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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip

Trump Upends Own Agenda by Holding Housing Bill Hostage; Trump Lashes Out at Lunatic GOP Senator Who Stood Up Against Him. All Mamdani Endorsements Win in New York Democratic Primary; Venezuela Hit By Strong Back to Back Earthquakes. Aired 10-11p ET

Aired June 24, 2026 - 22:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:00:00]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR (voice over): Tonight, Donald Trump upends his agenda and holds a bipartisan housing bill hostage over his demands on voting.

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA): Like a petulant child, he says he's not going to do it.

PHILLIP: Plus, tempers flare between Trump and his own party.

SEN. BILL CASSIDY (R-LA): I'm not going to be bullied when I'm trying to get answers for the American people.

PHILLIP: How a group chat became a royal rumble.

Also, the Democratic Party is shell-shocked over its socialist uprising.

MAYOR ZOHRAN MAMDANI (D-NEW YORK CITY, NY): Part of my hope in working to elect these Congress people is also to help write a new chapter in our party's history.

PHILLIP: How a party trying to move to the center may be taking a sharp left turn.

Live at the table, Scott Jennings, Ana Navarro, Shermichael Singleton, Sabrina Singh, Niall Stanage, and Jumaane Williams.

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

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIP (on camera): Good evening. I'm Abby Phillip in New York.

Tonight, President Trump could have been taking a victory lap, and for many people, the American dream could have been a little closer to reality. But instead, Trump is taking all of that away by holding affordable housing hostage until Congress passes legislation that would let him dramatically reshape how Americans vote.

Now, this week, Congress passed the largest housing affordability bill in a generation. It got rare bipartisan support. His own White House called it historic and bragged that Trump had delivered on his promise to help American families. But just 24 hours later, just hours before he was supposed to sign it into law, Trump posted this ultimatum, canceling the event until lawmakers pass the Save America Act. It's a signature piece of his agenda that would severely tighten voter I.D. requirements, among other things.

Now, Trump says that the housing bill pales into comparison -- in comparison to passing this voting legislation, and he criticized Senator Elizabeth Warren, who helped champion it. But Warren clapped back. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WARREN: Donald Trump, we get all the way to the finish line, and like a petulant child, he says he's not going to do it.

Up until about 11:30 this morning, Republicans were tweeting about what a great bill it is and how much they love it, and then along comes Donald Trump, stamps his little foot, and says, no.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: I don't know if Trump forgot that he proposed the Elizabeth Warren piece of this bill, but he did. In January, he said, I am immediately taking steps to ban large institutional investors from buying more single family homes. I'll be calling on Congress to codify it. Well, that was in this bill. That was the Elizabeth Warren proposal. Did he forget that that was also his proposal? And also does he care that now he's taking off the table something that Republicans thought they could run on?

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I don't think he forgot, and I'm sure that Republicans who voted for it still think it's a good bill. I think it's pretty obvious the president just cares about this other thing more than he cares about this, and he's using these procedural levers to try to get some leverage over the Congress on it.

Will it work? I don't know, but I don't know that necessarily means he's changed his mind about the policy but he sees a moment where he can use his constitutional prerogatives to try to get them to do something that heretofore they've not done yet.

Again, will this gambit work? Probably a low percentage.

SABRINA SINGH, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS COMMENTATOR: I think it's odd, though, that --

PHILLIP: Well, apparently he told -- apparently he told lawmakers that nobody cares about affordable housing. The White House wouldn't comment on it, but that's what the reporting says.

SINGH: I mean, I think it's odd that you have an event set up to start, the chairs are all lined up, people are on their way, and the president, you know, posts that we're pulling this entire event down. I mean, it's so embarrassing. And I think, you know, this was a housing bill that we haven't had one in 30 years. I mean, housing costs are up 54 percent since 2020. This actually could have given Americans a much needed alleviation in the market. And when we talk about affordability this could have been a huge win and victory lap actually for the president.

But this was a total own goal.

[22:05:00]

I mean, it's the strategy that this White House has and this president has. I mean, it's as clear as mud. It makes no sense.

(CROSSTALKS)

ANA NAVARRO, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: He had a tantrum, right?

SINGH: Yes.

NAVARRO: You have children. You have children. You have children. I don't know about you guys.

This is, you know, a classic tantrum where he doesn't care what the consequences are. There's two things going on here. One is he does have this strange fixation with the SAVE Act, and no matter how many times the majority leader of the Senate, John Thune, the Republican, tells him the votes are not there to pass it, he's going to continue fixating on this.

And, two, he is mad, he is hot and mad and bothered because of the -- because there's Republicans that have been standing up to him on issues like Iran. They had the vote yesterday to limit his War Powers Act, and I think that's got him very irritated. So, in retaliation, on a day when he should have been celebrating the fact that Democrats are having all of this infighting, he pulls this stunt.

