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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Trump Unravels Online As Pressure Mounts, Courts Reject Him; Trump Says He'll Close Kennedy Center If His Name Isn't Added; New Polls Show Democrats Gain Edge As Trump Drags Down GOP; More GOP Candidates Under Pressure For Past Sexist And Shady Rhetorics; House Votes War Powers Resolution Anew In Rebuke To Donald Trump. Aired 10- 11p ET
Aired September 16, 2026 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[22:00:00]
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST (voice over): Tonight, a president unravels from an assassination plot without evidence to holding the Kennedy Center hostage unless his name's on the building.
REP. JOYCE BEATTY (D-OH): I was not going to let him get away with bullying me.
PHILLIP: Plus, a new forecast of a blue wave is coming as a Trump- sized anchor weighs on Republicans.
Also, while the right condemns an extremist podcaster on the left, the vile pasts of more conservative candidates are exposed.
REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): That was his persona online, right? Right now, he's running as a very serious candidate for Congress.
PHILLIP: And as the cost of the war soars, a Republican moves to impeach Pete Hegseth.
REP. THOMAS MASSIE (R-KY): Peter Brian Hegseth has abused the powers of the Department of Defense.
PHILLIP: Live at the table, Cornel West, Lydia Moynihan, Adam Mockler, Jesse Arm, and Ana Navarro.
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.
Tonight, Donald Trump seems to be unraveling online. He's throwing Hail Marys and his greatest hits as mounting pressure surrounds him. The president lashed out at the Supreme Court after they rejected his efforts to limit mail-in ballots, and his tirade included his handpicked justices. He says they aren't the same people that he interviewed. Trump also
alleged, without evidence, that the assassination attempt in Butler was a plot by Democrats. He called on his handpicked FBI director, Chris Wray, to pay a price for mishandling that investigation.
And if all of that is not wild enough, sources say that Trump called into the Kennedy Center board meeting and yelled at a Democratic congresswoman. Effing crazy is how that call was being described by one source. And then he threatened to close the center down altogether if his name is not added to the building, which a judge has already rejected.
Now, before we open it up the table here, we invite you at home to join the debate. Go to cnn.com/abby. Weigh in there. We'll get to your comments as we go throughout the show.
The president is focused on a lot of things right now. Apparently today, none of them are the things the voters are focused on, and it also seems there's this erraticism that is emerging with him about all these ancillary issues, and it's strange.
ANA NAVARRO, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Emerging? Where you been for the last ten years? Go ahead.
ADAM MOCKLER, YOUTUBE HOST, THE ADAM MOCKLER SHOW: No, I was going to say, like, I'm going to give my candid thoughts here. The president is losing his damn mind on social media, and this is what happens when Republicans elect an old, tired, malignant narcissist who is grasping onto power. He spent the past 24 hours going on narcissistic outbursts towards Supreme Court justices that he nominated, narcissistic outbursts towards A.I. CEOs that he's supposed to be working with, towards the Kennedy Center.
I don't even think this guy is thinking about the Iran war anymore. We're about to enter 200 days. The Middle East is a mess, and we have an old, tired, malignant narcissist for a president who can't keep anything together.
JESSE ARM, VICE PRESIDENT AND POLLSTER, MANHATTAN INSTITUTE: I mean, the last president was an old, tired, malignant narcissist too who wouldn't step aside for like the longest time.
MOCKLER: Manifest in a new war with the Middle Eastern country? Did it manifest in crazy posts like this?
ARM: I mean, I'm happy to debate the Iran war. I think we're going to get into that a little bit later --
MOCKLER: No, but did it manifest in crazy posts online like that?
ARM: Yes. No, I --
MOCKLER: Maybe it's manifesting in a different way.
ARM: I mean, I don't think Donald Trump's name should be on the side of the Kennedy Center. So, sorry if I'm supposed to be here to defend that or whatever. But, no, I mean, I actually think, by the way, there may be an argument for not having public funding for the Kennedy Center. Tom Foley, I think, who served on the Kennedy Center board back in the early 2000s, wrote a piece for this on this in The Wall Street Journal a few months back. These Kennedy Center deliberations have been going on for a very long time at this point.
But I agree with Abby. If Republicans are serious about wanting to win in the midterms, and I guess I agree with Adam too, I don't think heavy emphasis and focus on the inner workings of the board discussions at the Kennedy Center should be the president's focus at this point in time.
PHILLIP: I mean, the issue, it doesn't seem to be public funding. It seems to be the fact that his obsession with planting his name on a memorial to a former Democratic president has actually been the thing that killed the Kennedy Center. According to the decision by the judge today, it said, in fact, evidence before the court pointed in the opposite direction.
[22:05:07]
The renaming of the center coincided with declines in revenue, contributions as artists canceled performances. The Washington National Opera ended its 50-year residency. Ticket sales and viewership of the Kennedy Center Honors broadcast dropped precipitously.
