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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Trump Intensifies Blame on GOP for Voter Anger; Atlantic Reports, Trump to Buy Midterm Ads Touting Himself; Sen. Darline Graham's (R-SC) Take on Healthcare Sparks Debate. Hegseth Fired Top Army Officer After Dropping Probe on Kid Rock's Flyby; Jon Stewart tells Michelle Obama on Distinguishing the Obama Years and the Trump Years at the White House. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired August 26, 2026 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[22:00:00]
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR (voice over): Tonight, the president shares a post ripping the party he leads as voter anger intensifies.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just -- I'm over it, I think. I'm over the Trump thing, the Trump wagon.
PHILLIP: Plus, Darline Graham's argument against universal healthcare sparks a debate.
SEN. DARLINE GRAHAM (R-SC): If they were sick, they had to get up and go to work.
PHILLIP: Also, as Pete Hegseth's Army firings grow, one of those top officers was told to drop an investigation into the unauthorized flyby of Kid Rock's house.
And now that presidencies are allowed to earn billions, Michelle Obama jokes about the cash they left on the table.
JON STEWART, HOST, THE DAILY SHOW: Well, I have to say, you guys left money on the table, a Michelle meme coin.
MICHELLE OBAMA, FORMER U.S. FIRST LADY: I didn't even know it was possible.
PHILLIP: Live at the table, Bakari Sellers, Jason Rantz, Paul Begala, Caroline Sunshine, and Geraldo Rivera.
Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here, they do.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIP: Good evening. I'm Abby Phillip in New York.
The midterms are now less than three months away, and there are some new signs that President Trump might be in panic mode as voter anger intensifies. There's new polling that shows that the president is underwater on a number of key issues. For example, prices and inflation, the economy. He's even losing steam on immigration and border security, which are typically signature pieces of his agenda. But Trump says that this is not his fault.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: I inherited a mess in so many ways. The border, which I solved very quickly. I inherited so many different problems that -- this was a bad administration. This was an incompetent administration. But I inherited high prices. And then from the first day, they started using the word affordability. They looked at me -- affordability. It was a new word. Nobody ever heard the word.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: And it's not just his predecessor. The president is once again throwing shade at the very party that he leads. Today, Trump shared a rant against Republicans from a conservative influencer who wrote, I don't think the Republicans -- the GOP fully grasp how badly they're f-ing up right now. It continues with a warning that the party might be sleepwalking toward a midterm reckoning.
But Trump might have just found a winning solution to this, and that is to turn the spotlight right back on himself. Because just a minute later, he re-posted a list of things that he considers to be his biggest accomplishments.
Before we open it up to the table here, we want to invite you at home to join the debate. Go to cnn.com/abby. Weigh in there. We'll get to some of your comments throughout the show.
Caroline, The Atlantic is reporting that Trump's advisers told him that the poor polling reflects the fact that the voting public still doesn't know many of his accomplishments. So, he suggested that the ad makers mine his own on-camera statements as building blocks, and he says, go look at the clips to make the ads. Is that the right strategy here?
CAROLINE SUNSHINE, FORMER PRESS AIDE, TRUMP 2024 CAMPAIGN: Well, the White House definitely needs to get new talking points. You know, when the answer to everything is, Iran can't have a nuclear weapon, and short-term pain for long-term gain, people aren't believing the talking points anymore. So, you're going to have to get new material.
But then second to that, the administration does need to do a better job of getting the accomplishments out there, and there are many. There's Trump Accounts, there's record low fentanyl deaths, there's been zero border crossings the last 15 months. Under Biden, it was 5,000 a day in the El Paso sector. They have to know that they're up against a biased media.
I mean, respectfully, this network covered Natalie Harp all last week. I didn't hear any word about the young mother in Virginia who was killed by an illegal immigrant from El Salvador. Thank you for having me on so that I can tell people about that. But the admin has to realize, yes, they're up against a biased media, so use the other tools at your disposal that we used very successfully in 2024. Go talk to the podcast audience. Use social media.
I'm a big believer that if you don't go talk to people, they will assume the worst about you. It's why I appreciate coming on here. And when we were talking to people, we were going up in the polls. When we stopped talking to them --
[22:05:00]
PHILLIP: What about the things he's actually doing? Because there are also things he's still doing right now that are not helping. I mean, there's the tariffs, he -- the whole thing that he did with beef last week, which infuriated his own base. I mean, he's got some problems that are actually within his control, not just talking points, but things he can actually do.
BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, the talking points aren't the problem. This presidency up until this point has been a failure. He was elected because of things like affordability, although he doesn't believe that word existed prior to him being elected this go around. But gas prices are still high, drug prices are still high housing prices are still high, grocery prices are still high. We're now at month six in a war in Iran that he said he was going to bomb his way out of. People aren't seeing an end result of that, so gas prices are going up, fertilizer's going up.
So, by every metric, this White House has been a failure. But what he did last week was he went on a 30-minute rant showing people the improvements he was making to the White House with gold ornaments in Washington, D.C. He's a big time developer, so that's what he's spending his time and energy on. We have a billion-dollar ballroom we're spending money on that taxpayers are footing the bill on.