And, you know, a few weeks ago, he said he didn't care about the midterms. I'm beginning to believe him. This would have been good for Republicans.

NIALL STANAGE, WHITE HOUSE COLUMNIST, THE HILL: But the point about the retaliation, Ana, is he actually hurts himself by the method of retaliation, because, to Sabrina's point, I mean, affordability is a massive issue.

The other thing that voters always complain about is the parties not being able to work together. Here, you have a bipartisan measure aimed at an affordable issue, and he blows the thing up out of some sense of irritation that the Republican Party are not as subservient to him as they'd like them to be. PHILLIP: And, honestly, it was overwhelmingly bipartisan, like almost nothing happened, like almost nothing of significance happens that way.

NAVARRO: The vote count was 85 to 5 in the Senate and 358 to 32 in the House. You could literally put a resolution on the House floor saying that puppies are good and it wouldn't get this kind of bipartisan support.

PHILLIP: I totally agree. Yes.

JENNINGS: If things that are overwhelmingly bipartisan are good and should pass, I mean, voter I.D.'s like 80-20 or 90-10. It seems to be overwhelmingly bipartisan.

PHILLIP: Okay. Then why does -- well, then why does Lisa Murkowski say this about the SAVE Act? Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LISA MURKOWSKI (R-AK): If he chooses to hold up his own agenda because he wants action on the SAVE Act, that's, I guess, his call. It is not helpful to him. It's not helpful to the country, and it's not moving the needle. If you don't have the votes, sir, you don't have the votes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: I don't know what to say. I mean, first of all, it's not just a voter I.D. bill. It has all kinds of other silliness in it. That's why Lisa Murkowski says there are not the votes. That's why John Thune says there are not the votes. The SAVE Act is not going anywhere in the Congress.

SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: The votes aren't there. Senator Rick Scott out of Florida was quoted today, I think, in a political article, stating that he was going to talk to the president and just say, look, I've talked to several of my colleagues, even those that he thought once upon a time were persuadable, who have said, look, I just don't know if I can vote for this legislation.

Now, I understand why the president wants it passed. I think if you were to take a poll and a survey on this, I think you'd probably get a pretty mixed bag, but I think most Americans generally would say, yes, you got to show an I.D. in order to vote. Now --

PHILLIP: But just to be clear, it's not just a voter I.D. bill It bans mail-in voting, which Republicans use in states like Utah and Florida.

SINGLETON: Let me finish my point, Abby.

PHILLIP: Okay?

SINGLETON: I understand that there's nuance to the legislation --

PHILLIP: You can't just take a poll on voter I.D. That's not going to cut it.

SINGLETON: But the point is, though, which I was going to make if you would have allowed me to, I understand that there is nuance to the legislation. I get that. There's always nuance to legislations. That said, though, I think on the housing front with the over-regulation of the market, the president's initial instinct several months ago with the 50-year mortgage idea, I didn't necessarily support it, but I thought it was a right direction, right, to try to look at this housing issue, a real crisis in the country for the past 35, 40 years, to say, how do we get younger Americans in houses at an affordable rate with interest rates that they can actually afford?

This legislation was a part of the process to start restructuring and re-changing regulations to make it easier for builders to build without the overburdens that we have seen for the past decade or two now.

So, I think the president will eventually come around to this. I think if you're in the White House, they're probably telling him, this is something that you can campaign on, Mr. President. It's a victory for you. It's a victory for Republicans. And so maybe at some point he comes and say, look, I don't have the votes for the SAVE Act. I'll move on. Let me campaign on something that gets people motivated.

NAVARRO: But this is going to -- I mean, this is going to become law, right? He may not sign it. He might sit on it. But still, you know, once they send it to him after ten days, it becomes law.

SINGLETON: Well, if they don't go on recess.

NAVARRO: And he's not going to veto it, because if he vetoes it, he's in an even worse position, because they have a veto-proof vote that they can overturn his veto.

SINGLETON: Yes, I don't think he's going to -- would veto it.

NAVARRO: So, what he took away was the optic of being able to celebrate a win, to have all of these Republican leaders around him in the House and the Senate and do rah-rah, we passed a housing bill and we care about it.

[22:10:04]

SINGLETON: Yes, we're addressing affordability. Yes.

NAVARRO: That is kind of negligence and stupid.

STANAGE: Yes, but hold on a second. Let me get in there just for a second, Shermichael, because we're talking here about the Congressional procedures and priorities and nuance, as you say. The argument from the White House or from the president is the Save America Act is a national emergency, therefore everything has to be held for that. This is the only president in any of our lifetimes who has sought to overturn a democratic election by inciting a mob to do so. That is the person that we are now to believe is so exercised by protecting the integrity of the voting system that everything else has to stop to create it. That just doesn't seem plausible to me.

