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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Trump Attacks More U.S. Allies, Compliments Nuclear Nemesis; Trump Threatens to Bomb the S**t Out of U.S. Ally Oman; MAGA Unleashes on Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) After Dig About Trump And His Aide; Todd Blanche Declines To Pledge The Justice Department Independent From The Trump White House. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired August 17, 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, a world order upended.
REPORTER: You said you would bomb the S out of Oman.
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: Well, I don't think they behaved really well.
PHILLIP: Donald Trump praises allies while praising a nuclear nemesis.
TRUMP: Kim Jong-un has always treated me with great respect.
PHILLIP: Plus --
SEN. JON OSSOFF (D-GA): He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace. Gifted by the emir of Qatar.
PHILLIP: -- a rising Democratic star strikes a nerve with MAGA.
TRUMP: You mean Pee-Wee Herman?
PHILLIP: Also, Donald Trump's new law man refuses to say he'll be independent of the president.
TODD BLANCHE, ATTORNEY GENERAL: No, I'm not going to pledge that, and no attorney general should ever pledge that.
PHILLIP: Is Todd Blanche's answer outrageous or practical?
And after Trump asks the Supremes to let him build his ballroom, he deploys another adjective for anyone opposed.
TRUMP: Very, very disloyal to our country.
PHILLIP: Live at the table, Keith Boykin, Bill Stepien, Dina Doll, Arthur Aidala, Reena Ninan, and Stacy Schneider. Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here, they do.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIP (on camera): Good evening, I'm Abby Phillip in New York.
Tonight, President Trump takes the phrase, keep your friends close, but your enemies closer to heart. Well, at least that second part, he is days away from launching new tariffs against Canada. He's threatened to bomb Oman (ph), and now he's saying that he's scaling back joint U.S. military drills with our ally, South Korea. Those drills have been conducted for over 70 years in an effort to deter North Korean aggression. And yet, today, he is also fawning over North Korea's dictator leader.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Why hasn't Kim Jong-un responded to your request to have a conversation?
TRUMP: How do you know he has a response?
REPORTER: Has he?
TRUMP: Yes, he has.
I understand him, he understands me. You're doing war games. I get along with him. You know, he didn't like Biden, he didn't like Obama, he didn't like anybody. But I get along with him very well.
Now, what I'm doing is making things safer.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Now, this weekend, Trump said that the reason for this pause was his good relationship with Kim Jong-un, and he also criticized the costs of the exercises, and that they sent a totally inappropriate and hostile signal to North Korea, who he says has been unthreatening and respectful.
But he also said that this isn't the only reason for his decision.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: When I called him, I said, would you like to give us a little hand? We don't need help with Iran. But if you'd like, give us a hand with Iran. He said, no thanks. And I said, wait a minute, we have 39,000 soldiers over there guarding you from Kim Jong-un, your next door neighbor, and you're not going to help us on a very easy military operation in Iran? That's strange. No, no, we'd rather not get involved. I say, well, why are we involved in helping you? So --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Now, before we open it up to the table here, we want to invite you at home to join our debate. Head to cnn.com/abby. Weigh in there. We'll get to some of your comments throughout the show.
Now, Reena, I can't tell, actually, which of the two things it is. Is it that he just loves Kim Jong-un so much, or is he mad that South Korea didn't help him out on Iran?
REENA NINAN, FOREIGN AFFAIRS ANALYST: I think it's a little bit of that, and it's the unreliability factor that he loves. He loves throwing these wild things into the air, and moments where he needs to sort of back away from the conversation in Iran, for instance.
Remember, he tried this in his first administration. It didn't go well, right? The one person, I think, who's actually had traction on North Korea is Dennis Rodman. And I think that's been a long time ago. You guys remember when you went out to North Korea, got a little bit of, what did he get in the end? Nothing.
And I think it's the same road that Trump is going to go down, because this is not an easy bargain to do. You don't have your enemies suddenly turn and become friends. You've got to show leverage, and it doesn't seem like he has any right now.
PHILLIP: This just seems like the wrong fight to be picking, Bill. Why?
BILL STEPIEN, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Let me read this headline from CNN. U.S. and South Korea scale back joint military drills to reduce tension with North Korea. That was from tonight. No, it was from 2019. This is in line with what's been done before.
[22:05:00]
PHILLIP: That was the last time Trump did this.
STEPIEN: Done before. We now have a new president of South Korea, who has a very different vision of how to deal with North Korea. It's not to fight. It's to proceed with peace talks and disarmament. And military exercises in the DMZ would be -- fly completely in the face of that.
PHILLIP: But it's not that Trump is saying, oh, let's work with South Korea to take a different strategy. He is attacking South Korea and praising North Korea, which last time I checked is still a nuclear- armed dictatorship.
STEPIEN: Look, this is in line with past policy. I believe it's in line with where South Korea is today. That's the fact.