And so, look I understand that sometimes, you know, you have a bad message or you have a bad messenger, but there also is a point in time, and you're about to see candidates begin to do this right now, when your presidency's a failure, you cut bait and run, and that's what Republicans are starting to do around the country.
SUNSHINE: But would you describe a border where there's been zero border crossings for 15 months as a failure? Because I don't define that as a failure. I have my criticisms, but I don't define that as a failure.
SELLERS: Well, I mean, I would --
SUNSHINE: Is that a failure?
SELLERS: How about this? No, that's not a failure.
SUNSHINE: Is it a failure?
SELLERS: The failure actually was Democrats. The failure actually was Democrats when we were running for re-election acting as if the border and crime was not a real issue when people, particularly in Texas and other places, because we were naive. And we act --
SUNSHINE: So, this has been a success.
SELLERS: But the reason that the president was elected was because people were having issues with their pocketbook.
SUNSHINE: And --
SELLERS: So, let me tell you what the failure is.
SUNSHINE: -- they didn't like 10 million people coming into their country. And they're glad that that border is closed.
SELLERS: So, let me outline the failures of immigration just briefly. The failures of immigration are when we see ICE ripping parents away from children, when we have people, Americans, dead in the street because of violence.
SUNSHINE: This is what I'm talking about with the biased media because you're not going to talk about the young mom killed in Virginia --
SELLERS: But I'm also telling you that the failures --
SUNSHINE: -- that was killed by an illegal immigrant, but you're going to talk about that?
SELLERS: The failures are --
SUNSHINE: So, that's not a failure, getting guys like that out of the country?
SELLERS: Are you going to articulate -- are you going to -- are you -- first of all, everybody around the table, including Democrats, Barack Obama actually did it well. Everybody says that if you are illegal in this country, you commit a crime, you should be deported.
SUNSHINE: Not everybody. There's a lot of Democrats who didn't say that.
(CROSSTALKS)
JASON RANTZ, SEATTLE RED RADIO HOST: That is not true.
SELLERS: That's been the policy.
RANTZ: My member of Congress is against all deportations.
SELLERS: One second. One second. One second really quickly, because I want to highlight --
SUNSHINE: A lot of candidates on the Democrat side are saying abolish ICE. That's very far from --
SELLERS: I want to go back to the failures because you did not articulate or understand or comprehend the failures of this administration. The reason he got elected --
SUNSHINE: I pointed out that's not a failure.
SELLERS: The reason he got elected is because prices are high.
SUNSHINE: Not just that. It was border security, too.
SELLERS: Rents were high. Listen, you can't beat the same drum. How about this? Has he done anything about affordability? The answer is no.
PHILLIP: Hold on a second.
RANTZ: Well, that's also just not true.
PHILLIP: I mean, look, let me just make this point because I think it's important to just note that, yes, the president closed the border, and he does get some credit for that. Although, it's interesting to see that he's still underwater even on the border security issue, and it could just be because it's not as high on Americans' lists anymore. Sometimes you're a victim of your success.
But the number one issue for Americans is cost of living. He is underwater by 48 points on that issue. Jobs and the economy, underwater 27 points. Immigration, so that's probably capturing some of what Bakari is talking about, how it's being managed inside the United States, he's underwater by 15 points. Crime and public safety, underwater by 13 points. So, there's clear evidence here that Americans think he is not handling, frankly, anything.
RANTZ: But I think his point, and part of it is getting in front of people and talking about his successes. So, for example, if crime he's underwater, we have record low crime rates right now, violent crime rates. That has gone down. If he's underwater --
GERALDO RIVERA, PEABODY AWARD-WINNING JOURNALIST: In Democratic cities also.
RANTZ: Yes, as a direct result of policies that the Democrats introduced and then had to walk back, like defunding the police.
SELLERS: That's absolutely not true.
RANTZ: That is 100 percent true.
RIVERA: I'm saying the crime is down in Democratic cities.
RANTZ: It's down across the country, at the same time that we actually have a president who's now focused on that issue, and it's tied directly to immigration as well.
SELLERS: So, you're telling me Donald Trump is the reason that crime in Baltimore, in Little Rock, in --
SUNSHINE: When you deport violent criminals from your country, the violent crime rate goes down. That is how it works, yes. RANTZ: But let me ask you this. Did crime go up --
SELLERS: That's not how it works.
SUNSHINE: That is exactly how it works.
RANTZ: Did crime go up because of Democrats?
SELLERS: No.
RANTZ: Okay. So, crime going up in Democrat cities is not a direct result of Donald Trump.
SELLERS: Do you know why crime is going down?
RANTZ: I absolutely do know why crime is going down.
SELLERS: Crime is going down because the crime --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Guys, one at a time, please.
SELLERS: Crime is going down in places like Gary, Indiana because Eddie Melton, the mayor there, or Baltimore, because of the mayor there, and Brandon Scott or Randall Wolfen or Andre Dickens, crime is going because they're taking a holistic approach to actually funding things, like midnight basketball, afterschool programs.
[22:10:11]
They're actually pouring money into primary school education.
RANTZ: They weren't getting funded before?
SELLERS: No, they weren't, not to this rate. So, that's why you have 50 years of drops.
