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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Mandani To Be Sworn In As NYC Mayor On Thursday; DOGE's Accomplishments Come Under Renewed Scrutiny; Pelosi Predics Dems Will Win Back U.S. House In 2026. Aired 11p-12a ET
Aired December 30, 2025 - 23:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[23:00:03]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST (voice-over): Tonight, live at the table, Scott Jennings, Joel Payne, Tiffany Cross, Jason Rantz, and Josh Rogin.
Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here, they do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(MUSIC)
PHILLIP: Good evening. I'm Abby Phillip in New York, and this is a second special hour of NEWSNIGHT.
Let's get right to what America is talking about. The beginning of a new era in New York City. Self-described Democratic socialist, Zohran Mamdani is set to be sworn in as the city's mayor at the stroke of midnight on New Year's Day.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAYOR-ELECT ZOHRAN MAMDANI (D), NEW YORK: When I take office in two days, I seek to change not only the measure of the well-being of those who live in our city, but those also tasked with the work of measuring.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: And it will be a scene starting off with a private swearing in with New York City attorney general and -- New York attorney general and Trump foe, Letitia James, doing the honors. And at the old subway station. Then comes the public event. Mamdani is going to be flanked by progressive powerhouses, Senator Bernie Sanders and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The ceremony is going to turn into a block party for tens of thousands of spectators, spanning several blocks along Broadway. The backdrop setting up the soon to be mayor's moment of truth. Whether his ambitious agenda is realistic as he moves from campaigning to governing.
A New York magazine profile points out that in our interviews, the mayor-elect conspicuously avoided acknowledging the kinds of basic trade-offs that are the DNA of the office that he is about to assume. Does Mamdani want more affordable housing, or does he want affordable housing that's more expensive to build because its built with union labor? Does he want free infant to 5-year-old child care, or does he want those child care workers to be paid the $30 living wage he's proposed for the city?
The answer is he wants both, and he wants everything, and he wants it all at once.
Now the question is, can he have it all when one of the largest, most expensive cities in the world is now under his control?
The panel is with me.
Mamdani has made a lot of promises, Tiffany. And governing is going to be a very different story. And as this "New Yorker" profile points out, you can't really eat your cake and have it.
TIFFANY CROSS, PODCAST HOST, "NATIVE LAND": Well, I don't know. I like that he's tapped into the imagination of voters. You know, we saw millions of people vote for Donald Trump when he said, we're going to build a wall and Mexico would pay for it. So, I at least like that. He's saying, look, well give lower childcare costs and free transportation. Those things can change someone's life.
I mean, the job that I think is so easy to forget, given our federal politics, the job is to be a public servant. He's trying to serve the public. So I wish the conversation was, how can we achieve these things and make New York an example so it can cast a wide net of influence across other counties and municipalities with other citizens who are struggling with other citizens, who believe government is by the people, of the people and for the people.
I'm not so sure that we should be attacking his agenda as though its dismissive and impossible to achieve regardless of party. Let's support him and see how we can make something like this happen for the American people.
JASON RANTZ, SEATTLE RED RADIO HOST: He's doing some of that to himself, right? I mean, he's already starting to walk back at least some of the language that he's been talking about. I mean, it went from things are going to be free to -- well, we're going to reduce the cost.
So I think he's already saying he's not going to really be able to address the way he promised during the campaign. And that's really going to be the potential downfall, right?
He's got a few different avenues here. He's got to maintain some sort of interest from the base, and they're going to be judging him -- to your point -- of all of these promises that you just made. And if all of a sudden, you're not going to be able to deliver on that, well, they're not going to stand with him. So, the question is, well, what can he deliver that at least some of the more moderate voters within this region can support? And then he'll see whether or not he's got a real long shelf life as mayor here.
PHILLIP: This story has also taken such a strange turn because, you know, it used I think the thinking was that Republicans were going to run on Mamdani being a socialist, and that this was going to be the rallying cry for the GOP in 2026. Meanwhile, Mamdani has become more popular over time. He's significantly more popular than Donald Trump and Trump himself has also embraced Mamdani, bizarrely enough.
I mean, in "The New Yorker" -- "The New York Magazine", they say when Mamdani walked into the Oval Office an hour later, Trump remarked, wow, you're even better looking in person than you are on TV. And the tone never changed from there. Trump seemed legitimately impressed by Mamdani.
Mamdani is not the boogeyman that Trump thought he was going to be, and I don't know that he's going to be sort of something that Republicans can use to attack Democrats.
[23:05:03]
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, we'll see. I mean, he hasn't started yet. You know, he's going to take office and he's probably going to run into trouble with the governor on some issues. He's going to run into trouble with the state assembly. He might run into trouble with his own city council. He might find that governing is a lot harder than campaigning. A lot of first timers do.
And so, you know, well see whether he can competently administer the city. We just -- we don't know yet. He's going to get to take office, and he gets the same chance everybody else does that wins an election.
So, is he a boogeyman? I don't know, it might be that he's the most disastrous mayor of the city he's ever elected. And then it will be proof that Democrats elect incompetent socialists and he will be a boogeyman if he does well and he brings people together, then he won't be. So, I guess it's a little premature to know because we haven't seen the results yet.
