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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
El-Sayed Wins Michigan Senate Primary, Trump and GOP Escalate Attacks; Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) Breaks Silence on Rep. Max Miller (R-OH), Won't Ask Him to Exit Race. Trump Administration Refunds Tariffs Worth $100 Billion; Lawmakers Roasts Judiciary Nominees on the 2020 Election Results. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired August 05, 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, can a progressive win a purple state?
J.D. VANCE, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: God forbid you're going to have President El-Sayed in three years.
PHILLIP: Republicans villainize the winner of Michigan's Democratic primary, and the Senate hopeful hits back.
ABDUL EL-SAYED (D), MICHIGAN SENATE NOMINEE: Keep the name out your damn mouth.
PHILLIP: Plus, the speaker breaks his silence on Max Miller, but won't call on the congressman to leave over abuse allegations.
REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): It's an issue for the Miller family to work out.
PHILLIP: Also, companies are getting tariff refunds, but not the Americans who paid the price.
And is the new litmus test for Donald Trump's judicial nominees to entertain his election conspiracies?
SEN. CORY BOOKER (D-NJ): Did President Biden win the 2020 election?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The United States Congress certified that Biden --
BOOKER: Sir, you are showing cowardice.
PHILLIP: Live at the table, Caroline Sunshine, Mike Nellis, Yemisi Egbowole, Joe Borelli, and Paul Mecurio.
Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here, they do.
(END VIDEOTAPE) PHILLIP: Good evening, I'm Abby Phillip in New York.
Let's get right to what America's talking about. The gloves are off after a shakeup in Michigan. Abdul El-Sayed will be the state's Democratic nominee for the high-stakes Senate seat in November. And the progressive candidate narrowly defeated his more moderate opponent, Haley Stevens. Now, he's going to face off against GOP Nominee Mike Rogers in the fall.
Republicans wasted no time escalating their attacks on him. In a statement, Rogers sought to paint his rival as too radical, saying, Abdul isn't just another liberal, he's an extremist. President Trump also came out swinging.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: Abdul El-Sayed, a lovely gentleman. He's a man of hate, and now he's going around saying, no, I love everybody, I love -- he doesn't love everybody. Put him in office, you're going to find out what he loves. He doesn't love Israel. He doesn't love Jewish people. He hates them. He hates them with a passion that burns in his heart, and there's not a freaking thing he can do about it.
When I watch Abdul, he's full of shit.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: But El-Sayed has this message for his critics tonight. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EL-SAYED: So, at the end of the day, you know, I invite the president to focus what I'm saying. I want to get money out of politics, put money in your pocket, and pass Medicare for all, I think a lot of Michiganders want that right now.
And I think Mike Rogers, for his own part, is running away from Donald Trump himself. When you ask Mike Rogers about his position on the war or his position on Trump's tariffs, he is mum.
So, look, I'm looking forward to tying Mike Rogers to Donald Trump all day, every day, but I do agree with the part where he says I'm a lovely gentleman.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: 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. You can weigh in there. We'll get to your comments as we go through the show tonight.
Yemisi, it seems like the pivot has begun, and if you listen to the whole interview, I mean, he doesn't back away from any of his positions on the more controversial things, especially the U.S. relationship with Israel, but he's starting the conversation talking about cost of living.
YEMISI EGBEWOLE, FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF AND ADVISER, BIDEN WHITE HOUSE PRESS OFFICE: Yes, and he is going to have to find ways to moderate to get those voters that were so attached to Haley Stevens. And, frankly, I wanted Haley Stevens to win. I did think that she would be more competitive in a general, but the people of Michigan have spoken. And so Abdul has to figure out a way to win the working class voters that he speaks so highly of.
And also he's got to win the black demographic. She did overwhelmingly well with black voters. I've had a little back and forth with his campaign about reaching out to black voters, and they believe that his presence with black voters is strong, but presence is not persuasion. And we know that black voters tend to be more moderate, and I think that he's going to have to focus maybe less on some international issues and more on the domestic issues that do affect the day-to-day lives.
But I'm excited to watch Abdul figure out a way to win in this general, and I think he's going to have a really strong path forward.
PHILLIP: So, there's that, which I think is extremely important. And then there's also the way the NRSC, the Republican Senatorial Committee, is coming right out of the gate with this ad that is something a little bit different. Listen.
[22:05:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Abdulrahman Mohammed El-Sayed, the most radical Senate candidate in America.
EL-SAYED: I'm pretty damn dangerous.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Abdul El-Sayed, too radical, too dangerous, wrong for Michigan.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: It's very reminiscent of the Barack Hussein Obama line that Trump goes to often.
PAUL MECURIO, HOST, INSIDE OUT WITH PAUL MECURIO: Yes.
PHILLIP: So, they're going there.
MECURIO: Yes. It's -- to me, two words for this general election extremist and affordability. And by that, I mean that's going to get the -- that's the label for El-Sayed, right? And he's got to push back on that. And the problem is, when you're accused of being a communist now, you've got to deal with social media, A.I., things being faked, unlike Joe McCarthy's era in the '50s when it was just T.V., radio, and journalism and journalists, print journalists.