ARTHUR AIDALA, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: There's not a doubt in my mind. He has pissed off that South Korea refused to help, but I ran. If you look at his first campaign, President Trump's second campaign and his third campaign, he had been very consistent. We're only going to help those who help us. Why are we helping everybody around the world and they're not helping us? And now he makes a specific ask. We need -- I mean, he played it down here. It's an easy war. We need a little help over there. Do you want to help? They say no. Okay, no problem.
Look, Donald Trump, any of us New Yorkers know, he comes out with all of his negotiating skills, whether it's real estate, casinos, beauty pageants. He comes out like the guns of Navarone. He comes out with, like you just said, making crazy statements, trying to chin it all up, and he's done it.
NINAN: But he's going to look crazier when nothing happens. We know we've gone down this road multiple presidents, right, because they're dumb. They understand that this trajectory takes policy, and there's no policy behind this.
DINA DOLL, MEIDASTOUCH HOST: I mean, I think the timing, this is less about South Korea and more about North Korea. The fact that this happened right is the 60-day Iran --
PHILLIP: You mean Iran?
DOLL: Yes.
PHILLIP: More about Iran?
DOLL: No, more about North Korea and Iran, because he desperately does not want North Korea to help Iran as they have helped Russia. And he knows the 60-day deal with Iran is just expired. He knows it's going to get worse.
PHILLIP: So, you think he's trying to sweeten up North Korea?
DOLL: Yes, he's trying to. And that shows that the footing we're on, how poor it is, that he is trying to cozy up to North Korea to get them to not help Iran. This shows that his policy is failing. It's not so much about South Korea.
PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, I do think the Iran piece is super important in all of this, because at the same time that he's making these threats about our relationship with South Korea, he's also threatening our ally, Oman. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: This morning you said you would bomb the S out of Oman if they got in the way of reopening the Strait of Hormuz. Would you say you're out of patience with Oman, a strategic --
TRUMP: No, I don't think they behaved very well, but we handle them very easily, just like we do other things.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: I mean, to Dina's point, it's been 60 days. Nothing has happened. The Strait of Hormuz is still effectively closed. Iran still has the nuclear material in its possession. They are hardening. It is an embarrassment of that policy.
KEITH BOYKIN, FORMER CLINTON WHITE HOUSE AIDE: The policy is a failure, as Dina mentioned, and what's going on right now is that Trump has a foreign policy based on personalities and payoffs, not about principle. And American foreign policy historically, allegedly, was about principle. Trump doesn't care about principle. You say it like it's a good thing. He's acting like a mob boss.
But I think, honestly, the American people and people of the world want leadership that's consistent from the American president. They want us to stand up with our allies, not just Oman. He was threatening Spain and other allies, NATO allies, just because they don't agree with everything he said.
AIDALA: He said Canada's going to be the 51st state.
BOYKIN: Canada, Greenland, all the different threats. That's not effective strategy. This is a guy who came in and said he's going to resolve the war in Ukraine. He was going to resolve all these issues very quickly once he became president. He's failed to do so.
AIDALA: (INAUDIBLE) the president of the United States twice.
BOYKIN: I'm sorry?
AIDALA: It's also made him the president of the United States twice. That's a fact.
BOYKIN: And that's not a good thing, the fact he's been president twice.
AIDALA: Well, I mean, it's a good thing for him. It's a good -- some people agree with his policies. Half the country or a majority of the country --
BOYKIN: 77 million people is not half the country.
PHILLIP: He has made him president of the United States twice because, you know, he ran on America first. We weren't going to get into the foreign wars. We weren't going to be fighting battles in the Middle East. We weren't going to be trying to do regime change. That's the antithesis of how he's governing right now.
AIDALA: Well, I think if you ask him -- you don't have to ask him. He said it. He said he thinks that Iran, who has been our number one enemy since the 1970s, if they have a nuclear weapon, it's going to put Americans in peril. It's going to put clearly Israel, the only democratic state in that area, in peril. And it's going to put all of Western Europe, if those nuclear weapons can go that far.
So, he would argue, and he has argued, that I'm doing this to protect America.
STEPIEN: I would disagree that nothing is happening.
[22:10:00]
Ten days ago, Turkey, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia signed a deal where if you attack one of us, you attack all three of us. PHILLIP: Okay.
STEPIEN: Three days ago, 14 countries, including Saudi Arabia, signed a coalition agreement. A, we want to secure global trade in the region. Two, we want to reduce foreign dependence on security. Things are happening. This is -- Trump has asked people to step up.
PHILLIP: Well, what's happening vis-a-vis the actual goal of this war, which is stopping Iran from being a maligned actor in terms of ballistic missiles in the region, proxy sponsorships of terrorism and nuclear weapons? What's happened on --
STEPIEN: Shame is not going to come from Washington. Shame is going to come from the Middle East.
PHILLIP: Oh, but suddenly.
BOYKIN: Donald Trump started this war because he thought he was going to impose Trump's Pax Americana on Iran. He was going to force them to come to the table.