RANTZ: What happens when you defund police? Does that lead to more crime?
SELLERS: Where did they defund the police?
RANTZ: Seattle, Austin, Los Angeles, I mean, the list goes on and on.
PHILLIP: Again, I think that this conversation -- Jason, respectfully, I think this conversation is actually kind of missing the point, and maybe this is why Republicans are in kind of a bad way, is that you can't tell Americans, don't worry about that economic issue. That shouldn't be as important to you.
Let me just tell you about this other thing over here. And as important as crime is, their priorities are their priorities, and you can't gaslight them into thinking that they should care about things that are not as high on their list as the economy. PAUL BEGALA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. Caroline and Jason both talked about immigration and crime, and those are important issues, but not this year. It's not what voters want to hear about. It's like you go to a hip hop concert and start playing disco. That's not going to land very well, okay?
Trump is hated in this country. It's just true. He's at an all-time low. And The Economist went through state by state. The president carried Michigan. He's now 26 points underwater there. He carried Ohio by 12. He's underwater by 24. He's 30 points underwater in Georgia. He's 22 points underwater in my beloved Texas.
This country wants a brake pedal on Trump because of cost of living. And anybody who's talking about Trump on, on the Republican side, anybody who's advertising Trump on the Republican side is going to lose.
If the Democrats had the money, we'd buy him another plane, because, apparently, the one he got from Qatar is broken or something. We'd buy him another plane on the promise he would only campaign in swing states, because he's about as popular as that cyclospora lettuce that gives you exploding diarrhea. Ain't nobody lining up to buy that crap.
PHILLIP: Well, he doesn't believe it.
BEGALA: Yes, but he should believe it.
PHILLIP: Well, Geraldo, do you remember this? This is from a Punchbowl interview a couple weeks ago. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: If I don't run, will those people go out and vote? And that's the one thing I can't -- I'm going to ask them to, but the question is will they vote? Because a lot of them are very angry at Republicans, to be honest with you. They're angry at --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why is that?
TRUMP: I don't know. I mean, they're angry at Republicans, but they're not angry at me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's an interesting thing. Why, though?
TRUMP: They're not angry at me, but they are angry at Republicans.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RIVERA: He's extremely frustrated with his cabinet (ph).
PHILLIP: Yes. As I often ask, what is going on with the president?
RIVERA: He can't get the prices down. He can't win the damn war. He can't make China behave. He can't even make Canada behave, you know, toe the line on tariffs and so forth. So, he's -- and he feels like a hall of fame coach who all of a sudden his team is lousy, and he blames the team rather than himself. You know, I really do believe that he's in a very tough spot right now. And he goes off on these tangents.
I think, Bakari, one thing just factually, isn't the ballroom being funded by donations?
SELLERS: Some of it, but it's over a billion dollars.
BEGALA: But that's an invitation for corruption, too.
RANTZ: Then make that argument --
PHILLIP: Let me just weigh in here just so that we can move forward.
RIVERA: Both are wrong.
PHILLIP: Some of it is, but the administration has also made it clear that the structure that is underneath the ballroom, they consider a taxpayer expense.
SELLERS: Correct.
PHILLIP: So, the taxpayers are paying for that. And there have been reports that they've been siphoning money from other parts of the government to go into the construction of this ballroom. So, it -- some of it is that there's -- it's shrouded in some secrecy, but the president's claim that it's 100 percent taxpayer funded is not true, or that it's 100 percent privately funded is not true.
RANTZ: The opposite is not true either.
RIVERA: Neither may be true. My point is that he sees the end of the line here. The president is a smart man. He sees what's happening with these polls. He sees past the midterms. He sees to his own lame duck presidency, I believe. He's already thinking about the world after the White House.
And, you know, he's -- usually, people only focus on politics after Labor Day. But I think it's jumping the gun because of costs and because of the war. People are, you know, more involved in politics than they generally are, sooner than they generally are, and he's very -- he sees it going through his hands now, the sand going through his hands. He sees the end of the Trump era.
PHILLIP: Yes, it's -- I think it's an important observation about the president, is that he's not as concerned about the Republican wellbeing writ large. He's concerned about how he is going to be perceived. And he -- and, look, he's focused on the things he's focused on, whether it's the ballroom, the arch, the airport. The tariffs -- but even the tariffs, he thinks that's a legacy item for him. So, that's why he's so committed to it.
But next for us, the unintentional result of Darline Graham sharing her personal story and making a strong case, it seems, for government- funded healthcare.
[22:15:04]
Plus, the Army's top officer told to drop the investigation into an unauthorized helicopter flyby at Kid Rock's home before he was fired.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: Tonight, Democrats are seizing on a comment from Darline Graham, the sister of the late Lindsey Graham and the Republican senator from South Carolina. She appeared to make the case for government getting involved in healthcare right after trashing that idea. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GRAHAM: Gun control, government-run healthcare, abortion until the moment of birth, bad idea after bad idea, Annie Andrews backs them all.