JOEL PAYNE, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Yeah. Abby, I mean, just to the earlier question, you were talking with Tiffany and Jason about, it's not his job to lower his ceiling, you know, off the off the top, his job is to cast his wife, Annette, as possible, to have his ambitious, ambitious of an agenda as possible. That's why he was elected. And I'll tell you, Democrats are actually tired of their elected officials lowering the ceiling on themselves, lowering the ambition of what they want to accomplish when they're in office.
You know, Zohran Mamdani was elected because he was able to galvanize a large cross-section of people, not just traditional Democratic voters. By the way, a lot of the folks who he started his campaign talking to were Trump voters, and he galvanized those people by talking about what is possible.
So, yes, he will meet realities. And, you know, actually, Scott, to your point, I agree with you. I actually think one of the things he's going to struggle with is some pressure from his left flank, which is actually the thing that I think Mamdani is probably going to have to wrestle with the most off the top.
PHILLIP: Yeah, I mean, childcare, the just there was a Siena poll recently that found that the childcare proposal is hugely popular. 74 percent of New Yorkers support it, 65 percent of New York state residents support it. And then you also have the free buses, which is a little bit more controversial. That has 50 percent support.
He also is going to face some on the left who want him to go up against Trump. He's made some hires that would suggest that he's lawyering up. He hired Ramzi Kasim to be his chief counsel. He represented Mahmoud Khalil, who was targeted by the Trump White House.
And here's what Mamdani said when he was asked about some of those hires and whether they would be in a combative posture with Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Is it that you would first pick up the phone and call the president if you didn't get along okay, these guys go at him. Is that -- is that kind of the approach?
MAMDANI: Look, I will look to have a conversation with anyone and everyone. And also, I think it's important that there are rights and freedoms that will be protected in conversations. There are rights and freedoms will be protected in court.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: How does he manage that?
JOSH ROGIN, LEAD GLOBAL SECURITY ANALYST, WASHINGTON POST INTELLIGENCE: Yeah, it won't be easy. I think in Washington, where I come from, a lot of the discussion is how will Mamdani navigate what's a real and troubling rise of antisemitism, especially amongst New York City's Jewish population and the growing calls amongst Democrats, especially young Democrats, for more condemnation and confrontation of Israels policies in Gaza and the West Bank.
And there's no right answer. There's no way he can make everybody happy. And if he's going to challenge the Trump administration and some in the Republican Party, it will certainly be on that battlefield. And I -- you know, I don't buy into the sort of idea that he's anti-Israel or anti or supporting antisemitism. You know, I -- I'm one of the many Jews who thinks that a lot of what he says about the Israeli government is correct, but I don't agree with everything he says.
But suffice to say that Trump understands a politician who's going to fight him on some things and then work with him on other things. That's something Trump gets. Trump can deal with that.
And I agree with you. I think the problem is going to be how does Mamdani keep his legitimacy with the progressive side of the party, while making the deals necessary to make the city work? It's a very, very difficult task. And yeah, I don't know. RANTZ: Well, on Israel, I mean, with all due respect, I'm one of the
Jews and Americans who says Hamas should be clearly and very vocally opposed immediately when asked that question, which he failed miserably when he was asked that question on Fox. And I think that's an important piece --
(CROSSTALK)
ROGIN: Well --
RANTZ: You don't disagree that Hamas is --
ROGIN: No, I disagree with your characterization of his position as he does. And so --
PAYNE: I think the Jewish New Yorkers that elected him disagree --
ROGIN: Right. So disagreement is something that's very Jewish and very American. So --
RANTZ: So that part is true.
ROGIN: Okay. So thank you.
RANTZ: However, let's be clear --
ROGIN: And we agree to disagree on --
RANTZ: We can agree to disagree on whether or not you think his positions --
ROGIN: No, whether or not you're characterizing his positions correctly because --
RANTZ: I am. I'm just quoting what he was saying.
ROGIN: No, I don't think you are.
PAYNE: This is not actually what Zohran Mamdani is going to be judged on whether or not he's a successful mayor. He's going to be judged on -- I'm from this area, I'm from New Jersey.
And, you know, a lot of big city mayors, they're judged on city services. Can you clean up the snow? Can you clean up the garbage? Can you keep the rats out the subway? And can you make life more affordable for New Yorkers?
[23:10:00]
Now he has a pretty good agenda for doing that. He's going to need help. He's going to need help from Albany. He's going to need help from other city players.
But that is what he's going to be judged on. This is a very interesting conversation that you're raising here, Jason, but honestly, that's not why he was elected and that's not what people are going to judge him on.
RANTZ: If a group of folks in your community that represent a large demographic feel unsafe and uncomfortable because of comments that you're making or the people that you're siding with, I think that does play a role in that. And yes, you're absolutely right. City services incredibly important, the most important, but also the basic comfort level of the Jewish community in the New York area that also matters.
ROGIN: Yeah, but the Jewish community is very diverse in New York, and I have many Jewish friends and relatives in New York who completely disagree with everything that you said. And to say that he's siding with Hamas is a colony on him and is not correct. So you don't represent the Jewish community in New York.
I don't represent the Jewish community in New York. Millions of Jews, millions of different opinions. A lot of them don't like Mamdani and want him to do different things and say different things. And a lot of them do. So, there you have it.