PHILLIP: Well, let me play -- I mean, this was J.D. Vance. Let me just play -- this is June 18th. This is after they signed the memorandum of understanding. Here's what he said was going to happen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
J.D. VANCE, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: I think the president's peace plan in Iran is already bearing real fruits for the American people. Oil prices are down nearly at their level from the pre-war conflict. Gas prices dropped below $4 a gallon today for the first time since the conflict. And, importantly, they're going to keep falling further given how low oil prices are.
The Iranians, for the second night in a row, did not shoot at any ships in the Strait of Hormuz so far. They are honoring their end of the commitment.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: I mean, he's telling us that this is the beginning of a beautiful peace with Iran effectively. None of these things have happened. Gas prices are still high. Iran is still shooting at ships. There have been literally two tankers moving through that area. Three commercial ships moving through the Strait of Hormuz in 24 hours, used to be 100, over 100 per day. Nothing has changed except the reports that Iran is hardening.
STEPIEN: What's changed is Iran's greatest weapon is not a missile, it's time. They're trying to wait this thing out. Today, you heard Trump say something very different. He said, I do not have a timetable. I'm not in a hurry. That tells me he's looking for something.
PHILLIP: He's been saying that, though, right?
STEPIEN: Well, he's been setting timetables.
PHILLIP: He's been saying that, setting timetables. He's been giving them offers of peace, Reena. And then he's been backing off at them because even though he's saying those things, he's acting like he does care, that there's a midterm election coming up, that the gas prices are high, that he really does need this thing to be wrapped up.
NINAN: Yes. I mean, one of the greatest things for this war is that now Americans know where the Strait of Hormuz is. You open up your credit card statements and there's a Strait of Hormuz. It's your energy bills. It's your gas bills. I did a family vacation to Maine, and gas was almost $5. I mean, you are feeling it, and Americans are feeling it, and people are starting to ask questions.
You know, you take your kid to a little league game or something. People are feeling it. They're talking about it in the sidelines of games. And I think Americans have reached their limit on this. And I think that is -- he has entered the quicksand of the Middle East. It's very hard to get out.
PHILLIP: And Iranians, I mean, to Bill's point, I mean, I think you're right, yes, they are playing a time game, right? Who's winning that game?
NINAN: Well, I think who's winning is Iran. And I think going back to the point of Oman, most people might not realize what a strategic importance this country is in negotiations for Washington over administrations, not just for the Trump administration. They are like the hotline to Iran, only because they have leverage on both -- understanding on both sides. It's like having a homeowner who owns the driveway, right? Everybody's got to go through that driveway. They've got access to the Strait of Hormuz.
So, to say what Trump has said to Oman is just not only out of line, it is not in U.S. interests.
PHILLIP: All right, we've got to leave it there. Reena, thank you very much for joining us.
Next for us, a remark from a Democratic senator touched a MAGA nerve. Why Jon Ossoff's dig at Trump and his aide is sparking anger tonight. Another special guest is going to be joining us at the table.
Plus, Todd Blanche says that the DOJ shouldn't be independent of the White House. Is that fair or scandalous? We'll debate.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:15:00]
PHILLIP: A rising Democratic star is getting under MAGA's skin after picking a fight with President Trump over one of his closest aides.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OSSOFF: And while the sailors on the Lincoln fight his war, while he fruitlessly drains our munitions and oil reserves, the president sleeps through his meetings. He golfs and trades stocks. See, he doesn't want to do the job. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: That was Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff named dropping Trump's executive assistant Natalie Harp. Harp has emerged as one of President Trump's most trusted personal aides, who frequently travels with him. And when Trump secretly switched planes following a security threat last month, Harp was one of just a handful of aides who joined him.
And as you can imagine, the White House lost it over Ossoff's comments. Trump's communications director called the senator the biggest cuck loser in politics. A White House spokesperson cast Ossoff as a cringe-worthy feminine theater kid, and even Trump today weighed in.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Yesterday, Jon Ossoff said you'd rather travel with your aide, Natalie Harp, and build the ballroom than do your job as president.
[22:20:01]
What is your response to Jon Ossoff?
TRUMP: You mean Pee-Wee Herman, Pee-Wee Herman lookalike? No, I would much rather do other things. It's a -- we're building a great facility here. We're fixing a White House that hasn't been taken care of.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Stacy Schneider is with us at the table now. Now, Stacy, just a little primer for our audience if you don't know who Natalie Harp is, she is what we call a personal aide. Follow the president around, you hand him -- if he needs a pen, you hand him a pen. If he needs some tweets or something to put on social media, you hand him that.
Here's what Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan wrote about her role. They say, Harp wrote Trump adoring letters that she left in his personal spaces, including one that read, you are all that matters to me. And Trump has taken to telling his staff that Natalie was the only one who loved him as much as his wife and kids. All of you will go off and make money, he would say. She'll never leave me.
So, that's the context, if you don't know. What do you make of Ossoff's comments and the reaction to it?