So, Trump is intentionally, in some ways, strangling this institution because they want to find a way, any way, to get his name emblazoned on the front. And then when he doesn't get his way, he throws a tantrum.
DR. CORNEL WEST (I), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Yes. Well, I want to first say that we're pulling and praying for your precious little one on the way.
PHILLIP: Thank you.
WEST: And I start with that because the only way you deal with narcissism and egoism is to be tied to something bigger than yourself. You can begin with your child, or you can begin with a larger cause, and I think we just happen to have a Brother Trump in the White House who is a gangster. He is enslaved to greed, enslaved to attention, and he is enslaved to hatred. He says he strives on hatred.
Now, I'm a Christian, so I don't give up on anybody, but at the same time, I recognize that he doesn't do it by himself. He's got enablers. He's got rationalizers. He's got justifiers.
There's a whole history of Trumps in the history of the country. A lot of them couldn't be dog catchers 50 years ago. Now they end up president, something deeply decadent about the culture that allows someone who has such spiritual imprisonment and psychic bondage to be president.
So, I don't fetishize Trump. There's been a whole lot of Trumps. There are going to be a whole lot of Trumps down the road. But when they end up being elected, that says something about just the depths of spiritual decrepitude and moral deficiency of the country.
PHILLIP: Now, we haven't heard anything since Trump has been elected about the assassination attempt on his life in terms of the investigation, but, suddenly, the president popped up today with a post that, for some reason, blamed the FBI and Christopher Wray for that assassination attempt, and he claimed that there's new information.
He didn't provide it. Todd Blanche was giving a briefing today at the White House, and here is what he said about it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TODD BLANCHE, ATTORNEY GENERAL: This new information is information that we found, that the FBI found, or that, that produced to the Senate in response to inquiries that they had. It is new information about the shooter and about his background, about his history, and that's stuff that we didn't know before, so that's the new information.
As far as the president's frustration with the FBI, I was there with him. I lived it. I mean, you have a situation where it's not really clear what the leadership of the FBI were doing in the weeks and months ahead of the attempted assassination to protect President Trump. That's the same organization that was simultaneously trying to put him in prison until he dies.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Are they seriously implying here that the FBI had something to do with this assassination attempt? And if they are, why won't they put the evidence on the table?
LYDIA MOYNIHAN, CORRESPONDENT, NEW YORK POST: Well, you'll have to ask them if that's what they're implying. That was not my interpretation. I think it's fair to have a lot of questions about sort of security apparatus that's in place because there have been more assassination attempts on Donald Trump's life than anybody else.
PHILLIP: Yes, but that's the Secret Service's job.
MOYNIHAN: Most recently at the White House Correspondents' Dinner earlier this year. So, I think they're still looking into it. It's a bit odd that two years later --
PHILLIP: He's naming his head Secret Service agent who was there on the day of Butler, the head of the agency. The Secret Service's job is to protect the president, okay? So, yes, those questions are valid, but why is he saying, without evidence, that Wray needs to pay a price? What price?
MOYNIHAN: So, look, I think, again, you're going to have to ask the president. I don't know what he intended by that, but I think there are some odd things here. It's odd that two years later we still know so little about the shooter and some of the new things that have come out. There was an anonymous donor who paid for his cremation. That's a little weird.
PHILLIP: He's the president. He can release the information. Trump is the president of the United States. He can declassify anything he wants. You don't think that he would declassify that if it were classified, if it was secret in some way?
MOYNIHAN: You'll have to ask him. I think it's very understandable on his part why he would feel a lot of anxiety about the security apparatus that's in place protecting him, given, again, we know Iran wants to kill him. We're in a war with Iran. There's a lot of things to feel anxious about.
PHILLIP: Just because I you alluded to some question marks about who paid for the funeral, I don't know, the cremation, whatever, the FBI director right now, Kash Patel, answered questions today actually about the Butler shooter, and he said basically we don't know any more about who he was in touch with. They don't have any evidence of that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KASH PATEL, FBI DIRECTOR: Listen And I think we looked at some 27 devices, exfiltrated all the data off of them, looked for connections to individuals in America and overseas, and we found no evidence that that individual was literally even speaking to any other human being other than his parents who he resided with.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[22:10:09]
PHILLIP: I guess the thing I wonder about is are they dredging? Is the president wanting to dredge this up because Butler was so important in the 2024 campaign in terms of bringing up these feelings of solidarity among some voters for him? And he's looking at a midterm that's not really going his way, which we'll talk more about later, and he's trying to find something that works.
NAVARRO: I don't know what the hell he's doing, but I do think he looks -- he and his administration look incredibly incompetent and out of control if after two years in office, where he controls everything and has his sycophants in charge of the FBI and the DOJ and the Secret Service, they don't have answers to questions that he has. In other words, you know, you know, when Butler happened, what, Biden had four, five, six more months in office. Since then, it's been two years of Trump. He cannot blame this on Biden.