PHILLIP: I mean, just yesterday he was saying he called the U.S. attorney to ask him to do him a favor and a Republican in California get on the ballot for November. I mean --

SINGLETON: But the point we need to remember about the housing issue, which I think Ana was making a brilliant point, you know, right now, there has been a big discussion in the country in terms of national politics, the 30-plus special elections that Democrats have won on Republicans aren't focused enough on cost of living. If you are to believe some of the polling data that's out there, independent swing voters appear to have believed that.

In my opinion, as a strategist, any opportunity we can have as a party to chip away at that message, now that you have Democrats also electing socialists, I think that's another thing that we can add to the contrast and the marketing as we get closer to midterms. I think it's a net gain to the party, which is why I think at some point the president eventually comes back to this.

PHILLIP: So, you agree with Sabrina when she says this is an own goal? Like the president had a win in his pocket. He, you know, snatches defeat from the jaws of victory and decides to put all of his political capital into this fictitious issue of voter fraud that he's been harping on?

I want to read this excerpt from Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan's book, "Regime Change". It describes perhaps what's going on here. They say, in his second term, unlike his first, he was willing to take breathtaking risks, risks that could throw not only his presidency but the Republican Party and the entire world into chaos and carnage. More than ever before as president, he was operating on pure gut instinct.

This seems like just Trump worrying about Trump's latest hobby horse and forgetting what the best interest of his party is.

JENNINGS: Well, I don't think this is just his instinct. I've been all over the country lately and talked to a lot of people out there. This Save America Act, it's not just him thinking about it. Millions of Republicans across the country are worried about it. They're asking about it. They're asking their members of Congress about it. You talk to a member of Congress, they'll tell you the number of calls they're getting on it. I'm sure he's hearing about it.

So, I think, you know, I'll just play devil's advocate on the strategy piece.

SINGLETON: Yes.

JENNINGS: I'm not arguing the housing bill is bad. In fact, it might be good to campaign on. But you could see a world where if Republicans who love President Trump perceive that he was giving up on this thing that they actually really care about, that would be politically depressive to them heading into a midterm where, you know, mid, off- year turnout is already an issue for Republicans.

SINGH: Isn't it politically depressive that he didn't sign --

SINGLETON: I mean, that's a part of the calculation. We have to factor that in.

SINGH: but, I mean, just taking the point that Scott was making, isn't it politically depressive that he took what should've been a massive victory lap for the party and instead totally blew it up, ripped it up?

And I think to what Ana was saying earlier, it's like does he actually care about the midterms? And that kind of goes to what this book has been reporting, like he is a lame duck president. He's not on the ballot again. I think we have seen his priorities be about enrichment for himself and his family, and his priorities are not necessarily on the midterms or supporting Republicans.

NAVARRO: And we have seen him time and again do things against what the base cares about, right, like not going into foreign wars, not releasing the full extent of the Epstein files. And, frankly, I think the reason you're hearing so much about the SAVE Act is because he won't shut up about it. There is two things he won't shut up about, his ballroom -- well, actually, three, his arch and the SAVE Act. If he stopped --

PHILLIP: Don't forget about the Reflecting Pool.

NAVARRO: Oh, the Reflecting -- well, I think he wants to forget about the Reflecting Pool now. So, I think that's part of the reason why you're hearing about it. If his base is hearing it from him, they will regurgitate it and repeat it, and be calling their Congress people about it.

SINGLETON: But I think a part of the calculus for us has to be, though, to your point, Scott, if this doesn't pass, can you maintain the base while still shifting to this housing issue and chipping away at some of those independent swing voters to inoculate some Republicans who are running in more challenging districts? I think the math would probably say we could.

PHILLIP: I mean, the math says you don't have the votes, so it doesn't -- I mean, you could push this all you want, but if you don't have the votes, it's not going to pass.

[22:15:04]

NAVARRO: And you didn't have the votes months ago, and that was before he antagonized John Cornyn, that was before he lost Bill Cassidy, that is before Susan Collins is dealing with a very tough race in Maine. So, if he didn't have the votes two months ago, three months ago, he has even less votes today.

Remember, John Cornyn had like completely changed his mind on overturning the filibuster. I bet you he's now gone back to his original position.

PHILLIP: All right. Next for us, Trump gets into a shouting match during a meeting with Republican senators. At one point, one of them refused to sit down after Trump ordered him to.

Plus, we're following some breaking news out of Venezuela, which just experienced back-to-back earthquakes. This is a live shot of a race to find survivors in the rubble there. More ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:20:00]

PHILLIP: Tonight, Donald Trump helped put an end to his career in Congress, and now he's refusing to hold back. At a meeting on Capitol Hill today, Senator Bill Cassidy erupted at Trump over the Iran war and the president's failure to level with the American public. Earlier this week, Senator Cassidy and three of his Republican colleagues joined in with Democrats to limit Trump's powers in the war in Iran, leading to a tense confrontation today.

