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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Washington Post Reports, Amid Iran Threat, Trump Switched Planes In Elaborate Ruse; Wall Street Journal Reports, Trump Considers Ending War If Iran Fully Opens Strait Of Hormuz; Trump Escalates Attacks, Says Democrats Electing Jihadists; AOC Doubles Down Hong's Cancel Thanksgiving Comment; Former New Jersey Governor Pronounce Donald Trump As The New Jimmy Crater. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired August 10, 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)
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR (voice over): Tonight, the otherizing of Abdul El-Sayed intensifies.
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: We have jihadists being elected.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't want to hear the call to prayer five times a day in an American city.
BERMAN: And even Democrats are lecturing the progressive.
DANA NESSEL (D), MICHIGAN ATTORNEY GENERAL: I'd like for him to tone down his rhetoric a little bit.
BERMAN: Plus, one of the right's favorite targets says she is not ruling out a presidential run as she tries moving from the far left.
REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D-NY): I have a local city councilman that has this saying, woke one was crazy.
BERMAN: Plus, he made it the entire reason for starting the war.
TRUMP: Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.
BERMAN: But now the president reportedly considers walking away from his main objective, a nuclear deal.
And between Iran and the economic battle back home, is the Trump presidency turning into a sequel of Jimmy Carter's?
FMR. GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R-NJ): Donald Trump is about to become what he never, ever wanted to be, Jimmy Carter.
BERMAN: Live at the table, Tara Setmayer, Jason Rantz, Yemisi Igbowole, Jesse Arm, and Niall Stanage.
Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here they do. (END VIDEOTAPE)
BERMAN: All right. Good evening everyone. I'm John Berman, in for Abby Phillip.
And we do begin with breaking news, an elaborate secret plan to get President Trump out of Turkey following the NATO summit last month, following a credible threat against him. According to The Washington Post, it was an Iranian assassination threat against the president that prompted this really extraordinary operation.
Now, Trump had originally boarded Air Force One. By the way, the old Air Force One, they'd already sent the Qatari jet, you know, out of there. He boarded the old Air Force One, then the Post reports that Trump and several aides were shuffled into this airport catering truck, which then transported the president to a smaller military jet.
So, Air Force One and the White House and media members on board were essentially used as a decoy. The paper notes that the maneuver meant that Trump's actual location was concealed from the American public and many senior U.S. officials for hours. It's still not clear how Trump was transported from the other plane back onto Air Force One after it landed, but he did get back on it and was seen coming down the stairs just before 11:00 P.M.
Since the incident, the president's made a bunch of contradicting statements about what happened there.
All right, let's talk about this situation. There are really two issues here. Number one, which is I think at this point a little bit on the backburner, is the whole Qatari jet, Air Force One, which was given to the United States. That was shipped out, like the night before, and the president claimed, it turns out, quite dishonestly, that plane was going to visit troops, U.S. troops in Germany and whatnot who wanted to see it. That appears to have not been true, doubly now.
So, now you have this elaborate plan to hide him on this other plane. And I just want to read you a couple tweets from Tommy Vietor, who worked in the Obama administration in the National Security Council. He wrote, quote, this makes Trump look like both a liar and a scared little B, rhymes with witch. Then he also writes, the mental image of Trump hiding from Iran in a catering cart is devastating. A weak, stupid, old man hiding from the consequences of his own decision while endangering others. Tara?
TARA SETMAYER, CO-FOUNDER AND CEO, THE SENECA PROJECT: Well, true. True and true. However, this was a national security situation of his own making, to Tommy's point. None of this rigmarole would've happened if Trump had just stayed on the real Air Force One that is completely outfitted with all of the bells and whistles and protection measures and defense measures that were necessary to protect the President of the United States.
But no, he had to have his new toy. He had to have his Qatari bribe plane, and -- JESSE ARM, VICE PRESIDENT AND POLLSTER, MANHATTAN INSTITUTE: I think the Iranians would've still tried to kill President Trump if he was on the original Air Force One.
SETMAYER: Okay. So, the Iranians have been trying to kill lots of presidents and people for years. There's nothing different about this.
ARM: That doesn't make it okay.
BERMAN: Let Tara go ahead.
SETMAYER: No. Okay. So, you know what? To your point, since you're so eager to make this point, then why the hell did Donald Trump put his life in danger by going on a Qatari plane that wasn't outfitted with the proper things to defend him in the first place, to protect him?
[22:05:03]
So, that sounds asinine, your logic. So, if he had just done this and not used taxpayer money to waste taxpayer money to have his little new plane and show it off and make a big deal about it, when it wasn't secure, none of this ever would've happened. It's, again, a situation of his own making.
BERMAN: Jesse?
ARM: Yes, I think the point stands that the Iranians would have tried to kill President Trump and are trying to kill President Trump, despite everything that Tara just said. I don't even necessarily disagree with you about the Qatari plane, but it's totally divorced from the fact that the problem here is the Iranians trying to kill our president, yours and mine, whether we like it or not.
SETMAYER: No, the problem is that he put himself in that situation.
ARM: Let's not forget that the bad guys are the terrorists trying to kill the president in this equation.
SETMAYER: Oh, my goodness.
