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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Trump Says, Pirro Choked and Folded Like an Umbrella Over Pool; GOP Holdouts Back Blanche After $1.8 Billion Fund is Scrapped; Capital One Closes Trump Org Accounts Over Money Laundering Concerns; Trump Calls Out Ohio Republican Max Miller, His Candidacy is in Trouble Despite His Appeal Not to Step Down from the Race. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired August 03, 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 HOST (voice over): Tonight --
JEANINE PIRRO, U.S. ATTORNEY FOR WASHINGTON, D.C.: We will prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Hearn willfully destroyed property.
PHILLIP: That was then, never mind now. The president lashes out at Jeanine Pirro over her U-turn at the Reflecting Pool.
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: I think she choked.
She folded like an umbrella.
PHILLIP: Plus, the president's pick to run Justice may be scrapping the retribution fund, but Donald Trump still gets immunity for his past.
Also, he's accused of abuse.
REP. MAX MILLER (R-OH): I'm not getting out of this race, and I'm winning in November.
PHILLIP: Now, the clock is ticking for Republicans to decide whether to replace Max Miller on the ballot.
And --
TRUMP: We have a conflict with Iran, and that's working out very well.
PHILLIP: So well that the U.S. military is now crowdsourcing ideas via inboxes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You've got mail.
PHILLIP: Live at the table, Neera Tanden, Noah Rothman, Deja Foxx, and Lydia Moynihan.
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, Donald Trump is lashing out against one of his most vocal defenders and a longtime ally. Jeanine Pirro's future appears to be hanging in the balance over the DC U.S. attorney's decision to drop charges against a former Olympian who were, was accused of vandalism, among other people, at the Reflecting Pool.
Now, sources say it is highly likely that she'll be fired. Another administration official described the president has blindsided by Pirro's reversal, which instead blamed a botched renovation by the contractor and criticized the Interior Department. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum pushed back hard on that, and we're told that Burgum and Pirro met with Trump at the White House this evening.
When pressed by reporters about her future at a signing earlier today, the president didn't hold back.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Jeanine Pirro made a mistake. It was vandalism. Frankly, I think she choked because the judge was really vicious. Instead of going after the people that did it, the judge went after her and went after her department, and I guess she choked. I don't know what the hell happened.
I was disappointed with Jeanine Pirro, really disappointed with Jeanine Pirro. She folded like an umbrella.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Before we open it up to the table here, I want to invite you at home to join the debate. Go to cnn.com/abby. Weigh in there. We'll get to some of your comments throughout the show.
And now here in the studio, Toure is joining us in our fifth seat tonight. Toure, what does it say about this president that despite all available evidence, he is stuck on this idea that someone took a knife and slashed their way through the Reflecting Pool to produce millions of dollars worth of damage, it seems?
TOURE, SUBSTACK AUTHOR, CULTURE FRIES BY TOURE: Once again, we are through the looking glass and being asked to pretend that what we know is fake is real. And Jeanine perhaps had a moment of clarity of like, We don't have a case against this man, so we cannot charge him. And now she's in trouble for living in reality in Trump world.
If she had lived the lie, then she would be fine, but because she said, no, this is reality, this should not -- I mean, it's the same thing with the election, the big lie. It's the same thing with January 6th. Over and over, we are asked to believe that non-reality is reality. He looks us right in the eyes. This is what dictators do, that he looks us right in the eyes and says, X is reality, and we know it's not. PHILLIP: Anyone want to dispute that?
NOAH ROTHMAN, SENIRO WRITER, NATIONAL REVIEW: Well, not really. I mean, the difference though between the dictatorship that you're describing and this is courts of law, where evidence rules. And if you can't produce sufficient evidence, you get upbraided by a judge, and you lose the case. It wasn't just this guy. It was three others whose cases were dropped today.
[22:05:00]
And the statement from the District of Columbia Attorney's Office said it's a botched installation, just giving up the entire narrative that we were told for weeks was not true.
And it's not like this is as egregious as those prosecutions were, this isn't James Comey, this isn't Letitia James. To the average voter, those -- as egregious as those prosecutions were, those people were in the game. These were civilians. They were just passersby. This could happen to anybody. It's the sort of thing that could have the possibility to really get more attention than it deserves, because a lot of people are going to say, listen, that could happen to me.
PHILLIP: Yes. And I think also it's worth noting that this is not the first time that Jeanine Pirro has been pressured by Trump to do something, and then the thing basically falls apart when there's no evidence. Remember when she was trying to criminally prosecute the Fed chair, Jerome Powell, over a renovation of the Fed building? Remember when the sandwich thrower was slapped with a felony, and that case fell apart in a grand jury? That's just one of many other cases that she's brought since in the limited time she's been in this job, to try to pursue Trump's ends.