I think today has been a terrible day for Republicans running for office if what Donald Trump is trying to do is help him. Because if you are a voter who can't access healthcare, who is having a hard time paying for gas, who -- you're a farmer who can't afford fertilizer, who's paying two, three times the amount for diesel, and you are seeing the president of the United States behave like a toddler, who takes his toys with him when he doesn't get his ways, who is closing the Kennedy Center after, what, 54 years? Let's remember that the Kennedy Center had a board that fundraised privately, and there was public funding. The chair of the Kennedy Center for the last 15 years --
ARM: Trump has contributed a lot to the private funding, by the way.
NAVARRO: The -- well, the former chair of the Kennedy Center -- well, maybe he should get the Russian oligarch who paid for Donald Trump Jr.'s --
ARM: Yes, that's not really relevant.
NAVARRO: -- wedding to come and pay for the -- no, but let me make my point.
ARM: Okay.
NAVARRO: The former chair of the Kennedy Center, who was there even through Trump one, he was there for 15 years, appointed by Obama, served through Trump, David Rubenstein, right, the owner of the Baltimore Orioles, I think. He helped raise and donated over a billion dollars.
But you are then changing this very competent board at the Kennedy Center by people whose only qualification is to be loyal to Trump, who have no ability to raise funds, no real connection to the arts. It is outrageous that the Kennedy Center, which is so symbolic for this country, and has been around since 1971, is closing because of one man's cult to himself.
ARM: Yes, I don't really think that has relevance to the question of Kash Patel's comments or Attorney General Blanche's comments --
PHILLIP: Well, I mean, we are also talking about the president's obsession with putting his name.
ARM: Okay. We're covering a lot of ground. Sorry. We're juggling to keep on top.
PHILLIP: As you might remember, we are also talking about his desire to put his name on the Kennedy Center and what that says about where his head is at.
ARM: Yes.
PHILLIP: Because that's really what this is about. It is about whether the president is focused on the things that matter to the American public.
And there's a New York Times/Siena poll today that says 61 percent of Americans say that he is focused on the wrong issues. That is an indictment of the president.
ARM: Okay. Yes. The same poll says you know, 20 points underwater socialism. So, if this election becomes about Democrats and socialism -- MOCKLER: How is that relevant?
PHILLIP: Well, if you want to talk --
(CROSSTALKS)
MOYNIHAN: It's a binary choice.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Jesse, you're trying to deflect in a lot of different ways.
ARM: No, I'm not. I already addressed that he was wrong to try to put his name on the side of the Kennedy Center.
PHILLIP: So, we can throw out a lot of numbers. We can throw out a lot of numbers. He's underwater on the economy. He's underwater on immigration. He's underwater on healthcare. He's underwater on every single issue, okay?
So, you just -- you started the segment, and I think you were being smart and truthful. And you said that this is not helpful -- that this is not helpful to the president. And I think -- but it raises some serious questions. You know, Maria Shriver, a member of the Kennedy family you know, she said, great men devoted to public service and the public good do not act like this.
I am wondering how you argue the opposite of that. I'm not asking you to argue it, but is it possible to argue the opposite of that when the president seems to be so fixated just on his own self-aggrandizement?
[22:15:00]
ARM: Well, I wouldn't argue the opposite of that. But can I just say something about Butler real quick, which we were talking about before?
PHILLIP: Sure.
ARM: Yes. The point about Butler, I think, obviously, any kind of conspiracy-mongering I think is quite bad as it pertains to the assassination attempt on the president's life. But it's worth noting that something like 47 percent of Democrats --
MOCKLER: Oh, my God.
ARM: What?
MOCKLER: You're just going to pivot back to Democrats again when we were talking about --
ARM: No, that they believe the assassination attempt on President Trump's life was a hoax, was that it was something structured to gain sympathy with his own supporters. That's not just -- you know, that's been found by numerous pollsters. I think 42 percent by YouGov and another poll that was covered in The Wall Street Journal --
PHILLIP: It would be one thing.
NAVARRO: He's had two years to --
PHILLIP: Yes. I mean --
NAVARRO: He's had two years to bring out evidence to back that up.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: It would be more concerning if that were something that I was hearing Democratic politicians bringing up and talking about, but they're not. Nobody's talking about it. The only person --
MOYNIHAN: Well, the people who believe that are electing politicians.
PHILLIP: The only person who brought up Butler and a theory -- I don't want to -- I'm not going to call it a conspiracy, but just a theory that there was something nefarious going on, but not providing any evidence, is the president, the guy who has access to the information that could prove or disprove that thing.
So, what is the point of that?
MOCKLER: I mean, if you're worried about conspiracies in politics, let me introduce you to Donald Trump, who makes up lies about the elections, makes up lies about his own assassinations, about every single possible thing. Lydia tried to frame it as him just asking questions. That's not what he does.
MOYNIHAN: I never said that.
MOCKLER: You said he was asking questions. They assume it's the entire --
MOYNIHAN: You are interpreting one tweet a certain way.
MOCKLER: No. You said he was asking questions.
MOYNIHAN: I don't -- I'm not inside his brain. I don't know what he's thinking.