Now, sources say that Trump called Cassidy a lunatic over that vote, and Cassidy lost his temper, shouting back with the same tone and volume as Trump. Cassidy says he makes no apologies for standing up to the president.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CASSIDY: I didn't care to be interrupted. I felt like I was trying to get answers for the American people, and I'm not going to be bullied when I'm trying to get answers for the American people. And so it escalated from there. At some point, it de-escalated.

REPORTER: We're told the president called you a lunatic.

CASSIDY: Can I imagine that the president called me things that that would be said on a school, on a playground? Yes, I can imagine that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Following his outburst tonight, Senator Cassidy announced that he met with J.D. Vance and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff at the White House this afternoon to address his concerns about the war.

The tea was hot today over on Capitol Hill. I mean, pretty amazing, but not surprising, because we've seen this movie before with Trump, that he goes into a meeting, it's supposed to be a rah-rah session about the Republican agenda, and ends up in a shouting match with Bill Cassidy and a standoff with other senators. Maybe this is a continuation of what Sabrina said, an own goal on a day that should've been about something else.

NAVARRO: Well, I have to say, though, that I do think that Bill Cassidy was bullied at one point because he went ahead and voted in -- he, who is a medical doctor, voted in favor of making RFK Jr. the secretary of Health and Human Services. But at this point, after losing the primary, Bill Cassidy has no Fs left to give, and he is unmuzzled and unplugged, and I am here for it. I wouldn't watch the UFC match, but I would love to have watched and be a fly on the wall with popcorn, watching these two go at it. And I think that's why we were talking before, Trump's numbers with senators today are worse than they were two months ago because there's a bunch of them who are completely unmuzzled and have no reason to kowtow to him, and are able to actually stand up and represent their constituents.

PHILLIP: And the MOU is a political weakness right now. A lot of Republicans do not like it.

JENNINGS: I think there's two things in that room -- look, the Senate is a little ungovernable right now because of what's been stated, which is there's more senators than -- that are upset with him. That takes you below 50, and so it's a little ungovernable. And they're not really threatenable, and they're not gettable in the normal political way that you would do it because they're leaving. They're gone. They've either been defeated or they're retiring. So, that is just a reality.

STANAGE: But you're saying they're ungovernable -- you're saying it's ungovernable as if that's something that mysteriously happened at random. The reason they are aggravated with him is that he backed challengers to them.

JENNINGS: Of course, it's self-evident.

STANAGE: So, therefore, he has made it ungovernable by his own actions then.

JENNINGS: Yes, he's got a group of senators that are upset with him for various political reasons, and he's going to have to deal with that on this issue and on other issues.

But the other thing going on in that room, I think, is that no commander-in-chief wants to feel like they're having their hands tied on war powers by the Congress. And I think the president would say, look, I'm in the middle of a negotiation here, and you guys are making the American president, the commander-in-chief, look weak while we're in the middle of these negotiations. And I think he's probably also a little upset about that.

PHILLIP: That's what the law says. I mean, that's -- hey, the War Powers Act exists, and also the Constitution exists.

JENNINGS: But all presidents think the War Powers Act is unconstitutional.

PHILLIP: Part of the problem for Trump is that he should've gone to them in the first place.

SINGH: Right.

PHILLIP: And when he doesn't do that, then he sets the table for this aggravation.

And so Lindsey Graham says today, I believe it's imperative that, to the extent possible, the Senate revote on the Iran War Powers Resolution and defeat it. The president's concern about Iran being emboldened by this vote in the middle of negotiations to end this war is not unwarranted. Frankly, it's just common sense. What's ironic is that votes like this have the unintended consequence of extending this conflict. He says we should revote.

But, again, look, and the problem is that Trump goes into a war, he doesn't explain it to Congress or to the American people, it should not be a surprise that they're pushing back at this stage.

[22:25:02]

SINGH: I think what -- I mean, Lindsey Graham's post is just so funny. It's like, please, let's revote. But Donald Trump, you know, at the State of the Union had the opportunity to lay out the case for going to Iran. Now, you have Secretary Pete Hegseth, you had Donald Trump on the Hill saying, we need another $80 billion to help us backfill our own munitions and stockpiles and to fund this war.

So, you're actually asking senators to put their name on the line and vote for funding for this war that they never want, were never consulted on, never had a vote on, and that's why you're seeing this four Republican senators side with Democrats because they're saying, well, wait a minute, we have a voice, we have a role to play when it comes to declaring war on our enemies, and you didn't even come to us to ask for the authority.

And so while it's playing out in the middle of the negotiations, is this the best timing for Donald Trump? No, definitely not. But then you should've thought about your actions beforehand.

JENNINGS: When's the last time we declared war on our enemies?

SINGH: Well, I mean, the last time we declared war was World War II. And every president, as you said, has flirted with the line of the War Powers Act.

PHILLIP: Let's put it this way. Several times in the last 25 years since 9/11, presidents have gone to Congress to put conflict in front of them before they did it. Bush did it. Obama did it.

