Return to Transcripts main page
CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Trump Open to Temporarily Withdrawing Blanche Nomination; CNN Poll Shows Voters Favor Democrats by Eight Points Ahead of Midterms. Homeland Security Weighs In the $100,000 Fee for Foreigners Seeking Jobs in the United States; Donie O'Sullivan Previews Insurgency of Leftists and Socialist Politics on the Latest Episode of "The Whole Story". Aired 10-11p ET
Aired July 30, 2026 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[22:00:00]
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR (voice over): Tonight, the president says he'll put Todd Blanche's nomination on ice until the Republican senators pushing back are gone. But one holdout warns that's not a safe bet.
SEN. JOHN CORNYN (R-TX): Apparently, he's getting some pushback from higher-ups at the White House.
PHILLIP: Plus, throw the bums out. That's what a new CNN poll shows voters think about all of Congress. And with less than 100 days to go before the midterms, Democrats have the early edge.
Also, $100,000, the administration wants to charge for hiring foreign students who graduate from American universities. But will the courts intervene?
And the left insurgency.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There is 0 percent chance that whoever the elected Democrat is that wins the primary will be pro-Israel in any way, shape, or form.
PHILLIP: One of the left's most polarizing voices has a prediction for 2028.
Live at the table, Bakari Sellers, Jason Rantz, Jemele Hill, and Noah Rothman.
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.
Let's get right to what America's talking about, President Trump's gamble. Tonight, the president is apparently so unwilling to pull back from his tax immunity deal that he and his family stand to benefit from, and he refuses to give up this billion anti-weaponization fund for his allies, that now he's threatening to put his handpicked nominee for attorney general on ice.
Republican senators John Cornyn and Thom Tillis have signaled for days they're not going to support Todd Blanche unless the administration kills Trump's fund for good and ensures that Trump and his family are not exempt from future IRS audits. They want both demands in writing, and they're not backing down.
Today, both senators met privately with Blanche, and we're hearing that they did make some progress, but there is still no deal. But Trump has a workaround. He says that he has no objection to temporarily withdrawing Blanche's name until Cornyn and Tillis are out of office.
But Trump's threat is a risky bet, to say the least. Cornyn lost his primary after Trump endorsed his opponent. Tillis isn't running for re-election. And Cornyn has warned that POTUS is mistaken if he believes concerns about the provisions in his tax lawsuit settlement are limited to me and Senator Tillis.
Here's Tillis' message to the president.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. THOM TILLIS (R-NC): Hey, 158 days, they can try it again, roll the dice on what the Senate confirmation process looks like next year. It's all on him. It's certainly within his authority to do that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: And before we open it up to the table here, we want to invite you at home to join our debate. Go to cnn.com/abby, weigh in there. We'll get to some of your comments as we go through the show.
Two big things here is the president being so unwilling to let this thing go that he doesn't mind not having a confirmed A.G. But, secondly, yes, what a gamble, Noah, for him to say, oh, yes, next year we'll just do it, even though we don't know what's going to happen with the Senate.
NOAH ROTHMAN, SENIOR WRITER, NATIONAL REVIEW: Yes, if I was looking at the polling landscape right now and the Senate math, I wouldn't be overly confident that you're going to get more Republicans in the Senate or even hold the majority. It's very much up in the air.
What Todd Blanche said that he would do, orally, is shelve the weaponization fund. Even, which is not sufficient for senators, they want it in writing. Even in that -- in those comments, he refused to back away from the tax --
PHILLIP: Right --
ROTHMAN: -- the tax and liability pledge, and the sweeping immunity for the Trump family. And that does seem to be what he, what the president wants, because if he was to put it in writing, it would actually kill the weaponization fund. It's oral pledges from the acting A.G. don't matter. If the president's attorneys sign on to what is essentially the end of the settlement, that's it. That's done.
PHILLIP: Yes.
ROTHMAN: So, they're not going to go that far.
PHILLIP: That's exactly what he doesn't want. And to your point, I mean, the tax audit part of this doesn't get as much attention, but that's the part that actually Blanche didn't really get into the details of whether that was or was not going to happen, but it sounds like in the private conversations he said, you know, we'll be willing to do away with it.
But let me let me just play, I think we have what Cassidy said happened last night when they thought that they were making some progress, and then something changed.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. BILL CASSIDY (R-LA): Todd Blanche cannot give commitments that Cornyn and Tillis want.
[22:05:04]
And, by the way, I am very concerned about the weaponization of the Justice Department.
REPORTER: If the vote happened today, would you support him?
CASSIDY: I'm not going to answer that because I'm still in the information gathering stage.
CORNYN: I thought we were pretty close to landing the plane last night, but this morning, there's been some more complications. I think if this were just between me and Todd Blanche, we would've worked this out, but, apparently, he's getting some pushback from higher-ups at the White House.
We made a counterproposal, and we thought we basically had met in the middle but heard this morning that that was all off.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: It's the president. It's the president who does not want to move forward with this.
BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I mean, it's the president doing what he does often, which is prioritizing Donald Trump. I don't think there's anybody who's seen this president act in a way over the past ten years since he came down those -- that golden escalator at Trump Tower who's done anything in an interest that was other than himself and his family. This should be a simple -- look, the American public doesn't want this weaponization bill. Very -- a very small percentage other than the people who were actually indicted, charged, convicted of rioting, insurrection, all those other things, outside of the people who were in the Trump orbit, nobody wants this. I mean, it's a giveaway to people who assaulted police officers, point-blank, period. There's no excuse. There's nothing you can do to circumvent that.
Now, on the IRS settlement, the reason that Todd Blanche can't really work around it is he's the one who drafted the settlement. He's the one who signed off on these different elements that are going into it. So, backing off that is very difficult for him. And the president himself knows that, you know, going forward, there will be accountability. Listen, there will be accountability for Donald Trump, his children, and the people who have been profiteering off their service in the White House. You can guarantee that.
JASON RANTZ, SEATTL RED RADIO HOST: Well, to be clear, Trump and the family right now, at least as it relates to the IRS, they're the victims. They were the victims here. They illegally released their tax documents. And I understand why the president comes from the position or his family's coming from the position that they want to make sure that they can do everything that they can, that legally they can get away with, in the future they're not going to be subject to another IRS or a rogue, you know, agent within the IRS who will go ahead and target them again. I understand that position.
That is separate, I think, from the weaponization fund, which I generally agree with you. It's not a Jan. 6 weaponization fund. But it is written in a way that was too broad, and I do think that was a mistake from this White House. But also, you know, keep in mind you've got two senators here who are holding this entire thing hostage while also acknowledging they don't have a problem with Todd Blanche, that this is not Blanche holding anything up, and yet they're the ones who are holding him up to become the next attorney general.
JEMELE HILL, CONTRIBUTING WRITER, THE ATLANTIC: Yes, but the other issue, well, I mean, the president is petty. So, like this is kind of like the state of what politics are and especially in the Republican Party. So, for them to try to or for any Republican to criticize this or anybody, period, as retaliation, well, we see a lot of that in our American political structure.
The other part I'll say about this that is utterly kind of disturbing on a macro level is that to a lot of people, much like you said, Bakari, this weaponization fund is a slap in the face to a lot of people, especially to those who serve and protect us. Then you have, in general, just the blatant corruption of Donald Trump and his entire family.
And you could say that this is to protect him in case somebody decides somewhere down the line, we're going to go after Donald Trump because of some level of personal retaliation, but we know it's not about that. It's about --
RANTZ: Then what was it about to release illegally his tax returns? HILL: Listen, I'm not disagreeing that was -- that that wasn't illegal. I'm not saying that that should've stood.
RANTZ: I'm just saying he's the victim here, and to suggest that he couldn't become a victim again in the future is kind of --
HILL: But if you're thinking that this is just about him wanting to protect himself from further things, it's not. It's protecting himself from the blatant corruption that he actively involves himself in, him and his family, all the time.
SELLERS: This is about more than just the release of the tax returns. Because what if I give you, as we're sitting here arguing in front of national T.V., I'll give you the fact that anybody who released his tax returns illegally should be held to account. But we're talking about profiteering off meme coins that you rug pulled your supporters off of. We're talking about selling Bibles. We're talking about selling sneakers. We're talking about making sure that your sons or whomever else are on boards that actually get defense contracts.
RANTZ: He's a business person. This is not new though, right? I mean, the idea that he's selling things --
SELLERS: But, I mean, crime --
HILL: This is very new.
RANTZ: The president, for Trump? I'm saying from the presidency.
PHILLIP: But are you suggesting that that's legitimate?
RANTZ: Selling shoes? Yes, of course, it's legitimate. He's selling a product.
HILL: You're suggesting it's legitimate for him to be profiting off the presidency while he's the president.
RANTZ: He's profiting off of his name.
SELLERS: Or the trade -- what about the trades? What about the trades?
RANTZ: He can do what the heck he wants.
[22:10:00]
SELLERS: So, how about this?
RANTZ: So, I agree on the meme coin stuff. I agree with you on that.
SELLERS: But not even the meme coins. You have a president of the United States, and I'm actually turning the page on what I believe to be the greed and corruption, so now I'm on page four or five here. But what about the fact that he's made thousands of trades while he's in the White House talking about those same companies that then the stock spikes? I mean, he's literally using the Resolute Desk and -- RANTZ: He's also traded, or on his behalf. He's not personally trading them. I get your point. But he was also talking down certain companies that he was also purchasing. I mean, that was in a CNN report a couple weeks ago. So, I think it's across the board.
SELLERS: But he's made more money than he lost.