And Rogers is about affordability, and I'd rather be El-Sayed than Rogers because Rogers has to live in a fantasy where he tells his constituents that the economy is fine, otherwise he's going to get tanked by Trump. So, I wouldn't want to be him for a million dollars. So, it's like a waiter comes out with a burned steak and go, oh, no. No, the chef calls it caramelized, you know?
It's like -- so I don't know, I don't know how he gets out of that box if he does, and that's going to be insulting to a lot of those voters who were on the fence at, or are on the fence.
PHILLIP: Joe?
JOE BORELLI, FORMER REPUBLICAN LEADER, NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL: Republicans didn't make this race about U.S.-Israeli relations or the tension between Muslims and Jews. He did. He personally did. I mean, y- there was a report in The Free Beacon about how many keffiyeh- wearing people were at his victory party. He's attacked AIPAC at every chance. He's attacked the State of Israel at every chance. He's you know, really undermined Democratic support from Jews.
And now, unfortunately, Democrats have to live with this person who has palled around with Hasan Piker, who himself has become the scarlet letter of the Democratic Party, and now he's going to have to own all of the crazy statements that not only he has said, but that Hassan Piker has said.
You know, if we had this conversation, you know, three months ago, and we were talking about Republicans possibly winning a seat in the Senate, I don't think anyone at this table would've had that at their bingo card. This is the potential opportunity that someone as radical as El-Sayed gives the Republican Party right now. We're talking about picking up a seat when before we were only talking about losing.
MIKE NELLIS, FORMER SENIOR ADVISER, KAMALA HARRIS CAMPAIGN: Yes, but I think it's a challenging situation for the Republicans, right, because Rogers underperformed Donald Trump just a few years ago. The environment is way worse for the Republicans right now. And all Abdul really has to do is focus on the economy.
And you're saying that he's the reason that this race became about AIPAC, but really it was about AIPAC spending $60 million to attack him. They've been meddling in Democratic primaries and Republican primaries for a while. They beat and kicked out Thomas Massey because he didn't stand up for the war in Iran the way that they wanted him to, or he was standing up to Trump on the Epstein files. It's a real problem.
So, I think there is a problem in our politics right now that Abdul has done a really good job of building a coalition on. People are really sick about how much money there is in politics. I mean, what's the tagline of his campaign right now? It's really simple. Just give me one second to finish. It's really simple. We're going to get money out of politics. We're going to put money back in your pocket. If he just keeps saying that over and over again, and Donald Trump keeps creating a fantasy land where everything is a golden age of America, where everybody has enough money to survive, I think it's going to be hard for Rogers to pull this off. BORELLI: But to your point about Rogers, he lost by a very small margin, and we've seen the delta between the Republican and Democratic votes in Michigan Senate races shrink over time. Now, it's going to be hard to tell me that, you know, when you had previously moderate Democrats running in Michigan, how El-Sayed is going to make up some of those voters.
He didn't win a majority of Democrats. He only got 48 percent of the vote. He's not a really a Democrat who's coming in with this large coalition. He did poorly amongst blacks. He did poorly amongst white rural voters. Those are the people that he does need to convince to vote for him, and those are the people that we've seen in polling that are willing to entertain voting for a Republican. And we don't need many. Like I said, Rogers only lost by half a point or so. We only need a few tens of thousands of voters to flip.
NELLIS: Sure, but Republicans are just bleeding independent voters right now. I mean, Donald Trump is more unpopular than Richard Nixon was with independents at the height of the Watergate scandal, and there are way more independent voters right now.
I think the Democratic Party in Michigan will be united. They're having this rally on Friday. Mallory McMorrow is going to be there. I imagine Haley Stevens will be there. Pete Buttigieg is going to be there. I think the party's going to rally. Abdul has work to do. Go meet with Jewish voters. Go meet with black voters. Have those conversations.
MECURIO: And I think on the AIPAC front, they shot themselves in the foot because his various message was, I'm the guy to fight big money.
NELLIS: Yes.
MECURIO: And he beat them.
And so, you know, I think that the problem is you hear the word progressive and everybody wants to jam this guy into this crazy progressive, the, you know, the sky is falling. He's not one of those guys. So, you have to be careful with that.
(CROSSTALKS)
BORELLI: Well, it's not me saying that. It's John Fetterman. It's people in his own party. It's the establishment of his party who evaluated him and says, we're not going near this guy, and now they're forced to kind of hat in hand go and make good with him.
PHILLIP: Let me play what El-Sayed said about Jewish voters today, because, obviously, he understands that this is going to be an issue for him in terms of how he's perceived among Jewish Americans.
[22:10:06]
Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) EL-SAYED: To my Jewish American sisters and brothers, one of the most indelible memories of this campaign will have been the opportunity to break bread with you at Seder, to worship with you at Shul, to embrace -- to be embraced by you. And listening to sisters and brothers who said, you know, I want to join this movement because AIPAC doesn't speak for me.