STACY SCHNEIDER, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR, U.S. NEWS AND WORLD REPORT: I think Ossoff went too far actually. Trump has been known from the beginning of time, including his television show, his business at the Trump organization, his involvement in beauty pageants. He always surrounds himself with attractive young women. And for somebody running for office to make that an issue amongst all the other problems to point that out, I can think of a lot more complaints about Trump than him traveling with a young aide.
So, I think it was sort of below the bar. But then, again, the White House's reaction was kind of despicable. It was like a bunch of frat boys defending the frat house president and lobbying these names, calling him a Dumocrat and all the other things, the thing about the theatrical -- feminine theatrical boy. It's embarrassing that White House spokespeople are behaving this way to defend the president.
BOYKIN: I really disagree with you, Stacy, but I think you're wrong on this one. He mentioned one word, the first name of Natalie Harp. He didn't even mention her last name. He didn't talk about her directly. He mentioned the fact that Trump would prefer to travel on his plane with her than to do the job he's supposed to do as president.
That's a factual statement. It's not below the belt, like Trump's attacks, repeated attacks on Donald Trump. The problem that Jon Ossoff is pointing out here is that Donald Trump is obsessed about the White House ballroom. He's obsessed about the Reflecting Pool. He's obsessed about the gold ornaments in the Oval Office. He's not obsessed about the American people paying $4 a gallon for gasoline. He's not obsessed about rising inflation. He's not doing anything about healthcare and jobs, the things that he's supposed to be taking care of. And that's the problem.
And I think that's what Jon Ossoff is pointing out here. I think he's exactly right to make that attack. Democrats are just not being defensive about this stuff and start fighting back hard because Trump doesn't play pussy foot. He plays hard. And we need to fight back as well.
SCHNEIDER: But it's a lame fight. Wouldn't you agree?
BOYKIN: It's not lame at all. Donald Trump --
SCHNEIDER: It was very strategic that he threw that name. And, look, there are a million things you could complain about.
BOYKIN: And he talked about all those things.
SCHNEIDER: But this put in the young woman --
BOYKIN: Well, don't take the bait, Stacy. Don't take the bait, Stacy. Just because he mentioned Natalie's name once --
SCHNEIDER: I feel like Trump took the bait.
BOYKIN: Well, Trump did take the bait.
SCHNEIDER: Trump took the bait, and that's their fault.
BOYKIN: But Jon Ossoff is doing exactly what Democrats need to do. They need to fight back hard and stop playing around and stop being defensive. DOLL: I mean, Trump made her an issue when he took her instead of Karoline Levitt, who clearly has a more important job. So, if anybody should be complaining about why she's a national figure, it's because of Trump's action, taking her to that decoy plane.
And Natalie Harp isn't just maybe his human printer, as they also call her. Evidently, she's kind of a gateway to a lot of information. And if you want information passed to him, so perhaps he stops liking somebody, evidently, she's the gate keeper. So, that makes her part of the conversation in a real way.
PHILLIP: So, let me play, this is Ossoff talking about his comments tonight and explaining a little bit more about what he meant. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OSSOFF: Well, I've heard this particular aid referred to as his security blanket. And I think we could say that about any number of the senior aides in the White House. They're not telling him what he needs to hear. They're telling him what he wants to hear.
And the president surrounded by enablers in the West Wing is playing golf, is trading stock, and is decorating his ballroom, it's a disgrace, all while American families in Georgia and across the country pay more for just about everything as a direct result of his failed economic policy and his failed foreign policy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So, he says what he was referring to was Harp's role as somebody who actually is there to kind of feed Trump things that he likes to hear, whether it's true or not.
I also wonder, Bill, why the freak out? I mean, I've rarely seen the White House in this kind of form. And I can imagine that some of it has to do with this is actually somebody who's legitimately very important to the president, which kind of speaks to what Jon Ossoff's saying.
[22:25:04]
STEPIEN: The follow-up there from the senator should have been an apology because I agree, it was below the belt.
The reason for the freak out --
BOYKIN: You worked for Donald Trump. You worked for Donald Trump. How do you say anything is below the belt when you worked for Donald Trump in the White House?
STEPIEN: The reason for the freak out by the Trump administration is because it was below the belt. Staff was drawn. Jon Ossoff --
BOYKIN: Donald Trump repeatedly goes below the belt.
STEPIEN: Excuse me. Jon Ossoff ran for office. Donald Trump ran for office, criticized them, put a spotlight on them, talked about them. She is a government staff.
BOYKIN: She was on the plane with them when they left Turkey.
STEPIEN: You just mentioned it. She was a private person.
DOLL: She's not a private person.
STEPIEN: Her name has never been on a ballot. She didn't invite us.
PHILLIP: You're describing her as a private person. She does work for the government.
STEPIEN: A lot of people work for the government.
BOYKIN: What about Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, were private people. Donald Trump attacked those election workers in Fulton County. They had no business being involved in his scandal. But Donald Trump brought them back.
STEPIEN: You want to talk about 2020?
BOYKIN: I want to talk about the fact that Donald Trump repeatedly for 30 years and definitely for the past ten years has attacked every single person. You work for him in the White House while he attacked people with attacks that are far lower than what Jon Ossoff said. All he did was mention one person's name.
