putting insults in stone on the walls of the White House.
Live at the table, Ana Navarro, Arthur Aidala, Ashley Allison, Lance Trover and Terry Moran.
Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here, they do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SIDNER (on camera): Good evening. I'm Sara Sidner in New York in for Abby Philip. Let's get straight to what Americans are talking about, Donald Trump's national address. Tonight, the president spoke directly to Americans. One thing was clear. He was forcefully trying to control the narrative on the first year of his second term, everything, from the economy and the border to wars and crime. And it didn't take him long to point fingers at who's to blame for anything that's wrong, beginning with his address this way. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: 11 months ago, I inherited a mess and I'm fixing it. When I took office, inflation was the worst in 48 years, and some would say in the history of our country, which caused prices to be higher than ever before, making life unaffordable for millions and millions of Americans.
This happened during a Democrat administration, and it's when we first began hearing the word, affordability. This is what the Biden administration allowed to happen to our country, and it can never be allowed to happen again.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SIDNER: All right. We are going to get to the economy in just a bit, then we're going to talk a lot about that. But, first, let's just talk about the tone of how he put this address out and some of the things that he said, some of the claims he made. I'm going to start with you, Terry, how did you read this? It was quite forceful and I guess the word might be also loud.
TERRY MORAN, VETERAN JOURNALIST: He was loud. He was loud. He was forceful. He was fast. I mean, the networks only gave him 15 minutes supposedly, and that is a problem for him because he likes to ramble, he likes to improvise. And he sounded like a man shouting at the nation that entire time. And more problematically for him is that when you try to tell people two things, the guy who's gone, it's still his fault, and, two, it's not as bad as you think it is. I've done all these great things. The facts of people's own lives will refute you. I thought that was a huge mistake that he tried to say, I've done all this great stuff that's helping you when the numbers show people think this economy is very bad for them personally, and he's shouting at them.
SIDNER: Arthur, you were cracking up when he said our country was dead. What does that even mean?
ARTHUR AIDALA, CRIMINAL DEFENSE LAWYER: Look, I thought if you're a Trumpster, if you're like if you're someone who supports the president, I mean, he did exactly what you want, right? He talked about how bad the last one was and how good he is. Like I'm a trial attorney --
SIDNER: But he said he's going to fix it right away on day one.
AIDALA: So, I'm a criminal defense attorney, and a lot of times the facts of my case are not really that great for my client. So, you have to figure out a way to tell those 12 jurors that something is maybe a little better or a little different than they actually see it as being and let me pick some facts and show you why.
Now, the gasoline thing, that is true. I mean, here in New York, the gas is definitely lower. The turkey thing, I'm sure The New York Times is fact-checking about how much the turkeys cost. So, you take -- I mean, it really was written by like a defense attorney. I mean, that's why I was laughing, is that you take those little things that are in your favor, you get really loud about them. Hopefully, it's a good enough distraction, and you're trying to bury the fact that, well, yes, the prosecutor has the DNA, the video, the audio, and everything else.
So, I mean, and I got to tell you, I enjoyed it.
[22:05:02]
I think it was a 15, whatever it was, 18 minutes of real Trumpism. And, I mean, I'm not saying I agreed with everything he said, but he accomplished what he needed to accomplish, which was for the people who love him, he said what they wanted to hear.
ANA NAVARRO, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Should I out you or should I not out you? You're dressed like a Christmas tree because you've been three at Christmas parties tonight.
AIDALA: A little.
NAVARRO: You didn't watch. You did not watch the speech. And, by the way, I don't blame you for not watching the speech because unless you are getting paid to watch it, like we are, there is no reason why anybody should have wasted 18 minutes of their lives that they're not going to get back. It was an angry old man shouting from the hills, shouting at the kids to get off their lawn. It felt like when you're watching that Charlie Brown cartoon and the teacher's like, wa, wa, wa.
AIDALA: You know there were people who love teaching you that.
NAVARRO: I tell you something, you have heard the same thing. There was very little new stuff, and you have heard him say the same stuff ad nauseam, I ended eight wars, it's all Biden's fault, the Democrats made up the term affordability, it's not real. I'm the best. I'm the greatest. Make America -- I mean, it's like --
AIDALA: But it made him the president.
ASHLEY ALLISON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I know, but --
NAVARRO: And by the way, and at the end, Merry Christmas to all. Feliz navidad.
AIDALA: And to all, good night.
NAVARRO: It was ridiculous.
ALLISON: It was ridiculous. But this was not the best Donald Trump we've seen. This is not the Donald Trump --
NAVARRO: Which is a low bar.
ALLISON: Yes. But like he's a performer. He is. This was not a solid performance. This was like worse than an understudy, quite honestly. And nobody was expecting empathy. But even his jabs were real weak. It was a weak left hook and it did nothing for him.
Now, my question is how many people actually watched, probably not a lot.
SIDNER: We will find those out.
ALLISON: We'll find out. But, you know, where it will go is that the parts where he's bashing Donald Trump, people will clip that, that are his base, but the parts --
AIDALA: You mean where he's bashing Biden?