MOCKLER: He's not asking questions. He's making declarative statements with zero evidence verifying it as the president of the United States. He does this about elections, about the assassination attempts of people in Minnesota. Trump has literally spread lies and refused to call the families of the people who were assassinated in Minnesota. So, if you're worried about that, then call out Trump first.
ARM: Sure. I think I did at the top end of the segment. But I do worry --
MOCKLER: You kind of pivoted back to Democrats.
ARM: -- there's a little bit of an asymmetry here because I'm happy to call out any kind of conspiratorial slop monger on the American right. Tucker Carlson is one of them. I spend a fair degree of my time complaining about him, and I'm quite happy that the president has disavowed him in the strongest possible terms.
But I also see Democrats hitting the campaign trail --
MOCKLER: Which politician?
ARM: -- with Hassan Piker.
MOCKLER: Who has said that?
ARM: You don't want to talk about Hassan Piker. I don't want to talk about Trump and the Kennedy Center, man.
MOCKLER: Trump is the president. Hassan Piker is a streamer.
PHILLIP: All right. We're going to have -- actually, believe it or not, you might be thrilled about this, we will have time to talk about Hassan Piker later in the show.
ARM: Oh, fun.
PHILLIP: Next for us, all of this behavior is hurting Trump in the polls as new evidence shows that he's dragging down Republicans.
Plus, from vile language to marching with neo-Nazis, more Republican candidates are under fire for their pasts that are being exposed. So, where's the line for conservatives? We'll discuss that.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:20:00]
PHILLIP: As President Trump's behavior appears to spiral, Republicans are facing an uphill battle just a few weeks ahead of the midterm elections. A New York Times/Siena poll finds that Democrats have a slight edge over the GOP with voters favoring the party by eight percentage points. The polling also finds that voters are losing trust in Trump on a number of key issues, including the economy, immigration, both of which powered the president to victory in 2024.
As we were discussing in the last segment this is the real reason why I think the president's behavior deserves scrutiny because Republicans are running in an environment in which the economy is the number one thing, right? It's not close.
And on the economy, he is -- or they trust Democrats seven points more than Republicans. The cost of diesel is now $6.27. The cost of gas is $3.67 on -- I'm sorry, $4.32 on average across the country. So, these are the real issues that they're running on, and the president doesn't seem to care.
MOYNIHAN: Yes. Swing voters are always more concerned about the economy than any other issue. It's not a new revelation in politics. I mean, first, I always take any sort of polling with a grain of salt because those same polls had Trump losing every single election that he's won. So, I think that's something to bear in mind. And I have also been
interested to see that J.D. Vance, other Republicans are going out there, they're really campaigning. They're campaigning like hell, as Trump would say, trying to push their message.
So, I don't think they're being complacent. I think they're trying to get out their accomplishments, and there's obviously a lot that they can tout. Affordability on drug prices, that's a big thing that they've been doing, a lot of the deregulation. We're seeing A.I. bring a lot of innovation, make things cheaper.
So, I think there's certainly things that they can tout. But, again, any party that's the incumbent is going to face an uphill battle going into this election. And, you know, Jesse made this point earlier. What is the alternative? This is a binary choice. So voters are going to have to decide, do they want Trump, or do they want a party that's increasingly flirting with socialism? If you're worried about inflation now, just wait until the DSA implements policies that will cost $200 trillion, like everything free in the next ten years.
PHILLIP: Do you think Trump's economic policies have been successful so far? Do you think they made lives better for the American people?
MOYNIHAN: Yes, I think they're much better than the alternative.
MOCKLER: In what way? What indicator?
MOYNIHAN: I just mentioned them.
MOCKLER: Because since Trump has gotten in office, every macroeconomic indicator is worse. You can look at inflation, it is worse. You can look at the deficit, it is worse. The debt has hit $40 trillion. Inflation is objectively not better since when Trump got in.
MOYNIHAN: Okay. Well, when Joe Biden was office, it was over $19 trillion.
PHILLIP: Inflation is going down.
MOCKLER: It is not. And when Trump took office --
PHILLIP: Let me talk about --
ARM: It's the rate of increase of inflation --
PHILLIP: Hold on. No, stop.
[22:25:00]
Inflation is not going down. The rate of increase is also not going down.
ARM: Yes, it is.
PHILLIP: It's 3.54 percent year over year. That is higher than the 2.9 percent it was when Donald Trump took office. Jesse, check your numbers.
ARM: Okay, happy to.
PHILLIP: Inflation is not going down.
ARM: Yes. Inflation is not going down.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: You know what inflation going down is called? It's called deflation.
MOCKLER: What about unemployment?
ARM: Yes, but what about the stock market?
MOCKLER: What about unemployment?
ARM: Obviously, I mean, look, I -- no, what about any of these macroeconomic indicators?
WEST: But, see, part of our problem is of the only criterias we're really looking at are inflation, stock market, and not talking about 65 percent of Americans who are living paycheck-to-paycheck every month. That's a reality, a suffering that is beneath all of these statistics.