And to all of my sisters and brothers of the Jewish faith or any faith at all or no faith at all, I want you to know that my commitment to your safety, my commitment to Jewish safety is the same commitment that I have to the safety of my own daughters.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Okay, so there's that. And I just -- I think the question I have is he's not backing away from -- just tonight, he was asked about, do you support withdrawing U.S. support for -- military support for Israel? And he said yes, basically. He was like, yes, defensive, offensive, all of it. Is there a difference between that and saying, as some conservatives have claimed, that he hates all Jews?
CAROLINE SUNSHINE, DEPUTY COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR, TRUMP'S 2024 CAMPAIGN: Well, I don't think this race is going to come down to Jewish voters. I think it's going to come down to the same voters that Michigan came down to in 2024, which is Muslim Americans in Michigan. And I think El-Sayed is going to be a challenge for Republicans, and I wish that he wasn't. Because in 2024, Trump flipped Michigan to go Republican by a very small margin because he won Muslim Americans.
You might remember the mayor of Hamtramck, Michigan was the most coveted endorsement of that cycle, and everyone thought he was going to endorse Kamala Harris, and he flipped, as a Democrat Muslim American, for President Trump, America Leap. He was then nominated by Trump to be ambassador to Kuwait. Ted Cruz sunk that nomination, because he's not good at politics or anything generally.
And it's going to be very -- genuinely, it's going to be very costly I think, where I think this race in Michigan is going to come down to a tight margin where it's going to be the Muslim Americans again that swing it. But, by the way --
PHILLIP: But I mean, also I would say, just to add to what you're saying, I mean, the uncommitted movement, it was not just, oh, who's voting for Donald Trump, it was also who sat at home, did not vote for Kamala Harris, did not vote for the Democratic nominee.
SUNSHINE: And it's also about, you know, with El-Sayed, it's about not just can he win, but it's about are his ideas good for the country? And this is where Republicans need to come out swinging, and I have not seen that level of offense. This guy wants to defund the police. Really? You're for working families? Low income areas are where most crimes occur. So, you might as well just rebrand that policy mass murder for low income women on their way to work, because that's exactly what that is.
He wants to do free public tuition, free college education. Really? For degrees that are worthless in a 21st century economy? Most people's anxiety right now about economics comes from the fact that they have degrees that they paid for that are worthless. So, we're just going to what, give those worthless degrees away for free?
MECURIO: Don't tell my son that. I just paid all this money for him.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: I mean, those are not -- you say that, and I know that that is the argument against El-Sayed. But it doesn't feel resonant in an economic environment that's really about what the groceries are costing. Like it's a basic thing, like the groceries, the gas, like that's what people really care about.
NELLIS: Well, the Republicans fall into this trap all the time, and they're running everything to its like most ridiculous extreme. They're like, Abdul El-Sayed is a terrorist. He's a communist. Then do you know what they're not doing? They're not articulating any vision to deal with the economy right now.
This race is going to be decided on affordability, period, end of story, just like every other race in this country.
MECURIO: They're falling into the trap of what Biden and Harris did in 2024.
NELLIS: I agree.
MECURIO: I mean, like, and that could lead to 2028 being a debacle.
And with all due respect, some of the words you just used is what I was referring to earlier, sort of murder and this and that. It's -- you start boxing this in --
PHILLIP: And I will say El-Sayed did -- does not support defunding the police.
MECURIO: Right.
SUNSHINE: He absolutely has, and he's walking away from it because it's not a popular position.
MECURIO: So, if the Democrats should do is --
SUNSHINE: We're not going to let him get away with that. No way.
MECURIO: -- they should show the -- they should show Trump as an extremist. He starts a war that has no end in sight and is hurting the economy. He threatens the Federal Reserve. He brought tariffs that are hurting Americans. Those are extreme measures. But maybe because of his ethnicity, is that why Sayed is an extremist? It feels a little odd. After running that ad in the beginning, it feels a little like racist.
BORELLI: I also don't mean to fact-check you but CNN's reporting is saying that he has called to defund the police despite his own denials of doing so. That was an article that came out on cnn.com, July 7th. So, this is a guy who's trying to run away from his past.
MECURIO: He didn't just run on it. He didn't run on it in his campaign.
BORELLI: The point I'm trying to make is Jews are 1.5 percent of the electorate in Michigan. Muslims are 2.5 percent. It's -- the race is not, and I agree with you, not going to be decided on that issue. It's going to be decided on affordability. But he has undermined the support from so many rural Michiganders --
[22:15:03]
PHILLIP: I mean, look, I think the question that I'm fundamentally asking is by dredging up the sort of wedge issues of 2020, are you missing the point? Are Republicans missing the real issue that is animating voters today by focusing on things that they don't care as much about because it's not as salient to them?
BORELLI: Democratic socialism have, has given Democratic voters a structural path for economic recovery, let's say. Most people just happen to disagree with that socialist view of how to accomplish those goals. And I think if the race is about whether you want the Democratic socialist path or the Mike Rogers moderate conservative pro-growth path, I think more voters are going to vote for that.
MECURIO: But he's a career politician, and they look at that like expired milk. You're not going to convince me it's good. And that's where he is in his career right now.
BORELLI: They elected the last two senators three -- I think three terms each. So, I don't think they're afraid of career politicians.
PHILLIP: All right.
MECURIO: They might be.