ALLISON: (INAUDIBLE) Biden, when he should be bashing himself, but where he is bashing Biden, people will clip that and it will play on right wing social media.
But places where he's talking about things are so great, independents, people who might have been Obama, Trump, Biden, who moved around on the presidential election spectrum year to year, they will take that and say like, are you better off now than you were a year ago? And I don't think anybody can 100 percent say the answer is yes.
AIDALA: Well, and, look, let me just -- I know you got to go. But in terms of New York with the whole migrant thing, my office is on the block of the Roosevelt Hotel. I lived it. I lived the mopeds. I lived the insanity, and that's all gone.
ALLISON: But you only had one Johnny Walker Black tonight.
AIDALA: Yes, a little taste.
ALLISON: Yes, but that costs $25.
AIDALA: No, I was at a party, so it was free.
ALLISON: It was free. But if you went to the bar, it was $25, $30.
AIDALA: That's affordability. That's affordability. That's affordability.
ALLISON: And that's what won the mayor of New York.
AIDALA: He went off about migrants.
ALLISON: He did.
AIDALA: And he's right. And that has drastically changed in the city of New York, like night and day.
SIDNER: All right. I do want to just throw a couple of facts in here. Just 20 percent of Americans polled said that the country is going on the right track when it comes to inflation. 27 percent only said that it's on the right track when it comes to jobs.
Lance, when you hear what the president said, it was almost as if he was speaking out of both sides of his mouth, because on the one hand he was saying like this is all Joe Biden's hand (ph), on the other hand, he was saying, I've -- it's good, things are fine, things are great.
LANCE TROVER, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Well, I think he had to do and remind voters of where he is come from for where we were a year ago. Let's remember his RealClearPolitics polling average -- yes, people are cranky about some of these issues. His polling average still hovers around where he was when he was elected one year ago. That tells me there's a big chunk of this country that's still hanging on, saying, okay, we're putting our faith in you.
I view this speech as more, yes, we can quibble over how he talked and all that stuff, but Americans are very well versed in how Donald Trump talks. They know he talks loud, they know he talks fast, they know he is from New York. They all know that. I think what we should be looking forward to is, you know, what are the next steps? Where are we going from here? And that to me is what he outlined.
It was more to me a speech of reassurance because I think he wanted to say, hey, remember where we came from and let me reassure you because we have done things and he has a lot to talk about. The one big, beautiful bill takes effect in January. If you voted for the Democrats, taxes will be going up in January. My thing is he needs to take this speech on the road. Vance needs to get on the road. They need to take this and push it all the way through the midterms because that's the only way to accomplish some of that.
NAVARRO: Yes, please take it on the road. Don't interrupt my primetime viewing on T.V. I mean, this was a presidential address on primetime, right? Usually, these things are done when monumental things have happened. I mean, there's a State of the Union address that's going to come up at the earlier in the next year where he can talk about all these things that he talked about tonight.
Frankly, what I think is that he wants to distract the nation. He's had -- he wants to change the narrative. He wants to change the tone. He's had a couple of very bad press cycles in the last few weeks.
[22:10:00]
I mean, you know --
AIDALA: Days.
NAVARRO: I mean, his inner circle is staff pictured in Vanity Fair looking like ghouls and his chief of staff said the Venezuela stuff that supposedly about drugs is about regime change.
TROVER: Is anybody in Peoria, Illinois, paying attention to a Vanity Fair piece? No.
NAVARRO: And do you think anybody Peoria, Illinois, is watching this?
TROVER: We on this table obsess over that stuff.
NAVARRO: Then press stop, but he interrupted the Golden Bachelor or whatever.
TROVER: You look, I'm not a bachelor fan personally, but, look, I see nothing wrong with our president stepping out saying, hey, here's what's been going on over the last year. And, by the way, he's had a lot to --
ALLISON: The thing about it though is that Americans know --
TROVER: That's the power of the presidency. That's the power of the presidency.
ALLISON: The Americans people know what's been going on because they go to the grocery store every week and they get less and they pay more. They know that they're not making any more money. They know they don't have jobs. They know rent is still too high. And they know they voted for somebody that made a lot of promises.
Now, I've seen this movie play out before because I lived it last year. Stop trying to convince yourself that he has time. I'm like actually saying this to you as a favor, as a Democrat, that was like, Americans buy it, buy it. They don't. Americans are smart. They live it. They don't need an address to tell them what to think and what to feel.
MORAN: There won't be J.D. Vance speeches or Donald Trump's speeches at any rate that will turn that around. It will be results. The numbers that Sara just mentioned are not because they're not giving enough speeches, it's because those things are true. Groceries are going higher and now it's going to --
TROVER: Yes. Look, I got it. I got it. You're not going to win it by speeches, but you've got to get out there and make your case and make your sale.
Now, look, a lot of things have to happen in the next year. The Fed came out when they cut interest rates last week, but they said the economy is on the way up.