Okay, so I won't speak for the Jewish community. You wont speak for the Jewish community. We'll just speak for ourselves and we'll let Mamdani speak for himself.
PHILLIP: And to your point, Joel, one of the reasons I think that Mamdani was able to be successful in the primary was because his opponents thought that these issues of foreign policy would end up being the most important thing to voters. And it wasn't.
Voters --
ROGIN: The mayor.
PHILLIP: Yeah, he's the mayor. And I remember that question at the debate where they were asked, where would you go? And everybody, you know, half of them said Israel. And he was like, I'm not going anywhere. I'm about -- I want to be elected mayor of New York.
So I think it's a misunderstanding. A little bit of, you know, all politics is local and there's a desire to nationalize and maybe internationalize everything. And he understood that very early on.
JENNINGS: But he did promise to arrest Netanyahu, though, did he not? He's promised it multiple times.
ROGIN: Is there an international arrest warrant on Netanyahu?
JENNINGS: So, if he -- if Netanyahu comes to the city, do you expect Mamdani to send the New York Police Department to arrest him?
ROGIN: I don't think that's possible.
CROSS: Yeah. The United States, yeah.
ROGIN: I don't think he's going to fulfill that promise. But there is an arrest warrant against Netanyahu. So there's one against Putin, too. (CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: You said he kept it local.
ROGIN: He came to America.
JENNINGS: At times, he did attack Israel when he thought it benefited him in the campaign. He can't fulfill his promise, obviously, but he did internationalize the campaign when he thought it would gin up his anti-Israel base. So it wasn't like he totally ignored it.
PHILLIP: All right. Next for us, the DOGE chainsaw was supposed to cut waste and save billions of dollars, but it turns out that the savings from the now shuttered agency don't add up to anything close to what they claimed.
Plus, George Clooney drops an F bomb in a new interview over what he thinks major news networks should be telling President Trump.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[23:16:53]
PHILLIP: Remember DOGE? It was one of President Trump's campaign promises. A government agency headed by Elon Musk to weed out fraud, waste and abuse to ultimately reduce government spending. It was supposed to last until July 2026, but it has already dissolved.
And almost a year into Trump's second term and DOGE's impact on the government is still very much unclear. Or, as "The New York Times" put it, how did DOGE disrupt so much while saving so little? A closer look at DOGE's claims raise even more questions.
Musk has said on the campaign trail that he had wanted to find $2 trillion worth of cuts, according to its website, it saved just over $200 billion, and even that number has been called into question because its wall of receipts don't add up to anything close to that.
And on top of that, federal spending has actually gone up in the DOGE era.
I mean, Scott, I remember earlier this year having a lot of conversations at this table about why DOGE was going about things the way that they were, which didn't make any sense at the beginning, because the idea of just like, indiscriminately slashing things never seemed to work. Giving people buyouts to do no work, but still having to pay them didn't really make a lot of sense. And now we know it didn't save any money.
JENNINGS: Well, look, I think a few things. Number one, tackling the overall problem of federal spending and the federal debt, 60 percent of our budget is mandatory. About 27 percent is discretionary. And about the rest, 13 percent is interest payments.
And so, if you want to actually tackle this, you got to get into the mandatory piece. PHILLIP: Totally.
JENNINGS: DOGE was not designed to get into the mandatory piece. They obviously did single out things for cuts. The president talked about him in his March address to congress. Those were sort of the things that like, annoy almost every taxpayer, like, why are we sending a million here and a million there?
But again, when you're talking about a budget that spends trillions of dollars, it's a very small percentage. I think one of the issues with DOGE that was good was that it did start a conversation about why is the government so big, why is it spend so much money? Why haven't we returned to pre-COVID spending levels? Et cetera, et cetera. They also --
PHILLIP: They did start that conversation?
JENNINGS: Of course -- of course, they do.
PHILLIP: I mean, DOGE not only didn't cut spending, but government spending went up, in part because DOGE created a huge amount of inefficiency in the system. Then they were also paying federal workers to not work, if not actually provide services.
JENNINGS: If you talk to cabinet secretaries, they don't agree with that. In fact, I interviewed some for my book and they said, DOGE actually helped increase efficiency in their systems.
PHILLIP: The actual number system, the actual numbers.
JENNINGS: And there's also -- there's also like a quarter of a million fewer federal employees today than when Trump started. So, there have been some cuts to government. But if you want to shrink this thing, you got to get to mandatories.
PHILLIP: Why are we spending -- why is the government spending more?
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: Mandatory spending.
PHILLIP: No, no, no, no, I'm talking about the federal -- I'm talking about the federal government. Not necessarily outlays.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: No, I'm not talking about -- I'm not talking about those outlays. I'm talking about the part of the spending that DOGE was supposed to impact. That part of the spending has gone up, not down.
PAYNE: Yeah. Abby, I think that DOGE is actually a perfect microcosm of just the failure of this year of Trump's governance.
[23:20:02]
And DOGE is actually a great case study because it was lazy, it was haphazard, it was chaotic and it was cruel, and it essentially was a stand in for all the things that the Trump administration and Trump's style of governance has brought to the American people. And it's the beginning of the Trump slide.
He had his little two to three-month honeymoon, and this was the place where the American people said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute. This is what we asked for.