JASON RANTZ, SEATTL RED RADIO HOST: Yes, which we would benefit from actually calling that out, right? I mean, this idea that -- there are two separate stories here the news story, the transactional stuff that occurred, but the underlying threat from the Iranian government, this was not the first time that the Iranians tried to kill the president. Back in March, there was an individual who was caught and prosecuted over the same thing, being pushed through by the IRGC.
One might argue, and I think that our friends on the left would argue this, that if it was a Democratic president, you would say, this is an act of war.
(CROSSTALKS)
BERMAN: Yemisi, go ahead. YEMISI EGBEWOLE, FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF AND ADVISER, BIDEN WHITE HOUSE PRESS OFFICE: I will say as somebody who was a staffer that traveled with Biden on Air Force One, I'm okay with the security protocols, because Secret Service would not do something like this unless it was very, very credible. But what was going to be the plan with the real- life staffers and the media that were on the plane as a decoy? That to me feels like another piece of this that's a bit left out.
But, look, Republican president, Democratic president, it doesn't matter, I don't want to see our president killed by a foreign nation.
BERMAN: I think the answer is collateral damage, right? If the idea is to use it as a decoy, there's only one thing that happens to the decoy, right?
SETMAYER: But the point though --
NIALL STANAGE, WHITE HOUSE COLUMNIST, THE HILL: But let me add one -- let me add one, one point to this, because Jason said there are two parts to this story. There are at least three, which is that the reason we're all sitting here discussing this is because of fantastic reporting from The Washington Post, then recently seconded by The New York Times, in the context of the Trump administration subpoenaing previously journalists from The New York Times who had reported on the Qatari jet.
So, the fact that we all know this now, it's a bizarre story. It doesn't particularly inspire me with confidence that the president of the United States is hiding in a catering truck. But I do think it's worth paying tribute to our journalistic colleagues who have actually brought this out.
BERMAN: I am always willing to give credit to the journalists there.
Let me add a fourth aspect to this story. This doesn't seem like a particularly weak Islamic Republic of Iran right now if the president is forced to hide in a catering truck by this country he's been at war at with, you know, for months, right?
RANTZ: He wasn't cowering in a catering truck.
EGBEWOLE: Well, you couldn't see him.
RANTZ: he wasn't. I mean, he was using that as a vehicle to get to another plane for security purposes, most likely, as you point out, because Secret Service said, this is the way we need to handle this.
So, it seems odd to frame it in that way. And the Tommy Vietor texts, I'm sorry, the tweets, are absolute lunacy. I mean, that is a ridiculous way to frame a security protocol to protect the United States of America, almost as if they're goading him to go into situations in which there's another assassination attempt on his life. I don't know what the practical matter is of that other than to try to shame him for not being the subject of an Iranian plot to murder him.
SETMAYER: No. You're ignoring why the Secret Service had to make that change. Why that he was put in that position is because he did not take Air Force One, the original Air Force One, that is completely --
(CROSSTALKS)
RANTZ: But that's not true. That is factually inaccurate.
SETMAYER: Okay. So, we're saying that --
RANTZ: The folks that we were talking about -- just one point.
SETMAYER: Okay.
RANTZ: The folks that we're talking about, the so-called decoys, were on the old Air Force One. So, they were there. So, despite the fact that has the top-of-the-line security, right --
SETMAYER: Before all of that -- no. It was -- before all of that, he flew to Turkey in a, in Qatar --
RANTZ: They didn't target that plane. That's not the target, no.
SETMAYER: In the Qatari airplane, and he could not fly from back home from Turkey because that plane was not proper --
RANTZ: No, that is not right --
(CROSSTALKS)
BERMAN: But I will say this. I will say this.
SETMAYER: He did not listen to national security folks about that.
BERMAN: The Washington Post reporting is he certainly could not fly in the Qatari jet.
SETMAYER: Right.
BERMAN: That's true. But they also determined he couldn't fly on the 747 that had been serving as Air Force One for some time, so they had to go to option C there.
And, Niall, just to my point, if we can just address this for one second, if not -- you take out the cowering in a catering truck for Tommy Vietor, this is still the Iranians dictating actions by the president of the United States.
STANAGE: Yes, 100 percent, and also to the other point that you made, actions that the old Air Force One, the traditional Air Force One, was not formidable enough for them to feel safe traveling in. This, with all due respect, Tara, isn't really about the Qatari jet. It's about the fact that the dangers were apparently so acute that there was no plane that he could safely travel on and be no one to be traveling on it.
[22:10:01]
They took him off, or they decided against using the traditional Air Force One because he was under such threat from this nation that he sort of demeans as a minnow that has been overwhelmed by American military firepower.
ARM: Can we just rewind a hot sec? You said this is evidence that the Iranians are somehow stronger or more emboldened than we --
BERMAN: I didn't say than us. I just said an emboldened Iran.
ARM: Sure. I disagree. I think that this guy's the -- this is a regime that doesn't even have a supreme leader, okay, at this point. He's missing in action. We have no idea where this guy is. It's a Weekend at Bernie's, Weekend at Mojtaba's situation over there in Tehran at this point.
STANAGE: So, why is Trump hiding in a catering truck then?
ARM: Trump is hiding in a catering truck because we have an excess of security protocols that we go through our Secret Service. And --
STANAGE: So, you think the Secret Service threw him in there just for the fun of it? No. They threw him in there because he's in danger. And he's in danger of -- from Iranians.