So, look, there's a lot that has to happen. I'm not arguing with you on that. I'm just saying there's nothing wrong with a president coming out and making his case to the American people. There's nothing wrong.
MORAN: Well, I would say that, previously, the networks would not have carried such a nakedly political speech --
(CROSSTALKS)
NAVARRO: And the question is, if he tries this stunt again, will they carry it then? Look, I'm just happy he got through 18 minutes of speech without bashing Rob Reiner.
AIDALA: What's interesting to me, Terry, and I'm learning about your industry, like in real time, like I didn't realize that the networks tell the president of the United States how much time you get. We're only going to give you 12 minutes. We're only going to give you 15 minutes. NAVARRO: That's business.
AIDALA: They denied Obama. I mean, like --
MORAN: They did.
AIDALA: I didn't know. I didn't know these things. That's like, wow.
MORAN: The president requests the time, the private company. And the networks have a sense of civic duty supposedly. And previously they said, no, we aren't going to give you the time because that's purely political. We'll give it to you as a president, but not as a politician.
ALLISON: Yes. The other thing I'll just say is like I hear January is coming. Well, when I opened my health insurance, January is coming in, I'm getting charged $200 more for my health insurance. That also is coming in January if Congress doesn't do something.
So, I think this hope and relief is coming. He better hope so. Because if not, it's not even -- I want to actually just remove it from the political landscape. People are really, really suffering right now and really not knowing how they're going to -- especially around the holiday season. Forget about $30. They're like, can I pay the heat? It was 18 degrees in New York.
(CROSSTALKS)
NAVARRO: Mine went up a thousand. I'm like, hell, I lost all the --
TROVER: Thank you, Obamacare, doing such a great job for all of us.
(CROSSTALKS)
SIDNER: We're going to get to the economy and healthcare coming up.
AIDALA: What about the reduction in crime though?
SIDNER: We'll get to all of it coming up.
AIDALA: There's been national reduction in crime.
SIDNER: All right. Let's going to put a pause on all that because most of his speech addressed his economy, which has been unpopular and he made many dubious claims. Another special guest is going to join the table for that.
Plus, healthcare prices are set to skyrocket now for millions of Americans after the House rejected a bill to extend Obamacare subsidies, and many Republicans are ticked at Mike Johnson. Why? Those stories are ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:15:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: After years of record-setting falling incomes, our policies are boosting take home pay at a historic pace. Under Biden, real wages plummeted by $3,000. Under Trump, the typical factory worker has seen a wage increase of $1,300. For construction workers, it's $1,800. For miners, we are bringing back clean, beautiful coal, it's $3,300. And for the first time in years, wages are rising much faster than inflation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SIDNER: All right. Let's pick up the debate where we left off.
Joining us now, at the table Marc Lopresti, he is a CEO and senior market strategist at Market Rebellion, otherwise known as a big baller on Wall Street.
We'll start with --
MARC LOPRESTI, CEO AND SENIOR MARKET STRATEGIST, MARKET REBELLION: I'll take that. Sarah, thank you very much. I can only screw it up from here, guys. That was the highlight of the show right there.
SIDNER: There you are. Affordability, you hear the president talking about inflation and wages. What was your takeaway from what you heard from him while Americans are overwhelmingly frustrated with this economy, their own personal ones, and the economy at large?
LOPRESTI: I understand that, Sarah, but what Americans need to understand and what I would've liked to hear the president say is that the economy moves like a battleship, not like a speedboat. The president's economic policies, which are designed --
NAVARRO: It's a good thing because speedboats are getting droned to death.
LOPRESTI: I didn't see that one coming. Thank you very much and thank you very much. It takes time for these policies to have long-term effect. I saw those numbers that you quoted in the A block, right, where inflation, it started here, it went down, now we're back where it was.
[22:20:01]
That's not adjusted for the tariff revenue. That's not adjusted for the fact that the job growth has been exclusively from the private sector where it needs to come. We need to look at these numbers in the context of the positive economic impact of the president's policies, and I would like to hear, and I think we will hear from the president and from the vice president, J.D. Vance, that piece of information for the public, be a little patient. I know it's hard right now. I know we're looking at the midterms, that big popularity contest coming up. Be patient. These policies will have the impact that is desired. That's what I want to hear from this president.
SIDNER: Two questions. Why should Americans be patient when they were promised that he didn't have to be patient, that he was going to fix things very quickly? And, two, the tariffs aren't the public -- isn't the public paying those tariffs? In other words, they're the ones having to pay -- yes, it's coming in, but they're also the ones paying it.
LOPRESTI: Well, so I don't think that's actually been proven, Sara, right? So, what we look at -- so I'm a big baller on Wall Street.
SIDNER: It's not a tax on people? It's not a tax on companies?
LOPRESTI: You're going to say there, by definition, inflationary. I've heard that before. Listen, I was here with Abby on Liberation Day.
SIDNER: The Federal Reserve chairman said it.
LOPRESTI: Well, I don't agree with most of what the Federal Reserve chairman says.
SIDNER: The Federal Reserve chairman.