[22:20:12]
I grew up in the back of a bar and liquor store in one room in Central South Carolina. My parents worked long, hard hours to make ends meet. We didn't take vacations. If they were sick, they had to get up and go to work, because if the doors weren't open, we weren't making money. My mother passed away when I was 11 and my father just over a year later.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Her opponent, Dr. Annie Andrews, took issue with that. She joined CNN earlier today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANNIE ANDREWS (D), SOUTH CAROLINA SENATE CANDIDATE: What is so radical about thinking every county in South Carolina should have an OB-GYN? What is so radical about thinking if you're sick, you should be able to afford to see the doctor?
So, what she said there was that her healthcare plan is you should work hard until you die. I'm a physician who's worked on the frontlines of America's broken healthcare system for 20 years, taking care of South Carolina's sick and injured children.
I believe that we deserve better. I believe that Darline's parents deserved better. I believe that healthcare is a human right, that we must shift America's profit-motivated healthcare system to a patient- centered healthcare system that actually meets the needs of everyone in this country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So, it's interesting because in a Republican primary, Paul, it makes sense that she would say that, but it's kind of T-ball for a Democratic candidate because you're sort of putting right in her lap this idea that, I mean, the tragedy of Darline Graham's parents dying at such young ages is exactly why people feel like the healthcare system is broken.
BEGALA: And I'm sure she wouldn't wish that on anybody, okay? I don't know her, but I don't think she's -- but she sure said it, right? She sure said work until you die, essentially. It reminds me of Joni Ernst, whose career ended as a senator from Iowa when she said, well, we're all going to die, when somebody said, you cut Medicare, you cut Medicaid, people will die.
I guess first, bless her heart, you know, as a fellow Southerner.
SELLERS: You can't say that.
PHILLIP: But that's Bakari's. I got to let him. But there is a poll out today --
PHILLIP: You get your shine, Bakari.
BEGALA: There's a poll out today from Andrews' campaign, okay, and it shows it tied.
So, look, the poll was done by Impact Strategies, who we know. This is Johnny Anslerney, Jeff List, Zach McCrary, Ron Murphy.
PHILLIP: This is a Democratic-leaning firm.
BEGALA: Democratic, but I would rely on them. I would. I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't tell you that of every pollster on Earth.
RIVERA: Not like Media Strategy or --
PHILLIP: Just so the people understand --
RANTZ: That firm is down by 10,000 points right now in Los Angeles.
PHILLIP: Just so the people understand, that is a partisan poll, which we don't necessarily do here at CNN.
BEGALA: Right, but I do, because I know that firm, I would rely on it.
PHILLIP: Yes.
RANTZ: Okay. You 100 percent should rely on it, and I think you should funnel as much money as humanly possible into South Carolina tonight because Graham is clearly going to lose this if you just spend a little bit more money. She's not going to lose. And this idea that South Carolina's going to go to a Democrat, same lake last night, Arkansas going today, it's just not going to happen, which is a missed opportunity, I do think actually, for Democrats.
If you want to really take advantage of this, you're not going to spend money and put attention into states that you know you're not going to win. That is wish casting.
PHILLIP: But can I ask you, Jason, I mean, on the substantive issue that is raised by her comments? When you tell Americans, just work until you die --
RANTZ: That's not what she told Americans. That's not actually what she told Americans. This is --
PHILLIP: Well, what do you think about the message that she was sending to Americans?
RANTZ: Yes. The message that she was saying, what she's -- so this is something different between, I'm guessing the South and everybody else, especially folks on the coast, where we work really hard, we are working all day, we're not complaining and asking for free things all the time. That was what she was trying to do. It's the equivalent of that there are a bunch of memes where you show like one misplaced comma, and it sends a completely different message because of where that comma was. That needed a little bit of a bridge.
She needs a better speechwriter, because what she was saying was, here's who I am. Here's who I am not. Here who she is. She was clearly not saying --
BEGALA: She was reading a speech written for her.
RANTZ: -- that this was --
RIVERA: It was charming when she was selected to succeed her brother after he passed. I thought that was charming. I thought the president endorsing her and fighting for her against the odds was also brave on the president's part. But these remarks come off as cruel, and I don't care how you spin it, this is just an awful, awful -- this is worse than her not knowing where to draw the line.
RANTZ: No. I'm sorry, I think, and you can play this well, I do think that this is a reasonable thing if you're a Democrat to go after her, but also looking at --
RIVERA: I'm not a Democrat.
RANTZ: I'm saying in the general sense. But looking how some folks on X are approaching it, they're mocking her, and that risks some significant blowback from --
PHILLIP: We don't want to dumb the conversation down to what people are saying on X. What I'm talking about -- just a quick data point for you. What I'm talking about is 64 percent of Americans in an April poll said that they are worried about affording healthcare costs. The healthcare costs are contributing to 530,000 personal bankruptcy filings every year.
[22:25:03]
That's approximately two-thirds of personal bankruptcies in the United States that are related to medical expenses or illness-related loss of work.
So, again, this is -- healthcare actually has not been a great issue for Republicans, and I know that single payer is seeming -- seemingly a good battlefield to fight on, but, generally, the American people are trending away from the system as it exists right now.
SELLERS: Well, the first thing is Republicans have not had an alternate plan, a plan of any substance to Obamacare. We've been talking about it. They have had this fundamental inability to put up anything to fix the healthcare system in this country. That's first.