ROTHMAN: I honestly think there's a reason why Republicans are so scared of this, Jason, and I don't think it's petty at all. There's a fruit of the poison tree problem. This whole weaponization fund emerged from an effort by the -- Donald Trump sued his own government. His own government declined to contest the lawsuit. He sought $10 billion in restitution. I'm not willing to say nobody deserves restitution from the Biden era. The Biden era paid up -- or the administration paid out plenty of settlements. But that was so egregious that it was not going to make its way through the courts.
And then they appealed to what is functionally a gimmick, the $1.776 billion fund. I mean, it's all very gimmicky.
(CROSSTALKS)
ROTHMAN: And there's a reason why Republicans in Congress are afraid of the corruption charges, because if Democrats take these chambers, one or both, it's all going to be about corruption.
RANTZ: Then I do think they should be more clear about that, because they're not. They're talking in code, and even Cassidy's comments were a little bit in conflict with what Cornyn and Tillis were saying.
SELLERS: But this is also --
PHILLIP: So, let me just -- I mean, you suggested that they're talking in code. But just remember that earlier in this year, Republican senators were very clear about this. Here's what several of the other Republican senators have said about the weaponization fund.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. TILLIS: This is beyond the pale. This is not good for my colleagues. There's not one positive thing that could be spun out of this between now and November.
SEN. SUSAN COLLINS (R-ME): I do not support the weaponization fund, as it has been described.
CASSIDY: I support what Senator Tillis is trying to do to make sure that the weaponization fund is not just mostly dead, that it's truly dead, if you follow the illusion.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: I also think part of the problem is that Trump overstates, or he has a great belief in his political power right now, even though he's actually in an incredibly weak position. And he thinks he can just, as to put it as John Cornyn said, steamroll him on this, but he clearly cannot.
HILL: Well, I think that's why he's facing much more pushback in his own party, because they also are looking at midterms, they're looking at how -- these things that he wants them to do and to support, they're very tough sells to the American people. The American people aren't stupid. They see this corruption blatantly happening. They're looking at their own bills pile up, and they're seeing the president profited by like billions of dollars to enrich his personal empire, and that is going to be a tough sell.
And also, the measure of accountability, you're allegedly the party of law and order, but yet every time we turn around, you're trying to create new pathways for Donald Trump to avoid accountability. People can see this, and that is why they understand we can't sell this. No matter how much you want it, we cannot sell this to people. It doesn't work.
SELLERS: And what -- to Jemele's point on the macro level, we're about -- we are literally 100 days out from seeing the ramifications thereof, because this is going to be played out in Ohio. This is going to be played out in North Carolina. This is going to be played out in Iowa. Not necessarily sold on Iowa or Texas. However, this is going to be played out in these places around the country. Joe Ossoff's up -- Jon Ossoff -- I gave him a new first name. Jon Ossoff's up 13 points right now in Georgia. It's going to be played out in these places.
The problem Republicans have, again, is where I began, which is Donald Trump doesn't really care about any of that. Donald Trump cares about himself, and there are probably advisers around him that are watching these -- I know Susie Wiles is. I know Jason Miller. They're they are pulling their hair out right now, simply saying that we have to get off of this, because now everyone who's running against these Democrats in these competitive states are going to have to answer questions about you, your family, and the corruption thereof.
PHILLIP: All right. Next for us, a clear message from voters in a new poll, they are over the current group of lawmakers in Congress. They want a big change.
Plus, the White House is considering charging $100,000 for foreign students who graduate and work in the United States. But who would pay that fee, and will the courts even allow it? That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:15:00]
PHILLIP: Tonight, less than 100 days until the midterms, voters are extremely pessimistic about the way things are going, and there's a real appetite for change in Washington. According to a new CNN poll released this morning, Democrats lead Republicans in the generic ballot by eight points among registered voters, and among those who say that they're extremely motivated to vote, Democrats have a significant advantage.
Now, overall, more Americans say the country would be better off than worse off if Democrats were to take control of Congress in November. 29 percent say it wouldn't make a difference at all. By a ten-point margin, Americans are now saying that Democrats are the party of change. That's a shift from where we were last spring when the GOP had a seven-point advantage on that metric.
Joining us now in our fifth seat is Evan Barker. She's the author of a new book, "Nothing Left: Confessions of a Democratic Operative". Welcome to the show.
EVAN BARKER, AUTHOR, NOTHING LEFT, CONFESSIONS OF A DEMOCRATIC OPERATIVE: Thank you.
PHILLIP: So, this poll it actually -- it's two things. One, it reflects where the president is, which is in a historically bad position, but it also reflects where we typically are in a kind of off -- like an off-presidential year.
[22:20:05]
And the question for Democrats is, are they going to be able to maintain this kind of advantage going into the fall?
BARKER: You know, I think it is a reflection of where we're at, especially with regards to the economy. To be honest, I think the Republicans are kind of making the same mistake right now that I saw the Kamala Harris campaign make in 2024, where they kind of ignored the economic pain that so many Americans are feeling right now. And you know, things haven't improved a whole lot.