LOPRESTI: I cannot wait for him to move on. I cannot wait for him to move on. He waited at least a year too long in my estimate to change economic policy, then embarked on the fastest pace of rate hikes in the history of this great nation. That is not something that you can undo with an executive order or executive fiat. It takes time for these things to happen. Market forces are what they are. And this population should give the president time for these policies to take effect.
And, look, as I said to you, I was here on this set on Liberation Day and the rest of the panel said, we're going to go into a recession by June. We're going to go into it. It's going to be a U-shaped recovery, if there's a recovery at all. It's going to be mass hysteria, dogs and cats living together. And I said to Abby, who I have great respect for, have me back in June, which she did have me back at September, which she did, and we will see what the outcome is.
The reality, we had a V-shaped recovery. We had three quarters of corporate earnings growth quarter over quarter, that were historic.
ALLISON: Yes.
LOPRESTI: And earnings growth showed right that corporations do not, ipso facto, need to pass the cost of tariffs along to the American public.
ALLISON: They don't need to.
SIDNER: When you say corporations are making the money, the problem is the American public is not. And that is where the problem entered.
NAVARRO: But he's speaking like a Wall Street guy. If you have a stock portfolio in Wall Street right now, you're doing very well, whether it's because of an A.I. bubble or whatever reason. If you're looking at your stock portfolio, you're feeling pretty good. The problem is that Americans who don't have a stock portfolio, Americans who don't have thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings and are having to make due with what they earn with unemployment numbers going up, with grocery prices going up because of tariffs, the dollar prices going, are having sticker shock because, you know, they're looking at the cost of healthcare going up, 100 percent, 200 percent. And they don't know how they're going to afford it. There's too many of them that are going to go naked.
ALLISON: I feel like I respect you --
NAVARRO: There's a huge gap between the people who are in the stock market --
LOPRESTI: That's a false.
NAVARRO: -- that are your clients, but --
LOPRESTI: That's a false scenario. Teachers, firefighters, people that have pensions, which are average everyday blue collar people as well as professional white collar people are on -- they are in Wall Street.
(CROSSTALKS)
SIDNER: Hold on a second. Hold on a second. Here's the number.
NAVARRO: And they're not getting the dividends until they have. They're not getting them. So, right now, they have to live on their paycheck.
SIDNER: It is -- here are the numbers. About 62 percent of U.S. adults own stock. And that includes people who are -- but that leaves a hell of a lot of Americans who don't. And for many people, it is what they use in retirement. It is not what you will use when you go to the grocery.
ALLISON: I am not a Wall Street baller, so I will take what you say as your theory of the case. I think, again, last year there was a lot of people, a lot of economists that had a different theory of the case around be patient, Joe Biden's economy is moving a buoy.
It is really hard to be patient when your bank account says zero or negative and it keeps going lower and lower, people, whether you have stocks or not, because when you go and you cash in on your retirement, you get a penalty. It's not a false narrative to acknowledge people's pain. And pain and patience don't really go well together. It's a real hard thing.
And I worry that there is just this disconnect with most of Americans. There is like a small percentage probably if we're at this table, we are not even in the pain place and proximity to pain.
[22:25:00]
But we know people, there is a disconnect on really what is happening on the ground, not just in blue states, not just in red states, but at kitchen tables, at homes where parents are not eating a meal so that their kids can eat. And it is really hard to understand what a U economy, a V economy is when the only thing, the only letter they see is an O because, it's a zero on their bank account.
So, that's my question.
LOPRESTI: I totally respect that and I sympathize for that. I really, really do. But the economic driver of growth, the biggest job creator in the history of this country, right, is private enterprise. And if we bring interest rates down -- and this is what makes me so crazy, corporations largest cost of capital, by and large, is their cost to borrow, particularly small business with 50 or less employees, which is also where most of the job growth happens in this country. When you have interest rates that remain artificially high and inflated for as long as they have because of bad economic policy, you are stifling job growth and you're helping to perpetuate that problem that I 1,000 percent sympathize.
MORAN: Because private companies drive growth in America.
LOPRESTI: They do.
MORAN: No question about that.
LOPRESTI: That's right.
MORAN: The amount of growth, the amount of wealth this country has generated over the past 15, 20 years is gargantuan. It's beyond imagining. And far too much of that money, this is what the American people have been telling politicians for years. Far too much of that money went too far too few people in far too few zip codes.
There's this obscene maldistribution of wealth. And now that the pinch is coming as prices rise and they see people, you know, beyond the imagining of the world, of world history, getting rich, and Trump paling around with them and rewarding them more, I'm not sure how long their patience is going to wait. There is a populist revolt. He was elected partly by it and he's not addressing it.
LOPRESTI: Well, I think that's part of why we saw the speech we had today. He saw what happened in November. He saw what happened in New Jersey. He saw what happened in other parts of the country. There is a concern, right, that the midterms will end up not so great for the Republican Party. And if you look, historically speaking, at the implementation of tariffs by presidential administrations and what happens in midterms, it's not great. It's not a great narrative.