I disagree with you. I don't think people wanted a billionaire to take a chainsaw hatchet to critical services, to gut critical services to fire workers, to make their lives harder. That's not actually what people elected Donald Trump for. And that's what DOGE delivered.
RANTZ: They made lots of cuts.
PAYNE: And I think it's a stand in for all the disappointment of Trump's --
CROSS: They made staff cuts, they didn't make budget cuts. He's saying there were staff cuts, but not budget cuts. And when we talk about cuts --
RANTZ: Staff cuts as part of budget.
PAYNE: So are you talking interruption -- sorry. Go first.
(CROSSTALK)
CROSS: Because when you make those staff cuts, it has a ripple effect and it makes other people's jobs harder. And for a while they were paying federal workers to not work. More importantly, Abby is talking about the government spending went up.
I can tell you where some of it went. $15.4 billion went to Elon Musk himself. So while he is cutting staff positions, cutting USAID --
PHILLIP: You're talking about Elon Musk's --
(CROSSTALK)
CROSS: Yes, his contracts. He has $15.4 billion worth of contracts with the federal government, while this wealthy billionaire, who is uninformed on how government functions and works, was put in charge to somehow cut federal funding, he has no idea how that works.
RANTZ: These are conflicting story lines. On the one hand, he wasn't able to cut anything, but it also led to a ton of chaos because of all the cuts.
PHILLIP: Both --
RANTZ: On the other hand, I'm told because --
PHILLIP: They definitely be true.
RANTZ: They sometimes can, but I remember the conversations early on --
PHILLIP: Those are not contradictory at all.
RANTZ: They are contradictory.
(CROSSTALK)
RANTZ: We were told at the beginning -- we were told this at the beginning. We were at the point where we were saying, well, because we fired someone who was working at a park, we couldn't even open the bathrooms. That's how chaotic it is. That's how completely damaging it is.
But now, we're saying, well, it's not that damaging, but there's some damages here. There's not -- it doesn't really make any sense. My argument that he made some cuts, I do think that when you put chaos agent into a position like this who is a disruptor by nature, that is what he does. Do I think it was done perfectly? No, and I never went into it. I don't think most people do.
CROSS: You think it was done well at all?
RANTZ: Yes, because were having a conversation --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: It was -- it was a spectacular failure.
RANTZ: If it was a failure, Democrats would be -- would be happy with that.
ROGIN: No, nobody's --
RANTZ: If it was a total failure, the Democrats would be celebrating.
PHILLIP: Okay. Go ahead, Josh.
ROGIN: Yeah, I think one I predict one of the most enduring legacies of this administration and Elon Musk's lifetime will be the wholesale and cruel and inhumane and sudden destruction of U.S. humanitarian assistance to millions of people around the world, which has already caused thousands of deaths and potentially will cause hundreds of thousands, if not millions of more in the coming years. Not because we're responsible for feeding the world, but because pulling the rug out from under 50 percent of the humanitarian industry like that is -- was so reckless that people starved unnecessarily, and diseases that had been conquered in countries all over the world are now raging back. Okay?
And that is not only indisputable, it's immoral. And, well, up to the courts, but potentially also illegal.
So when you think about, oh, well, do we cut this much or that much? Thousands of real people died because of the manner in which we decided to reform our humanitarian and aid programs by literally letting food rot while people starved because we couldn't make the payments.
CROSS: At the direction of one of the world's wealthiest --
ROGIN: And then for him to say, oh, well, it didn't go quite as well as I thought. Ho! I guess I learned something. I probably wouldn't do that again. Just shows you the sheer kind of like, you know -- you know, lack of not only empathy, but lack of understanding of what really happened in DOGE.
PAYNE: We also know that --
ROGIN: It took an entire humanitarian aid system around the world, and we smashed it. And millions of people are suffering now because of it. And that will destroy not only those people's lives, but also American soft power and credibility and impactibility (ph) and reliability for a generation.
PHILLIP: And the impact on the broader and very real fiscal issues that the United States has was nothing. It was zero. So, it didn't save us any money. It didn't make us more solvent. It just destroyed a lot of lives a lot of people.
PAYNE: Absolutely. Also, just really quickly, we know that the administration knows was a failure because Susie Wiles in her "Vanity Fair" interview acknowledged that it was a failure and it was chaotic and it was handled poorly. So, she said that on the record herself.
Also, I just asked my Republican friends, if you like DOGE so much, there's an election coming up in about 11 months. Why don't you go tell all your frontline candidates to go run on DOGE and see how that goes for you?
PHILLIP: Yeah, I think that would be --
(CROSSTALK)
RANTZ: -- never running on that to begin with. I think he's -- if we're talking about affordability --
PHILLIP: I think they thought that they were going to be able to run on cutting government spending.
[23:25:00]
JENNINGS: And there is a good PR lesson, though, which is never overpromise and under-deliver. Always underpromise and overdeliver. Experienced people know that.
PHILLIP: And also hire people who actually know what they're doing. That might also help.
Next for us, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi has a message for her party and for the opposition
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JONATHAN KARL, ABC NEWS HOST: If the Democrats win the House back --
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): Yeah. No, no -- when.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: House Speaker emerita Nancy Pelosi is making her 2026 prediction.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KARL: If the Democrats win the House back --
[23:30:01]
PELOSI: Yeah. No, no -- when. When the Democrats win the House back. The Republicans in the Congress have abolished the Congress. They just do what the president insists that they do. That will be over.