And so for you to come here and have this fake outrage about Jon Ossoff --
STEPIEN: Jon Ossoff is better than this.
BOYKIN: You are better than this. You have credibility.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Speaking of taking the bait, okay, speaking of taking the bait, Jon Ossoff is running for Senate, okay, people. He is leading, it seems, in the latest poll that we use by a lot. So, he's kind of cruising, I guess, in the Senate race. And if I were a Jon Ossoff and I wanted to get a lot of attention, I would say something like this that would get me a lot of attention and get the White House to be talking about me for like 48 hours. So, who's taking the bait here?
AIDALA: Clearly, the president took the bait. When he was asked the question in the Oval Office, what do you think the most powerful thing he could have said is I don't think of Jon Ossoff. That's the most powerful thing he could say. He's meaningless to me. As you said, it's not even a close race. So, it's not like this neck and neck thing. The most powerful thing he could have said is I don't think of him and just moved on. But instead, I mean, the Pee-Wee Herman thing I thought was pretty good just because he's a handsome guy, but he does lean towards Pee-Wee.
But, look, I mean, this saddens me. You know, there's a clip on Facebook showing Barack Obama and John McCain and how when people ragged on each other, they both came to each other's defense and all the way down the road. Like those days are gone, unfortunately.
BOYKIN: (INAUDIBLE) Donald Trump.
AIDALA: So, this is not just Jon Ossoff.
BOYKIN: He's responsible for it though.
AIDALA: Yes. Anyone who says he's not out of their head in the sand.
But it's a shame that, look, and here's what I disagree with you on. Yes, he's obsessed about the ballroom, which he won't even use. It'll be his legacy. But you can't say he's not obsessed about Iran. You can't say affordability is just because of the war. Because my mayor, Mamdani, ran on affordability before there was any war. So, the affordability issue has been going on way before Iran.
BOYKIN: I didn't say it was just about the war. I said the fact that he's not focused on the issues the American people are concerned about. He cares more about the ballroom than he does about inflation or gas prices.
AIDALA: And he definitely cares about the gas prices. You know he cares about it. You know he's focused on the gas prices.
BOYKIN: Well, what is he doing about it? He's (INAUDIBLE) crisis with it?
DOLL: And also he says the gas prices are fine. So, that's actually not true that he's focused on the gas prices. He sleeps through literally every meeting. We see it in real time.
AIDALA: This is after Joe Biden? This is after Joe Biden? I never beat up on Joe Biden.
DOLL: Okay. Joe Biden was not sleeping in front of the public in every way.
AIDALA: We heard more from Donald Trump today than Joe Biden.
DOLL: I don't know why you are covering for somebody who's not even pretending. He's not pretending to be awake in those meetings.
PHILLIP: Well, I guess here's the thing. I think Trump was asked a question about these Ossoff comments and then he answered by saying, yes, I actually do want to build a ballroom. I mean, he didn't really beat the allegations, but that's where his head is in this moment. And, I mean, he is, I guess, as recently as Friday, said he's not going to apologize for the high gas prices.
I mean, this is --
AIDALA: Okay. Hold on. You got to flesh that out. I'm not apologizing for the gas prices because that's the cost of making America safe by taking nuclear weapons away from Iran. That's the --
BOYKIN: Which he hasn't done. AIDALA: Okay. But he's trying --
BOYKIN: And he ain't doing that.
AIDALA: Okay. But he's trying. I think it's not working. I would think that our troops who were there, I wouldn't offend them by saying they're not trying.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Stacy, let me ask you this, because today, the Supreme Court basically said, hey, Mr. Trump, you've got to actually pay that settlement to E. Jean Carroll. It just so happens that these things are happening right at the same moment.
[22:30:07]
I mean, Trump himself has this long history of allegations against him by women. He is on tape saying, you know, you can just grab them by their, you know what, you don't even have to ask. Is it legit for all these MAGA types to be clutching their pearls over Jon Ossoff saying he wants to be on a plane with Natalie?
SCHNEIDER: Yes, I mean, MAGA can be ridiculous about getting involved in, so a Democratic senator running for re-election makes a comment about Trump's personal life while he's in office and then they go wild and they have all these things to tweet about and comment about.
But do the Democrats really want to go there with that comment? I mean, that was my point from the beginning.
PHILLIP: Do they?
SCHNEIDER: Personal life?
PHILLIP: I mean, if Jon Ossoff has been getting attention, it seems to me, if you're a Democrat, for all the right things. He's talking about affordability, he's talking about corruption. Does it really help them to have even this conversation kind of overshadowing that?
BOYKIN: I don't think it overshadows, because I think he points out the contrast, that Trump is more focused on his personal life than he is on the public's life.
He's more focused on what satisfies him and brings him comfort than what brings comfort to the American people. He's more focused on his $400 million jet than he is on helping the American people have their lives taken care of. And I think those are the things that Jon Ossoff is pointing out in his statement.