Which is why I want to hear this president and the vice president say, give it time, it is working. We didn't have the tariffs drive us into a recession, like so many people said. And on an inflation-adjusted basis and a tariff revenue-adjusted basis, we're doing pretty well.
SIDNER: I just want to end with this stat that the top 10 percent of U.S. earners account for nearly 50 percent of all consumer spending. That sort of K-shape economy is what people are complaining about, because a very few that are fueling the economy to make things like Wall Street look good.
NAVARRO: By the way, I just read a few tweets. He interrupted the finale of Survivor. Ooh, 4.5 million viewers. There's a lot of pissed off Survivor fans.
SIDNER: Only you, Ana.
NAVARRO: They know this style. I shaved my legs for this.
TROVER: Like 50th season.
NAVARRO: For this old man to come and scream at me about how everything is great.
SIDNER: Ana, there was people out there saying, get off my lawn.
Now, next millions of Americans are going to see their healthcare prices skyrocket. We've got a couple of them here in studio. This is going to happen in the next couple of weeks as the House has rejected solutions and goes on vacation tomorrow. But one Republican is so angry, he's calling it B.S. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:30:00]
SIDNER: Tonight, it is all but certain after a vote in Congress today that those Obamacare subsidies will expire in January, sending insurance premiums skyrocketing for millions of Americans. Instead, House Republicans passed their version of a healthcare bill that leaves out those subsidies. But it came after a rebellion from some of them on the matter.
Four Republicans joined Democrats and signed a discharge petition to force a vote on a three-year extension of the ACA subsidies. Johnson says that vote will happen in January. And again, will be after the subsidies expire. Some Republicans on either side of that issue are questioning the way Johnson handled the matter.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You say that the Speaker is not going to give you a vote on this, ACA extension.
REP. KEVIN KEILY (R-CA): That's a failure of leadership. I mean, we have, you know, members on both sides who believe this is an urgent issue, and it is for all of our members in terms of what their constituents are going to have to deal with in the start of the New Year. So what's wrong with having a vote?
REP. MIKE LAWLER (R-NY): You have two leaders that are not serious about solving this problem.
UNKNOWN: You sound pissed. You sound pissed off.
LAWLER: I am pissed for the American people. This is absolute bullshit (ph), and it's absurd. These premium tax credits are going to expire at the end of the year, and it has a direct impact on millions of Americans. This is not about party loyalty. This is about doing the job I was elected to do and forcing the body to actually work.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SIDNER: All right. Johnson, though, is insisting that everything is fine.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNKNOWN: Have you lost control of the House?
REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R) HOUSE SPEAKER: I have not lost control.
UNKNOWN: Because this is the third time.
JOHNSON: There are there are -- look. We have the smallest majority in U.S. history.
UNKNOWN: Okay.
JOHNSON: These are not normal times. There are processes and procedures in the House that are less frequently used when there are larger majority --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[22:35:04]
SIDNER: All right, Lance, to you. Clearly, Lawler especially sees that people are going to be pissed when their premiums go up and be pissed with the people who represent them. Is there an argument here that this is way beyond politics, that it's going to hurt Republicans, but that this is ultimately going to hurt the American public?
LANCE TROVER, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Yes, look, I've been clear time and again, I think this is an issue from the sub, well, let's back up. Let's remember why we have the subsidies and who put them in place if we need to rehash it again. Democrats put these into place. They set the deadline for us also. Once again, it's on Mike Johnson and Republicans to clean up a Democratic mess. Now, here we are.
Having said that, I think this is an issue we need to tackle. But I want to say something else about mike Johnson. All this back and forth about him, I've said it once, I'll say it again. And he's most underestimated person in Washington D.C. You look at it from the last year. He won the big budget fight brought Schumer to his knees in the spring.
He passed the One Big Beautiful Bill in July. And he just won the government shutdown by keeping them out of Congress, out of session for a number, for like what, two and a half months. He spent a lot of political capital on that, but guess what, the Democrats caved at the end of the day. So, I think we need to give him some breathing room because look, he
has a very small majority and he has to tangle with a lot of different people. Now, what he usually does is he gives his members room to breathe and air their grievances.
On this one in particular though, I do believe Republicans are going to have to come out and figure out a way to address the subsidy issue one way or other, even though it is a massive, massive giveaway to insurance companies. This three-year package that these guys signed onto today, massive giveaway to the insurance companies, and I'm not sure why Republicans would support it.
SIDNER: Go ahead.
ASHLEY ALLISON, PUBLISHER, "THE ROOT": Well, I don't disagree with you in terms of Mike Johnson and the way he can navigate. I don't think he is a terrible speaker. I don't agree with how he navigates, but he does navigate. I think that there's a couple things that Republicans are reading this. They're like, Obamacare is terrible. Obamacare is terrible.
When you talk to voters and you ask them to take the Affordable Care Act away, they do not want it. Sure, improve it, but do not touch when they realize Obamacare is an Affordable Care Act, they're like, leave it alone. When you talk to voters and you realize that their premiums are going to go up, their health insurance go up, they say fix the problem.