ARM: Absolutely. The Iranians are trying to kill our president. We're all in danger because of the Iranian terror regime. You too, even though you're Irish, they want you too.
BERMAN: Yes, this is at a tennis match, looking back and forth here.
Let me move this along ever so slightly and to follow off your point there, because if the Iranian regime is in shambles, as you say, why is it that the president keeps shifting his positions in negotiations with them? The Wall Street Journal reporting today that Trump has been laying the groundwork to declare victory, even floating the idea of walking away without a nuclear deal. This, Yemisi, is low-key, the low-keying of negotiations with Iran. We'll just leave things as they are. They'll keep, you know, the remnants of the nuclear program for now. What happens next?
EGBEWOLE: I think he's backpedaling and trying to get out of this. Domestically, we have midterms going on. We have the real domestic cost of this war. And, politically, I don't think he's gained anything out of it.
Internationally, we've frustrated our allies. People in the Middle East are wondering what we're going to continue to do here. The Strait of Hormuz, which has been this nexus for everything, still remains this, this piece of the puzzle that we are not able to get control over.
And I also want to point out, nuclear, Strait of Hormuz, there's also a humanitarian element. We went into this country with the idea that we were also going to save people because this was a regime that was oppressing them. That will never come to fruition. I think every president, to be fair, every president has a dream about how to handle Iran, and time and time again, Iran proves that it cannot be handled by a country that actually has to focus on how its constituents feel.
RANTZ: Your political point I think is completely valid, and I think that's behind all of this. You get into the midterms. You do as little damage as humanly possible at this point. I don't know what that might even look like, and then you restart negotiations afterwards.
To be clear, even in The Washington Post, I don't think the intention here is to say that we're going to allow them to now have nuclear capabilities. The question is pausing that aspect of this, declaring a victory that the American people will accept and the media will print, get through the midterms, and then move on.
SETMAYER: How are we better off now than we were before?
RANTZ: Because Iran is weaker. They don't have the military might --
SETMAYER: Are they?
RANTZ: Yes, they are.
SETYMAYER: You just made the point that they are capable of having -- capable enough threat to the United States.
RANTZ: No, I'm sorry. So, you're arguing --
SETMAYER: So, which is it?
RANTZ: The goals are two completely separate issues.
SETMAYER: No, they're not. No, they're not.
ARM: The goals at the outset of this conflict were twofold, stop the Iranian nuclear program, they cannot have one, and then end the Iranian missile arsenal to the point where they can defend the recreation of that nuclear program.
SETMAYER: And we're nowhere close to that.
ARM: Those goals have been accomplished.
SETMAYER: No, they have not.
ARM: Both of those goals have been accomplished. So, at this point, the question becomes what do we do about the Strait of Hormuz? We're currently --
SETMAYER: The Strait of Hormuz wasn't even on the table before Trump did this.
ARM: We're actually getting 8 million barrels of oil out of there a day. We're also getting 8.5 million through alternative pipelines that are going through there.
SETMAYER: Which is less than it was.
ARM: That is contributing to that along with our -- SETMAYER: None of this existed before Trump did this.
ARM: We're producing a lot more exports. The South Americans are producing a lot more exports.
SETMAYER: That's why gas is $4 a gallon right now.
ARM: It's $80 a barrel and it's not $100. It's not $125. It's not $150, like you were projecting a few months ago at this same table.
BERMAN: Hang on, because we're going to move on here. I will say gas right now is a dollar more than it was at the beginning of the war. The Strait of Hormuz is severely constricted. Yes, there is some oil getting through. Iran does have their enriched uranium, which they had at the beginning of the war. They still very much have the highly enriched uranium.
RANTZ: Under rubble.
BERMAN: We think? It's --
RANTZ: No. I mean, there, there's no intel that suggests that it's out under rubble.
BERMAN: It's still there. It's still there, bottom line.
RANTZ: Sure, but it's inaccessible.
BERMAN: And it's not gone yet, and there's no mechanism to get it out. That is just where things stand at this moment.
SETMAYER: That's right.
BERMAN: And they continue to shoot some missiles here and there at us.
SETMAYER: And they still have nuclear capabilities.
BERMAN: We are going to move on. Donald Trump and the right escalating attacks against Abdul El-Sayed, now calling him and other Muslim lawmakers jihadists.
Plus, speaking of the left, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, she is not ruling out a 2028 run, but she is trying to distance herself from the, quote, woke one crowd.
And just a reminder, we invite you at home to join the debate. It's a good one. Head to cnn.com backslash, or I guess slash Abby and weigh in. We'll get to some of your comments throughout the show.
[22:15:02]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BERMAN: Tonight, Republicans are going all Kendrick Lamar on Democrats. To paraphrase, they're not like us. That blueprint is most evident in Michigan, where progressive candidate Abdul El-Sayed won the Democratic Senate primary. Republicans have attacked his religion directly or indirectly, deployed ads using his full name, and some have suggested he is un-American and even a terrorist.
President Trump joined the attacks today in the Oval Office. Despite not referencing El-Sayed by name, he did add a new label.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Well, the one thing is we have jihadists being elected all over the place.