And to Toure's point, I mean, this is like a fictional thing that Trump has basically made up, and he is convinced that it's real, and he wants everybody around him to as well. And it looks like Doug Burgum is indulging him.
LYDIA MOYNIHAN, CORRESPONDENT, NEW YORK POST: Well, I for one was really hopeful we would never have to talk about the Reflecting Pool ever again. Here we are.
PHILLIP: I'm sorry, he won't let you. He won't let you, Lydia, sorry.
MOYNIHAN: Jeanine Pirro is doing her job. You know, she's going where the evidence leads. And we'll see what happens. Trump tends to be more loyal to his -- people he's known a long time, so I'm curious to see how this plays out. But Jeanine Pirro is doing her job.
PHILLIP: Does she lose her job over this? What does that mean?
DEJA FOXX (D), FORMER U.S. CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE, ARIZONA: I think it speaks to a truth in the Trump administration and the people that surround him, which is he loves to hire incompetent loyalists. But he also loves to have a scapegoat, and particularly the women around him. You know, this is sort of a theme that I've been tracking, whether it was Noem or Gabbard or, you know, just --
MOYNIHAN: she left on her own accord.
FOXX: Sure. Yes. Yes. That's right. Bondi.
But I think there's this, this trend with Trump where he creates his own problems, but he also creates his own teams. And when people fail to fall in line or fail to execute on almost an impossible task like defending this he's no-- he's unafraid to throw them aside.
NEERA TANDEN, PRESIDENT AND CEO, CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS: I think it's a -- I agree with all that. I guess I would say, to Noah's point the real problem here is that Jeanine Pirro had to appeal to a court of law. She had to like present facts. And, of course, the court recognized that this was a lie. And so, you know, she had this impossible task, which was to acknowledge reality or lie to a court, which is just technically illegal, even for the Justice Department.
And so I think the truth of this whole situation is, you know, of course, we're asked to live in unreality, but the, the thing that's more dangerous here is that the president is willing to fire his own people in order to have willful prosecutions that are just totally made up against innocent, basically bystander civilians. And that is a weaponized DOJ, which is exactly what he claims to have been worried about.
PHILLIP: This is President Trump talking about this contract that is really at the heart of this. It's a no-bid contract that went out to some contractor that he, you know, apparently had a previous relationship with, and this is what he said back in April versus what he said today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Now, I'm not saying I was 100 percent thrilled with the contractor, but the contractor was rushing. We wanted to get it open for July 4th, and we got it done.
By the way, I didn't know the contractor. Everyone said the contract -- I didn't know the contractor. But when it was completed, it was perfect.
I said, you know, Doug, I have a guy who's unbelievable at doing swimming pools.
I'm going to send my contractor over and take a look. He looked at it, he called me up, he said, sir, we can do something on it.
We have a color. It's called American flag blue. I said, that's the color I like. He talked me into it very easily.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: I mean, the lies, it's just a lot of lies from one month to another. TOURE: But he's also -- he's supposed to be a builder. Whatever we think of him politically, he should be able to build things, right? He should be able to work with contractors to get what he wants, right? But, clearly, again, he's unable to do that, and he's actually falling back on the thing that America first became knowing him all about. Firing people, right? That's what we're getting back to here.
[22:10:00]
PHILLIP: But also, I mean, this contract has been rife with problems from the beginning. As he pointed out, he rushed this job. He gave this guy a no-bid contract for $6.9 million, which is several times over more than he said the whole project would cost when he started it off. They used this rarely used exemption that is supposed to be used to prevent serious injury, financial or other, to the government in order to get this contract through.
So, I guess it shouldn't be a surprise to any of us that the president cutting corners on this project and elsewhere, by the way. Let's not forget there's a whole hole where the East Wing used to be. All kinds of things at the White House have been torn up, and God knows what those arrangements have been. But this is a very vivid example of what it looks like when there's no oversight, which there is supposed to be for things like this.
ROTHMAN: I mean, to your point, if there was a little less tolerance on the part of Republican lawmakers for this sort of thing, you'd probably see less of it because there'd be a check and a mechanism to enforce some sort of propriety on the president. They don't really do -- the Republicans don't really do him a lot of favors by indulging in these fantasies here.
But the misuse of taxpayer dollars, as bad as that is, doesn't rise to the level of the abuse that we've just seen, charging of private citizens with crimes that cannot be proven in court, much less probably at an indictment sought before a grand jury. These indictments were simply handed down.
PHILLIP: Yes.
ROTHMAN: So, I think we're talking about apples and oranges here, and those oranges are really, really bad. The apples are just kind of bad.
PHILLIP: Yes, I would agree with that because, I mean, I think that the damage is being done to regular individuals is the story here, and also Trump's willingness to weaponize the federal government to pursue his imaginary aims is what the story's about. That's scary.