It can be fixed. This is going to be a really hard sell. And the reason why those four people on that screen that you showed broke with Republicans, because there is a midterm election and they are in Pennsylvania. And they are not going to be able to gerrymander their seats into safety. Mike Lawler's seat is a new seat that was created with New York maps. He is not safe. That is a contested seat.
And so, he's mad. Yes, I'm sure he cares about the American people having affordable health care, but he's also pissed because he does not want to lose his seat and this can make him lose it.
(CROSSTALK)
ANA NAVARRO, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, listen.
(CROSSTALK)
TERRY MORAN, VETERAN JOURNALIST: I would just say that I don't think Mike Johnson is a terrible speaker when it comes to managing this very small majority. He is a terrible speaker when it comes to being Speaker of the House as a constitutional officer standing up to the President of the United States.
One of the reasons he was able to keep the Congress out for so long is Trump doesn't want the Congress to do much. He wants to run the entire show. And he has surrendered the constitutional authority of --he and Thune have surrendered the constitutional authority of Congress. No president has tried to claim as much power without congressional
involvement as Donald Trump. And Johnson has let him do that. Would Pelosi have done that? Would Sam Rayburn have done that? You know, would Henry Clay have done that? No. They knew they were Article 1 and stood up to the President. He doesn't. And that's one of the reasons he's in the place he is.
MARC LOPRESTI, CEO AND SENIOR MARKET STRATEGIST, MARKET REBELLION: Pelosi's been too busy making herself, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars trading on inside information.
(CROSSTALK)
LOPRESTI: You know, come on.
(CROSSTALK)
SIDNER: Wait. Let me just ask you why -- we talk about all the time, Republicans always say, look, this is the Democrats' mess that they made. They --
(CROSSTALK)
TROVER: It is. That is a fact. That is not debatable. Obamacare is them.
(CROSSTALK)
SIDNER: Look, and a lot of people have issues with it on both sides of the aisle. That is true. But I guess the question is then what is the Republican plan that you have had -- I don't know how many decades to come forward with to say here is our robust plan, this is how it's going to work for you, my citizens?
LOPRESTI: Well, Sara, I wasn't prepared to address decades, so I would say I didn't have that on my bingo card for tonight even though I'm a Wall Street baller as you've advertised. I think the reality of it is and this is part of what the President was addressing directly today is that we have some systemic failures.
We have some systemic inequities in our health care system that favor the insurance companies that make the way the system works -- a cash grab, as you said, for the insurance companies. The company should not be able to overcharge by thousands of percent consumers when it comes to prescription medication.
We should not be reliant on China for 90 percent of the raw material that go into the medication that we need and use. And that became painfully clear during the COVID pandemic. And that's what the President's trying to say. It's not just about coming up with an alternative to the ACA, and we need one, that's why.
[22:40:00
There's so much on both sides, right?
(CROSSTALK)
LOPRESTI: We have to fix the system, too.
SIDNER: But where is it?
(CROSSTALK)
TROVER: Well, the House passed a package just earlier this evening. I mean, the House did address the ACA and made some reforms this afternoon. I mean --
(CROSSTALK)
SIDNER: They're not paying for the subsidy, so that goes away.
TROVER: I got it. I'm with you.
NAVARRO: Let's be real. The Republicans have been bitching about this for as long as I can remember and there is no real plan. There's not even concepts of a plan. But here's the thing. If you are one of the Americans that is on the ACA, one of the Americans that maybe has a pre-existing condition that's only covered because of the ACA, and you see your premiums skyrocket 100 -- 200 percent.
And you don't know what subsidies you're going to get, you really don't give a damn whether it's a Republican problem or a Democratic problem. You want it to be fixed. And let me tell you what's going to happen because I have been talking to people who have told me they're going to go naked. They're not going to have health insurance because they can't afford it.
UNKNOWN: So, a lot of people --
NAVARRO: That means -- and this strikes home to you, strikes home to me because we've suffered with cancer, our families. It means that instead of finding cancers at stage one, people are going to find it at stage four. It means that instead of having treatable cancers, they're going to have cancers that are not treatable, and they're going to die.
So if we don't get this fixed -- and it is negligence, it is inhumane for Mike Johnson to be sending Congress home at a time when we don't have a solution for this. The open enrollment ended two days ago, if you want to have health coverage starting January 1st. It is -- I mean, I am not going to call him a good speaker when he's doing what he is doing today --
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: -- sending Congress home when there is such a crisis for this nation that remains unsolved.
TROVER: The subsidies are a crisis for the nation? I mean --
(CROSSTALK)
TROVER: Obamacare was doing wonders, we wouldn't have needed subsidies in the first place. Tells you how bad Obamacare is.
(CROSSTALK)
MORAN: -- is not a crisis. I would just say that President Trump's credibility on this --
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: The entire thing is that -- the premium going up and there are no subsidies is a crisis for the --
(CROSSTALK)
SIDNER: Terry, go ahead.