These statistics are just epiphenomena, super structural in terms of the lived experience of people. We got 30-some percent of our children, black and brown, living in poverty. Does anybody talk about that? One out of three of young black brothers tied into mass incarceration system. Does anybody talk about that?
Democrats won't say a word. Republicans won't say a word. They just go at each other like they professional wrestlers, and people have to make a binary choice. And yet all this suffering is taking place beneath all of this professional wrestling activity of this milquetoast Democratic Party and the neo-fascists who are running the Republican Party. Neo-liberalism and neo-fascism will never provide an alternative for the depths of the crisis that we're in as a nation.
(CROSSTALKS)
ARM: Well, we are a long way away from neo-liberalism in the Democratic Party.
WEST: Not tiptoed away. Some of us never was a part of it, my brother.
ARM: Yes. And you're gaining, and you're gaining a lot of traction. The Marxists are picking up some steam.
WEST: Well, no, it's not Marxist. People who are concerned about poor and work --
ARM: You're not a Marxist? WEST: No, I'm a Christian. How could I be a Marxist if I'm a Christian? But it doesn't -- but it makes a difference what the label is. I'm just a free black man making my choices.
ARM: Okay, all right.
WEST: And I'm concerned about being in solidarity with suffering people around the world, period. I'm a Jesus loving free black man.
NAVARRO: Well, let me just say this. I fled Marxism, and I live in Miami where, with a lot of other people who fled communism and fled leftist regimes. And where I live in Miami, a lot of those communities overwhelmingly supported Trump. And I am hearing discontent in a way that I have not heard before regarding Trump.
MOYNIHAN: So, they're going to embrace the liberal --
(CROSSTALKS)
NAVARRO: I don't know what they're going to do. I don't know if they're not, they're going to not vote or if they're going to vote for Democrats. But I do know that the -- what I see in the polling of the loss of Latino support amongst Latino men of 51 points down from where he was Election Day against Kamala Harris, I am feeling it where I live.
And I think the problem that Republicans have is that Trump is making this, has made this election about himself. And so that voters, it is a binary choice, and the binary choice is Trump, who is out of control, is unaccountable. Nobody in this Republican Congress is pushing back or doing oversight or accountability about his abuses of power or Democrats that a lot of people have issues about. I don't know how they're going to end up voting.
PHILLIP: We have to leave it there.
All right, next for us, is there any scandal that would end a politician's career, or is that a thing of the past? We'll debate that next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:30:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: Tonight, here's the question, where exactly is the line? Once again, the political world is debating that after past remarks from at least four Republican candidates have resurfaced and come under scrutiny.
A new report finds that Republican candidate for Florida's state legislature marched alongside white nationalists in Charlottesville. He defended that by saying he likes to defend historical monuments.
A congressional candidate in Michigan deleted accounts with thousands of posts, including some that suggested executions for alleged Trump traitors. He also was at the January 6th rally but didn't enter the Capitol and later called the attack a setup.
A Republican candidate for railroad commission in Texas posted a picture of South Asian students at the Texas-Ohio game this weekend, attacking them as foreigners replacing Americans.
And Brandon Herrera, congressional candidate in Texas, has made vulgar, sexual, and derogatory comments about women. He also made many jokes about Nazis. He's dismissed them all as part of his comedic persona as a gun YouTuber.
House Speaker Mike Johnson campaigned for Herrera and attended a fundraising event for him back in July. CNN's Jake Tapper asked Johnson about Herrera's past comments, specifically about women, over the weekend.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: You didn't nominate this guy, but I was surprised to see you endorse him and fundraise for him. What does this candidate say about the Republican Party's more extreme candidates?
REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: That's, look, detestable language. You know how I feel about all of that, Jake. But I also know Brandon Herrera has been out running a very effective campaign and explained to people that he has apologized for all that.
He was a podcaster and a provocateur and tried to get attention. That's not the way I speak or think, and that's not the way most do. But that was his persona online, right?
Now he's running as a very serious candidate for Congress and a very thoughtful guy. This is a contrast election between common sense and crazy. Brandon Herrera will join the common sense team of Republicans making life better for Americans.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[22:35:05]
PHILLIP: All right.
So it sounds like the bar is that if you apologize for it, if it was part of an online persona and you were just trying to get clicks online, it's fine. You'll be endorsed by the Republican Party. Yes?
JESSE ARM, VICE PRESIDENT AND POLLSTER, MANHATTAN INSTITUTE: I'm not. I don't know.
Do I like him? Do I endorse him? Do you think he should win?
ADAM MOCKLER, YOUTUBE HOST, "THE ADAM MOCKLER SHOW": No. I don't. No.
ARM: Do you think the Republican Party has a problem with electing extremists into positions of power?
MOCKLER: No. Not necessarily.
ARM: I mean, I'm pretty happy that we were able to oust Marjorie Taylor Greene and Thomas Massie, who I think are two bigots, and I'm really happy to see them no longer have a role in the Republican Party.