And I will say, you know, I come from America's heartland. I come from the middle of the country, from Kansas City, and I have tons of people in my family and friends that were lifelong Democrats and then switched when Donald Trump came along. And many of them are telling me right now that they're disappointed, actually, in the direction of the country. But at the same time, they are not necessarily liking Democrats.
And so I would say that Democrats, you know, like this is obviously a good sign for them, but I wouldn't get too optimistic because there's still some fundamental things that they need to address.
SELLERS: Don't ever get optimistic about Democrats. We are notorious --
RANTZ: The numbers are awful for Democrats in this poll.
SELLERS: We are notorious about ripping defeat out of the jaws of victory.
Look, there are a couple of things that, that you hit the nail on the head about. Like the first is Donald Trump is notoriously weak on -- across the board. The economy hasn't gotten any better. There's some notorious blunders you can point at, like Iran. People don't know why we're still there. Today, we just saw the expansion of the war into Egypt. You see these headlines every single day. We're talking about anti-weaponization. We're talking about infighting. But at the end of the day, the -- my criticism to my own party is that we have not developed a clear enough message answering one question, which is, what are you going to do tangibly for the American people if we give you the reins of power? I have not heard Hakeem Jeffries answer that question, and it drives me nuts.
We can no longer simply say that we are not the party of Donald Trump, because you know why? People apparently don't give a damn, right? They just don't care.
HILL: Shocking.
SELLERS: They want to make sure that they can afford their groceries and utility bills.
PHILLIP: For that very reason that the candidates that are willing to sort of put things on the table that some of the establishment might think are outlandish or whatever are the ones getting the most attention because at least they're saying, oh, we're going to do something.
ROTHMAN: Is that good?
PHILLIP: We're going to do X, Y, and Z.
ROTHMAN: Is that great for --
PHILLIP: Listen, I did not say that it was good. I'm just saying if we all -- if there's a choice between vagaries and specificity, voters are actually kind of, in some cases, gravitating toward the candidates who are being pretty specific about what they want to change.
ROTHMAN: Yes, and that's atypical, because you would typically want, as a candidate, to paint a blank canvas, and then allow voters to paint whatever their desires would be on top of it. What Democrats are benefiting from right now is that their base is just very enthusiastic to vote. Republicans, less so. You can expect that to change as we get closer to October.
And there are a lot of opportunities on the table --
PHILLIP: Why do you say that?
ROTHMAN: Oh, because Republican voters will engage with the -- all voters will engage. Yes, it always get -- tightens up as you get closer into the fall. It's unwise to judge the election based on summer polling when people aren't necessarily tuned into the races. They will. And it'll be a good year for Democrats. Democrats are going to be more enthusiastic than Republican voters are. They don't have as much to vote on.
However, a competent political operation can channel that economic message. You're absolutely right, that's what they want to talk about, and say, listen to what these Democratic candidates are proposing and what that's going to do to your wallet. RANTZ: Well, and the ones who are actually doing that, I mean, looking at the CNN poll, only 34 percent say Democrats are the party that cares about the people, people like you. When you look at the favorability, 30 percent favorable for Democrats.
PHILLIP: We have the graphics, so let me put it up because it's also worth -- it's important to put up the full thing, because 34 percent say the Democrats are the party that cares about you. That's compared to 25 percent that say the same about Republicans. So, they have an almost ten-point advantage.
There's party fighting corruption, they're almost evenly matched there. Party that gets things done, this is the issue that I think we're talking about here. Republicans have an eight-point advantage. The party of extremism, Republicans by ten points, that's actually --
RANTZ: Well, here's the thing.
PHILLIP: In the Democratic Socialists of America environment, that's kind of surprising that Americans are not -- it's not even -- that's like the least close one where they say Republicans are the extreme party.
SELLERS: The caveat I have to give about CNN polls or Emerson polls or whomever is polling is that, at the end of the day, it's about candidates. And one of the things that midterm elections have shown is that Republicans usually choose some candidates that have warts beyond belief, right? I mean, we go back to Roy Moores of the world. We go back to Todd Akins of the world, right? Or what's the woman who was not a witch?
[22:25:01]
ROTHMAN: Yes.
SELLERS: Katherine O'Donnell, right?
ROTHMAN: O'Donnell, yes.
SELLERS: Yes. But, I mean, on the flip side this year --
PHILLIP: That was a time.
SELLERS: That was a time. But this year you have people like Jon Ossoff, you have you have in North Carolina, the former governor of North Carolina, Roy Cooper, you actually have Josh Turek in Iowa, you have Sherrod Brown, who are not out of touch with mainstream, who are talking about the issues that you're talking about.
So, when it drills down to candidates, I do think that we've done a good job across the board, even in some House races, of getting very good candidates, irrespective of what the national mood may portend.