Now, you may not like that the Constitution says that Congress has the authority to declare war or that Congress has then passed the War Powers Act, but that is what it says. And so Trump now, I think, part of the problem is not just that he didn't go to them, it's also that the MOU, people like Cassidy believe is a bad deal.

And, you know, he's actually kind of putting the United States in a position of signing a treaty that would basically give our enemies a ton of money and we get almost nothing out of it.

SINGLETON: Yes, we can't give the Iranians any money. That to me is a non-starter, non-negotiable.

PHILLIP: We already have. They're collecting the dollars --

SINGLETON: And, two, the idea of the regime that somehow they can tax ships going through the strait, the president said that's not going to happen. The Iranians seem to still believe that they will, at some point, do that. That's the level of destabilization that I'm not comfortable with. And I'm almost certain any time they're angry about something, then they'll just shut down the strait again. So, whether it's this president or the next president, then we're back at square one all over again.

Look, I think the president certainly has to be a hard line on this and I understand wanting to be resolute and resolve it quickly because the elections are coming up. But, to me, I don't think politics should trump how we negotiate this. And just to be quite honest with you --

NAVARRO: But if you hear Cassidy's concerns, what he's been saying is, I have questions about this MOU that nobody is answering. And I am a U.S. senator and I will not be bullied into voting a certain way just because it's the president of my party.

And it seems like the White House has taken him seriously because today, I guess, they invited him to try to answer some of those questions. And he hasn't said that if his questions are answered in a way that he's satisfied with, he won't change his vote.

JENNINGS: And he talked to Vance and Witkoff, who were actually there, you know, in the room negotiating it. But, look, I do think the president has something of a point here as it relates to his position in the negotiations. If the Iranians perceive that he is being undercut by the political structure back in Washington, they're less likely to give him latitude or leverage in the negotiation.

That's how he would see it. I think that's a reasonable point.

(CROSSTALKS)

PHILLIP: I think that's totally true, which is why it behooves Trump to get a good deal. Now, it's a problem that he hasn't gotten a good deal.

(CROSSTALKS)

STANAGE: Shermichael made a, an important point almost in passing there where you said we're back to square one. That, of course, is the whole problem. We're back to square one, the Pentagon having expended at least $29 billion, 13 Americans having lost their lives, 3,500 Iranians having lost their lives, including 100 children in a school, and we're back to where we started after all that turmoil and all that trauma. To, I think, people across the political spectrum, that doesn't seem worth it.

JENNINGS: Well, we're not back to where we started. The Iranian navy is at the bottom of the ocean. They have no air force to speak of. We did bomb their nuclear sites last summer into oblivion.

SINGH: But the strait is closed, and that is a --

JENNINGS: And so to say that we're back where we started would say that no military progress was made against these people, I just don't think that's true.

STANAGE: No, but it's not a matter of military progress. It's about the nuclear.

SINGLETON: We've made significant progress in terms of our military capabilities. I guess my concern here is that we've effectively allowed the regime to position themselves as a quasi-superpower. So, they don't have the military capabilities we have, nor the intelligence or nuclear warheads, but the fact that they can constrict the entire global economy to me is a real problem.

And so I know some Republicans wouldn't agree with me, but I think President Trump has got to be hardline on this, Scott.

[22:30:00]

I wouldn't negotiate with these guys at all. I wouldn't play ball. I would not.

SINGH: But to your point on them being a global superpower, they also, what we haven't talked about and what this deal doesn't address, and what probably Senator Cassidy is concerned about, is we have, this MOU does not address their support for proxy groups, which threaten the region, and it does not address their ballistic missile program.

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Rubio disagrees with that because --

SINGH: It's not in writing.

JENNINGS: I mean, because in his view, and he gave a talk about this this weekend, it's inherent in the MOU that they wouldn't be --

(CROSSTALK)

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: It's inherent in the MOU.

(CROSSTALK)

JENNINGS: That's the American --

(CROSSTALK)

ANA NAVARRO, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: In an MOU, you don't want anything inherent.

PHILLIP: Let me just spell this out real quick, because the MOU explicitly says that the war ends in Lebanon. What it does not explicitly say is that their support for terrorism stops.

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: Hold on. But you heard what I said, though.

(CROSSTALK) PHILLIP: There's one thing that's spelled out, which is that the war in Lebanon ends. That's spelled out in plain text. The one thing that is not spelled out is their support for terrorism.

SINGLETON: But the MOU doesn't bind us, Abby.

PHILLIP: Will you tell me whether or not the MOU actually binds Iran to stopping their support for terrorism? It does not.

SINGLETON: It clearly doesn't. But the Obama administration couldn't even guarantee that either.