MOCKLER: What about Paul Ingrassia, who's in the Trump administration and said that he has a Nazi streak, and yet he hasn't apologized, no one's condemned him, and he's still in the GSA?
ARM: I mean, I think she asked the questions for the most part, but I don't really know who that guy is.
MOCKLER: Do you think he should resign, Paul Ingrassia?
ARM: Well, I don't know the first thing about him. Those are not my cup of tea, those comments.
MOCKLER: You talk a lot about socialism and extremism, so you should know about the extremism on your side, too.
ARM: I do and I'm happy. And I just was happy to comment.
MOCKLER: Then you should condemn Paul Ingrassia.
ARM: I don't know who that guy is. Who is this guy? You just came up with him out of literally nowhere. He's a Nazi in the Trump administration.
Okay, let's play the same game. Do you condemn Abdul El-Sayed for saying that hurt people hurt people, to justify an attack where an Islamist from Dearborn Heights via Lebanon rammed an explosive-laden truck into a synagogue preschool?
MOCKLER: That attack is horrible.
ARM: Do you condemn NALOC Heroes?
MOCKLER: Wait, really quickly.
ARM: Let me just run through my list, since you got to name your random people in my party. Do you condemn NALOC Heroes?
When she says it's not anti-Semitic to throw a firebomb attack at a Holocaust survivor.
Do you condemn Adam Hamawe, who volunteered for an Al-Qaeda front organization and is a Democratic nominee in a district in New Jersey?
Because there's a lot of disgusting crap going on in the Democratic party. And I don't want to play a game of whataboutism. I'm happy to condemn it.
PHILLIP: Well, actually, Jesse, I think that those are all very good points. Let's not play a game of whataboutism. I mean, if all of those things are condemnable in your view, Mike Johnson would agree with you. Why is it that these guys are running as candidates in good standing in the Republican party?
ARM: Herrera is running as the Republican nominee in Texas because Anthony Gonzalez had a sex scandal and dropped out after he made it to the runoff. Gonzalez would have won if he didn't have the scandal.
PHILLIP: So where is the condemnation? Herrera posted a video of himself goose-stepping to a song that was popularized by Nazis. He's been accused of anti-Semitism. Rawlinson, that candidate from the Florida state legislature, was literally marching in Charlottesville with a white supremacist group that he's affiliated with from 2013 to 2016.
So I guess there's supposed to be some kind of intellectual consistency if Republicans want to keep the bar at a certain place, why does it not apply in their own party?
ARM: Well, I just gave you intellectual consistency and I'm not the RNC spokesperson, so I don't really know what else to say to you.
PHILLIP: Neither is Adam, the DNC spokesperson, but you were asking him to answer for all of those Democrats.
ARM: Well, he asked me about a bunch of random people I've never heard of in my career.
PHILLIP: So Jesse, in the spirit of this show, we're having a conversation about whether or not there is actually any consistency or if it is just hypocrisy. That's the question for you.
ARM: I think I'm showing consistency, not hypocrisy.
ANA NAVARRO, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, AND HOST, "BLEEP WITH ANA NAVARRO": You asked where the bar is, and I'll tell you where I think the bar is. The bar is on whether they've won the primary and are now the general election candidate or not. Because we have seen that scandal can still knock out candidates, right?
We saw Swalwell have to leave the race, we saw Tony Gonzalez have to stop his reelection because he was having an affair that he admitted with a staffer who then died by suicide by dousing herself with gasoline and setting herself on fire, we saw Graham Platner have to leave the race before the primary because of sexual assault allegations by a number of women.
So yes, can scandal still knock out a candidate? Absolutely.
Now, after the primary, when they are the candidate for the general election, I think somehow the tolerance by both parties gets a lot greater. And voters, at that point, I think it's up to the voters.
PHILLIP: Well, I mean, Graham Platner did leave the race after the scandal.
LYDIA MOYNIHAN, CORRESPONDENT, "NEW YORK POST": Not after the Nazi tattoo or the Nazi sympathizing.
PHILLIP: Yes, I agree.
I'm just saying there's a House candidate that was just defended by the House speaker where, again, he has been accused of anti-Semitism.
[22:40:02]
And he has a video of himself marching to a song popularized by Nazis. Again, I agree. Graham Platner.
MOYNIHAN: Yes, all of this is pretty bad.
PHILLIP: The tattoo was pretty bad.
MOCKLER: It is quite nice that he disavowed those comments.
PHILLIP: Why is the House speaker on TV saying, let bygones be bygones?
ARM: Because he's on T.V. doing it because he disavowed the comments. The obvious side, he does not disavow Hassan Piker after bringing him onto the campaign trail.
PHILLIP: So wait, so when Graham Platner disavowed his tattoo, that was not okay with you? That was not enough for you?
ARM: No, definitely not.
PHILLIP: Okay, so let me re-ask the question, why are we then saying, okay, he's a Republican in good standing, I'm going to campaign with him, I'm going to fundraise with him, why?