ROTHMAN: But what is the model that you just described? The Todd Akin model, the nationalize the race model. It is to make that guy emblematic of the party and compel all these other nominees, who have nothing to do with them, to get on the record about that guy. That is what a competent political operation could do with Dariela Chevalier, with El-Sayed in Michigan. Half a dozen, Melat Kiros, who said that we deserve 9/11, in Colorado, half a dozen others I can think of. And that is available to them also. Joe Biden's popularity at this point in 2022 was pretty much where Donald Trump's is, and yet Republicans didn't really benefit from a wave election because their candidate selection was so bad.
PHILLIP: Well, also because of also because of the Dobbs decision.
RANTZ: But the question is by how much, and that's really when it plays the biggest role is who's actually getting elected on the Democratic side?
PHILLIP: So, that it -- on the -- one of the interesting findings of this poll, they asked Democrats, do you identify as a socialist, a Democratic socialist, 34 percent said yes.
BARKER: Yes.
PHILLIP: That's a lot.
BARKER: That's a lot. And it doesn't surprise me. I think over the last ten years, you know, there were people that I knew working in Democratic politics that ardently supported Hillary Clinton in 2016, and have now swung way to the left, and are, you know, now telling me that they're behind people like Abdul El-Sayed. And I think the base has actually radicalized in a more far left direction.
I don't think that's a good thing. Just so you guys know. I think it's actually -- like, you know, the establishment Democrats kind of lost the trust of people in my family, right, because they weren't able to economically deliver. It was sort of just pushing the status quo. Although, Barack Obama did give me healthcare, and so I'm really grateful for that, and I will always because I have a lung disease similar to cystic fibrosis. However, other than that, there wasn't a lot of like big transformation.
And so the progressives are coming along, and they're promising that. But they also come with all of this sort of like far left cultural and social baggage that is not appealing at all to the working class of this country, and I think could drive an even bigger wedge between Democrats and people like my family.
HILL: You also have to look at who is really the core base of the Democratic socialists, and it tends to be elite white people.
SELLERS: College educated.
BARKER: Yes.
HILL: College educated.
BARKER: And that's one of the biggest problems the Democrats have actually, is that it's this education polarization, you know? Like it used to be that non-educated people voted for Democrats, and now there has been this realignment. And --
PHILLIP: Well, a couple interesting things about that. I mean, two things. One, I mean, the -- yes, the education polarization has been driven -- I would argue, actually, it was more driven by Donald Trump pulling non-college educated whites toward him. But he is suffering with that constituency right now. He -- that's his base, and they're moving away from him.
I also think Zohran Mamdani is an interesting example of this, because look at this favorability number. He is the most popular Democrat among Democrats right now, right, by a lot.
RANTZ: It was like -- it was something like 30 percent.
PHILLIP: But, I mean, Hakeem Jeffries --
RANTZ: Yes, in comparison to everyone else.
PHILLIP: Yes, in comparison to everyone else.
RANTZ: Yes.
PHILLIP: Yes. And then when you look a little deeper into the numbers, there was some skepticism of him among voters of color, but that has shifted. He has net favorability among voters of color in the Democratic Party right now. There are shifts that can happen and are happening.
RANTZ: Certainly. And I think, look, I mean, Trump has a higher favorability than Mamdani, and Mamdani's being celebrated as having this high favorability at 30 percent. They're just really, really low numbers.
I will say, because I was -- I don't know if I'm shocked by the number of people who identify as socialist. I will say, I don't think they know what that means in the context of the party itself.
PHILLIP: Yes.
SELLERS: The problem is --
PHILLIP: And I also think they may not even --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: They may not even care.
RANTZ: Yes. And the problem is more practical because the people that they're voting for do believe the crazy stuff. And then they get into power, and then they harm the Democrats long-term.
SELLERS: Well, first of all, they have to win, which is the danger that they're facing in the Wisconsin go- gubernatorial race and in Michigan that makes people uneasy. But Democrats have actually set up a realignment to kind of getting back to the base, because the primary comes through South Carolina, which means that my mom and her friends, they're not voting for Zohran Mamdani.
[22:30:01]
They're not voting for AOC. They know that. Then you have Virginia, which you have a good bit of college-educated white voters. And then you have Michigan, where you have working-class voters that we're talking about. So you know, and this is, I remind people all the time, Bernie Sanders did not fare well in the Democratic primary, and people will have all of these other reasons.
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: In the South.
JASON RANTZ, SEATTLE RED RADIO HOST, AND AUTHOR, "WHAT'S KILLING AMERICA?": In the South. He did really well.
EVAN BARKER, FORMER DEMOCRATIC OPERATIVE AND POLITICAL STRATEGIST, SUBSTACK WRITER, AND AUTHOR, "NOTHING LEFT, CONFESSIONS OF A DEMOCRATIC OPERATIVE": He did really well in the rough stuff, actually.
SELLERS: Hillary Clinton beat him by 4 million votes.
PHILLIP: Yeah.