Second, Darline Graham, it is kind of bless your heart. I mean, she's fumbled through. She's inexperienced. There is no qualification she has to be a United States senator, yes, her comments were inartful. But when you combine that inartfulness -- and shout out to Lindsey Graham's staff, because they took someone who has no qualifications to be a United States senator, and they nimbly navigated that race with Trump and everything else and won. So, shout out to them. But in South Carolina, you literally have counties where you don't have an OB-GYN.
So, imagine women trying to get healthcare and they have to drive 50, 60, 70 miles to their nearest OB-GYN. We have rural hospitals that have shut down. So, if you have a heart attack in the rural communities, literally, that's a death sentence.
So, these are real issues. And so when you combine it, whether or not she needed a comma here or there, but the messaging of Annie Andrews saying, look, she's saying work until you die. I'm saying, no, provide better healthcare. This isn't a Medicare for all conversation. This isn't a New York or L.A. conversation. This is a conversation that hits every single door, black, white, Democrat, MAGA, and not just South Carolina, but Arkansas, Mississippi, Georgia, all these rural communities, and it hits them and it hits them in the --
PHILLIP: Well, here's why it hits them. If you take a look at this, this is United Health Foundation's annual health rankings, the best states to be healthy in this country are blue states, if you look at this chart. South Carolina is at 36th out of 50 states, and that's actually an improvement on where they've been. And the bottom of the list is overwhelmingly dominated by Republican-led states.
Again, healthcare seems to me to be -- if I were a Republican, it's probably the last thing I would talk about.
SUNSHINE: Well, I've always said I'll give somebody $20 right now if they can give me the Republican position on healthcare in ten seconds or less. Anybody?
PHILLIP: And it'll be here two weeks.
SELLERS: They don't have one.
SUNSHINE: So, the problem is, though, is that government-run healthcare isn't the solution. We already have that in our country. It's called the V.A. If you have any veterans in your life, go ask them how much they love that. They'll tell you that they get an appointment, and six months later they commit suicide before they even get to the appointment. That current system only handles -- it's still not great. We could do better. We should do better as a nation.
It's bad under every president, not because of the president running it, but because the system of government healthcare is never going to work. It's good. That system only services 7 million people. Imagine then if we extrapolated it out to 350 million people. That's not going to work.
Young people, Obamacare, sure, expanded coverage for them, but it also made their healthcare way more expensive. You know why? Because it put an artificial subsidy in the market that said, guess what, young people are now going to subsidize healthcare for the old. Well, in our current country, the old are who predominantly is sick and unhealthy. So, government-run healthcare via Obamacare ain't the solution either.
Republicans got to get it together because I think in 2028, healthcare's going to be a big issue, and I felt that way when we saw the killing of the UnitedHealthcare CEO with Luigi Mangione and the public sided with him. That's how much resentment is there, and it's not misplaced. And the answer can't be savings accounts.
RIVERA: Excuse me. I said that it was cruel of her. It sounded very cruel of her. But why -- if it's so cruel, why do so many southern states abide by that you're, we're in it on your own? You're in it, you got to save your own self.
PHILLIP: It's a good question.
RIVERA: You got something broken, you got to save your own self.
SELLERS: But do you see the results of that?
RIVERA: But I see the results of it, but what's going on there? There are Americans --
PHILLIP: Two pieces of context. I mean, I looked this up before we came on the air. Obamacare is still more popular than it is unpopular.
SELLERS: Correct.
PHILLIP: And when you looked at the places where Medicaid expansion exploded in the last several years, guess what? A lot of those states were in the South because they know they have a healthcare problem. People need more healthcare. And when they had access to more, they took it.
So, I don't know that this is -- that that chart that you're seeing there and the resistance among Republican leaders in the South to come up with real solutions on healthcare, I don't know that that's because voters don't want it. I think the voters do want --
SELLERS: Obamacare is not government-run healthcare.
PHILLIP: Well, I didn't -- and I didn't say that it was. Yes.
SELLERS: And it's also not just young people having access to health insurance, which, of course, is a good thing.
[22:30:00] It also talks about making sure that you can afford it. It also talks about the fact that now you can have preventive care. It also talks about the fact that Obamacare has done so much and when you expanded Medicaid in these states, which Obamacare provided for, you were actually able to keep these rural hospitals open so people had access to that quality care.
And so it's somewhat of a point of privilege when you're having a conversation all the time.
PHILLIP: Hold on, Caroline. Just a second.
SELLERS: It's not a word-per-minute show.
So it's also very interesting when you have a point of privilege, when you grow up and you have access to that care. And we're talking about South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, these poor states, where they do not. And so what Obamacare did was not just come in and do these raising limits here, but it gave people access to quality care, which a lot of people believe is --
CAROLINE SUNSHINE, FORMER DEPUTY COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR, TRUMP'S 2024 CAMPAIGN: If you like your health care, you can keep it, was one of the biggest lies ever told in politics. And you haven't answered my question.
You are okay with the government telling young people that they need to subsidize the care of the old artificially for no other reason than the government says so. That's okay with you.