FOX: And we did watch in real time as this renovation happened. I mean, people were documenting it on their runs on TikTok. And it came as no surprise to us when the paint started peeling up and the algae blooming.
But, you know, I want to uplift something that I was seeing as a narrative online, which was people were saying, you know, this is my paint chip. Maybe I'll sell it for $250. And then commenters were joking, I already paid $14 million for those peeling paint chips. And --
TANDEN: Also, can I just say it's so weird how much time he spends on this stuff. Like, you know, I will say Americans are worried about gas prices and other things, and the president spends so much time on this Reflecting Pool, and then defending the Reflecting Pool, and then attacking his U.S. attorney.
PHILLIP: And then having meetings with people at the White House about the Reflecting Pool.
TANDEN: I mean, it's like that and the Iran war are kind of even to him.
PHILLIP: Well, I mean, we don't have time to play it, but, you know, Maggie Haberman at The New York Times, who knows Trump very well, she says she believes it's about 70 percent of his mind share right now that is devoted to these projects. And it's not a joke. She's being very serious. And when you look at when you look at his public comments -- look, you can just look at his public comments. How much does he talk about this stuff? Almost every single day.
MOYNIHAN: Many of them have been quite successful in cleaning up the fountain.
PHILLIP: It doesn't -- it literally doesn't matter.
TANDEN: But why does he care?
PHILLIP: It's about the priorities.
TOURE: Gaudy and tasteless, the gold in the Oval Office, outside of the Oval -- again, it's not a left-right thing, it's just disgusting.
FOXX: It's tasteless.
TOURE: Yes.
PHILLIP: Next for us, Republican senators are now backing Todd Blanche's nomination as attorney general after he rescinded the weaponization fund. But Donald Trump is still immune from IRS investigations into his past.
Plus, we saw what happened with Democrats and Graham Platner in Maine, but how will Republicans handle a candidate who's facing abuse allegations? And breaking right now, we're getting word that Trump has just called Max Miller.
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:15:00]
PHILLIP: Todd Blanche is now one step closer to being confirmed as attorney general after he appeared to satisfy the demands of two Republicans who were blocking his nomination. Late last night, Blanche posted in writing his promise to kill President Trump's $1.8 billion anti-weaponization fund.
Now, that is exactly what Senators John Cornyn and Thom Tillis had demanded. They also sought clarity on the underlying settlement, giving Trump and his family immunity from tax audits. However, those assurances aren't ironclad. The settlement itself states that it can only be modified with the written agreement of the parties, and that would include Trump. Not only that, but there is nothing in the order that says it can't be revived after Blanche is sworn in.
But all of that was apparently enough to win over Cornyn and Tillis, who said today that they look forward to advancing Blanche's nomination.
I think that this is a question of whether this is truly resolving the issue, and particularly on the tax front, because I think the settlement probably, you could argue, that this puts the nail in the coffin. It doesn't tie the hands of Trump, which is a problem, but in writing, the Justice Department says that it's dead.
The IRS audits, on the other hand, that seems very much alive.
TANDEN: Yes. I mean, for senators who are concerned about the fact that the president will have immunity from his kind of shenanigans and that the IRS will be held back on that, there's really no assurance there.
I think I'm going to take the position of actually having a glass half full approach to this, because this is the first time Republicans have put up some opposition.
[22:20:06]
It's one of the first times Republicans have put up some opposition. I think that is a product of the fact that the president's approval is in the 30s, and a lot of Republicans are scared about what will happen in November.
I do not think Thom Tillis and Cornyn were actually just speaking for themselves. I think a lot of Republicans are worried about a $1.8 trillion taxpayer funded --
PHILLIP: Billion.
TANDEN: -- $1.8 billion tax funded, essentially subsidy to insurrectionists. And so I think people didn't -- you know, I think they actually had some courage to say, no.
Of course, with the Republicans, there's always some place to give the president a free hand, because I don't want to go overboard in any phrase.
ROTHMAN: If we're taking Senators Cornyn and Tillis at their word, and we have every reason to, they're completely liberated from their political obligations to Donald Trump, that edifice of compliance with the Trump moment is beyond them. So, they've been very genuine and sincere in their opposition here, and I think they're genuine and sincere in saying that we secured enough concessions, unknown as they may be, from the president, in writing, that the DOJ and subsequent courts, importantly, will have to interpret this as being narrow and tailored, and that satisfied them in a way that, if we believe them when it comes to the weaponization fund, and I do, we should probably believe them when it comes to the IRS settlement.