MOYNIHAN: Right, so I would like to see, I think all of this is disqualifying. I wish that we lived in a climate where good people could and wanted to get into politics. We evidently don't.
I do appreciate the Republicans are condemning this and apologizing for this because I see on the left, Hasan Piker, who again, sorry, or rather El-Sayed, who doesn't want to condemn the Ayatollah Khomeini.
Really? You can't do that? Who, again, justified a terrorist attack.
You have Mamdani here, who's handing celebratory pens to Al-Qaeda lawyers. I mean, you see people who aren't running from it. Again, I don't like any of it, but at least Republicans aren't condemning it.
I'd like to see --
ARM: They're not.
CORNEL WEST (I), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE, AUTHOR, "TRUTH MATTERS", AND DIETRICH BONHOEFFER CHAIRMAN, UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY: No.
MOYNIHAN: Again, I am happy to condemn it. I said on the show -- ARM: The apparatus is still behind Max Miller, though. The RNC
apparatus is still behind him.
MOYNIHAN: I guess they should not be.
NAVARRO: I remind people who Max Miller is, the guy running for Congress in Ohio, his own father-in-law is accusing, who is the Republican senator from Ohio, Moreno, is accusing of horrible acts of domestic abuse.
PHILLIP: I hear what you're saying, Lydia, but there are other facts that disprove the idea that this is being applied equally.
Some people's horrific comments, anti-Semitism, past associations with white supremacists are not being used to smear the entire Republican Party. They're not being kicked out of the party, they're not being widely condemned by the party.
You might condemn it, but the broader party is not.
WEST: And that's where the hypocrisy becomes so deep, not just in both parties, but the people who support these people in these parties. How many Republicans came out full of rage when Michelle Obama and Barack Obama cast as apes, when they talked about Haitians eating animals and so forth?
That was, oh, yes, that's just how Trump is, that's just how Trump is, oh, really? But not only that, and this is where I want to push Brother Jesse on this. You said you are consistent, right?
So that means that for you, a Palestinian baby has exactly the same value as a Jewish baby and a precious Jewish baby has the same value as a precious Palestinian baby. So when you are against anti-Jewish hatred, I agree with you.
Are you against anti-Palestinian hatred? We want to hear consistency here.
We want to make sure that when people engage in mass massacres and so forth, you are as outraged for it against Palestinians as you are Jews, because you're a humanist.
Is that correct?
ARM: Yes, I'm against anti-Palestinian bigotry.
WEST: Absolutely.
PHILLIP: We're going to leave it on that note.
Next for us, breaking news tonight, the House again voting to end the Iran war in another rebuke of Donald Trump. We'll be right back.
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[22:45:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: Breaking tonight, another stunning rebuke of Donald Trump's war in Iran. The House has again voted to limit Trump's war powers, with seven Republicans joining Democrats on a resolution to remove the U.S. from hostilities with Iran.
Now, this comes as the Congressional Budget Office estimates that as of August 1st, the U.S. spent nearly $40 billion. That's about $250 million per day in the first five months of this war. And it could cost another $2 to $3 billion for each additional month of conflict as this drags on.
And by early next year, the war is also expected to drive up inflation about half a percentage point. And that may be an undercount, because according to the CBO, the DoD did not respond to some of their requests for information about the cost of this war.
It is one of those things where, despite what the President says, despite what Pete Hegseth says, this war is not getting more popular, it's getting less popular.
MOCKLER: I was told by this very President that there would be no new wars. And then I was told by Republicans on this very network that this war would only last two weeks. And now we are almost 200 days into a war that is hurting the United States.
It is degrading our missile capacity. Our deficit is increasing. We have lost troops.
And now there is an oil crisis, all while achieving none of the stated objectives. None of them. The regime change hasn't happened.
The nuclear material is still buried in Iran. The proxies still exist, obviously, because they're currently creating an oil crisis.
[22:50:00]
And then the missile capacity that Trump said he erased obviously is still there. We've achieved nothing and we've bared all the cost of this. I don't know how this is defensible in any way.
Is it? No? Jesse?
ARM: What are you, the host now? You're asking me all the questions in every single segment. You're picking on me.
MOCKLER: I'm just asking.
WEST: No, he's not picking on you.
PHILLIP: Well, let me give you --
ARM: Brother Cornel is going to get it from you.
PHILLIP: Let me give you some more "New York Times" polling, which I know you like --
WEST: I like polls.
PHILLIP: -- to chew on. 63 percent of Americans say it was the wrong decision to go to the war in Iran. And as Democrats are pointing out in this moment, when affordability is the concern, when the economy is the concern, and they're looking at a price tag of $40 billion thus far for this war, that only aggravates voters going into a midterm election.
ARM: Yes, I think that's broadly right.
Look, the White House needs to make the case to the American people. If you want to make the case to the American people on these dollar amounts that you've raised, I think it goes something like pointing out that this is a fraction of a percent of what our projected annual spending is at the federal level this year.