KARL: So that ends as soon as you have --
PELOSI: That ends as soon as we have the gavel. I'm busy and focused on winning the House for the Democrats, making Hakeem Jeffries the speaker of the House, and to take us to a better place.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Her assessment of Congress is blunt, and according to C-Span and Purdue University, the GOP-led House and Senate have set a modern record for the lack of productivity. Less than 40 bills have been signed into law this year, and that's not the only congressional milestone. The House is on pace to set a 21st century record for retirements in a single term.
Joel, I'm curious, do you agree with her that it's not an if, it's a when? I know that a lot of Democrats think that the political climate might suggest that, but worry about other things like redistricting, for example, and the Voting Rights Act is another thing.
PAYNE: Yeah, I think it better be a win. You know, in terms of, you know, Democrats have to win back control. You have to be able to assess some accountability for Donald Trump. You have to be able to have some oversight ability to rein this in this administration somewhat.
But to me, in a deep respect for speaker emerita, I think it kind of misses the conversation here. Look, Democrats winning back, you know, a 15-seat, 10-seat majority, 20-seat majority, that's not going to do anything for the broader project of winning back trust with the public. You know, Democrats still have a lot of work to do regardless of what happens in 2026, to make sure that in 2028 and beyond that the voting public, both the base of the Democratic Party and the broader public, understand what the party stands for, understands that the party will fight for them and that they're focused on the stuff that matters to them.
So, I agree with the confidence that the speaker emerita lays out, I think historically, she is right. She is. She is accurate with what she's assessing, but it's broader than just winning. Democrats need to win and then they need to reposition how the public thinks about their brand and the brand of their party. So I'm not one of those Democrats who thinks that a good electoral outcome in 2026 just fixes all the problems.
PHILLIP: What are they running on, I guess is part of it. But to your point about -- I mean, Democrats are in such a deep hole in terms of their congressional approval or disapproval, for that matter, 73 percent of registered voters say they disapprove of Democrats.
However, the reason for Pelosi's confidence is another question. If the election were held today, which party should win control of the House? And Democrats win that 47 to 43.
ROGIN: Yeah, I think what we saw in the 2025 elections is that national security minded, centrist Democrats win in purple districts. And when I talk to Democratic congressional leadership, they seem to be of the view, and I think this is basically right, that running a lot of national security minded, centrist Democrats is the best way to get that majority.
But I agree with you. It doesn't solve the problem because inside the Democratic Party, you then have the Mamdani wing and the AOC and the Bernie wing, and that will delay their effort to take over control of the party mechanics and infrastructure going into 2028. So, it's really a possible that they could have a short term win in 2026 that leads to a huge fight inside the party leading up to 2028, as they pick their standard bearer heading into the national election. So it's kind of a double-edged sword.
CROSS: I think you made a good point, Abby. What are you going to do with the gavel? Like that to me is the big question that everybody wants to know. If it's more of, you know, tiptoeing around things and not calling a thing a thing and capitulating to, you know, conservative ideology for not wanting to offend anybody, I don't think that's the thing that's going to inspire people. I think you have to give people something, some meat to this.
PHILLIP: But what about just being anti-Trump? Because I think that's also a problem for Democrats. Their whole identity can't just be "stop Trump".
CROSS: I agree, I completely that's what I'm saying.
PHILLIP: And that's what she was -- Pelosi was kind of suggesting, that it might be.
CROSS: Yeah, I'm agreeing with you. I think you have to give people what exactly are you running on. What are you going to do with the gavel? And it can't be, oh, we're going to impeach because I think people are so disconnected from the political system now. And I think, you know, there are a lot of people who incorrectly say there are these constituencies who are so loyal to the Democratic Party, and that's just not true. People are loyal to harm reduction. They vote in favor of harm
reduction. And so when you have people who come out and say, oh, well, I don't want to offend, you know, the MAGA vote, like walk in that middle of the road is how you become political roadkill. Like you have to stand strong on something.
I'm sure if all the people that the Democrats paid thousands of dollars a month were advising on his campaign, they would have said, don't say this, don't do that, don't do that. We're going to help you win this election. And they would have been wrong. I think you have to run for the constituency and be bold and courageous in your outlook and your views and stop paying constituents or stop paying contractors who don't look like your constituents to tell you how to talk to people who don't look like you.
I think that's a problem that the Democrats have to confront, too.
[23:35:02]
I don't -- I'm not excited about any political leader or party right now.
JENNINGS: Yeah. I think Joel actually gave you some very astute political analysis. I agree with virtually everything he said.
The two things I'm looking at for the House races this year that are still undecided. What does the Supreme Court do on Voting Rights Act. If they, in fact, throw out section two, it could bring some more districts into play in the South. That's number one.
Number two, also, the primary process. Look, we'll see if Democrats nominate people who could plausibly win in moderate purple districts or if they end up nominating, people like they did that looney tunes down in Nashville who could not win in a, you know, a district that might have been more susceptible to a moderate Democrat. We don't know the answers to those questions yet. When we find out those answers, it will come more into focus.