STEPIEN: He's talking about Natalie.
BOYKIN: Yes, that's what I'm saying. That Natalie Harp was on the plane with Donald Trump.
But the fact that he mentioned that, and Donald Trump got so obsessed about it, shows exactly why Jon Ossoff was on the plane.
PHILLIP: By the way, --
BOYKIN: It shows exactly why --
PHILLIP: Karoline Leavitt was not on either of the planes. She was not on the first plane or the second plane.
DOLL: So it's not his personal life. I mean, she works for him. So are we talking, I mean, Bill Clinton literally got impeached over something like this.
SCHNEIDER: Wait. That's very different, though.
DOLL: How is it different?
PHILLIP: But this is, there's no something like this.
DOLL: So you're saying that this is about his personal life.
PHILLIP: That's the innuendo.
SCHNEIDER: Exactly. I'm not saying that.
PHILLIP: I'm not objecting.
SCHNEIDER: I'm saying it's really inconsequential.
DOLL: He just said it was his personal life.
BOYKIN: I said the word personal life, but I didn't mean it in that context.
I said that. I didn't mean it in that context.
DOLL: She works for him.
SCHNEIDER: Whether he has an aide with him all the time and she happens to be pretty or she happens to be young.
DOLL: She's on the table. She's with the President.
SCHNEIDER: I'm kind of agreeing. I'm saying the Democrats have too much going for them to have to go there. And I think he did it strategically, Ossoff, to get the attention.
But he has the attention on the other issues. And when the Democrats start acting like the Republicans or acting like the Trump.
BOYKIN: I don't understand that big freak out. It's one word.
SCHNEIDER: It was strategic. And look at the big deal. We've been talking about it for 10 minutes.
BOYKIN: It's one word. And we're obsessed about it.
PHILLIP: We leave it there, everyone.
Next for us. Attorney General Todd Blanche refuses to pledge the DOJ's independence from the White House. So, is he just being practical or is he normalizing Trump's retribution agenda? We'll debate that next.
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[22:35:00]
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PHILLIP: Tonight, just a week after he was confirmed as Attorney General, Todd Blanche, Donald Trump's former personal attorney, says that his DOJ won't commit to being independent of the President. Joining "Meet The Press" yesterday, Blanche, who has transformed the department under Donald Trump, argued that a commitment to independence is impractical.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KRISTEN WELKER, MODERATOR, NBC'S "MEET THE PRESS": Can you pledge that the Justice Department will always act independently of the White House?
TODD BLANCHE, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY GENERAL: Well, there's a big difference between saying we will always do our job and investigate any case and act independently of the White House. No, I'm not going to pledge that. And no attorney general should ever pledge that I will act with integrity.
Our prosecutors will act with integrity. We will prosecute without fear or any sort of favor. And that's exactly what we've been doing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So, Arthur, I mean, I think maybe in another world that might be an acceptable answer. I don't know, arguably. But in the context of a President who has specifically asked for prosecutions, it seems that what he is saying is, yes, I might take orders from the White House on that.
AIDALA: Well, every President from Washington to today takes orders from the White House. I'm sorry, it gives orders to the attorney general regarding policy, regarding all kinds of things. I mean, the primary role of the attorney general is to be the legal advisor to the President of the United States on federal law enforcement.
There's supposed to be constant communication between somebody who's in the Cabinet and the President. Now, the President is not supposed to say, hey, this guy didn't install my windows the right way in Trump Tower, so I want you to prosecute him. But I think what Todd Blanche has said besides in that interview is like, I'm not going to do anything I'm not supposed to do.
But he'd be lying if he said, oh, I'm not going to talk to the President. And Abby, if you look at who have been the attorney generals, whether in recent history or in the past, they've always been very -- people are very close to the President. Campaign managers wind up being the attorney general of the United States, brothers like the Kennedy brothers.
[22:40:08]
Well, I mean, you know, the attorney general was involved when the Cuban Missile Crisis hit. That's not true.
PHILLIP: Not always, but --
AIDALA: Eric Holder and Barack Obama were very close.
BOYKIN: Merrick Garland had no relationship with Joe Biden.
AIDALA: Okay, that's one. Eric Holder was very close with Barack Obama.
BOYKIN: Joe Manchin, you know, had no relationship with Bill Clinton.
AIDALA: I said many. I didn't say many.
BOYKIB: No, but you said just about everyone. So I'm just saying it's not true. But the truth is that the attorney general is supposed to, like all DOJ officials, avoid the appearance of impropriety.
AIDALA: That's true.
BOYKIN: He's failing that test horribly. I mean, we go back to Watergate, what happened in Watergate in the Saturday Night Massacre in 1973. The attorney general was ordered by the President to fire the special prosecutor.
AIDALA: And he did it, and he resigned.
BOYKIN: No, he refused. He refused and resigned.
AIDALA: And then the deputy resigned.
BOYKIN: Then the deputy refused and resigned. Then the solicitor general, Bob Cork, finally he did it. And that's the problem.