[22:20:01]
We have this, whether it's communism, jihadism, it's -- a lot of -- a friend of mine called up, he said, you know, really, you should use the word jihadist because that's what's happening.
When you look at the radicalism and the craziness of the candidates and the stupidity of what they're suggesting, people don't want to have radical lunatics involved in running our country, and that's what we have.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: This weekend, President Trump posted an image online describing two very different Americas, one of Trump and his wife Melania, the other of El-Sayed and his wife. El-Sayed responded to this on Sunday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: What was your response when you saw that?
ABDUL EL-SAYED (D), MICHIGAN SENATE CANDIDATE: Yes, he's right. One in which your overlords are two people who don't like each other but joined in the interest of making billions of dollars off of you, or two people who genuinely like, love each other, enjoyed some pancakes together, want to come together to build the kind of America where they can raise a family and know that that family's going to have the good things.
So, yes, you got two different visions of America. Donald Trump's vision is the one you're living in right now. Can you afford your gas? Can you afford your groceries? Do you believe when you look your kids in the eye that they're going to have a better future than you did?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: All right. So, that was El-Sayed's response.
Now, if what the president was saying was too subtle for you, Nancy Mace, Republican member of Congress from South Carolina, tweeted over the weekend, quote, every single Muslim holding public office in America is a Trojan horse and a threat to both national security and our republic. We refuse to be silent.
You're shaking your head back and forth.
ARM: That's ridiculous. Nancy Mace is irrelevant. She's on her way out of Congress while the Republican Party is purging its people who make anti-Muslim comments, whether it's --
BERMAN: Jihadist, the president?
ARM: Oh, well, he's 100 percent right about the fact that Abdul El- Sayed is a jihadist sympathizer, but I'll get to that. Give me one second.
Okay, Nancy Mace is making gross comments about Muslims. It's terrible. It has no place in the Republican Party. Andy Ogles was just primaried and defeated who made similar gross comments about Muslims over the years. Thomas Massie, who made gross comments about Jews in Israel, was just excised from the GOP.
Meanwhile, what do you have in the Democratic Party? You do have people like Abdul El-Sayed, who, when he was asked about a Islamist terror massacre that nearly unfolded in my hometown at a synagogue just down the street from where I grew up, his response was to tell his campaign that it was a risk for him to offer any condemnation, whatsoever, and that it was really just the result of hurt people who hurt people, because Israel had done something in the Middle East thousands of miles away to this guy's family or something.
That is absurd. That is offensive. And I can tell you personally that I know hundreds of Democrats in the Metro Detroit area who have never voted for a Republican in their life who will this November because Abdul El-Sayed is an Islamist sympathetic, communist adjacent, hardline extremist radical, and there's no place for him in American public life, and a lot of Democrats believe so as well. A lot of Haley Stevens' voters believe so as well.
STANAGE: Words like adjacent and sympathizer are doing a lot of work there to try to smear a candidate with beliefs that he does not actually hold.
ARM: I am smearing the candidate 100 percent.
STANAGE: The point here is that, for example, President Trump describing him as a jihadist. There is nothing in his record that suggests he is a jihadist.
ARM: Excuse me. When the Iranian supreme leader was killed by the American military in a successful operation --
STANAGE: It is an obvious dog whistle, an obvious dog whistle to religious prejudice.
ARM: No, it's a prejudice towards Islamism.
STANAGE: It's a whistle to bigots who don't want to elect a Muslim or an Arab.
ARM: Excuse me, you're not contending with the reality that he is out there defending the actions of religious extremists who carry out terror his name. I just got done condemning stupid Republican who are making stupid comments about Muslims. My boss is Muslim. I work at a leading public policy think tank in the American Right.
SETMAYER: Do Donald Trump now.
ARM: I am doing Donald Trump now.
SETMAYER: No, you're not.
ARM: Donald Trump gets it right when he calls Abdul El-Sayed, someone who is sympathetic jihadists.
SETMAYER: Did Donald Trump get it right with the Muslim ban that was unconstitutional? Did he get it right when he --
ARM: We are not talking about the Muslim ban.
SETMAYER: Wait a minute.
ARM: That was in 2017.
SETMAYER: You just got very animated. You got very animated. You're very upset about these things that were -- the comments that were made.
ARM: I sure am.
SETMAYER: But you are not that upset when Donald Trump does it. I'm not understanding. He actually --
ARM: Well, you'll have to forgive me because Donald Trump didn't try to ram an explosive-laden truck into a synagogue with 140 preschoolers in it in my hometown. That was the guy who Abdul El-Sayed was associating with.
SETMAYER: Fine. Fair.
BERMAN: One at a time.
SETMAYER: But just -- but where is that smoke for Donald Trump when he --
ARM: What? I have it. I'll provide it. I'll give it to you.
SETMAYER: You just did not. When he instituted a Muslim ban unconstitutionally, it was one of the first things --
ARM: That was in 2017. It's not the topic we're talking about.
SETMAYER: It was one of the first things he did but he still did it. Okay.
ARM: It wasn't a religious ban. It was a --
(CROSSTALKS) BERMAN: Guys, I'm going to do, we're going to do one at a time, else we're going to go to break here. So, Tara, you first. Go ahead.
SETMAYER: Thank you. The Muslim ban, the shithole countries, the attacks on Somalis and their religion and all the -- Ilhan Omar. You can disagree with her --
ARM: When did Trump attack Somalis' religion?