PHILLIP: What do you -- I mean, what do you make of the IRS tax immunity? Because, yes, it is retrospective, but it still seems to give them really just a free pass on any past tax malfeasance, which I don't understand how that is a remedy for the real wrong that was done to them, which was that their tax returns were released. The two things don't seem to have anything to do with one another.
ROTHMAN: Well, that's just it. They would say that they do have things to do with each other, and they have -- what they have to do with each other is that there are elements inside the IRS and outside the IRS are working with elements inside the IRS to expose their personal details to the public.
Those -- we don't know who those elements are, and therefore they are still --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: We do know who was responsible for this, and that person --
ROTHMAN: But this (INAUDIBLE) removes any process that the IRS might have to have.
TOURE: We have always released our tax returns as presidential candidates, right? This is the first time in the world. So, this is not a search for personal details.
ROTHMAN: Yes, but that doesn't mean you get to infiltrate their tax records and expose them in the public if they will not. That's a crime.
TOURE: The real question to me is why are they fighting so hard to prevent us from seeing what's in their taxes? Can it just be that he pays so little? Can it not be that there is some foreign intervention that explains why he's fighting it so hard?
FOXX: We could put it into such obvious terms.
MOYNIHAN: Oh, my God. That's a lot of conspiracy theories right there.
FOXX: I don't know if that's conspiratorial. I mean, if you are asking to hide something, it raises the question, well, what are you hiding?
TANDEN: It's not even hiding. It's like why is he getting immunity? It's not even like a guarantee that your records won't go public. It's like he's getting immunity from tax filing from basically any tax penalties -- (CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Any person, if they cheat on their taxes, they should be subject to an IRS audit.
ROTHMAN: And in the future, they would be.
PHILLIP: Why -- but why are they not subject in the past?
MOYNIHAN: So, let's be clear.
PHILLIP: I don't understand.
MOYNIHAN: This is from 2008 that somebody dug this up and said, Actually, I don't think this is fair. Sure. There was one report. Right, obviously, we're not talking about whether or not -- this is about whether or not the person interpreted the taxes. I mean, this is digging something up from decades ago.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: No.
MOYNIHAN: So, this is why but what I'm saying is --
PHILLIP: But nobody's disputing -- Hold on. But there's no disputing the wrong --
MOYNIHAN: So, this is sort of trying to right that wrong.
PHILLIP: I know. Nobody's disputing the wrong that was done to them on the tax part, right?
MOYNIHAN: Right. There was going to have to be some sort of --
PHILLIP: Hold on. Hold on. Nobody is disputing that. The question is why do they need immunity from tax liability for any wrongdoing that they might have done in the past?
MOYNIHAN: People for years have been digging up everything that's in their past records. It's been politicized and they don't --
TOURE: This is the most corrupt administration that we have ever had. The Bitcoin stuff, the taking money from other countries stuff, the taking money from the country, this man has been stealing billions with his sons all along. That's why they need this.
TANDEN: I mean, it does -- it is very odd. If he's not doing anything wrong, why does he need immunity?
PHILLIP: And let me play the --
TANDEN: Well, if he wasn't doing anything wrong, then Letitia James is happy to sue him.
PHILLIP: Hold on. Let me play what Trump said today about this about this IRS settlement. Just listen to how Trump talks about what he thinks he's owed here.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I was treated very unfairly by the IRS. I was -- it was weaponized against me. Think of it. I had a case from -- this is a ten-year-old case, and it was settled. It was done. The case was over. I announced I'm running for president, and they terminated the settlement.
Frankly, if you talk about reparations or if you talk about payment, what they did to me, I had a very good case against them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[22:25:00]
TOURE: Reparations?
FOXX: Not reparations.
PHILLIP: He wants reparations.
TOURE: Reparations? Who's the president of the United States?
FOXX: There is no man more victimized than the president.
MOYNIHAN: Actually, there's a lot of Americans who agreed with you and they voted for him.
PHILLIP: Listen, again, the improper disclosure of private information is a problem. No one is disputing that. However, if there was wrongdoing in the past, in the present, in the future, why should anyone be immune from that?
And one of the reasons I raise that is because, you know, just this weekend there are questions being raised about the Trump organization's finances. Capital One, who has been accused by the Trump Organization of targeting them for political reasons, said that they actually closed the Trump accounts after months of careful analysis and review by their money laundering -- anti-money laundering team in accordance with bank policies and regulatory guidance.
And the plaintiffs, according to this filing, attempted to keep their misguided allegations of political discrimination alive by speculating that the anti-money laundering concerns were pre-textual and claiming that the plaintiffs were somehow misled by the contractually permitted closure decision.
So, there's a group of people at this bank that they're required to have, looking at these accounts, and they're saying, suspicious stuff is happening here. So, if that suspicious stuff happened back in 2021, now nobody can look at it at the IRS?