(CROSSTALK)
MORAN: -- very, very bad. Jim McGovern, the congressman from Massachusetts, stood up on the House floor today and he read all the times that President Trump said, we will have a plan soon, pretty soon, within the next two weeks, within the next four weeks, by Sunday, within the next month.
And there were a dozen, took him three or four minutes to get through all the times President Trump has said, we have a plan, it's going to be amazing, and I'm announcing it at the end of the week. I'm announcing it next Sunday. He's a flim-flammer on this issue. He doesn't care about it, apparently, to get anything together. And the Republicans don't have a coordinated strategy on one of the most important issues --
(CROSSTALK)
ALLISON: You all, Obamacare became the law in what, 2011 -- 2014. People, it is 2025. It has been 11 years. Where is the plan if Obamacare is so bad? You voted --Republicans have voted on it 63 some odd times and without any counter and it's failed because why actually Obamacare is better than what it was before?
I also think to your point about catching cancer at stage one. I've been sitting at this table before where they say emergency rooms are flooded with people who don't believe -- you know what an emergency room looks like when people don't have a primary care physician to go to, when they have a cold to get a prescription and they have to go to the E.R.? How hard it is for nurses, for doctors to actually give quality of care when they're already overtaxed, overrun, and then the bill you get when you leave the emergency room?
My mom was in the hospital and her roommate was a Trump voter, and he wanted his wife -- his wife had a stroke and he wanted his wife to leave the hospital because -- and they were on Medicaid because of how much the hospital was going to charge before Medicaid even kicked in. These are Ohio voters. This is Trump country. This is a crisis beyond Obamacare.
(CROSSTALK) LOPRESTI: Let me be clear. None of that's okay. None of that's okay. I'm not cold hearted. I'm not without empathy. And what the President was trying to say today, instead of fixing the symptoms, right?
Instead of trying to patch it up here with a patchwork of ACA or some form of ACA, let's fix the systemic problems with our healthcare system that incentivize the corporations to not find a cure for these terrible diseases, to prolong how long you're in the hospital, to give you this patchwork system of healthcare that does not make sense, that lets the insurance companies and the drug companies to rape and pillage. That's what the President was addressing today. Let's fix the root of the problem, not just the --
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: Okay, but when?
(CROSSTALK)
SIDNER: Hold on.
(CROSSTALK)
SIDNER: We're going to stop this here, but he has had something around a decade to try and come up with a plan.
(CROSSTALK)
LOPRESTI: You told me no decade, Sarah. We haven't agreed.
(CROSSTALK)
SIDNER: I agreed to nothing.
(CROSSTALK)
ALLISON: -- years before. I mean, that's not a decade.
SIDNER: Thank you so much, Marc, for being here. Next, the president's new Hall of Fame now features his version of history written right on the White House walls. We will take a closer look at this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:49:36]
SIDNER: All right, tonight, Donald Trump is taking his trolling to the walls of the White House. New plaques have been installed in the President's West Wing wall of fame, featuring insults written in the style of his social media post and inscription calls it a tribute to past presidents, quote, "Good, bad, and somewhere in the middle."
The plaque for Biden, for example, calling him the worst president in American history, suggesting that he, quote, "brought our nation to the brink of destruction". [22:50:02]
A plaque dedicated to Barack Obama, calling him one of the most divisive political figures in American history. Arthur is back at the table and I will start with you.
ARTHUR AIDALA, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: I'm out of the dog house?
(CROSSTALK)
SIDNER: You're out of the dog house.
(CROSSTALK)
AIDALA: What happened? Would you say that he you off? Oh, yes --
(CROSSTALK)
SIDNER: And we'll do it again. Why?
AIDALA: I mean, it's not what should be done. I mean, I'm a historian. I love history. I've been on that hallway where it was just the President's pictures. I mean, if you actually -- was just online reading what some of these things say. I mean, it's almost like Donald Trump just got out all of his greatest feelings about everyone from Gerald Ford saying he was a great president. He only didn't get reelected because he was brave enough to pardon Nixon. And how much that Ronald Reagan loved Donald Trump.
Yes, you know, I would think that whomever the next president is going to be, probably one of their first acts when they take over on January the 20th would be to keep the photos up and take the plaques underneath them down.
SIDNER: Terry, you're a studier (ph) of history along long time you've been reporting on presidents and --
MORAN: Yes.
SIDNER: What do you make of this?
MORAN: Well, it's not his house. And one thing has to go which is the gold fungus that's creeping all over that place, the grotesquery, it looks like a pasha, you know, from whenever, the Ottoman Empire or something like that. But it's his taste, right? He can do what he wants. This is his graffiti. This is his version of graffiti in the White House.
It'll get taken down. It's an expression of him and you know, presidents do change the decor and everything like that. Trying to express where they're from, what they like. He takes it to a level, as Trump does, which is beyond pale. No president has ever even thought about doing this. And the gold fungus has to go.