The other issue, of course, is the Senate. And I still think Republicans have the inside track on holding a majority in the Senate. So even if you take the House, you're probably looking at a divided Congress. Still, Donald Trump in the White House. And I think you're exactly right.
What then do the two parties, not just the Democrats, but then what do the two parties say to the American people going towards 2028? I don't know that the midterm elections are going to resolve that for most voters.
RANTZ: Yeah, I do think how Democrats do in the House, and I think they're going to win. History suggests that loses them the White House, depending on the candidates that they choose. I mean, look, it's much easier to win, with very radical leftist candidates in certain parts. And all you're doing then is giving Republicans a talking point to say, this is what the party has become. And if you want to win the House in the short term, and then we've got
another Republican president, I'm certainly happy with that, because I look at the Senate map as well, it seems to favor Republicans.
And again, we don't know what's going to happen with the Voting Rights Act. We don't know what redistricting is actually going to look like. And the other thing that is kind of important here, it's not just the 18 percent lack of approval for Democrats. It's what the economy holds next year. Obviously, the Trump administration is banking on much different feelings about the economy. You're looking at tax rebates or tax refunds. That does change the dynamic of how Americans feel about this country and the direction that we're going.
ROGIN: I don't -- I don't necessarily think that Democrats winning in 2026 predicts a Republican win in 2028 for the simple reason that what you'll have is policy paralysis. You'll have Trump ignoring Congress and Congress trying to ineffectively to do oversight over Trump. And that shut down. That's bad. That invokes a change mentality. And it also drives the economy down.
And if the rates are going to go down, but the economy is not going to get better and the prices are going to go up and the squeeze on families is going to go up, that all points to a change election in 2028, not a continuity election. That's bad for Trump and good for --
PAYNE: Scott and Tiffany kind of alluded to this a little bit. I just want to say really quickly, primaries. Democrats need messy out in the open primaries. They need a good fight. They need Jasmine Crockett and James Talarico to go at it in Texas and let the voters decide what they want. They need Janet Mills and Graham Platner in Maine to go at it.
And I think what the establishment of the party is afraid of is that the real talent in the party actually is not coming from the establishment, it's coming from the people. It's coming from the grassroots that could be on the left, that could be on the right, that could be national security, that could be people on the far left flank. That's actually where the talent is coming from, not the establishment.
JENNINGS: Do you believe Platner and Crockett are favored right now?
PAYNE: I think that Graham Platner is probably favored right now. I think Crockett -- Crockett probably has a bigger national brand. I'm curious to see how that race plays out.
ROGIN: How do you explain Spanberger in Virginia, Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey, their establishment? They're.
PAYNE: No, no, no.
ROGIN: Aren't they?
PAYNE: They can be called --
ROGIN: The Pentagon, CIA. PAYNE: But they're also new. They're within the last 10 years --
ROGIN: They worked for the U.S. government for a long time.
PAYNE: They were within the last ten years. And Mikie Sherrill -- Mikie Sherrill right across the river from Zohran Mamdani. There's a lot of folks who have the same shared experience come from same neighborhoods, work in similar jobs, chose two very different people to be in leadership positions for them.
PHILLIP: Yeah. I think that to your point, I'm not sure that voters will sort of take a broad brush and say, well, you've elected a Mamdani there. And so therefore the whole party is this way. They demonstrated this past fall that they didn't think that.
So it's a case by --
RANTZ: -- is the bigger point, right. If you've got a ton of them.
PHILLIP: It seems like Democrats need to have Mamdani -- Zohran Mamdani's work and Abigail Spanberger is where Abigail Spanberger.
RANTZ: That's not how the party thinks.
PHILLIP: So otherwise.
ROGIN: Yeah, right. That makes sense but inside the party, that's not -- they can't get along.
PHILLIP: Exactly. Yeah.
Well, all right, next for us, George Clooney goes on the record. He's saying that major news networks should have told Trump to go F yourself instead of settling. And that's not the only person that he went after. Why? He's now calling out the boss of CBS News by name. That's ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[23:44:10]
PHILLIP: Acclaimed actor George Clooney is moving to France, and he's calling out TV networks as he heads out the door. Clooney spoke to variety magazine about President Trump's lawsuits against ABC and CBS. He says the network should have told Trump to, quote, go F yourself. And he fought -- and fought Trump lawsuits.
The network instead chose to settle, and Clooney blames that decision for, quote, where we are in the country right now.
So, it's no surprise that Clooney is speaking out. He directed the film version of "Good Night and Good Luck", later played the famed CBS anchor Edward R. Murrow in the stage version of that film. Clooney was publicly urging President Joe Biden to drop out of the 2024 election, and he sparred with Trump for years.
I guess he's not the only one who thinks that the network should have had a different response, but I guess I wonder.
[23:45:01]
I'll go to you, Josh, because you're giving me -- giving me some looks here. But --
ROGIN: Yeah.
PHILLIP: Do you --
ROGIN: I mean.
PHILLIP: Do you care?
ROGIN: Yeah, I care. I've worked in the journalism industry for over two decades, and I have a very personal stake in journalism institutions standing up to pressure from the government and lawsuits are a new form of that pressure. And so, yeah, in general, without naming any particular news organization that I might want to work for in the future, it's a bad practice when the government sues the journalism organization and it's not justified. They should stand up and fight back.