BERMAN: Hang on. Go ahead, Tara, finish.
SETMAYER: I mean, my God.
ARM: You're getting things wrong, Tara.
SETMAYER: You guys don't want to listen because you're hypocrites.
ARM: No, you're just getting the facts wrong time and again.
SETMAYER: And so you try to over talk me because you don't want to hear the truth about the fact that you are not willing to call Donald Trump out the exact same way.
[22:25:00]
ARM: What did Donald Trump say about Somalis' religion? What did Donald Trump say about Somalis' religion?
BERMAN: Okay, ten seconds then we'll go around the table.
SETMAYER: You're going to nitpick us.
BERMAN: Jesse, go ahead.
SETMAYER: You're going to nitpick us about him going after Somalis and Muslims and if he --
ARM: I yield my time back to Tara to ask what Donald Trump said about Somalia's religion.
SETMAYER: Oh, thank you. Oh, I appreciate you finally shutting up so I can actually get a sentence out. Like I'm not going to give you credit for just being quiet so I can finish. Go ahead. We'll go on.
BERMAN: All right.
EGBEWOLE: Okay.
SETMAYER: since you can't seem to answer straight.
EGBEWOLE: I want to look at it politically that Abdul does have to do some work with the Jewish voters that are in Michigan. We know that he has to do work with rural working class voters. We know that he has to do work with black voters. I think he's going to do that work. I hope Mallory McMorrow, who has talked about the anti-Semitism that her husband faced, who has talked about how the Temple Israel attack had such an impact on her, is going to be able to help facilitate those conversations. I hope he's able to come to some middle about this.
I also want to point out his opponent, Mike Rogers, is running a lot of ads on fear, the idea that people will be scared of Abdul. And I think people are more tired than they are scared right now. I mean, this really is the environment for a Democrat, even a Democrat that I didn't support in the primary, that I think might not be as competitive as a Haley Stevens, I think could really ride a wave that is a lot of the economic angst that people are feeling.
RANTZ: But the fear is coming from the Jewish community in that state who understand what it is he stands for and understand and have seen over and over and over again him defending, using as a surrogate, Hasan Piker, like they're aware of that. And even after all the conversations came forward, even after they aired all these clips about the awful things that Hasan Piker has said, not even years ago, but recently, and he will not condemn any of that.
EGBEWOLE: I will say I do think he needs to break his relationship with Hasan, because every day that he spends having to talk about Hasan's comments is another day he's not spending actually running his campaign. And I do think that's a concern.
RANTZ: I will say he also has to be held to account for choosing to associate with him.
SETMAYER: That's fair.
BERMAN: I want to say just one thing, because you brought up the Jewish community in Michigan, as did you. Tim Scott is not a member of the Jewish community in Michigan, who has repeatedly in Democrat Republican Senate ads, repeatedly using Abdul El-Sayed's full name, you know, Abdulrahman, you know, et cetera, et cetera, and let's just what Tim Scott, how Tim Scott defended using the full name there.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Abdulrahman Mohammed El-Sayed, the most radical Senate candidate in America.
EL-SAYED: I'm pretty (BLEEP) dangerous.
MANU RAJU, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You're using his full name in these attack ads, which has gotten some attention, Abdulrahman Mohammed El-Sayed. He goes by Abdul El-Sayed. Are you trying to say hint, to voters he's Muslim?
SEN. TIM SCOTT (R-SC): Not at all. What we're saying to -- what we're only saying to voters is a simple thing. He says he's the most -- he says he's the most dangerous candidate you can find. He's right. We should trust his words, not ours.
RAJU: But do you -- why not just use his name, Abdul El-Sayed, which he goes by?
SCOTT: Well, listen, I go by Timothy Eugene, and so I get called that all the time. Here's what I know about that question. It's about what he stands for.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: I have never heard of Tim Scott referred to as Timothy Eugene in a campaign ad.
STANAGE: I mean, look, and I don't know how he says that with a straight face, honestly. The idea that using Tim Scott's full name unabbreviated is equivalent to using Abdul El-Sayed's full name is just ludicrous. It is obviously in El-Sayed's case an appeal to anti- Muslim, anti-Arab sentiment.
And I just wanted to pick up on something --
RANTZ: People didn't know he was Muslim --
STANAGE: Yes, (INAUDIBLE), because she rightly talked about the fact that El-Sayed has some work to do. Had Haley Stevens won that primary, she would also have had work to do, particularly with Arab Americans in the state that has the highest per capita population of Arab Americans in the country, who believe that the Biden administration disgraced itself on Gaza --
ARM: She would have had less work to do because she'd have all the Muslims voting for her.
STANAGE: Purported concerns for human rights, all the while shoveling weapons to Mr. Netanyahu with which to kill 70,000 Palestinians.
ARM: Okay, here we go.
RANTZ: But it always goes back to the Jews, like every single time, which is a perfect example of like some of what you're talking about, like the coded language and whatnot. El-Sayed has brought up AIPAC, and brings it up absolutely every single time he can, because he wants to talk about the Jews. And the people that you're talking about that Haley Stevens would need --
STANAGE: He brings up AIPAC because they support the most right wing government in the history of the state of Israel.