SELLERS: So let's slow down a little bit.
PHILLIP: If it's fair to say that he didn't perform well in the primary.
SELLERS: No.
PHILLIP: He was the runner-up in 2016.
BARKER: There were people in my family who wanted Bernie to win, and then when he lost, they ended up going for Trump. So, I mean, it's a real conundrum.
PHILLIP: But I'm just saying, I don't think that it's totally true to say that he -- It's the geography of the primary matters, the geography of the party matters, and the Democratic Party has to do this, they have to do a really careful game of playing different games in different parts of the country. That is not going to be easy to do, but if they can pull it off, I mean, look at these Texas polls.
In Texas, Fox News has Talarico with a tiny lead, although it's within the margin of error, in the Senate race, the Democrat there, and Gina Hinojosa, also within the margin of error in the gubernatorial race. So they're going to have to do some jiu-jitsu here, playing different games in Texas than they're playing in other parts of the country.
NOAH ROTHMAN, SENIOR WRITER, "NATIONAL REVIEW", AND AUTHOR, "BLOOD AND PROGRESS": Yes, I mean, you can go from poll to poll. The New York Times-Siena poll last month said, basically, Republicans hold the Senate. All the Fox polls of the Senate show Democrats taking the chamber so you can choose your own adventure there. But to Bakari's point, which I think is really valid, and I applaud
Democrats for maneuvering in ways that make the party captains of their own destiny, and they don't sacrifice that to the primary voters.
But how do they do it? They do it meekly and by committee, so that nobody can be blamed for it, so that nobody's a champion for their own values. The only people speaking with confidence for themselves are the Democratic Socialists, and they're saying, yes, we want to abolish the Senate, we want to abolish the Supreme Court, we want to get rid of the separation of powers, get rid of borders, and get rid of ICE, and get rid of all police and prisons.
And that's what they're actually saying out there, and yes, they're very confident about it. That's appealing.
BARKER: Why are Democrats disavowing it? Why aren't --
ROTHMAN: They're terrified, are they not? You're the expert.
BARKER: I am, maybe I am. That's my answer. But yes, they're not --
SELLERS; But when AOC finishes sixth in the Democratic primary in South Carolina, then I mean, it kind of --
JEMELE HILL, CONTRIBUTING WRITER, "THE ATLANTIC", AND PODCAST HOT, "SPOLITICS WITH JEMELE HILL": It balances out.
SELLERS: It balances out.
BARKER: But it's not just that. It's not just that and I'll explain why. Progressives -- I used to work with them. I was deep in this movement, you guys.
I was in the insurgent left, okay? That's where I was.
They know that midterms are tone-setting. That's why they go so hard in midterms. It's exactly why when AOC won, and Rashida Tlaib, and Ilhan Omar, they got everybody with Sunrise Movement to start running on Green New Deal.
Remember all of the presidential primary candidates in 2020 that were running on Medicare for All and Green New Deal? If you don't think that they're not thinking that way, and that they're not going to tone-set in 2028, that's exactly what the plan is.
PHILLIP: More than tone. Agenda-set, I think, is what they're trying to do as well.
All right. Thank you very much, Evan Barker, for joining us.
The Trump administration weighs another move to curb legal immigration in this country. We'll debate that next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:35:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: Tonight, President Trump's latest effort to overhaul America's legal immigration system, charging international students $100,000 if they want to stay in the United States and work after graduating.
The Department of Homeland Security is weighing a plan, according to the report in the "Wall Street Journal." That fee would be part of the optional practice training, or OPT program, which allows student visa holders to extend their stay in order to get work experience.
Now, this comes just weeks after a judge blocked a $100,000 fee for H- 1B visas. A DHS official did not deny that the proposal was being considered, saying, quote, "We are always having conversations about how to use all tools in our arsenal to protect the integrity of our legal immigration system."
We were told, and often are, that the immigrants that they want to get rid of are the ones that are violent, are poor, are, you know, sapping the American system. Why are they creating more barriers for the best and brightest to come to this country?
I was looking at a list. The top 50 A.I. companies, more than half of them were founded by foreigners, many of whom benefited from this visa program.
RANTZ: Yes, I think it's because they want to correct a problem right now in the American workforce and our education system, where we don't have enough American students who are going into, in particular, the STEM categories of majors, so that they can end up getting these jobs that are really high paying, that we are essentially incentivizing colleges and universities to get foreign students, because they make a whole lot more money when they are able to bring them over. They're paying much higher tuition than subsidized in-state, and then they end up getting high paying jobs that aren't going to American citizens.
There is, I don't know whether or not $100,000 is, but there are only so many -- there are only so many seats in these programs at schools, and if you are incentivizing bringing in foreign students over American students, you're going to run into this problem. There's a larger problem in high school, as you know, as well.
PHILLIP: Just to be clear, these are students who have already graduated, right?
[22:40:04]
RANTZ: Yes, but this is for the long term.