SELLERS: That's not true.
SUNSHINE: Because that's what it did.
SELLERS: That's not true.
SUNSHINE: That's exactly what it did.
SELLERS: That's not true.
JASON RANTZ, SEATTLE RED RADIO HOST, AND AUTHOR, "WHAT'S KILLING AMERICA: INSIDE THE RADICAL LEFT'S TRAGIC DESTRUCTION OF OUR CITIES": That's absolutely what it did.
SELLERS: Obamacare didn't just shift the burden. How about this?
SUNSHINE: And young people right now are who's most upset about the cost of health care.
SELLERS: Do people deserve access to quality care, yes or no?
SUNSHINE: Because we kind of already have.
SELLERS: Do people deserve access to quality care?
SUNSHINE: Obamacare is essentially government-run health care. SELLERS: Do people deserve --
RANTZ: I'm not complaining. I think you're complaining.
PHILLIP: Bakari, you respond, and then Jason --
SELLLERS: Because you have to have access to it. This is a conversation about access.
The privilege that I'm talking about is if you have access to --
SUNSHINE: You're on the backs of young people. Oh, my goodness gracious.
PHILLIP: Hold on.
SELLERS: Is if you have access to care, it's easy to sit on shows like this and articulate points about this, that, and the third. And all I'm simply saying is that we have unhealthy communities growing up in food deserts, growing up in environmental-injust communities, et cetera. But when you also eliminate access to care, it has --
The stats are right there. Red states are the ones where you have poor health outcomes.
RANTZ: Well, poor states are the ones that have the poorest.
SELLERS: And they're also red.
GERALDO RIVERA, PEABODY AWARD-WINNING JOURNALIST: But I feel responsible on that list.
RANTZ: Yes, and look. I mean, there are states like California and New York are right in the middle, and yet they are bringing in the most revenue into these states.
SELLERS: Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, South Carolina.
RANTZ: Utah, kudos to you for being number five, a red state. But I do think that, you know, part of the Republican plan, or at least right now under the Trump administration, a lot of things RFK Jr. is trying to do is just getting laughed at of the room.
I mean, he's doing things that will be transformative as it relates to preventative care. To your point, I think it's incredibly important. We're moving food dyes that are deeply unhealthy out of the food supply.
PHILLIP: No, hold on.
RANTZ: The prices of medication is going down. Yes, it's a huge thing.
PHILLIP: No, it's actually not.
RANTZ: It is a huge thing. PHILLIP: I think it's an important thing for people for whom that is very important to them. It's about health. Yes, but it's not going to stop someone from dying from a heart attack, okay?
RANTZ: Correct.
PHILLIP: The things that are killing Americans. Hold on. There's no evidence that food dyes are causing obesity.
RANTZ: No. Okay. I'm sorry, but you're ignoring the piece.
PHILLIP: Hold on. Let me just be clear about this. There's no evidence in humans that food dyes even lead to the things that they're concerned about, which is our behavioral problems.
Those are in rat studies. It's concerning, but it's not actually in human studies. We know what is killing Americans, and it is not food dyes, okay?
RANTZ: Is part of it obesity? Is obesity leading to a lot of heart failure issues?
PHILLIP: Yes, but obesity and food dyes are not --
RANTZ: -- respectfully, they're pushing people into healthier food option choices.
PHILLIP: Jason, listen, I just want you to be factual about this stuff, because the issue with obesity and what causes it is not food dyes. That is not --
RANTZ: I'm not saying it's only -- Respectfully, I didn't say it was only food dyes.
PHILLIP: I'm just saying.
RANTZ: And you know I didn't just say that. I'm talking about -- I'm giving you examples.
PHILLIP: It's not food dyes, okay?
RANTZ: Is it true that eating healthy foods that are not filled with chemicals, is it healthier or not?
PHILLIP: Let's encourage kids to get vaccinated so that they don't get measles and die, and let's also encourage them to eat healthy foods, which Michelle Obama asked the country to consider more than a decade ago.
And then she gave up on healthy foods. And so all of those things I think are good ideas, but even with all of those things, we still need healthcare.
All right, next for us. A new report details how before Secretary Hegseth fired him, the Army's top officer was told to drop an investigation into the unauthorized flyby at Kid Rock's home. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:35:00]
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PHILLIP: Tonight, as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth revamps the military leadership in the middle of a war, mind you, a new report from "The Washington Post" reveals an extraordinary request that was made to a top general on his behalf.
Just days before the Army's top officer was abruptly fired, he was asked by the Army's number two to stop an investigation into an unauthorized helicopter flyover at Kid Rock's Tennessee home. The Post reports that General Randy George, the Army's chief of staff, believed it was important to determine whether safety regulations had been violated during that flyover.
[22:40:00]
However, General Chris LaNeve reportedly told him that Pete Hegseth didn't want the investigation to proceed, and sources tell The Post that General George was left unsettled by that encounter and later confided in colleagues about it. A few days later, he was fired without explanation. He becomes one of more than two dozen top officers who were fired by Hegseth since January of 2025.
And, Geraldo, you'll remember that after that flyover, Pete Hegseth sent out a social media post saying, "Thank you, Kid Rock. U.S. Army pilots suspension lifted.