ARM: Oh, my God. Okay.
(CROSSTALKS)
ARM: Dude, chill. We understand that Ireland cares a lot about Palestine, but a pause for one here, all right?
STANAGE: Because we don't want people in Michigan --
BERMAN: Hang on. Hang on. We're going to do this. Ten seconds are on the table, then we have to go to break, ten.
ARM: People in Michigan are actually scared of Abdul El-Sayed not because of Israel or whatever. No one cares about Israel. He's going to rip away Obamacare. He's going to rip away private health insurance from the 66 percent of Americans who have it. They ran a campaign Rashida Tlaib was attacking Haley Stevens for collecting support from General Mills and General Motors. Michiganders don't like the sound of that, anti-business politics.
STANAGE: To the contrary, a lot of these claims are made to distract from what El-Sayed is standing for on an economic basis.
ARM: Oh, boy, Jews again.
[22:30:00]
STANAGE: Can I finish, please? He stands for Medicare for all, which has polled well for years --
ARM: Which would eliminate private health insurance.
BERMAN: Just let him talk, and then we're going over here.
STANAGE: He stands for the reduction of money in politics, which people of all kinds of ideology agree with, and those kinds of appeals to improve people's economic lives is why he won.
BERMAN: Last word on that.
RANTZ: He won the primary by the skin of his teeth, despite the fact that he was supposed to lead by about 10 to 13 points, depending on the poll, because people realized what he stood for, and they rejected it, which is precisely why Democrats are saying privately, they are not going to do this on T.V., that he's going to lose, which makes it even more difficult for the Democrats to take back the Senate. In fact, now Republicans might even pick up a seat.
All right, we have much more to discuss.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez trying to laugh off the left's woke positions. Problem is, she was echoing some of them. We'll discuss.
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[22:35:00]
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BERMAN: As Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez does not rule out a potential 2028 run, the New York Congresswoman is trying to kind of shrug off her woke era. In an interview this weekend, AOC addressed past comments made by Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong, who in 2020 urged Americans to cancel Thanksgiving.
Hong stood by her position during a recent CNN interview.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FRANCESCA HONG (D), WISCONSIN GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: I'm a chef, and one of the first meals that I made that was for the community when I was 16 was a Thanksgiving meal. But Thanksgiving is also a time that's incredibly painful for many people in our communities. And so I think there, I wanted to make sure that people understood that there are multiple views.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: Hong, a Democratic Socialist, is facing a primary election tomorrow. She's since reversed course on wanting to scrap the holiday. When asked about Hong's stance and her own past controversial statements, AOC was quick to brush them off.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D-NY): My understanding is that Francesca Hong has made clear her present stances to her election. She's moved away from it.
JONATHAN KARL, "THIS WEEK" CO-HOST: Right, she's moved away from it.
OCASIO-CORTEZ: And I have a local city councilman that has this saying, woke one was crazy.
KARL: Woke one was crazy.
OCASIO-CORTEZ: And I think that what's important is that we have to assess what.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: So is that how it works?
EGBEWOLE: We just giggle and we forget is what AOC is saying. However, there were people like Francesca Hong, who adapted to a lot of that rhetoric and fully believe it. And she's leading a campaign with that as her values.
I think Francesca Hong is a deeply unserious person. I think we've all but lost Wisconsin if she wins this primary over David Crowley. I sincerely hope people in Wisconsin choose differently.
RANTZ: I don't, to be clear.
EGBEWOLE: She is a reflection of the way, we're laughing now, but this is the way a lot of people were talking. White women were apologizing to me about their own whiteness. And so Francesca Hong saying her proximity to whiteness and her biracial son makes her uncomfortable.
Quite frankly, if we take that and put it in 2019, it all kind of gels and fits together.
RANTZ: Which is why it's just so ironic to hear AOC talk about woke 1.0 as if number one, she wasn't a part of it when she obviously was and she's trying to rewrite history. But woke 2.0 is just as bad. They've maybe adapted some of the language that they use.
And they've adopted some of the really easy strategic media moves to say, well, no, I've evolved from that position. The question then becomes for anyone who says woke 1.0 was crazy, was too, okay, tell us what specifically.
Tell us what positions were too far to one side. Was it the defunding the police? Because you'll still get the same answer out of a lot of these folks. They'll just give it in a slightly different way, but their end result is exactly the same.
ARM: Well, this is the thing, right? I actually give Francesca Hong a little bit of credit. I mean, unlike AOC, she's moderated her position on Thanksgiving. She's really come around and sort of embraced the middle of the road perspective that Thanksgiving is good and delicious.
But to AOC, I would ask the question, if woke 1.0 was crazy, well, which priors did you hold during woke 1.0 that you no longer subscribe to? Do you believe that children should not be able to have sex change operations anymore? Do you believe that biological men should not be able to participate in women's sports? Do you disavow defunding the police, not prosecuting repeat offenders, the border policies of the first Biden administration?
These are all very good questions because I haven't heard her change her mind on much of anything from woke 1.0.
SETMAYER: So this is the culture war trap that Democrats are going to fall into if they don't disavow the woke 1.0 crazy. This is the problem.
We all remember watching football in 2024 and every ad during the commercial breaks was all about they/them, it was about transgender sex operations in prisons and trying to tie Kamala Harris to all of these things. And people went, wait, what? We're not okay with that.