AIDALA: And then he didn't get confirmed to go on the Supreme Court of the United States.
BOYKIN: And now we have a problem where the President of the United States, the guy who campaigned by saying that he was upset that Loretta Lynch met with Bill Clinton on the airport tarmac, is now trying to openly direct prosecutions from the White House. And he's okay with that? And you're okay with that? And the Republican Party's okay with that?
PHILLIP: I mean, why? But why didn't Todd Blanche say that we are not going to prosecute anyone where there's not evidence in order to do that, period? Why didn't he add that? I mean, that's an important addendum in terms of rule of law. SCHNEIDER: And you know why he didn't answer that way? Because he's
Todd Blanche.
And what he did was a very slippery, tap-shoe answer, dance around the question, because the question was very specific. Are you going to act independently from the White House?
And later on in the clip, what he actually said is, well, you're really asking me if I'm going to be independent from the White House, and I'm not going to say that because if Trump wants something done, Trump is the head of the executive branch and the DOJ falls under the executive branch, there would have been a more dignified answer that Blanche could have provided. Instead, what he provided was, well, what I'm going to do is act with integrity, and I'm going to prosecute without fear or favor.
AIDALA: That's what he's supposed to say. That's his job.
BOYKIN: But it's not credible.
SCHNEIDER: It's a robot line, because already, and I'm going to agree with you here, already Blanche has not acted with integrity. Blanche has not complied with the Epstein Files Transparency Act and has not released the additional more than three million documents that Congress, the congressional law, requires him to do. He is not in compliance with the law.
He also went down to visit Ghislaine Maxwell, a convicted felon, at her prison and threw her softball questions to make the President look better, to come back and report there's nothing to see here. So he hasn't really shown us integrity, but the good thing about him is he shows you who he is. He's not hiding who he is.
DOLL: Blanche says also Trump would never ask him to do anything illegal or unethical, and he already has, with all the many indictments, but also with the slush fund. I mean, the federal judge really found that Blanche had colluded. The idea that the acting attorney general had colluded with the President of the United States to essentially defraud the court is a massive statement by a federal judge.
PHILLIP: Let me just play, this is what he said on Wednesday about that weaponization fund. Obviously, you know, he now says it's dead, but he seems to agree with the premise, which is what the judges took issue with.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BLANCHE: The President feels very strongly, as do I, that there were people who were victims of a Department of Justice that was absolutely weaponized, and he feels very strongly that he would want to make them whole, as do I, but it will not be through the anti-weaponization fund, which, again, was never set up, and nothing has happened with it.
(END VIDEO CLIP) SCHNEIDER: You know what, I was just going to say, I think it's going to be very interesting when James Comey goes to trial or has to deal with his case, because now we have the former, we have James Comey being indicted for taking a picture of seashells on the beach that's spelled out 86-45, that someone else arranged.
Now, Todd Blanche is pursuing that prosecution, and I think that we're going to really see if Todd Blanche has the same feeling towards those type of what looks like extremely vindictive Trump-oriented prosecution as he does for the January Sixers or the other people who might be covered by weaponization.
PHILLIP: The U.S. attorney in Washington, because Trump wanted them to, tried to prosecute someone for reaching into the reflecting pool and taking up a piece of the peeling liner. That actually happened. Like, that person was actually charged.
So it's not -- this is not actually hypothetical. The President wanted it, and they acted on it.
STEPIEN: But we may not like the way he answered the question, but he answered the question accurately and specifically. The Justice Manual, which I spent 30 minutes reading today, allows policy coordination between the DOJ and the President. That's allowed.
[22:50:09]
But the President, that is not, nobody is speaking to that --
BOYKIN: It's not about policy, you --
PHILLIP: I think, this is why I asked Stacy, why was there not a comment, a point to be made about who gets prosecuted and who makes the decision on who gets prosecuted?
To me, that was what was missing. That's what I, what anybody would have wanted to hear from him is, hey, look, in this country, we have to have evidence to charge you, period, the end.
Why didn't he say that?
BOYKIN: But Abby, you brought up --
PHILLIP: Hold on.
STEPIEN: He answered the question that was asked. I think he answered it by himself.
AIDALA: You started talking about the Jeanine Pirro prosecution, the reflecting pool. Now, so what did she do? They made an immediate arrest, which happens here in New York all the time by the NYPD.
And then when the prosecutors dug in, which Jeanine Pirro dug in, she dismissed the case. She's like, I got bad information from the people initially that authorized the arrest. Once I did my investigation, there's not enough here for proof beyond a reasonable doubt - STEPIEN: But Trump did not go down.
PHILLIP: This is not a happy story, okay? This is not a happy story of them doing the right thing. They went to a grand jury and presented evidence that this guy violently ripped --
AIDALA: And dismissed it.
BOYKIN: But Donald Trump never --
AIDALA: But the judge didn't dismiss it, the prosecutor dismissed it.