ROTHMAN: Well, hang on, let's actually talk about this case, because I think it's pretty disturbing. I mean, let's take the president out of this. Let's take the Trump Organization out of this, fraud as this is. Imagine any public official in public life, Democratic, Republican, who has a presence in the private enterprise, has a business, and your bank can just have an accusation of financial laundering and shut you down.
PHILLIP: 100 percent.
ROTHMAN: And give you no recourse whatsoever to do anything about it. This is what the report --
PHILLIP: Noah, have you opened a bank account in America? Because if you've opened a bank account in America, you sign documents --
ROTHMAN: Allow me to finish a thought.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Noah, if you open a bank account of any kind in the United States of America, you are agreeing that the bank can close your accounts if they suspect that there is nefarious stuff going on.
ROTHMAN: The Trump Organization does not challenge that.
PHILLIP: They can do it.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: And they can close it just because they want to close it.
ROTHMAN: Just to finish the thought.
PHILLIP: I'm just saying none of that is illegal.
ROTHMAN: The Trump Organization is not contesting that, and it's not contesting anything you said, Abby. What it is contesting is that it was told that it has financial fraud on this account, had no recourse. It would just simply shut down the shut down the accounts.
PHILLIP: I'm sorry, that's --
ROTHMAN: And you have to move your money. I'm sorry, that's perfectly fine?
(CROSSTALKS)
TOURE: The president is committing money laundering, and we're talking about something else.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Everyone stop for just a second. Let me just get this in some orderly fashion. Neera, and then Lydia, and then you can continue.
TANDEN: I mean, I will just say on this issue, my mom just had fraud on her account. They closed the account. They didn't talk -- I mean, she was a victim of fraud. They just closed her account. That's what they do. It does not necessarily mean he's persecuted. I mean, it is weird that there are a lot of things that happen with Donald Trump around corruption and other things, but sometimes the laws are just enforced against him. It's not some kind of conspiracy theory.
MOYNIHAN: It wasn't just that year.
ROTHMAN: Sometimes social media companies shut down reporting on him too because resistance happens.
MOYNIHAN: There was literally Bank of America, Chase, every major bank that shut down every single one of his accounts. Is that just a coincidence?
PHILLIP: So, you're not even a little curious about what they were looking at that made them suspicious?
(CROSSTALKS)
MOYNIHAN: Two things. One, the bank --
PHILLIP: Are you a little curious about that? Because the reality is that --
MOYNIHAN: I am curious about that, but I'm also interested --
PHILLIP: The reality is that banks can close your account, Lydia. Lydia, banks can close your accounts for any reason. And one of the reasons that they do that is because they can become liable for bad things that happen using their accounts. And so that's the regulatory landscape --
MOYNIHAN: Do we want to de-bank any sort of political enemy?
PHILLIP: That is the regulatory landscape that they are living in.
MOYNIHAN: That's what was happening.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: And so if you want to change that, you got to change the regulations or the laws.
MOYNIHAN: What I think is, what I think is fascinating though is for years, you know, the media portrayed big banks as vampire squids, and we're so skeptical of Wall Street. And now --
FOXX: And the way we treated real people, regular people, that's a --
MOYNIHAN: And now based one -- based on a few filings, now everyone's saying like, oh, Capital One is just -- everything they did --
TOURE: Wow.
(CROSSTALKS)
MOYNIHAN: Do you think that maybe a big bank actually is not necessarily doing -- they're just trying to cover their tracks? They don't want to be liable for fraud, so, of course they're going to do this.
PHILLIP: I think we are taking the concern about big banks the wrong way because people are actually worried that the banks are letting white collar criminals get away with too much crime.
(CROSSTALKS)
FOXX: The white collar criminal-in-chief.
[22:29:57]
MOYNIHAN: Do you want to talk more about these conspiracies of all the fraud that he was doing on the Capital One account?
TOURE, SUBSTACK AUTHOR, "CULTURE FRIES BY TOURE", AND HOST, "ON THE RECORD" ON YOUTUBE, AND "TOURE SHOW" PODCAST: This is what Capital One believes, that he was committing money laundering.
MOTYNIHAN: Why don't they admit that?
TOURE: Actually, what is more likely?
MOYNIHAN: Let's be super clear about the political debunking that happened. And this happened to crypto, by the way.
TOURE: And this bank decided to shut him down for no reason, or that he's committing money laundering.
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: Hold on a second. I just want to pause for a second because I want to clarify one thing.
This court filing does not actually say that they have evidence of money laundering. All it says is that they have a team that evaluates accounts. And what happens in these teams --
MOYNIHAN: Because they don't want to --
PHILLIP: Hold on, Lydia.
What happens in these teams is that they rate the risk within each account. And if they come out on the side of, this is a little too risky for us, they will close the account. And they are not only entitled to do that, but by law, they are required to review these things.