PHILLIP: All right. Next for us, Democrats are in shock tonight as socialists put together a string of wins across the country. So, is the party taking a hard left turn? Another special guest is going to be with us at the table. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:36:04]

PHILLIP: Tonight, Democrats are in shock, at least the ones who consider themselves moderate. Socialist candidates across the nation are not only winning primaries, they're also taking leadership positions in American cities. New York is the latest example, as all of Zohran Mamdani's endorsements won their contest, sending the establishment into a tailspin.

Former DNC Chair Jamie Harrison, without naming names, argued online, quote, "If you hate the Democratic Party, then please don't run for our nomination." He said, "Don't use the party's resources, volunteers, and infrastructure." And he added that, "If you don't believe in the party, then don't ask its members to carry you across the finish line."

An hour later, he clarified that he doesn't care if you're a progressive, a moderate, or a conservative. But he highlighted that there was always an understanding that building a stronger party was part of the job. Senator Chris Murphy responded to that, arguing that the party is the voters, and that leaders need to listen to the voters who are demanding that the party be bolder.

Joining us now in our fifth seat is Jumaane Williams. He's the public advocate for the city of New York. And, Jumaane, I wonder if, just to respond to what Jamie Harrison is saying, is he right to say, if you're not a card-carrying Democrat, get out of our party, don't even bother running?

JUMAANE WILLIAMS, PUBLIC ADVOCATE OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK: First, I start off every sentence with Nixon 5, so I just have to put that out there.

PHILLIP: Okay.

WILLIAMS: But the truth is, he's incorrect. Like, the whole context is wrong. We keep pretending somehow that the people in power in a lot of places were not folks from outside who came into the party, one way or the other, didn't like what was happening, said, I'm going to try to make some change. And that's what's happening here.

And, quite honestly, what we see happen in New York City is, to me, an extension of what happened in 2008, where people who may not have even bought a black toothbrush voted for Barack Obama, but then voted for Donald Trump. There are people in New York City who voted for Donald Trump and AOC.

PHILLIP: And Zohran Mamdani after that. That's correct.

WILLIAMS: There are people who are saying, we don't want the status quo, we don't want the same message and the same messenger. The party leadership that I belong to has rejected that time and time again, and every decision they've made has led us to Donald Trump. And every decision they've made have led us to this point. So, my hope is that the party will finally say, let's listen to some messaging that is actually working, messaging that pushes back against the divisiveness that we've been seeing.

PHILLIP: If there's one thing a political party is going to do, it's to protect the political party as it currently is. And the people who know that the best are perhaps Republicans, who experienced it vividly in 2016 when Donald Trump ran for the nomination, and he ran as an outsider, and he shook up the party, and he dispensed with all the establishment types, and then he took over the party with all of his extreme views on all sorts of things. And I call them extreme, because that's what Republicans called them at the time. So I mean, this is actually, in some ways, kind of a Trump playbook.

JENNINGS: Well, except Trump wasn't trying to, you know, bring about the downfall of Western civilization like some of these socialist candidates are in the Democratic Party. And so, I mean, look, I'm not a Democrat, but I've been amused at the infighting in New York City today. And some of it is, you know, pretty powerful constituencies.

I saw a video last night in one of these victory parties of a room full of young, white socialists screaming at a television with Hakeem Jeffries on it, who's poised, by the way, to possibly become the first black Speaker of the House, going, you're next, you're next, you're next. Not a great look for the party. I saw that Mamdani went after the head of the Hispanic Caucus, as well. I see Tish James is even mad at Mamdani.

PHILLIP: All of a sudden?

JENNINGS: So, there's a lot --

PHILLIP: All of a sudden, Republicans are so interested in the politics.

[22:40:00]

I'm shocked. I am shocked.

(CROSSTALK) NAVARRO: You know what? A few things here. First, you know, a lot of times in campaigns, we see politicians endorse other candidates, endorse politicians, and that's all they do, right? You get a press release that says so-and-so just endorsed me. This, I would say, you know, Mamdani and his team, which have figured out the formula in New York City, not only endorsed, they campaigned with these candidates, his team was working with these candidates, the team that was so effective in working on social media and getting voters out.

Also, let's remember that it was, I think, something like five percent of eligible voters that showed up to vote in yesterday's primary. So, very few votes made a very big difference.

WILLIAMS: Well, I was on the ground speaking to voters. Let me say, it is usually a very few amount of people who make a decision anyway. So this is, they're pretending like that is --

PHILLIP: It's a party primary.

(CROSSTALK)

WILLIAMS: That's correct. But I want to be clear. On the ground, what people cared about was affordability. What people cared about was feeling safe and what that means in their community. What people cared about was health care. So, the construct is incorrect because I think people care about that across the country, definitely in New York City.

What the Republican Party has been able to do is say that you don't feel safe, you don't feel like you can afford to pay here because of people you may not like, whether it is trans, whether it is immigrants. What Mamdani and others, by the way, there's always been an issue with class and race when it comes to the left and we have to address that.