SIDNER: Lance, is the trolling something that is just directed only at his base and the rest of America has to sort of just live with it? TROVER: At the base? I think it's directed at some other folks here
at the table. It makes people crazy. It makes the left crazy. I would say, yes, I --
(CROSSTALK)
AIDALA: I would say it makes the left crazy.
(CROSSTALK)
TROVER: Everybody loses their mind over this stuff.
(CROSSTALK)
AIDALA: First of all, not losing my mind over it. I don't think I'm on the left.
TROVER: I wasn't saying you, I was pointing over you, actually.
(CROSSTALK)
ALLISON: I was about to say a bad word.
SIDNER: It's okay.
ALLISON: I could care less about --
TROVER: Yes, that's my point. Who cares? Who cares?
ALLISON: And I would think you would assume that I'm on the left. I could care less. I will never see those plaques because I will never go to Donald Trump's White House and he will not be the president forever.
(CROSSTALK)
AIDALA: Let me just say, here's the difference. You're so -- like the novelty has worn off of you about going to the White House because you lived in it, not literally slept in it. Well, you probably did.
ALLISON: I did a couple of --
(CROSSTALK)
AIDALA: But for someone like me who's been there, I don't know, a handful of times, like you walk in there, you're like, wow, there's Kennedy's portrait.
ALLISON: No, I always do. I'm saying, I will never see those plaques.
(CROSSTALK)
ALLISON: And most of Americans will never see those plaques. Because in 2028, Donald Trump will be gone. And whether it is a Republican or Democrat in that house, they will have more taste than the person who put -- (CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: The only person I know who's more petty and vindictive than Donald Trump is 50 Cent. The difference is 50 Cent.
(CROSSTALK)
AIDALA: He's one of my clients. One of my clients wants --
(CROSSTALK)
NAVARRO: Okay, well the difference is that 50 is a rapper, not President of the United States. Yes, this is petty. It's stupid. It's buffoonery. It's unpresidential. It's all those things. But like when I compare it to him bashing Rob Reiner --
ALLISON: Yes.
NAVARRO: -- after the tragic murder, I think this is one of the lesser stupidities that he has done this week. Which is a low bar.
AIDALA: I remember when Republicans got upset when a President didn't wear a coat and tie --
SIDNER: Or the tan suit.
MORAN: Or the tan suit. Now they're all up -- now it's fine.
NAVARRO: Oh my God, when Michelle wore sleeves -- wore no sleeves.
ALLISON: Bangs. Remember bangs?
(CROSSTALK)
SIDNER: We got to go -- oh my gosh. Next, the panel is going to give us their night caps. I promise, it will be something sort of fun and lovely, not petty.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:58:47]
JENNIFER LAWRENCE, ACTRESS: Have you rewatched "Titanic"?
LEONARDO DI CAPRIO, ACTOR: No.
LAWRENCE: Oh, you should.
DICAPRIO: I haven't seen it.
LAWRENCE: I bet you could. I bet you could like watch it as a movie now. And it's so good.
DICAPRIO: You watch your old -- your movies?
LAWRENCE: No, I've never made something like "Titanic". But if I did, I would -- I would watch it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SIDNER: In case you didn't know, that's Leonardo DiCaprio on Friday's latest episode of "Actors on Actors", which now streams on CNN. Let's take it a step further. What movies are you all embarrassed to say that you've never seen? We're going to start with you, Lance.
TROVER: Over the summer, I found myself at Universal Studios with my godson, Samir and his father. And the one thing that he was most excited about was going to see the "Harry Potter" stuff and then it hit me, I've never seen any "Harry Potter" movies. I have caught up. I've now two in.
SIDNER: Okay, there's a lot of them. Ashley?
ALLISON: I am not embarrassed, but I have never seen "Titanic". I have never
SIDNER: Really?
ALLISON: I have never seen "The Godfather", and I have never seen a "Star Wars".
(CROSSTALK)
UNKNOWN: Okay, this has got --
SIDNER: Literally, heads are spinning in the studio.
(CROSSTALK)
AIDALA: You should be embarrassed.
ALLISON: And I am not be embarrassed. I am still --
(CROSSTALK)
AIDALA: No, for at least one of those, you should be embarrassed.
ALLISON: No. I'm still a good American.
SIDNER: We're going to see "Star Wars". I'm just letting you know. Terry.
[23:00:00]
MORAN: Well, seasonal, right? And my wife reminds me. I've never seen "A Christmas Story" like a little kid. I've never seen that.
SIDNER: I've seen it like -- you know TNT used to have it 24 hours a day in Christmas. Okay. Ana.
NAVARRO: I'm going rogue. Forget what I haven't seen, which is way too much. It's what you have to see. So the best movie I have seen this year is "Songs Sung Blue". It is the story of a normal couple in middle America trying to make it work while being impersonators for Neil Diamond. You will sing every song. You will cry. You will --
(CROSSTALK)
AIDALA: "Gone With The Wind", "Gone With The Wind".
(CROSSTALK)
SIDNER: We got to go. Thank you for joining us.
(CROSSTALK)
SIDNER: Thanks for watching "NewsNight". "Laura Coates Live" is next.