PHILLIP: Next for us, the House Speaker is finally speaking out and breaking his silence on Max Miller, but he doesn't ask him to step down over these abuse allegations.
Plus, companies are starting to get their tariff refunds, but Americans aren't and will not. Is that fair? We'll debate.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:20:00]
PHILLIP: Max Miller tonight says that he's not going anywhere, the embattled Congressman remaining defiant in the wake of abuse allegations by his ex-wife. And Republican leadership, they aren't asking him to step down, including Speaker Mike Johnson, who finally broke his silence on the scandal.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHNSON: I think what Max is suggesting there is that I've been intellectually consistent, always have, since before I became speaker and certainly over the last almost three years. This applies equally to Republicans and Democrats. We don't take disciplinary action against members for allegations.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Will you tell him to drop out?
JOHNSON: No. I will tell Max what I tell everyone. These are serious allegations.
I mean, we have to allow this process to play out. It's just begun.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: In an interview with CNN, Miller specifically cited Johnson's support in his reasoning for staying in the race.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MAX MILLER (R-OH): My numbers in fundraising are strong. You know, Speaker Mike Johnson, everyone else, they're standing behind me. No one has told me to get off the ballot, and that's because they know I can win this seat and see this through, and that's what we're going to do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: You know, Joe, do you find Speaker Johnson's explanation to be defensible and convincing? Because, I mean, he's basically saying, well, this is about a process and this is about whether or not people should be penalized. And I'm not sure that's the question that's being asked. It seems like what people are being asked is, is this the type of person that you think should be in your Congress?
BORELLI: It's two questions, right? It's are you endorsing him for reelection or do you think he should be still a member of the House of Representatives? And I think on the second question, Speaker Johnson has been fairly consistent. He's not demanded that any Democrats step down before the Ethics Committee has had an investigation.
Now, that's one jurisdiction and venue where this whole case will be weighed. The other, which I don't think the speaker has any control over, is the court of public opinion. We'll have the ethics investigation. We'll see what really happened. The Ethics Committee will make a recommendation. The court of public opinion is what Speaker Johnson has to worry about right now.
And I just think that Max Miller is a -- there's a problem there. This is a seat that shouldn't be going to the Democrats. And now because of these alleged actions, it might very well do so. So, Republicans are in a bind here. And it's going to be difficult to see who supports him.
Look, I don't know the guy, but when you have his father-in-law and you have family members coming out with very credible and serious accusations, you have to really ask yourself what this person's all about. MECURIO: And you have child -- his daughter was interviewed by Child Services and said, Daddy kill you. Can Johnson step up on anything? Like isn't this the one thing that's kind of pretty straightforward? If you're a parent, and parents are at this table, there's two things you have to do. You have to love your child and sacrifice everything for your child, right, money, time, sleep, to the point where you can't have a second child because you're too tired to do the thing that got you the first child, right?
And so -- not Abby. She's Superwoman.
EGBEWOLE: Oh my God.
MECURIO: Superwoman. And -- but the point is -- but the point is that when you put your career that far ahead of your child, this -- when he says, I'm a fighter and resilient, I want to vomit. I don't want a guy who's a fighter and resilient at the expense of his child.
PHILLIP: That's literally the opposite. I mean, that is actually just so triggering to people. And just -- I just want to just read this just as a, a study in contrast. Here's Senator Katie Britt, also a Republican. She told Semafor today, yes, Max Miller should resign. She said, my first concern is going to be his daughter, talking about Bernie Moreno's daughter and his granddaughter, their safety, their wellbeing.
She says, when you watch those Miller interviews, if you have ever seen anyone in your life that has experienced abuse, they are eerie. But I stand with Bernie in supporting his daughter and granddaughter, and I hope that others will as well.
That's not about politics. It's not about process. It's not about pushing anybody out. It's just actually saying, look, this is bad, and you, Max Miller, should do the right thing. Speaker Johnson is specifically not saying that at all.
NELLIS: No. And like there's a double standard here. First of all, good for Senator Britt for saying that. I think we should just say that out loud, because a lot of Republicans are afraid to speak out about what Max Miller's been accused of here, which, let's be really clear, is beating his ex-wife and hurting their child.
[22:25:08]
The three-year-old daughter had a broken collarbone, okay? And they might not be able to prove that he did it, but when she's saying that, Daddy's house is scary, and we have these incidents happening, and he's admitted to some of them on tape. Like he released his own tapes to try to disprove all of this, and inside the tapes he admitted to throwing scalding hot water on his ex-wife's chest. So, he implicated himself in these crimes.
A month ago, they were falling over themselves. Every single Republican influencer and politician were gleefully talking about the Graham Platner accusations. They knew that they were bad --
SUNSHINE: Not me.
NELLIS: Okay.
SUNSHINE: And not on this network.
NELLIS: Respect. But there were a lot of people who were very excited to talk about it because they had Democrats in a bind, and Graham Platner's got to go, and he's a scumbag and a bad human being. They don't want to talk about Max Miller. They don't want to talk about Donald Trump. They don't want to talk about Ryan Fournier, who was very close to Donald Trump and TPUSA, who's been accused of domestic abuse multiple times.