No punishment. No investigation. Carry on Patriot."
RIVERA: That's okay with me, and I think that people, if that number two general was so concerned with that Kid Rock incident that he's obsessing over it, that he's worried about the wrong things.
I've been a war correspondent for decades. I've gone out of airplanes with the Golden Knights, flown with the Marines F-18. That's what they do. They are exuberant young men and women, and they love to be with public people.
PHILLIP: They even fly by celebrities' homes now.
RIVERA: But no one was in danger.
PHILLIP: How do you know that?
RIVERA: Who cares about that?
PHILLIP: How do you know that?
RIVERA: Because you could see this rule everywhere.
PHILLIP: But, I mean, Geraldo, you said that he was obsessed with it. Wouldn't it be prudent to just ask the question, was it safe, and who decided to do it? I mean, I don't know.
RIVERA: But that's something you ask just as you just asked it. It's not a big deal. I mean, you have people living and dying and fighting.
PHILLIP; But from the reporting, this is the Army secretary, right? His job is to maintain good order and discipline in the armed forces. If there's something like that that happens that's extremely high profile, he just asked the question, somebody please look into that.
What's wrong with that?
RANTZ: I kind of agree with you in a sense. The question is, how far was he pushing it privately, to Geraldo's point? If this was an obsession, I don't know if it was, but if that really was, and they were saying, okay, drop it, and he wouldn't, that's different.
I do think the question is valid, I honestly do. When I looked at this, on the one hand, I said, yes, this is probably not the right thing, optic-wise. I get exactly why Pete Hegseth is saying drop it.
Right now, he's incredibly popular amongst troops. We see recruitment going up, and recruitment has been going up since they took over because of this. We may not like it, but the reality is, that's cool.
People can look at that and they like that, and that's a recruitment tool.
SUNSHINE: -- if you could ask Pete Hegseth about this, but unfortunately the Pentagon has not held a press briefing since May 5th. And since then, we have found out that we have 774 wounded soldiers as a result of this war, and the Pentagon has not come out and answered questions about it.
From the President, by the way, who is out there every day taking questions from the press, every day, on tarmacs, here, there, the Pentagon needs to follow that posture.
PHILLIP: We are in the middle of a war, and there's been silence.
SUNSHINE: Pete needs to stop going to Iowa to campaign for Republican congressmen, and maybe he should go visit the bedsides of those 774 wounded. That would be serving the military and the President better than he's doing right now.
PAUL BEGALA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, AFFILIATE PROFESSOR OF PUBLIC POLICY, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY, AND FORMER ADVISOR TO PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON: Secretary Hegseth is a deeply unserious man, and war is the most serious of human endeavors.
He has fired, you mentioned someone, let me go through who he has fired. Never once giving us a reason. These are our employees, not his.
He fired General C.Q. Brown, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; he fired Lisa Franchetti, an admiral, who was a four-star admiral, who was the Chief of Naval Operations; he fired General Randy George, we just mentioned, the Army Chief of Staff. He fired General James Mingus, the Army Vice Chief of Staff; he fired General Christopher Donahue, who was Commander in Europe and Africa; he fired General David Hardney, who was in charge of transformation and training, combating drones, and he stood that down.
The anti-drone battalion. And he has never told us why. This gets to your point, Caroline, which is a good one.
He works for us. It's one of the things -- one of many things, I can't stand about this Trump administration. They act like they're kings, they're employees, they're hired hands.
Pete Hegseth is a hired hand who works for me and you and all the taxpayers. And by God, he needs to tell us why he's firing our best generals and admirals for no good reason.
PHILLIP: And to your point, the "New York Times" also had a piece this week about specifically the Army. "Beyond General George, Mr. Hegseth has fired or forced out more than half a dozen senior officers, a generation of the Army's most combat-hardened leaders. Thinning the service's top ranks for the next several years."
Lots of concerns about what that means for the Army. But again, we are effectively dealing with multiple issues across different theaters right at this moment.
And, as Paul said, we have an ammunition problem, we have a drone problem, we have a money problem.
BEGALA: But that's why Kid Rock doesn't count.
SELLERS: I'm kind of with Geraldo on this to a certain extent. I believe both Kid Rock and Pete Hegseth are decently unserious.
And I think that it's beneath our military men and women to be piling around in helicopters, et cetera, with Kid Rock. I think he's not representative of what we should be. That's my personal opinion.
[22:45:07]
But that doesn't rise to the level of having this amazing outrage over it. I just don't believe that there are so many other things that you're talking about and you're talking about that deserve that outrage. That's my personal opinion on it.
But the damage that Pete Hegseth is doing in terms of eliminating that experience is not something and we're not talking about he's getting rid of Democratic generals or Republican generals. I mean, there's no such thing. But the damage that he's doing to that senior leadership, that vacuum that we have in a time of war, we still don't even have answers, clear answers about why we're there or how we're getting out.
RIVERA: Why wasn't he obsessing about the fact that we were running out of ammunition?
SELLERS: I mean, he could have been obsessing about both. RIVERA: I don't think he was obsessing about both.
BEGALA: You're getting this wrong.