Now, I'm not in charge of any journalism organizations, so nobody ever asked me. But I know a lot of the journalists who work in a lot of these newsrooms, and they're mortified. And I don't blame them, because at the end of the day, it sends a chilling effect through all of the reporters and producers and people throughout the organization. They self-censor. And that's the point of it.
It's not just to get the $16 million, it's to make sure that that never happens again. And it doesn't. You don't get that call from your editor that says, don't do this. It's just understood. And you don't want to get near the line because your livelihood depends on it. That's how journalists operate every day.
So that chilling effect is real and it's everywhere, and it's always been there, but now it's worse. And so, yeah, if you're asking for me, for my opinion, I agree with George Clooney. Journalism organizations should not pay the ransom. They should not pay the extortion fee when they're not in the wrong.
RANTZ: So I guess I'm waiting for the chilling effect because I consume a whole lot of media on the right and on the left, and it doesn't seem like folks on the left are doing anything other than saying the George Clooney quote to the Trump administration --
(CROSSTALK)
ROGIN: -- focused on the left. These are major news organizations that have decades of --
RANTZ: That have lots of left wing reporters.
ROGIN: And lots of right wing reporters.
RANTZ: They don't have a lot of right wing.
ROGIN: Of course, they do.
RANTZ: They really don't know. They -- come on, they do not. And we know that when --
CROSS: What network are you talking about?
ROGIN: I worked in eight major newsrooms.
RANTZ: Left wing organizations.
CROSS: What left wing like name names. So you're saying "The New York Times" is a left wing organization? I'm just trying to be clear on your argument.
RANTZ: Yes, newsroom that is occupied by primarily left journalists.
CROSS: So, CBS now a right wing organization.
RANTZ: No, because Bari Weiss is not a right winger. I know --
CROSS: Bari Weiss is not a right winger?
RANTZ: Correct. She's not a right winger.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Hold on, hold on.
CROSS: We can agree she's so qualified to run a newsroom.
PHILLIP: She actually responded to George Clooney. She said, "Bonjour" and invited him to the CBS newsroom.
I mean, the other part of the context here for Clooney is that he's leaving not because of Trump. He says, I was worried about raising our kids in L.A. in the culture of Hollywood, and I felt like they were never going to get a fair shake in life. France, they kind of don't give a S about fame. They don't want to want -- I don't want them walking around worried about paparazzi.
But he is getting out of dodge while he's making these critiques, which I think makes the argument a little bit harder.
PAYNE: Yeah. I'm of mixed opinion on this because, look wealthy, you know, Hollywood guy moving to France talking about institutions like, this is the type of stuff that Democrats, I think historically have really struggled with how to take the very reasonable observation that he's making here, that I agree with, that it's not good for these media organizations. It's not good for universities. It's not good for all these institutions to capitulate to Trump.
But the messenger might -- might kind of it might not be the right messenger for this. And most people don't have the resources to move to a different country to free themselves of the oppression that they're feeling.
RANTZ: From the paparazzi.
PAYNE: Yeah. So, like, it's tough. I'm not -- I'm not taking a shot at George Clooney. I think I'm just saying, I think the messenger here probably, impacts the, you know, the strength of the message that he's trying to.
CROSS: I don't think his point was about, like, relocating to France. I think it was really a call out of these, legacy media institutions that, quite frankly, have capitulated legally and even editorially when you look at some of the coverage, I mean, you look at what's happening, I mean, "60 Minutes", listen, that was my gold standard I've talked about on this show before. I started my career here 25 years ago. I grew up, I wanted to be the brown Murphy Brown.
I paid close attention, having navigated newsrooms myself for over 20 years. It is devastating to see the failures of journalism. I have watched for years, newsrooms run and speak to certain crowds and as a result, people have stopped tuning in to cable news as much because you don't feel spoken to, you don't feel heard, you don't feel seen, you don't feel acknowledged.
So what happened? As people tuned out, they found other sources where they got their news and information, which created a huge problem because you have so many people, bad actors who have a specific interest in influencing how our votes go. So you have this information, misinformation, mal information targeting different pockets, and that is the result.
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: Yeah --
CROSS: That's the result of a media failure.
PHILLIP: I will say -- I do think -- I do think that you have seen news outlets still foot to the pedal, right, at "The Washington Post", at "The Wall Street Journal", at CBS. They're still operating in this landscape.
[23:50:01]
There might still be a chilling effect hanging over them, but they are still doing the work.
CROSS: They've done great reporting, Abby, but it depends on what great reporting we're talking about. I think when you look at the very incestuous beltway press, that's one thing. But at tables I go to, I'm never at brunch and somebody says, oh, my god, did you see what happened on "Meet the Press" this morning? I think a lot of the questions people ask are not as engaging as sometimes -- I think sometimes in journalism circles, people talk to each other, for each other, about each other. It's like this circle jerk of, like, how great.
PHILLIP: I don't know that that's a terrible thing. I think that's a journalism thing.
CROSS: That's my point.
PHILLIP: I think the sense that --
CROSS: That is what George Clooney --
PHILLIP: If we're missing people, that's been going on in some of these --
ROGIN: I think, Abby, you're right.