SUNSHINE: So, if I accuse --
NELLIS: This -- hold -- just one -- if I could just make this final case. There's a double standard here. Mike Johnson says we got to follow the process because it's one of his own. But when it's a Democrat, we don't follow the process. And at the end of the day, as much as the Democrats mishandled the way Graham Platner -- the entire situation there, we kicked him to the curb. And I think that's a better place to be in. I'd rather be a member of the party that actually polices itself.
BORELLI: After the 25th accusation and, you know --
NELLIS: It wasn't the 25th, it was the second.
BORELLI: The second or third.
NELLIS: And listen I agree that it was mishandled but at least at the end of the day we did the right thing.
SUNSHINE: So, if I accused you of backstage yanking my hair and calling me MAGA Barbie and saying, shut up, MAGA Barbie, is that accusation enough alone to say that you shouldn't be allowed to come back on the show?
NELLIS: No, I mean, is that what you think Emily Moreno is doing here?
(CROSSTALKS)
MECURIO: There's a pattern with his -- there's a pattern with his behavior.
SUNSHINE: What I'm saying is it is an allegation.
NELLIS: He's been accused of domestic abuse.
SUNSHINE: And I think that it shouldn't, but it's an accusation. You didn't answer my question.
NELLIS: But how many times are Republicans going to excuse this stuff?
SUNSHINE: If I say I accuse you of anything, should you not come back on that alone?
PHILLIP: But, Caroline, that's not -- that's actually not -- that's an apples and oranges situation.
NELLIS: Yes.
PHILLIP: Because in this case, it isn't just one allegation, and it isn't just his word against yours. It's over a year of history that's been documented in police reports and child protective services reports. Other women prior to his ex-wife, two separate women, including one who talked about it publicly, who told the president and the first lady, President Trump and Melania Trump, about it at the time, that's apples and oranges. This is not just somebody -- something happened in private, somebody did something to you, and it's just your word against theirs.
SUNSHINE: So let me ask this, because you mentioned Republicans coming after Graham Platner, I did come on this network and say that Graham Platner should -- that should play out in a court of law, not a court of public opinion. Have there been any charges pressed against Graham Platner after he dropped out of that Senate race? I haven't seen any.
Because the problem I have in this country is if somebody needs to drop out of a race for political office because of a serious and credible sexual assault allegation, then we shouldn't stop there. Charges should be pressed against that person. We don't want him in the Senate, great. They should be behind bars. So, why haven't any charges been brought against Graham Platner?
NELLIS: The problem is it's incredibly difficult to prove that stuff because it becomes a he said, she said in this situation. It is pretty difficult.
SUNSHINE: Because if he had to drop out of a Senate race because he thought the allegation was so credible, if I'm her lawyer, I'm taking this to trial.
NELLIS: But it's multiple allegations.
MECURIO: But isn't the issue is he fit --
SUNSHINE: So, we should let the voters decide.
MECURIO: Is he fit?
(CROSSTALKS)
NELLIS: Are you going to call for Donald Trump to resign from office given that he's been found liable for sexual assaulting E. Jean Carroll?
SUNSHINE: I call for anybody to resign from office based off of allegations because this is a democracy.
NELLIS: I guess you're more consistent than your Republican colleagues.
MECURIO: At the end of the day, the issue is he fit for office for the voter? And I'm going to do something, and I'm going to admit to it. The guy's unhinged.
NELLIS: Yes.
MECURIO: And there -- now. Therefore, I think he was probably unhinged regarding the underlying allegations. So, a voter votes very often with their gut, and I'm standing in the booth, and I'm like, I don't know, man. There's something about this guy. There's something about it. Where there's smoke, there's fire. That's the practical reality of this.
EGBEWOLE: And I think voters --
SUNSHINE: Can we make it political?
PHILLIP: Well, yes. And let me play what Erick Erickson said about the political aspect of this for Republicans. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Republicans could lose not just a House seat, they could lose their Senate seat, they could lose the governor's mansion in Ohio, all because of one man's frail, fragile ego keeping him in a race. The fact that Democrats were willing to move heaven and earth to force Graham Platner out of the race in Maine and Republicans will not reciprocate in Ohio shows you how much worse at politics the Republicans are than the Democrats.
The Democrats want to win. Do the Republicans want to win? If the Republicans want to win, they need to do everything possible to get Max Miller out of the race.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SUNSHINE: Okay. 100 percent agree.
PHILLIP: It doesn't require you to 100 percent believe the allegations. But it's a fact that this man has a toxic relationship with his ex-wife and their child. That is going to be a problem for a lot of voters.
EGBEWOLE: Yes. And if Johnson, I'm sorry, as a Republican leader, you have to think about the politics here. And we're in a different era where partners, spouses, and even staffers are willing to go on the record about the misbehavior of these members of Congress. And Ohio is incredibly competitive at the governor's level with Vivek and Amy Acton, and for the Senate with John Husted and Sherrod Brown. I mean, this is really putting it in play, and Max Miller is going to be a drag on the ticket for Republicans.