PHILLIP: How do you even get to that point is the question a lot of Americans are asking themselves. And yes, they had no choice but to dismiss it because they knew if they went before a judge and they put that case, Arthur, you know that judge would have been pissed off. They would have been really, mad because it was a crap case.
AIDALA: It was a crap case, and Jeanine Pirro said it was a crap case, and she dismissed it. Now, Trump wasn't happy about it, and she said, but the witnesses told us X, and we went on X, and then when we cross- examined them, it wasn't X.
DOLL: To answer your question, he doesn't say it. He didn't say it because he can't. He's speaking to an audience of one, and Trump could not handle if he said he wasn't going to listen and do his bidding.
PHILLIP: All right. Next for us, the panelists are going to react to your feedback from cnn.com/abby. We will be right back.
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[22:50:00]
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PHILLIP: And now some viewer feedback from cnn.com/abby.
The first one, Pee Wee Herman, these nicknames aren't hitting as they used to. That's direct contradiction to you.
DOLL: That's true, though.
AIDALA: Oh, no.
DOLL: He's not good at it either.
PHILIP: Yeah, Arthur, he doesn't agree.
BOYIKIN: And that was me. He got the name wrong the first time, by the way. He said Pinky Herman the first time, and he corrected it later and said Pee Wee Herman.
DOLL: He's definitely lost his nickname.
BOYKIN: He doesn't know what he's talking about. AIDALA: He's a good-looking guy, the senator.
SCHNEIDER: Who, Pee Wee Herman?
AIDALA: No.
PHILLIP: And yes, not for nothing, but yeah, Trump is stuck in a former time, an earlier time.
DOLL: I'm going to give him a good pass away, Pee Wee Herman.
PHILLIP: Okay, second comment. If Jon Ossoff looks like Pee Wee Herman, Arthur looks like Uncle Fester from "The Addams Family," or Mr. Clean.
AIDALA: I'm going to go with Mr. Clean. How about Yul Brynner?
PHILLIP: I'm going to stick up for Arthur here.
AIDALA: Oh, Jack? Anyone got a lollipop?
BOYKIN: Oh, good. So is Savalas. There you go.
AIDALA: It's all right, I can handle it.
PHILLIP: You look like a movie villain, which is actually a good thing.
SCHNEIDER: A nice movie villain.
PHILLIP: All right, third comment.
Josh, in a world of Chuck Schumers, be more like Jon Ossoff. Would you agree with that?
BOYKIN: Yes, I would. I'm not a big Chuck Schumer fan, so yes, we need more people to fight back.
PHILLIP: Is this what the base is asking for?
BOYKIN: The base definitely would like to have more of that.
PHILLIP: More spice?
BOYKIN: Absolutely.
DOLL: He's such an effective communicator, Ossoff. This is why he's resonating, and beyond his comments this weekend, almost every campaign speech he gives now just goes viral.
PHILLIP: But, Stacy, I know you disagree, but what is the downside, in your view?
SCHNEIDER: The downside is drawing attention away from the issues that people care about by getting the response from Steven Chung in the White House, and having all these frat boy memes thrown out, and this ridiculousness is distracting from the job of running a campaign.
AIDALA: It's the degradation of civility, that's the downside. It's the degradation of civility.
PHILLIP: I'm not going to lie.
AIDALA: Chuck Schumer is trying to get a high role.
PHILLIP: I'm not defending anything or anyone, but I would just really genuinely ask, is the degradation of civility this Jon Ossoff comment?
PHILLIP: No.
PHILLIP: Or all of the things that we've lived through for the last 10 years.
AIDALA: They said they want more of that, and I think Chuck Schumer, as an elder statesman, is like, this is not what it's supposed to be. We're supposed to be nice to each other.
DOLL: Jon Ossoff, have you watched his speeches?
STEPIEN: This isn't who the guy is, right? He gets attention by being on the Senate committee asking really tough, substantive questions.
Not by jumping in the gutter.
PHILLIP: Unfortunately, this one is a tough one, but I'll give it to you. If it was an easy military operation in Iran, why are we still there, this commenter asks.
BOYKIN: Who said it was easy? Trump.
Trump said it was going to be two or three days. Then he said it was going to be four or five weeks. Now it's six months.
STEPIEN: I think he's appropriately dialing back expectations. He had a bunch of bravado, a bunch of tough guys at podiums.
[22:55:07]
I think he's now seeing that this is going to be something that he's in. This is going to be a long game.
SCHNEIDER: But he set the expectation. I wouldn't say he's actually dialing it back. I think he just runs and talks about the ballroom, if he has to dial anything back.
There's no dialing back with this President. I wish there was.
PHILLIP: He thought this would be Venezuela, and it was not.
A quick programming note for you. On Wednesday, after the show, you can join me for an exclusive subscriber-only conversation. The panelists and I will answer your questions directly from you. All you have to do is sign in to your CNN All Access account. And yes,
if you have a cable subscription, you are eligible to do that. Again, that's Wednesday at 11 p.m. Eastern, right after the show.
But next for us, "Laura Coates Live" starts right after this.
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