PHILLIP: They're going into the workforce, these are literally the people who are creating enormous amounts of wealth and productivity in this country on behalf of Americans, and a lot of them become Americans. SELLERS: These individuals who are graduating from schools in the United States of America and going out and getting these jobs are not stealing jobs from American citizens. That is a falsehood, that's a myth.
What we are doing in this country, though, and what we have done, Democrat and Republican alike, and we have not overhauled it in the last 30 years, is violently miseducating our children. If you want to have a robust workforce, you know how you start? You invest in early childhood education, right?
Because there's a return on investment. Black, white, Democrat, Republican, Mississippi, or New York, when you educate a three-year- old child, you actually will see that child go throughout and matriculate through the public education system and come out better to compete for these jobs.
The other thing that happens is, yes, we don't do the resources like you're talking about. I mean, we could actually fix this problem if we invest in STEM. We're talking about investing in STEM in poor rural area, we're talking about in Louisiana, Alabama.
You know, my daddy's biggest problem right now is when he goes to the McDonald's to get his ice cream cone he should not be eating, he has to order it on a machine. He can't even talk to someone right now. That is the problem that we're having.
And as a black man, I can tell you that we have been left behind in a lot of industries and we're about to be left behind in the A.I. boom.
ROTHMAN: Yes, it's high-tech industry where we need people. We have a labor shortage and that we should be attracting talent from around the world. I think there's a way to marry your two positions.
Philosophically, I agree. The United States needs to attract talent from abroad and keep it here. And to a certain extent, this is a blanket. It's a little too over general and it'll discourage that.
Jason's right, that there's a lot of people coming from other countries that take advantage of our system, that are attracted here because they pay the full freight, whereas American students don't.
PHILLIP: But they don't take advantage.
ROTHMAN: And take advantage because they, by virtue of, for example, Chinese students who come here, who specifically are not allowed to stay here. They're going back home and they're going to bring their knowledge and what they bring back home.
PHILIP: That doesn't apply.
ROTHMAN: That's why it should be sector-specific, even nation- specific. That this blanket effort to reduce the amount of people who come here and stay here is going to be over-broadened as the target.
It should be much more narrow. But there's a use for it. I agree with Jason.
HILL: Well, this is also America hustling backwards at its finest because the -- look, I understand that there are concerns about what you were pointing out in terms of people staying here, quote, "taking advantage of the system." But not only have we not invested in early childhood education, the fact that the cost of college and education in itself is staggeringly high.
You can't tell people, okay, these people are taking your jobs, but then make it completely impossible for them to go to these universities and create a better life and become contributors to our society, and especially in this area. And not only that, like, at some point people are going to stop buying that somebody else is the reason I'm not further ahead. Like, how many times are we going to keep selling that entire propaganda?
It's like, no, maybe the reason we're not ahead is because we haven't done the work to invest in our own people. That's really who should be at fault here.
PHILLIP: We will leave it there. Coming up next for us, one of the left's most polarizing voices is speaking out about the litmus test that he believes candidates will face in 2028.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:45:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: Is America's insurgent left facing a moment or a movement? A new CNN special takes viewers across the country to explore the battle over the Democratic Party's future and its ongoing debate over socialist politics. Our own Donie O'Sullivan sat down with one of the left's most controversial figures, who offered a bold prediction about 2028.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Will you endorse the 2028 candidates if they are pro-Israel in a way that you don't like? If you ultimately are about defeating fascism in this country as you describe it, surely shouldn't you get on board with whoever the main candidate is?
HASAN PIKER, INTERNET PERSONALITY: Luckily, I don't think I'm going to have to make that calculation at all, because there is zero percent chance that whoever the elected Democrat is that wins the primary will be pro-Israel in any way, shape, or form. You'll see.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP; Donie joins us here at the table now. So, Donie, in your reporting, what do you think is the balance between the sort of economic populism that's motivating some of the candidates and this Israel issue, which is very real, that Hasan Piker is talking about? O'SULLIVAN: Yes, it's huge, and they view this as going hand in hand.
I mean, the reason I asked Hasan Piker that question, and I'm guessing most people watching this program now know who Hasan Piker is, but for those who do not, he has become the sort of lightning rod within the Democratic Party, within the debase for what direction the Democratic Party should go.
The reason I asked him that question was because we bumped into him, we interviewed him at the 2024 DNC. He had been invited as part of the DNC as they tried to broaden their tent and bring creators in, he was there streaming live, and he was not supporting Harris.
[22:50:03]
He did not endorse her. He didn't tell his viewers to vote for her. And I think this is the real crux of this problem, this issue here is that --
PHILLIP: They call themselves, was it the uncommitted?
O'SULLIVAN: The uncommitted movement, yes. But I think you can see where this is going in terms of as we get into the 2028 primary, probably beginning on New Year's Eve this year, is that will the party come together at the very end? It looks like there are polls apart right now, and you can see people are entrenched.