[22:30:04]
I'm just surprised that he won't just say something, anything. NELLIS: Can I just add though, I absolutely hate treating this like it's political football. Like there's a little girl who's scared to go to her dad's house right now. We're all just treating it like it's power.
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: I just want to be clear, yes, I mean I 100 percent agree with you that for me and probably for a lot of people, I can't get past the human beings that are a part of this and even if politics weren't at play, you would say if this is happening to you, it's time for you to step off the stage and deal with your home life. That's not what the advice that he is getting from his leadership. So we'll see what happens.
Next for us, corporate America is starting to get their refunds after the Supreme Court struck down Donald Trump's tariffs. So why shouldn't Americans, regular Americans get them too? We'll debate next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:35:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: Corporate America seems to be benefiting from the tariff refund. In new court filings, the White House has actually paid back now $100 billion since the Supreme Court struck down President Trump's Liberation Day tariffs.
Companies like Apple received more than $2 billion, Amazon says that it got $600 million and Nike recovered $300 million. So how much did the average American receive out of this? Well, almost certainly nothing.
But Trump is doubling down on this marquee piece of his agenda.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRACE GALLAGHER, FOX NEWS HOST: You're here to talk about the economy, right? What's your big message? You want to leave one takeaway with this crowd, what is it?
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: So tariffs have been incredible. We've taken in hundreds of billions of dollars.
Supreme Court gave us a little shot but we're allowed to do it in a different manner.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: That is being challenged, by the way, that he's can do it in a different manner. But I mean Trump is not going to learn and I think the optics of this are pretty bad.
You know, these corporations are basically getting a massive windfall. They did absorb a lot of those costs, some of them that were passed down to consumers. And if you bought something from overseas, you're not ever probably seeing that money again.
EGBEWOLE: No, I'm not getting any of the money back on my bundles.
PHILLIP: All the shopping that you're been doing. Yemisi, you're not going to get that money back.
EGBEWOLE: And I don't know how businesses, especially small businesses, are supposed to even get that money down to the consumers. Because if I'm a business, I'm scared in this economy.
I'm keeping the cash that I have for my cash reserves. I've probably overextended on some business loans that I need to pay back. I mean, I think a lot of people are just trying to catch up, there's not an excess to give more to the consumer.
PAUL MERCURIO, COMEDIAN, AND HOST, "INSIDE OUT WITH PAUL MERCURIO": The other thing that stands out is the speed at which this is happening. The Supreme Court decision was February of this year. Within less than six months, they gave out $100 billion.
PHILLIP: And that's actually not even close to the total.
MERCURIO: Yes.
PHILLIP: Because that's really just from the beginning of this year. It's a phased process. So there's a lot more money that's going to go out.
MERCURIO: My mother broke her ankle. It's three months with Medicare. We're trying to get reimbursed for a $300 x-ray. You need to fill out two forms, have seven receipts, you have to sign something in blue ink, witnessed by a Hare Krishna during a full moon, and then you have to have her left ankle notarized.
It's so set up for the corporations and that top 1 percent against all of the average Americans. And this is another example of that, unfortunately.
PHILLIP: J.D. Vance was on Fox News tonight, and he was actually calling out the socialists who are running in races across the country. But here's what he said about socialism. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: This is exactly what El-Sayed and these limousine socialists are actually selling to the American people. They're not promising you industry, they're not promising you good jobs, they're not promising self- sufficiency in a good industrial economy.
What they're promising is redistribution. Again, we've seen this in Europe and in the United States. The idea that you can build real prosperity by just redistributing assets from one group to another group, that's not how you build real prosperity.
(END VIDEO CLIP) PHILLIP: I mean, it seems like it's redistribution for me, but not for thee, because they literally said they were going to use the tariff money to reimburse farmers who were hurt by the tariffs. They also put tariffs on the economy, and guess what? We lost manufacturing jobs in that time.
JOE BORELLI, FORMER REPUBLICAN LEADER, NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL: But again, the loss for the Trump administration was the Supreme Court case. The Supreme Court decided this issue. The case was brought by, you know, roughly the same attorneys general who are now bringing the case against the new Trump tariffs.
This is the decision they sought. This is the relief they sought. This is what the actual appellants to this case wanted to happen, and now the same people are saying, well, I can't believe that the money's going back to these corporations.
That was always going to happen. The problem here is that Trump believes in tariffs. There's no question about that, he thinks they're doing the right thing.
Maybe they are, maybe they aren't. We'll save that for another day.
The point is, once he lost the case, it's out of his control. This is what the court mandated, and here we are.
PHILLIP: Actually, the mechanism by which they reimburse is completely within their control. The court just said the tariffs are illegal. They decide how they reimburse, and they've created a process that makes it possible for large corporations to get reimbursed.
[22:40:01]
But if you are a regular person, some people did, and it's a difficult process to get that money back.
NELLIS: This is the greatest redistribution of wealth in the history of the United States, and it is coming from regular, everyday Americans who are just trying to pay their bills, pay their grocery bill, buy a car, make sure that their kids have everything they need when they're heading back to school in the fall, and it is going into the hands of people who already have so much.
MERCURIO: Especially when the economy's hurt because of the Iran war.
NELLIS: Exactly.