MOYNIHAN: This administration --
PHILLIP: I don't want us to overstate. I don't want us to overstate the money laundering element of this. But just understand that that is how it works.
MOYNIHAN: That's literally what it's not about. Let's be clear. Debunking was something that was happening not just to Trump.
It was happening to people in crypto, which Brian Armstrong, the CEO of Coinbase, went out and basically said that that's what the Biden administration was doing. This is a tool that we knew the Biden administration used to target --
NEERA TANDEN, FORMER DOMESTIC POLICY ADVISER DURING THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION, AND PRESIDENT AND CEO, CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS: This is absurd.
MOYNIHAN: He targeted every single other thing.
TOURE: That was incredible.
MOYNIHAN: You can't believe that Trump is a fraud and a grifter who's enriching himself off his presidency.
PHILLIP: You can't even hear.
TANDEN: The greatest hat trick that Donald Trump has ever achieved is he is a person who is -- He's being paid in crypto. He's made money off the presidency.
And yet, lots of people are seeing him as a victim when he's just being investigated for his actual crimes.
MOYNIHAN: You think anybody should get debunked for any political reason? You're taking it too far. I would say --
Listen, I bring it to the extreme. You are -- this is not about-
PHILLIP: Guys, I just want us to be level-headed about this. We don't know that there were actual crimes of any kind committed. All I'm saying is he was subject to a process that a lot of people are subject to, including people in the crypto business, and sometimes it's very legitimate.
The Binance guy went to prison and was later pardoned by Trump over allegations that that platform was being used for nefarious actions. And it was proven in court, and he went to jail.
So that happens, okay?
Coinbase also went too far.
PHILLIP: Let's not overstate what it is. But at the same time, the question, is no one allowed to look into it? And I think that that's what this IRS settlement seems to put the kibosh on, at least for now. We'll see what the courts have to say about that if it's ever challenged.
Next for us, will Republicans demand one of their own end up dropping out of his reelection race over abuse allegations? Just in, Trump has called Max Miller in that case. We'll discuss that when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:35:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) PHILLIP: Tonight, the clock is ticking for Republicans to keep a Republican congressman on the ballot or boot him over abuse allegations. "Axios" is reporting tonight that President Trump has called Ohio Congressman Max Miller and told him that his candidacy is in trouble, adding, quote, "things aren't looking good."
First, listen to what Congressman Max Miller is accused of doing. His ex-wife, Emily Moreno, is alleging that he pointed a gun at her while she changed their daughter's diaper. She also told police that he threw her into a wall after she was late to drop off the child.
And in court documents, she alleged that Miller threw hot water on her. And in Friday, in February, excuse me, police investigated whether there was child abuse after the two-year-old suffered a broken collarbone. Now, no charges were ever filed, and Miller has repeatedly denied abuse allegations, including this weekend.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MAX MILLER (R-OH): Understand one thing. Every one of these allegations traces back to a single source, my former wife. Just want to be clear, no court, no agency has ever substantiated any allegation of abuse against me. No criminal charge has ever been filed against me.
Ask yourself, if I had assaulted her, would she had offered to cook me dinner six days later? Would she have invited me to spend an afternoon at the playground with her and our daughter? Would she have written that we were in a friendlier place? No, she wouldn't have.
I'm not getting out of this race, and I'm winning in November.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: But Emily Moreno's father, who is Senator Bernie Moreno, says that Miller admitted to needing serious psychological help and that he's a danger to his granddaughter. He says Miller's failed basic character standards and that he should not serve in the House.
Miller would have to get out of the race by tomorrow night in order to allow for a special primary, and so far he's refusing to. He would have to get out of the race before August 10th in order to allow his party to find a replacement candidate.
But tonight, a source says that Trump is telling allies that he doesn't believe that Miller can win, given the accusations against him. But he hasn't been saying that out loud. Listen.
[22:40:10]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Well, it's a very sad thing. I know Max, he's a good person. I mean, I always thought he was a very good person, and I'm going to let the families figure that out. But it's accusations, and I'm going to let them figure that out.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Accusations, we've seen a lot of those lately. And accusations actually have been enough for there to be political pressure for candidates to drop out of races, like in Maine. Why not here?
NOAH ROTHMAN, SENIOR WRITER, "NATIONAL REVIEW": Well, there is political pressure for him to drop out. It's not necessarily coming from the President. It may be, because we don't know what was said on this call.
But it's coming from Bernie Marino, who said he should get out, even if he's been kind of sheepish about it.
TOURE: Is it coming from his party?
ROTHMAN: Yes, it's coming from his party. It's coming from Bernie Marino, Kansas Senator Roger Marshall, and Lisa Murkowski, as well as several House members.