But what they have been able to do is that the reason that you can't live in New York City is because of an exploitive economic system. And that economic system is what needs to change.

NAVARRO: But can I ask you something? I thought, I mean, to me, Nydia Velazquez is a progressive. You know, she's most definitely, she was in Congress for 34 and a half years. She endorsed somebody to replace her and that's who Mamdani beat yesterday -- Mamdani's candidate beat yesterday. To me, Adriano Espaillat, the first Dominican to be elected to Congress for the undocumented immigrant also, I don't see them as moderate.

WILLIAMS: Nydia's legacy should have been more respected. Let's just be clear about that.

NAVARRO: And she was the first member of the New York Congressional Caucus to endorse Mamdani.

WILLIAMS: What Republicans have been good at is making these labels even though people don't know what they are. And so what I do know is there's a lot of agreement about what people feel and want to be able to afford where they live and want to feel safe and want health care. When we decide these labels, the biggest thing to me about yesterday and the way the direction we have been going is who is going to use their political capital to push past the normal ways of doing business in politics.

And that is what voters are saying. I want the person now who is going to push past, I guess the best way to put it may be respectability politics which we do need, but push past that. So, when I get a phone call from a leader of a legislature, or I get a phone call from the executive, I'm going to push past that and say this is what my constituents feel.

PHILLIP: All right. Let me squeeze in a quick break here. We'll come back at the other side and finish the conversation.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:47:45]

PHILLIP: Welcome back. We're talking about the sweep of Mamdani candidates in New York yesterday and let me play what one of his endorsed candidates, perhaps one of the more controversial ones, what she said about why she won that race. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DARIALIZA AVILA CHEVALIER (D) U.S. HOUSE NOMINEE, NY-13: Over the past eight months, all of you in this room know how much the Democratic machine has tried to count us out. How at every turn, they've underestimated us. And in the words of Shirley Chisholm, even if the establishment machine has done everything in its power to keep our community from having a seat at the table, well I have some bad news for them. We brought folding chairs.

(CHEERING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: All right.

SINGLETON: Abby, I just don't --

PHILLIP: Establishment machine -- she's going after them.

(CROSSTALK)

SINGLETON: I mean, Abby, we're still in the anti-establishment element of our political history, I suppose, in our country right now. But to me, if I'm a Democrat, I'm really wondering and I'm really concerned about this going beyond just New York. Beyond Washington, D.C. Because I can assure you, we're going to make the argument to voters, you can either be for less taxes or the party that wants to tax you more, because if you're going to say everything's for free, that money has to come from somewhere.

PHILLIP: It already is happening all around the country. SINGLETON: You run the risk of pushing out a lot of highly successful people. I just --

(CROSSTALK)

SINGH: Can I just answer Shermichael's question, though?

SINGLETON: What has he accomplished of any of the things he's promised? I don't know.

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: I'll let you answer that later, but go ahead.

SINGH: Can this expand outside of New York City? And I actually don't think it can. I mean, I think New York is a microcosm. I think these types of candidates that have won are not the type of candidates that could win in Virginia or New Jersey. Look at Mikie Sherrill. Look at Abigail Spanberger. I'm not saying that you can't have some pocket, but this is --

(CROSSTALK)

UNKNOWN: Sabrina, I don't agree with you.

WILLIAMS: What I'm saying is you have a messenger and you have a message.

SINGH: but also, look at the --

NAVARRO: Sabrina, the Congresswoman who replaced Mikie Sherrill, New Jersey 11th, and Lilia Mejia, is far more progressive. Mikie Sherrill is a moderate.

(CROSSTALK)

SINGH: I don't think this is expansive of the party. And look at Kate Connolly who won in the -

(CROSSTALK)

SINGH: That is a moderate Democrat --

(CROSSTALK)

(22:50:00)

WILLIAMS: But no, the fact of the matter is it doesn't, if you continue to do what the Democratic leaders have done. And the Democratic leaders, what they've done is unfortunately join Republicans in trying to bash things that people don't even know about. So they've taken catchphrases and joined the public saying, hey, these are bad, instead of explaining. People don't even know what Democratic socialism is.

SINGH: Like what catchphrase? WILLIAMS: If you talk about DEI, people don't even know what that is. If you talk about Democratic socialism, people don't even know --

SINGH: But Democrats are supportive of inclusive and diverse policies.

WILLIAMS: Yes, but Democratic socialism, people don't even know what that is.

(CROSSTALK)

SINGLETON: Explain that to the American people tonight. What is Democratic socialism?

WILLIAMS: So, all that is, if you compare that to Democratic capitalism, is a different economic system.

SINGLETON: What does that mean? What does that mean?

WILLIAMS: Hold on. If you tell people anywhere in this country, do you like your K-12 education? Do you like your public libraries?

SINGLETON: Yes, but what's the different form of --

(CROSSTALK)

WILLIAMS: Those kind of things that we want to push when it comes to housing.