MERCURIO: If anybody needed an out, but --
NELLIS: The average person lost $2000 last year because of the government.
MERCURIO: The government can call all these companies in and go, look, you need to filter some of this down to the people. Figure it out, and we'll figure it out with you. And that's a choice that they're not doing this. NELLIS: And Donald Trump has the influence to do that.
PHILLIP: And some companies, you know, to be fair, are saying, oh, you know, either if you're Amazon, because Amazon sells, you know, they have both business merchants and consumer merchants, so they're going to try to give back some tariffs to certain customers. But other companies are hedging against future cost increases by saying they're going to use the tariff refunds to keep prices lower.
Because guess what? Trump is trying to keep the tariffs. And he's being sued, as Joe pointed out, by 25 states who are basically arguing that these tariffs, these new tariffs, are a pretext for the same old tariffs that are going to raise prices on Americans yet again.
CAROLINE SUNSHINE, DEPUTY COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR, TRUMP'S 2024 CAMPAIGN: Well, there's no two ways about it that tariffs built our country. Like when you look at Mount Rushmore and you see all the presidents there, every single one of them were high tariffs. Like you have to have a way, if you're going to do tax, you can do it a multitude of ways.
You tax foreign imports rather than giving income tax to people. And it creates one of two things, right?
PHILLIP: That was in a completely different economy. I mean, the world economy doesn't work that way.
NELLIS: By the way, things were already so expensive.
SUNSHINE: Hold on. So there's a case to be made that you have to adapt tariffs to the 21st century. And Jameson Greer is not doing a great job.
The way he's done it, he's lost every case that he's done. Like, we've got to be better about this because here's the deal, guys. You've got to be thinking 10, 20 years.
PHILLIP: You can't blame Jameson Greer for this.
SUNSHINE: One way or another. Hold on. America has to go back to being a nation that builds and manufactures.
And tariffs are one of the main ways to do that.
PHILLIP: Okay, why then, why has manufacturing declined?
I mean, you can't just -- Here, I get that talking point and you've said it, the administration says it all the time. But the facts don't back up a manufacturing renaissance.
In fact, manufacturing investment has gone down compared to the Biden years. How do you justify that when you're claiming the tariffs are supposed to bring back manufacturing?
SUNSHINE: Well, I'm seeing the vision you have to think of for the next 20 years. PHILLIP: I'm not talking vision, I'm talking reality. What is the
reality of how tariffs have affected the economy?
Some industries might benefit in the short term from tariffs. But in the long run, the broader economy is going to suffer. That is what we have seen happen.
SUNSHINE: Tariffs work in the way that the Trump administration is currently going about it.
PHILLIP: Tariffs work by raising prices for consumers. That is how they work.
SUNSHINE: And they work by incentivizing domestic production when they work.
PHILLIP: Where have they not incentivized domestic production?
SUNSHINE: That's why I'm saying Jameson Greer, like he's the guy in the job.
PHILLIP: I'm telling you, it actually hasn't happened.
SUNSHINE: But the bottom line is the concept of tariffs, when properly applied and adjusted to 21st century work. And nobody's answered my question, which is how are you going to return America to manufacturing?
And that's how China has become a superpower. It's trying to build, trying to make stuff, guys.
NELLIS: Carolyn, hang on.
PHILLIP: Where is the evidence that tariffs have worked?
NELLIS: Right. There's zero evidence that tariffs work. But at the end of the day, Donald Trump was elected because he promised.
What did he say a million times in the campaign trail? On day one, everything will get less expensive. Your grocery bills will go down, your car payment will go down.
And the first thing he did was to make everything more expensive. And that was before the war in Iran. He's destroyed an economy that was already on shaky ground.
PHILLIP: All right. Next for us, has it become a litmus test for Donald Trump's judicial nominees to not admit that Joe Biden won in 2020? We'll show you what happened in a wild spectacle on Capitol Hill today.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:45:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) PHILLIP: Three nominees, one simple question, who won the 2020 election? It's becoming a thing during these hearings.
The nominees have no trouble saying Barack Obama beat John McCain. They have no trouble saying Obama beat Mitt Romney. But when it comes to Biden versus Trump, listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. CORY BOOKER (D-NJ): Be a man, be your own man right now and stand up and answer a question. Yes or no.
Did Joe Biden win the 2020 presidential election? Yes or no.
ADAM CANDEUB, NOMINEE, ASSISTANT ANTITRUST ATTORNEY GENERAL: The United States Congress.
BOOKER: Oh, there you go, sir. Stop.
SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D-CT): Who won the 2020 election?
JOHN CRONAN, NOMINEE, U.S. SENTENCING COMMISSION: Senator, under the constitutional system and in particular, the 12th Amendment, Joseph Biden received the majority of electoral college vote --
SEN. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): In the 2020 election, who won between Donald Trump and Joe Biden?
GREGORY COOK, NOMINEE, U.S. JUDGE FOR NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ALABAMA: Well, Joe Biden was certified by a joint session of Congress. And so as a matter of law, he was the elected President.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: That's just silly, that's silly. It's kind of dumb, I'm not going to lie. Like, are we really going to do this?