This is a distraction. This is why Democrats need to disavow those types of things and not go down that culture war trap, because regular everyday average Americans look at these conversations and say, what do you mean?
[22:40:03]
We're going to talk about canceling Thanksgiving now. That's kind of how we got here because people rejected that.
And the moderates and the, you know, center right and left people that you need to win in places like Wisconsin, which are really important. The governor's race in Wisconsin is really important. Donald Trump is coming for our elections.
And in 2028, if you want them to be secure and you want people that are in positions that can make sure that our elections aren't, yes, because it's happening.
BERMAN: Is it Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez trying? Is that what she's doing here is trying to correct whether she's succeeding or not is one thing.
STANAGE: One of the things we need to be aware of here is politics. There are pendulum swings in politics, right?
When the woke movement arose, it was people awakening themselves to the fact that there was in fact a history of all kinds of racial injustices, gender injustices, and other disparities in this country. The people who marched on behalf of George Floyd after he was murdered, were woke in the positive sense of that term.
Now, it may well be that there were certain things that overshot. But it also got hijacked by people who don't want to talk about those underlying racial disparities that still exist that we haven't fixed. And they are often disparaged as woke by people who don't want to talk about it at all.
SEMAYER: There's ways to talk about it.
Well, there's ways you can talk about it without having to bring in some of these crazier extreme views. And that's the problem.
BERMAN: Is there a credible way where someone who pretty much wants to be president, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, or may want to be president, is there a credible way where she can modulate or moderate here?
RANTZ: No, there's none. Because the base right now, at least right now, the base of the Democratic Party expects some of the wokeness, whether it's woke 1.0 or woke 2.0. And if she doesn't go with that, then a more mainstream Democrat candidate is going to be able to --
EGBEWOLE: I think they actually want to pull away from identity. I really do think they're working on that.
RANTZ: I don't think the base does.
EGBEWOLE: Even Mamdani, when he was confronted about a lot of his tweets, what did he say? Yes, I tweeted it. It was dumb. I'm going to keep NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tish, I actually do believe that criminals need to belong in prison.
Look, Francesca Hong, if she wants to believe that Thanksgiving and its proximity to whiteness is genocidal, that's fine. But you've got to live in Bushwick to do that. You cannot live in Wisconsin.
ARM: That's my big point. You're talking about they don't want to contend with racial disparities or whatever.
I've got news for you. 75 percent of black voters in my home state of Michigan voted against your boy, Abdul El-Sayed, and voted for the moderate who you thought was bad because of AIPAC or whatever.
Okay, so the base of the Democratic Party is the black voters who have been showing out for the Democrats for a long time.
And they're getting left behind for the people who want to de-center the story about blacks and their struggle for freedom in the Democratic Party and make it instead about a bigger party.
SETMAYER: Please do not let her off the top deck. Please don't let her off the top deck.
BERMAN: I'm going to cite one other non-African American who's talking about the African American vote. Rahm Emanuel just tonight is pointing out that the African American vote is showing out actually in disproportionately large numbers in these primaries.
RANTZ: For the people that are losing.
BERMAN: They're showing up in large numbers in primaries, not just Michigan. They're showing up in other states as well.
RANTZ: Yes, but that point is they're showing up for the folks who don't end up winning.
BERMAN: We'll see what happens in November. But that is obviously a key part of the Democratic electorate. We'll see which way they go.
Next, he used to be one of the president's closest allies and advisors. Now, Chris Christie says the president is becoming his worst nightmare, the president's own worst nightmare, Jimmy Carter. That's ahead.
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[22:45:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BERMAN: Has Donald Trump become the one president he never wanted to be all because of Iran and the economy? Chris Christie thinks so.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), FORMER NEW JERSEY GOVERNOR: What struck me was that Donald Trump is about to become what he never ever wanted to be, Jimmy Carter.
He is being held hostage by Iran. They are holding the Strait of Hormuz hostage. As a result, they're holding the world economy hostage.
And it's focused at Donald Trump. And I know from talking to him over the last 24 years, the one person he would never want to be is Jimmy Carter.
KARL: Jimmy Carter. Talk to him about Jimmy Carter, too.
CHRISTIE: And so here we are. And it was all voluntary.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: You hit him right in the Carter there. We already talked about Iran, so I actually want to look at the economic angle of this first, if we can.
There's a poll Gallup last week put out a poll that asked if Americans think it's a worse find, good or bad time to find a quality job right now.
And if you look at this right in January of 2025, 45 percent said it was a bad time to find a quality job, 48 percent good. Now it's 63 percent say it's a bad time to find a quality job. 33 percent say it's a good one.
Now, here's the thing. This doesn't ask whether it is a good time or a bad time. It's whether you think it's a good time or a bad time.
This is the feels, and that was Jimmy Carter's problem. It was the feels. So are we moving into this zone now where Donald Trump is being plagued by the feels?
[22:50:02]
EGBEWOLE: It's the jobs report that came out last week and the White House kept saying, but it's 4.1 percent unemployment.
Like, look, I worked in the White House. I know it's like when you're trying to sell inflation and go, but look at it internationally. And people down in Alabama are like, what does it matter what's happening in the E.U. on inflation?