PHILLIP: What about leadership? What about Mike Johnson? What about --
ROTHMAN: Well, those people may be working behind the scenes.
PHILLIP: Let me play.
ROTHMAN: Hang on. Just to finish your point, one of the things that might be happening behind the scenes is an effort to usher him out the door, as happened with Van Taylor in 2022, with Tony Gonzales in 2026.
DEJA FOXX, (D) FORMER U.S. CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE, ARIZONA, DIGITAL STRATEGIST, AND GEN Z ACTIVIST: Because if users get this graceful exit, which is not a political issue.
ROTHMAN: Wait, there is a Republican effort to censure a congressman just today for making passes at his female staffers. It is not as though these things are just swept under the rug.
FOXX: Well, should they get this graceful exit? It's actually really not a red or blue issue.
ROTHMAN: It may not be a graceful exit if he continues to resist.
FOXX: One in three women in this country experience intimate partner violence. That means that most of us know someone who has lived through it and loved someone through it. And when you hear a man like that saying, well, you know, she offered to cook me dinner six days later.
Why would she do that? Anyone who has known someone and loved someone through that knows exactly that is the kind of thing that happens. And it's setting such a poor example of who we are as a country that says if men abuse women, we know they will abuse power.
And it's not just --
ROTHMAN: (inaudible) I just said that we don't do that.
FOXX: You're saying that we should do this behind the scenes work. And I'm saying, why do they do that?
MOYNIHAN: Do whatever it takes.
PHILLIP: Hold on. Let me let me play.
This is Speaker Johnson, this is Mike Turner. They're answering questions about this situation. Here's what they said this weekend.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES: The key word there is allegation. We have a process here.
The House Ethics Committee works on those things. If allegations are made, they work through a process.
MARGARET BRENNAN, MODERATOR, "FACE THE NATION": Is it at least something Republican leadership should look into?
REP. MIKE TURNER (R-OH): Well, again, this is an issue that is currently part of a divorce and part of litigation that's in a courtroom. And the court should be handling this.
KASIE HUNT, "THE ARENA" HOST: Should he resign from Congress in light of the accusations?
REP. JIM JORDAN (R-OH): Look, this is a family matter. I know Max is a good man. I was up campaigning for him, I hope he wins reelection.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MOYNIHAN: And those are our strongest fighters.
PHILLIP: So, Lydia, look. The allegations are physical abuse.
I remember it was literally a couple of weeks ago when allegations of rape were enough for everyone. Okay, Republicans and Democrats to say it's over. Graham Platner, you got to get out.
Why? This is a question of does he stay as a candidate? Nobody is saying does he go to jail? Yes, the courts will figure that out. But should he stay as a candidate? Should there be a simple answer to that?
MOYNIHAN: No. I mean, these are credible allegations. I think just to say their allegations doesn't show that they are quite substantiated. Obviously, there's police reports. This is a creepy guy. He should definitely not have power, I don't think that people in the Republican Party should want to align with him.
And to Noah's point, I hope we're seeing people behind the scenes. And I hope we see people in front of the camera start calling for his ouster as well.
ROTHMAN: Let's not retroactively pretend.
TOURE: Just to go back to his, not yours, his original point.
Yes, a man can be abusive to a woman. And then later, she may be civil to him. And there's many reasons why that would be.
MOYNIHAN: It was a very creepy video that he issued.
TOURE: Yes, that does not erase his abuse toward her. But the answer to your question, why is this different? Because this is the Republican Party. And they handle these situations differently. I'm not saying the Democratic Party is perfect on these issues.
MOYNIHAN: There is one distinction I would like to make. Graham Platner --
TOURE: But over and over we see the Republican Party handling this sort of thing with kid gloves. Where the Democratic Party is different.
MOYNIHAN: No one is campaigning for him and standing up next to him.
FOXX: Actually, the final clip, he was just there campaigning.
MOYNIHAN: He said today in front of the cameras, resign. He chose not to say that.
ROTHMAN: Are we all attending like the first delegation against Graham Platner and get every Democrat to say he should drop out? Remember the weeks in which they tried to defame the Republican Party?
PHILLIP: Hold on a second. Guys, hang on a second. We're going to take a quick break. We'll come back on the other side and we'll continue this conversation. We'll pick up where you left off, Noah. We'll be right back.
[22:45:03]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: Now, Noah, right before we went to break, you were saying that Democrats didn't really believe the first allegation, some of them. Not some seated here, but some of them.
And I think that that's right. But Republicans were correctly calling that out as wrong. And let me just play what Trump said about Graham Platner. Just listen to how different the tone was about this back in June.
[22:50:06]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I watched that thug that's up in Maine. He's a thug. And they're trying to make excuses for him.