(CROSSTALK)

WILLIAMS: When you have a system, and I think anyone would agree with this, that will create a trillionaire, a trillionaire while you have abject poverty, that is a system that is not ---

SINGLETON: He's not a trillionaire.

(CROSSTALK)

WILLIAMS: What I'm saying is, what Democratic leaders need to do is translate and not join Republicans in pushing back on things that the party says it stands for. The party says it stands for everybody getting out.

(CROSSTALK)

SINGLETON: So you have an issue of people who have achieved great things --

WILLIAMS: No.

(CROSSTALK)

SINGH: I don't think that's what he's saying. He's not saying that.

SINGLETON: Wait a minute here. Because you're saying if someone becomes a billionaire, let's just talk this is basic economics.

(CROSSTALK)

WILLIAMS: Well, I want to go back to the message and the messenger.

(CROSSTALK)

WILLIAMS: Not every messenger will work everywhere.

(CROSSTALK)

SINGLETON: If you create a product that the consumer then buys, then that investors including retail investors can invest in the stock market. That's how wealth is thus built. Typically that wealth is tied to ownership --

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: Hold on a second.

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: Just a second. We don't have a lot of time so I don't want to get too much in the weeds on the one person.

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: Hold on a second. But let's just talk about the broader issue, okay? I think what the people like Zohran Mamdani are putting on the table is do we need a more fair economic system where people at the bottom can do better and not just people at the top. And the reason that message is resonating is because it is a fact that economic inequality has been supercharged in the last 10, 20, 30 years in this country.

So, that is a fact that's irrespective of where you are in this country. And I think that's why there is a real question of it's not about are you going to run socialists everywhere, but is the anger against the establishment, the anger against an economic system that is leaving people worried about what they put in their gas tank, and how much money they have for it, is that anger going to fuel candidates that speak to it versus the candidates who just want to maintain the status quo.

NAVARRO: I would say that one of the things we learned last night is that past the very friendly smile of Zohran Mamdani, he is a ruthless tactician and an ideologue who wants more people of his ideological bent elected. And he's not satisfied with just being the mayor of --

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: And he doesn't -- and even --

(CROSSTALK)

NAVARRO: And the other thing from last night is, to quote my friend Whoopi Goldberg I would say to Chuck Schumer, dude, you're in danger because this I think puts a lot of wind in the sails of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

JENNINGS: Do you think it was economic concerns that got Dan Goldman banned from that coffee shop in Brooklyn?

WILLIAMS: I think first of all that was horrible. So, I want to make sure (inaudible) Dan Goldman is a gentleman as far as I'm concerned. I also think it was horrible that anti-Haitian and anti-black rhetoric and anti-Muslim rhetoric that occurred with the Chevalier race. But I do think economics is at the root of it and equality --

JENNINGS: In that specific instance?

(CROSSTALK)

WILLIAMS: You can highlight a lot of specifics but we need to look at what's happening.

JENNINGS: I just want you to admit what was actually behind these congressional races. We're talking all around it.

WILLIAMS: No, we're not. Behind those races was that people can't afford to live and the inequality that exists in different spaces.

PHILLIP: All right. Everyone, thank you very much for being here. We have some breaking news tonight. Rescue efforts are underway after back-to-back earthquakes struck Venezuela tonight. We've got live coverage from the scene. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:59:05]

PHILLIP: Breaking news. Venezuela was hit by two powerful back-to- back earthquakes within a minute of each other tonight. First, a 7.2 magnitude quake, and 40 seconds later, a 7.5. You're looking at live pictures in the race to find survivors. Let's get right to CNN's Stefano Pozzebon live in Bogota, Colombia.

Stefano, tell us about where you are and where things stand there. Do we have any sense of the scope of the casualties and the damage?

STEFANO POZZEBON, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: I think, Abby, it's too early to talk about a number, a death toll, a number of casualties. Although, we do fear that this number will grow and grow by a lot in the upcoming hours. But the president, the interim president of Venezuela, Delcy Rodriguez, spoke to the nation about an hour ago describing a catastrophic damage into several states across the country.

[23:00:02]

The two earthquakes had the epicenter in a location about 250 kilometers west of Caracas, but the capital city itself, which is a city of between five and eight million people, had been badly damaged with several buildings collapsing and, of course, like you can see from those images, which I think are from "A.P.", you will see that rescuers are trying to come up with a first response.

I just want to bring you that as I'm live and speaking to you, Abby, I'm speaking with the Venezuelan foreign minister. He's just saying this is so terrible. It's such a tragedy. It's the worst tragedy we have been dealing with in a long, long time. I thought this was the end.

This is the Venezuelan foreign minister speaking to me on this WhatsApp chat right now, and you can appreciate the level of damage and just how much impact that nation has been struck with. Abby.

PHILLIP: All right. Stefano Pozzebon, thank you very much for that reporting. And thank you for watching "NewsNight." "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.