[23:50:01]
SUNSHINE: It is so cringe watching these Democrats do this line of questioning. It's like that's what --
Hey guys, we're going to play our greatest.
There's no crowd. Nobody cares. They're wearing the tight leather jeans.
They look terrible. And you're just like, wow, you guys are husbands. This is all you have.
PHILLIP: I think Caroline won the 2020 election.
NELLIS: Caroline, who won?
SUNSHINE: Oh, Joe Biden. But it was okay.
Oh, you have some.
Oh, there you go. I'm not sure.
PHILLIP: She said it's like --
MERCURIO: This is the longest game of Password ever. The secret word is 2020. No gestures.
Guys, no genuflecting. Please don't give an answer. This is ridiculous.
Just answer the question and move on. You look bad. You look you know, this is what America -- this is what Americans get frustrated about, that that we have our politicians have to spend this time asking these inane questions and getting inane answers and that's where people lose voters.
NELLIS: This is the whole problem with Donald Trump's Republican Party right now. And it permeates every conversation we've had at this table right now.
You want to get appointed to a judicial nomination. You have to say that Donald Trump didn't really lose in 2020. And I feel bad for the two of you that you guys can't just admit the truth.
Outright with that. Hold on, Caroline. Let me make my point.
You know, I don't think the big tech right now, but here's the thing. You guys want to know why Max Miller can't resign and why the Republicans won't get away from him because he's Donald Trump's protege, because Donald Trump is out there saying that he's a good human being and this is a family matter that should be settled by the family with no consideration of a little girl who's getting beat by her dad right now.
You want to know why Mike Rogers is going to lose in Michigan to Abdul El-Sayed because he can't tell the truth about the economy, because Donald Trump is running around the country talking about the golden age of America and how much great everything is.
PHILLIP: Okay, no sports betting at the table. I'm going to let me it's not just the 2020 election, although it is always the 2020 election.
Here's another example. This was about January 6. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BLUMENTHAL: Judge Cook was the Capitol attacked on January 6th, 2021.
COOK: Yes, there was a lot of violence and vandalism at the Capitol and attacks on law enforcement. So I hesitate to use the word attack just because it would be something that would apply to everybody. And I --
BLUMENTHAL: So you're unwilling to say what Justice Coney Barrett has said, what. Judge Kelly has said, Judge Lambert has said, federal district court judges and Supreme Court justice, that the Capitol was attacked. You're unwilling to say that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Okay, I mean, Joe, this is again, this is silly. He used the word attack himself to describe what happened on that day, but won't acknowledge that.
BORELLI: The silly is the theatrics that both parties do from time to time where they try to play gotcha at the end of the day. You have judicial reviews in the first set of clips. They all answered factually that Joe Biden was certified as the elected President of the United States.
They all three did say that. So let's not pretend they didn't. But the reality is people are sick of this.
People are sick of this theatrics being done with the theatrics.
MERCURIO: Here's why it's relevant. It's an attempt by Trump to stack the courts so that if there's an election lost by Republicans in 2026 or 2028, he can drive through this election nonsense. Right.
So it's not just theatrics. There's an agenda here that's very dark and very evil.
BORELLI: These are three guys playing for the cameras, trying to make some viral videos.
PHILIP: All right, everyone. Thank you very much. We'll be back in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:55:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: Quick viewer feedback from cnn.com/abby, here's someone talking about the President's cursing.
I would love it if our representatives would stop the foul language. It's embarrassing.
EGBEWOLE: It's cool. It's hip. It's fun.
It's like every boomer running right now is just like when Chuck Schumer says I'm like, go, grandpa, go. That's right.
BORELLI: How do I get out of how many bombs I dropped backstage?
NELLIS: It was bad.
BORELLI: I would like to say that.
NELLIS: Not to mention we were doing karaoke.
PHILLIP: Everyone, thank you very much for being here.
It is Wednesday, so that means that there is a new episode of "Confessions and Obsessions." It is now available. This week, we pulled together reality T.V. stars on the couch.
Here is a sneak peek.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, AND FORMER DIRECTOR FOR STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS UNDER TRUMP'S FIRST ADMINISTRATION: How scripted was it? Totally unscripted.
Like there's how much of a producer do you guys have?
PHILLIP: Do you guys have NDAs? You can't talk.
DANIELLE CABRAL, "THE REAL HOUSEWIVES OF NEW JERSEY" CAST MEMBER: No. It's not that it's scripted.
It's just being a normal person. You realize the depths of how people will go to be relevant on a show. I think that's what was the most triggering, right.
JASON TARTICK, FORMER "THE BACHELORETTE" CONTESTANT: You could see it. You could really quickly see, like when the cameras are on, how people react when the cameras are on versus when they're off. And the biggest thing I'd say about it, it's like when you go into the show, you're on a roller coaster and you're strapped in and you can't get off. And some of the things you see come in and you see the curve balls and you're like, oh, I can anticipate this, but you're stuck.
There's no like getting out of it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[23:00:02]
PHILLIP: You can stream "Confessions and Obsessions" now on cnn.com/confessionsandobsessions or go to the CNN app to watch.
Thank you very much for watching "NewsNight." "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