CROSS: But they're missing people --
ROGIN: As we acknowledge that, that journalists are struggling in an industry that's under pressure financially, institutionally, politically, there's still a ton -- thousands of journalists, including inside the beltway, who are working very hard to break really important stories, including at CNN, including at "The Washington Post", and in great condition. And they deserve our praise.
CROSS: I agree, and I want to be clear, I'm not saying they're not -- I completely agree, and I want to be clear, I'm not saying they're not working hard. I'm talking about stories that don't get -- I'm not talking about the folks who are doing a one above the fold. I'm talking about dozens of stories every day that go uncovered, because there are people who are -- who are not aware of what's happening across the country, in different communities.
And so, if the only time you saw outrage, for example, about a 12- year-old getting shot by police was from a social media meme, then yes, you were going to tune out from a cable news network or from a -- stop reading a newspaper because you never felt represented. And if the outrage centered on people who didn't look like you, people without your lived experience, then yes. Why am I paying for this subscription? Why am I sitting around watching people talk about -- you literally have panels of people talking about black voters without a black voter on the panel.
ROGIN: I think that's -- I think you're right. But I also think that there's room for professional journalists, independent journalists, partisan journalists, opinion journalists, news journalists. I say let a thousand flowers bloom.
CROSS: I agree.
ROGIN: And there's a role for the institutional and legacy and professional media, and there's a role for YouTubers, and there's a role for commentators. And we all have a responsibility to do better.
My issue is with the leadership of these institutions. When they face pressure based on their businesses that are not related to journalism, and they sacrifice the journalism mission for their other financial interests.
CROSS: I agree, CBS, Paramount, Skydance. ROGIN: That's the problem that we're dealing with, and I think that\s a lot of what we're seeing here.
PHILLIP: Next for us, the panel is going to give us their nightcaps resolution edition. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[23:57:01]
PHILLIP: We are officially 24 hours away from 2026. So for tonight's news nightcap, what is your New Year's resolution?
Joel, you're up first.
PAYNE: Well, I guess I'll start with saying, Abby, I want to be better at making resolutions, but the one that I arrived on is kind of like, more casual wear, which is really just a stand in for, like, being more welcoming and being more opening. Like, I do a lot of this and I have tried purposely in 2025 to dress down a little bit more. No offense, you guys,
Look. Great with the -- with the suits and ties. You know, maybe a little bit more open collar, more open shirt. I actually think it kind of signals to people that there is a lower barrier of entry to be a part of these conversations. And I actually think that's healthy for us. So that's a resolution for me.
PHILLIP: I totally agree. I do think we want people to feel like they can sit at this table with us.
All right. Scott?
JENNINGS: Well, as you know, I love the national parks and our national monuments. And in 2025, I neglected my national travels on this front. I usually spend some time visiting them every year, but didn't get to it really in '25. So in '26, I'm endeavoring to re-up my national park game in honor of America's 250th anniversary.
I think our national parks are our crown jewels of our country, and there's a bunch of them out there. These parks and monuments are amazing to see. I've seen a bunch of them, but not all. So I'm getting back out on the road to see the national parks and think about how great it is that we have them in the United States of America.
PHILLIP: Underrated. Jason?
RANTZ: So, I am an insufferable dog person. And so what my resolution -- I know, we're both dog people. We've bonded over that.
So I kind of drag my feet when taking my dog for a long walk, except whenever I'm done. I always love it. Whenever I'm done, I never say, man, I regret that. So I'm going to take my dog Dartagnan, a three Musketeers. I'm going to take him on longer walks and look at him. He's so adorable. And of course --
PHILLIP: A long, long walk.
RANTZ: I'm going to take advantage and maybe use my dog to get some dates.
CROSS: Okay, can I just say adopt? Don't shop.
RANTZ: And he's adopted.
CROSS: Okay, good. And when your dog is sniffing, don't be pulling them. Oh, I know, I was scrolling through Instagram. Let him take his time.
RANTZ: He doesn't bug me on Instagram. I'm --
CROSS: Okay. Good.
My resolution is to read more. I think we are seeing the dumbing down of America. I used to read a book every week, and I am down to like maybe two a month now. It is a time for reading books. Everything we learn can't come in an Internet meme or something you post on Facebook, or even some forward like you have to read cover to cover.
Get in the habit of reading books. Turn off the TV. I know that might mean you see less of me on this show but turn off the TV and actually read. People read the headlines, not the story.
Learn something, read something. Be curious about something. Don't just hear someone say something on TV and take it as truth. Actually read a book and learn more.
PHILLIP: All right, Josh.
ROGIN: My New Year's resolution is to practice more compassion and tolerance and kindness in my dealings with friends and opponents alike. I think we all are responsible for the lack of civility and kindness in our public discourse. And I'm not always perfect in that regard, not even tonight. So, I'm making a pledge right here to treat my friends and family and opponents and people I disagree with, with mutual respect and understanding.
So, I love you, Scott. I disagree with you, but I think we can agree on a common goal in that regard.
PHILLIP: I was going to say.
ROGIN: Happy new year.
JENNINGS: Happy new year. Happy birthday.
PHILLIP: Wish you a happy new year as the clock strikes midnight everyone. Thank you very much. Thank you for watching.
NEWSNIGHT, you can catch me anytime on your favorite social media, X, Instagram and TikTok.
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