RANTZ: There's no way they come together. You've got a large group of this party that is not just accepting the fact that you have to be anti-Israel, but they decided to justify a dude with a Nazi tattoo. There's a rise of anti-Semitism on the left.
As a Jew, it's absolutely terrifying to me to see that. As a Republican, I say at least it's guaranteeing at the national level, the White House, probably going to be a lot easier for the Republicans if we're truly going to go up against either someone who is an anti- Semite or choosing to reject that and then upsetting the base. That's not going to go.
PHILLIP: I know I sound like a broken record when I say this, but we have to acknowledge that this movement away from Israel is not solely a Democratic phenomenon. It is happening on the right and on the left.
But on the Democrats, our CNN poll finds that 69 percent, if you add enthusiastic and okay, of Democrats say that they are okay or enthusiastic about somebody being nominated who supports cutting U.S. aid to Israel. Again, I think it would be a political mistake for Republicans to believe that this is a solely Democratic issue.
ROTHMAN: But it's so much more pronounced on the Democratic left right now, and that very polling suggests that it's a big issue for those who identify with and would support Democratic socialists. But conventional Democrats, it's a much less salient issue.
Also "Washington Post" polling --
PHILLIP: That's 69 percent. I mean, we just talked about the self- identified Democratic socialists. It's only a third, that's almost two-thirds.
SELLERS: But also, like, this whole thing, this is the problem that we've had around anti-Semitism in Israel in this political debate is because people have made it a political football when in all honesty it's not.
You have an entire movement, the Grouper movement, Nick Fuentes, who are rooted in anti-Semitism. You have people on the far right. I mean, Marjorie Taylor Greene talked about Jews controlling the weather in space lasers.
So let's not act as if --
ROTHMAN: The difference is that I'm perfectly comfortable calling out Marjorie Taylor Greene and Fuentes. If the Democrats let that Maoist poser lead their party.
SELLERS: What are you talking about?
HILL: Tamar Hassan.
ROTHMAN: Yeah.
SELLERS: I didn't even know what the adjective meant. I didn't know who you were talking about.
ROTHMAN: A thinker.
SELLERS: I'm not. But he is a pretender.
ROTHMAN: Somebody who is not real, if they allow him.
SELLERS: What we have to realize is that we're not going down this path.
ROTHMAN: 55 percent of the country says we will not support a Democratic Socialist. And that includes, by the way, two to one margins among Democrats who are black. So I don't know if that's going to go away.
SELLERS: We're trying to educate you on that.
PHILLIP: You also spoke to establishment figures like James Carville and others. Do you get the sense that they understand, they fully grasp what is happening right now in the party and how to address it?
O'SULLIVAN: Well, I think to this point, there is, and it's hard to even call it the fringes anymore, because a lot of these ideas are becoming very mainstream. I think Hasan Piker was a sort of fringe character a few years ago. You can see he's sort of central in this debate within the party now.
What you see on both the right and the left, if you're watching Tucker Carlson, as millions of people do every day now, I was at CPAC earlier this year speaking to many of those young MAGA guys who were very disappointed about the start of the Iran war. They have the same feelings towards Israel, right?
I mean, this is a thing that's happening on both sides of the party. I don't think that the likes of the James Carville necessarily understand what is happening, because I think so much of it also has to do with where these guys, young guys, oftentimes are getting their information, their news and information. They're not getting it from mainstream media, they're getting it from online.
PHILLIP: A big generational component to this. So, super interesting stuff. You can catch more of Donie's reporting on "The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper" airing this Sunday at 8 p.m. on CNN and also the next day on the CNN app.
Donie, thank you very much. Next for us, the panel will react to your feedback from cnn.com/abby.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:55:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: And now some viewer feedback from cnn.com/abby.
My concern is that we've become so used to the chaos between the political parties that there is no way to return to civil discourse. Hearing senators use the F word in a hearing that was an intentional circus, was so disturbing. I'm a permanent mail-in voter and I'm concerned my voice is going to be silenced.
They're referring to the Fauci hearing yesterday in which Bernie Moreno, the senator, used the F word.
ROTHMAN: I find the profanity that we're suddenly surrounded with so gratuitous and so off-putting and so obviously coached. You don't look sincere when you're doing this. You look like a consultant operating you like a handphone.
PHILLIP: Put on a show.
[23:00:00]
RANTZ: It was that month where we were basically getting all those videos. At that point it was the Democrat. Obviously, Bernie Moreno yesterday did it too.
But we were getting just the non-stop, just dropping F words. I was like, okay. Now we got you.
HILL: That's their way of relating? Is that what that is?
SELLERS: I think we threw out norms in 2016 and I think that Donald Trump is a great deal to do with norms. And the problem with Democrats is we're trying to roll around with them. And you roll around with pigs, you get muddy, and the pig likes it.
PHILLIP: All right. Thank you for watching "NewsNight." "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