PHILLIP: Geraldo, I feel like you're jumping to conclusions.
BEGALA: General George just wanted the chain of command to work, it was way down the chain of command. Somebody else was investigating it. He said, good, bad investigators.
PHILLIP: I guess there is a violation.
RANTZ: What if it was the chain of command?
PHILLIP: Let me just ask you really quickly. Geraldo, let me ask you very quickly. Is it a fireable offense? Fire the top general because he won't drop an investigation into something that was probably insubordinate?
RIVERA: I don't know the circumstances. I think it would be irresponsible of me.
PHILLIP: So now you don't know?
RIVERA: I don't know the circumstances. I know the helicopter went to Kid Rock's house. Kid Rock waved to the helicopter.
PHILLIP: I'm asking in terms of priorities. I agree with you.
There are a lot of other bigger priorities. I'm asking, is that a reason to fire a top general?
SELLERS: Also, to your point.
PHILLIP: We don't know if that happened. I think that's the question.
RIVERA: I think the premise of the "Washington Post" story that this was about Kid Rock is very sketchy.
PHILLIP: It would be good to know whether it was because of that or not.
Jon Stewart joined Michelle Obama on her podcast this week and made some stark comparisons about the White House then and now. We'll be right back.
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[22:50:00]
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PHILLIP: Tonight, Jon Stewart joined former First Lady Michelle Obama and her brother Craig Robinson for an episode of their podcast. Stewart was quick to contrast the Obama years versus now as the Trump family is accused of profiting off the presidency. Listen. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JON STEWART, HOST, "THE DAILY SHOW": I have to say, you guys left money on the table. A Michelle meme coin.
MICHELLE OBAMA, HOST, "IMO PODCAST": I didn't even know it was possible. There were so many things.
STEWART: You guys didn't do a pump and dump. You left some money on the table.
OBAMA: We could have had a Netflix deal a decade ago.
STEWART: You could have had a weapons company. You could have sold missiles to yourself. Don and Eric have a drone company, I don't even know what to say.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Apparently a missed opportunity on the part of a lot of past presidents and first ladies.
RANTZ: Sure, I think it's somewhat ironic because she's doing this on her podcast that she only has because of her role in the government.
SELLERS: She's not in government.
RANTZ: She isn't in government. Neither are Eric and Donald Trump.
Look, this would be different if Donald Trump and his family didn't come to it with the business background that he already had. I certainly concede that.
You're laughing at that as if it were a terrorism. Imagine going to a casino.
PHILLIP: They're not in the rare earth mineral business. They're not in the drone business.
RANTZ: Maybe Eric is a painter and he can sell those paints and everyone's going to pretend that that was legit.
SELLERS: This is not a good deal to die on.
RANTZ: I'm not dying on the hill. I'm simply saying this is the reality.
SELLERS: The corruption of the Trump family. Michelle Obama is not even in the White House right now. She's doing something on a podcast.
RIVERA: This is what the people in Ohio really are angry about. They're angry about rich people getting richer.
They're angry about those A.I. data centers because the rich are getting richer. When I was growing up, there were no billionaires. Now there's trillionaires, and people are really concerned about that. They feel like they're getting jerked around, specifically in terms of the -- where do you go when you have a situation like that where everybody is making money.
BEGALA: And making money at your expense. This is the key here for the Democrats.
They can't just talk about corruption. They have to talk about corruption as a function of cost. I talked to some of the people who advised Orban, who they defeated in Hungary.
They didn't just say he was corrupt, because when they did, they said, well, they're all crooks. He said, but his corruption is costing you money.
My friend James Talarico in Texas has it right. He says, we have a cost of living crisis because we have a corruption crisis. He's alleging his opponent is a corrupt politician.
I'm a little simpler, the old Jerry Reid country song. He wrote about divorce, but it applies here. She got the goldmine, I got the shaft.
I think Democrats should go around and say, they're getting the goldmine, you're getting the shaft.
SELLERS: Something in the past 40 years.
PHILLIP: Caroline, the President has effectively doubled his net worth in the year that he has been back in office.
[22:54:57]
I don't think that's going to go unnoticed by voters, especially because every day there's a new headline about some kind of situation that they're finding themselves in where somehow the Trump family has managed to make a lot of money.
SUNSHINE: Well, where is Michelle Obama complaining about this from? Is it from a yacht in the south of France or her summer home in Martha's Vineyard or her winter home in Hawaii?
PHILLIP: She's not in the White House, Caroline. You understand that, right? When she was in the White House, she was in the White House. She lived there.
SUNSHINE: Well, when she got out of the White House, it was so curious, in March of 2018, Susan Rice got a board seat on Netflix, which is interesting because she has no background.
PHILLIP: Well, you're talking about things that are happening outside of the White House.
SUNSHINE: And then three months later, the Obamas did a nine-figure deal at Netflix. And how convenient. There's never been a critical Netflix documentary about the Obamas.
PHILLIP: It's apples and oranges.
SUNSHINE: Although there's plenty of material, like drone-striking Americans.
PHILLIP: We do have to leave it there. Thank you very much for watching "NewsNight," "Laura Coates Live" starts right after a very quick break. We'll be right back.
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