I'm talking about what's happening right here. And it doesn't matter if you're at 4.1 percent unemployment, I am sending out applications for jobs every single day. And it is unfair when you're giving statistics to be given back just feelings but that's what you really sign up for.
RANTZ: That's a political issue, right? I mean, at the end of it, feelings don't always match up with reality.
Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. And this case, it's a little bit of a mixed bag. I mean, you can look at the economy, you can see growth is clearly there, we're seeing actually better jobs being created right now with higher wages.
Now, does that matter when you put it? Well, it's still exceeding. We're still seeing wages exceed inflation.
EGBEWOLE: No, we're not.
RANTZ: I'm saying overall, it's clearly going in the right direction. But there are aspects that aren't.
And when you get this close to a midterm and you are getting hammered with political ads and coverage in media, it's going to create a feeling that doesn't always completely match with everything. And that is a problem for the Republicans and for Donald Trump right now.
SETMAYER: Well, the bottom line is not just feelings. Also, the facts matter as well. Record farm bankruptcies, jobs numbers are not great, despite what people are saying.
The economy is not as great. You know, Donald Trump constantly talks about the stock market. But, you know, the majority of Americans, that doesn't matter to them.
But here's the thing. Perception is reality. Perception is reality in politics.
Just ask what happened to the Democrats and Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in 2024 when inflation was down to 2.9 percent in October, which should have been a crowning achievement because it was down from nine percent in 2022 under Biden. But it didn't matter, people didn't feel it.
So you have Donald Trump out here claiming that affordability is a hoax. He's over here bragging and saying, well, the polling numbers that they're mad at Republicans are not mad at me. He's delusional.
And so this is why Republicans are panicking, because Donald Trump is too busy focusing on vanity projects and other things and a war of choice. And people are very upset about that, including his own base, who he has betrayed on every single issue. He promised them in the election.
STANAGE: And John, let me just pick up on Tara's point there, because one of the reasons that Trump was elected was this idea that he would lower prices. Now, the inflation had more or less flatlined until to get back to where we started.
He decided to go to war with Iran. Oil prices go up, gas prices go up, inflationary pressures go up. Inflation goes up.
So he has, to Tara's point, betrayed those voters who voted for him primarily on that topic. He simply hasn't delivered. And the reason he hasn't delivered, the reason it has, in fact, gone in the opposite direction is a decision he made.
He didn't need to make it, but he decided he would go to war with Iran. And here we are.
ARM: You all are making a pretty good argument for nominating some non-controversial moderate Democrats this midterm election cycle. And by the way, where you are doing that, you're polling quite well.
James Talarico in Texas, Josh Turek in Iowa.
EGBEWOLE: That's right.
ARM: It's not an endorsement, but it begs the question from previously, right? Like, so why run with Abdul El-Sayed? Why run with Francesca Hong? It's a crazy, politically suicidal thing to do.
RANTZ: This is why Republicans aren't panicked the way that people are claiming. They're looking at the numbers, and they're obviously not pleased with the direction, but this idea that they're panicked, no, they're salivating at the idea of going up against El-Sayed and Hong and all these others who they can very easily paint as the future of the party.
BERMAN: Going back, if people can remember way back to, like, you know, 10:15 on our broadcast, when El-Sayed was responding to the president calling him a jihadist, he talked about this really doesn't do anything to your grocery prices.
Now, he insulted the President's marriage, is what he did in response to that. No, he did, and then he talked about the grocery prices, and then he talked about a noun and a verb in AIPAC.
Hang on, he didn't talk about AIPAC in that answer, but just is groceries a response to what these guys are talking about with the attacks that Democrats are seeing right now?
SETMAYER: Yes, because if you're explaining you're losing, and everyone knows that in crisis comms, so, you know, he does have baggage that he has to overcome. However, the pivot to the economy and how that's impacting people's lives is the way to do it. You have to control the conversation, because Republicans are going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in this midterm.
Democrats have to be prepared for that messaging battle, and that's going to matter.
BERMAN: Next, we are going to react to all of your feedback, no doubt, substantially positive, that you wrote in on cnn.com/abby.
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[22:55:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BERMAN: Now, some quick viewer feedback from cnn.com/abby.
On the plane story tonight, we had one person write in saying, MAGA would mock Biden for doing this. Fair? Would MAGA mock Biden for going into the catering cart to get to the other plane?
RANTZ: I think it's the Democrats who are mocking Trump, so I don't know if they're in a good position to throw this in the face of MAGA. I think some MAGA members -- you can always find someone making fun of someone else.
That's always going to be the case, especially.
ARM: Yes, MAGA would mock Biden for literally anything. Have you seen Biden? Have you seen MAGA? Very mockable.
BERMAN: And then finally, we have one more note here.
[23:00:01]
Ms. Egbewole must have nerves of steel. From home all the hand gesturing on either side of her look like they might take out an eye.
STANAGE: So it's Irish excitement, you know. We have to speak with our hands to some extent.
EGBEWOLE: I loved it.
BERMAN: You survived it. You go home with all your eyes.
Thank you all for being here. It was great to see you all. It's nice to be up this late at night.
I'm going to be back in about, oh, was it say nine hours? No, it's like seven hours, six hours. 7 A.M. tomorrow morning for "CNN News Central." "Laura Coates Live" starts now.