Compare it to last year's defense spending specifically, it is something like four percent of what we spent. And I think the real question that the American people, or that the White House should be raising for the American people is, well, look, nothing's free when you're engaged in military action abroad.
We've spent like $200 billion helping the Ukrainians fight back against Russia's invasion of their territory. That's more than five times as much as we've spent on this Iran conflict today.
Obviously, those aren't directly comparable, but it gives you a reference point. And then lastly, just Abby, one last point.
PHILLIP: It sounds like you're saying, why aren't you being more grateful? And that's the first thing.
ARM: No. Definitely not. It's just quantifying the dollar amounts.
PHILLIP: The second thing is, why then, if this is such a minuscule amount of money, why is the Trump administration using it as a reason to ask for a 50 percent increase in the Defense Department budget?
ARM: Yes. Because the goal remains to ensure that the Iranians cannot have a nuclear weapon. And I think it's important.
PHILLIP: So it's not minuscule.
ARM: It is.
PHILLIP: So if they want a 50 percent increase, a $1.5 trillion defense budget, that means that they're asking the American people not just to foot the bill for this conflict, but also to then invest even more money that Trump claims that they don't have.
ARM: Yes, right. So it's 4 percent of what the defense budget was last year. So it makes sense.
It's less than that. We're asking an increase. But there's an important point here, which is a question that is, I think, central to all of this.
I'll ask it to Adam, because he likes asking me questions. What would have been a reasonable amount of money for the American government to spend on a military action to prevent North Korea from acquiring a nuclear weapon?
MOCKLER: This is a very good question that we don't have to hypothesize on, because we had a deal about a decade ago to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons.
ARM: I asked about North Korea.
MOCKLER: North Korea? I don't think we should launch a direct war against North Korea.
What would the justifiable amount be?
ARM: North Korea is now a nuclear country. We had an opportunity to prevent it at one point. What would have been the correct dollar amount to spend in preventing that? Would it have been a fraction of the percent of our federal budget each year?
I think most Americans, if you ask them that in a polling question, I'm a pollster, they would say yes.
MOCKLER: Don't you think we should have had a plan going into it, though, and followed the war games?
ARM: That's not relevant to the question I just asked you.
MOCKLER: No, Trump didn't have a plan going into this. This was haphazard.
ARM: Again, that's not relevant to the question I just asked you. I'm saying, if we had a plan with North Korea and we knew there was a set amount and it wasn't going to turn into mission creep, were they going to --
MOCKLER: So you would spend --
ARM: -- about half of the percent of our federal budget?
MOCKLER: Yes, you can make the case that you can spend on national security to protect the American people. Trump hasn't made that case and we're not more protected. So I don't know what you're saying.
NAVARRO: And that's one of the problems, right? You just said that this White House needs to make the case.
But the problem is that instead of making the case for this war that they dragged this into, they are, you know, Donald Trump is out there posting about the Kennedy Center and building arches and ballrooms and claiming vandalism against a reflecting pool and slaughtering wild horses.
ARM: What? NAVARRO: Yes.
ARM: I missed that one.
NAVARRO: Yes, they're actually selling wild horses.
WEST: But it's not just slaying wild horses.
MOCKLER: We got to get to the bottom of the slaughtering of the wild horses. We're selling them for slaughter in international slaughterhouses.
NAVARRO: But the problem is, okay, let's focus. What I'm saying is that instead of making the case, that is what he is doing.
PHILLIP: Next for us, we'll react to your feedback from cnn.com/abby. Be right back.
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[22:55:00]
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PHILLIP: And now some viewer feedback from cnn.com/abby.
This viewer says, I don't understand how adding Trump's name to the Kennedy Center can magically bring it out of bankruptcy? His name was on everything and he filed for bankruptcy multiple times.
Seems like a fair point.
MOYNIHAN: It is also like falling apart. Like, there's like pieces of the ceiling that are falling down and the HVAC doesn't work and, you know.
PHILLIP: One could just renovate it without putting one's name on it.
MOYNIHAN: I will say, I don't understand why people are surprised. Everyone knows Trump likes putting his name on buildings, I don't think that's -- I've been seeing it on social media. People are astonished.
[23:00:05]
PHILLOP: All right. Another viewer says, If Jesse and Adam can't agree on politics, at least they can agree on fashion.
MOCKLER: Hey, you took my suit. I was going to wear the suit.
ARM: Oh, you know, I didn't even -- I have so not an eye for this, I didn't even notice.
WEST: That's interesting.
ARM: But we agreed on a lot. We were hanging out. MOCKLER: We also coordinated suits before we came here.
PHILLIP: Got it. All right, guys. Everyone, thank you very much.
Tomorrow at 7pm, join me with John Berman and Harry Enten for CNN's official "Office Hours." We're going to answer your questions about the upcoming elections. Share those questions right now at cnn.com/officehours via the CNN All Access subscription.
And thank you for watching "NewsNight." "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