I mean, he's worse than any human being that's ever run for office, probably. But this is a thug. He's a cheap, no good person.
And I watched his senators, the Democrats, and, well, we don't really know. You do know.
These idiots going like Schumer, well, he's okay. He's not okay. Can you imagine if the Republicans had him?
If it meant losing the Senate, you would not let that happen. That's just a terrible thing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Well, now we don't really have to imagine. Because the shoe is on the other foot. And Trump, according to this "Axios" reporting, makes a call and says, not looking good, dude. And then Max Miller says, I'm not going anywhere. Where's the pressure, public or private?
ROTHMAN: Well, we don't know. I'm not on the inside of this thing or across from it, so I couldn't say. I hope there's pressure, sufficient political pressure.
I mean, in our political environment, especially with some of the precedents that Trump himself set, you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. If he were to leave, he would always be this guy who assaulted his children, assaulted his wife.
TOURE: How does Trump pressure him on this?
ROTHMAN: However, what the president did admit, and it's a valuable admission, is that politics is affecting how he thinks about this thing. And it's what happens with Democrats and Republicans and the other thing is that Max is close to his opponent.
FOXX: There's so little trust in our elected officials right now, because they fail to stand on anything. And when I look at this, I'm just, it's not like this is some big surprise.
These allegations might be new, but Max Miller had a history of abusing women, dating back to high school where there were allegations he pushed a young woman down the stairs. He was almost expelled from college for an incident involving a female student.
And so we should also be asking the question, not just how did we get here and why won't he stand up, but why was he in office in the first place? He was married on Trump's golf course.
ROTHMAN: This is the Trump playbook, that you get accused of very serious, credible things, and you just deny, you just look in the camera and say, I'm going to keep going. How could Trump, how could the Republican Party say, no, not this one, but the guy on top is fine, he can do that. How could you say, how could Trump say to him, no, you can't go forward, only politically, not because of morally, not because of him as character. PHILLIP: Well, one of the other things that you just brought up, past allegations, Stephanie Grisham, a former Trump press secretary, had reported, this is according to her own op-ed, abuse by Max Miller in the past.
She said, "I confided the same story about physical abuse that I had told Mrs. Trump. I told the president that this quote, 'great guy' had anger issues and a violent streak. The president and first lady seemed totally unfazed about whether there was an abuser, another abuser in their workplace.
It didn't even seem to register on the president's radar screen as a concern. To the contrary, knowing what he knows, Trump has endorsed my ex's bid for Congress" and the takeaway, she says, "dealing with abuse claims is not in his interest, but having someone in office who will be a rubber stamp for his agenda is."
This was 2021. Okay. This was years ago.
ROTHMAN: Was that Trump?
PHILLIP: No, it was referring to another incident that had happened in the Trump, the first Trump term.
TANDEN: I do think it's important for all of us to remember that these are, that this accusation, this allegation, which as you noted, has been basically backed up by police charges and police investigations is Bernie Moreno's daughter. And she's like tried and true Republican.
And I do think it is the case that because himself, he himself has a grant, a jury has decided had determined that he is credibly, not just accused found guilty of rape.
PHILLIP: It is a little hard liable.
TANDEN: Liable for, sorry, liable for sexual abuse. It is a little bit hard for him to perhaps understand this issue. And he does seem like an incredible hypocrite, but I think what is really surprising beyond Donald Trump is how few Republicans have stood up for a Senator's daughter in this situation.
PHILLIP: And Bernie Moreno is saying this guy shouldn't serve in Congress. Nobody else is backing. I should say nobody, very few other people are backing him up on that, which seems pretty sad.
TANDEN: John Husted is up for election. He's a Senator from Ohio. He has been silent on this case.
What does he think about the allegations, these allegations against Bernie Moreno's daughter? He's silent.
Republicans are silent. There were a lot of people who spoke out against Graham Platner publicly. There was a lot of sounds --
[22:55:01]
MOYNIHAN: It's been months and months. And it wasn't the Nazi tattoo that was disqualifying for that --
ROTHMAN: -- field allegations, which were summarily dismissed.
PHILLIP: All right. Next for us, the panels will react to your feedback from cnn.com/abby. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[23:00:01]
PHILLIP: Some quick viewer feedback from cnn.com/abby on Jeanine Pirro. It seems like Trump isn't very good at hiring people if he just ends
up firing them.
Another question or comment says the question should be how many more lawyers who have worked all their lives to be where they are, are willing to risk their career for a guy who cares nothing about the rule of law. And then the final one, I think if he can get immunity from his past with the IRS, I should be able to as well.
That's all we've got time for tonight. Thank you very much for watching "NewsNight." Don't forget to stream my show "Confessions and Obsessions" anytime on the CNN app. "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
