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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Trump Ousts Guilfoyle After Alleged Quid Pro Quo; Most Americans Say Trump Profiting In Illegal Or Unethical Ways; Wall Street Journal Reports, GOP's Paxton Partied In Dubai With U.S. Fugitives. I.; White House Officials Describe Katie Zacharia's First Briefing As Brutal; Trump Slams Russia And China Involving In Iran War. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired October 13, 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 ousts his ambassador over an alleged quid pro quo, but the American people think he's the one profiting illegally.
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: She wasn't a member of my family. We didn't like what we were reading.
PHILLIP: Plus, deep in the heart of Texas, the Republican candidate flew to Dubai to party with U.S. fugitives while the veep makes lewd jokes about the Democrat.
J.D. VANCE, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: You got to wonder what the internet search history of a man like that looks like.
PHILLIP: Also, if first impressions are everything --
KATIE ZACHARIA, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I have wanted to work for him for a very long time.
PHILLIP: -- sources inside the White House aren't too impressed with the new press secretary.
And the president shrugs off Russia and China helping Iran, as new estimates show the war is costing American households $2,000 each.
Live at the table, Scott Jennings, Katie Porter, Lydia Moynihan, Jemele Hill, and Ana Navarro.
Welcome to a special edition of Newsnight: Midterm Countdown.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIP (on camera): Good evening. I'm Abby Phillip in New York with a special edition of NewsNight.
Tonight, just three weeks away from the midterms, the stakes could not be higher. In an election that Donald Trump is calling one of the most important ever, control of Congress and the fate of his final two years in office hang in the balance.
No one, including Trump, knows what will happen, but the president is campaigning as if his legacy is on the line. Trump is set to make campaign stops in Arizona, Montana, Georgia, Kentucky, and Florida after visiting Alaska this evening.
But as he continues his November midterm -- his October midterm blitz, another scandal threatens to derail some of that momentum. Today, Trump ousted the U.S. ambassador to Greece, who's facing allegations of corruption. Last week, it was revealed that Kimberly Guilfoyle allegedly begged a major Trump donor to pay off her credit card in exchange for access to top administration officials. And since then, the list of reports alleging improper conduct has only grown.
Guilfoyle insists that she'll vigorously defend herself against these allegations, which she calls false. But as Donald Trump attempts to distance himself from her, Americans say that the issue is much bigger than Kimberly Guilfoyle.
And as the Trump family fortune balloons this term, there's a new A.P. poll that finds that most Americans believe that Trump is profiting off of the presidency in ways that are either illegal or unethical. And more Americans say that Trump is focused on his own personal business interests instead of people like them.
Before we open it up to the table here, we invite you at home to join the debate. Head to cnn.com/abby, weigh in there. We'll get to your comments as we go throughout this show.
This is one of the more striking things about this campaign, is the way in which this issue of corruption, specifically when it comes to Donald Trump has penetrated to an electorate that's actually really mad about a lot of other things, but they're also mad about this.
KATIE PORTER (D), FORMER CALIFORNIA GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: Yes, I mean, corruption's a constant -- I think that's a constant thing that we hear, that people have this belief that Congress members are on the take, that elected officials can't be trusted. And so he's playing right in to what a lot of Americans already believe, both sides of the aisle, about their elected officials, and he has just -- it's one grifter after another, Paxton and his grifting, Guilfoyle and her grifting, I mean, it's just nonstop.
So, I think, people, when you're having a hard time making ends meet, you feel more hostile to those who are on the take who have it easy.
PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, when you look, Scott, at the president's estimated net worth, he has gone from $3.9 billion before he was reelected to suddenly over $7 billion after he was elected. That is an astronomical increase. It is unheard of. You cannot find a parallel anywhere in American history of something like that happening.
[22:05:01]
And Americans, they are hearing this, they're seeing it, and they do not like it. SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, I agree with you. There's no historical parallel for Donald Trump in a lot of ways. That's absolutely true. He was a businessman before he became president and maintained a pretty vast business empire, and his family, outside of the government, still maintains a vast business empire.
I agree it is unusual and I agree with you, in the polling some people are skeptical of it. I'm not certain how much of it is illegal or even unethical, but you can't deny the numbers and how people feel about it. And my advice is, look, if the Democrats take control of one or both branches, some of this is going to be investigated.
And so whatever you've done, you would need to have done it in conjunction with the White House Counsel, which I believe they have, and try to follow all the ethical obligations that you have. So, that would be, you know, moving forward as people look at this, not just as a political matter, but as an oversight matter, I suspect we'll be dealing with it for the next few months.
JEMELE HILL, CONTRIBUTING WRITER, THE ATLANTIC: I'm going to stick up for Kimberly Guilfoyle in this way, because I know she's looking at in this way, small way, small way, okay, is that I know she's looking at the outsize corruption of the Trump administration and say, Now, how am I the one that gets caught with all of this when I see on a daily basis Trump, his children, all the other people in the White House, they just take, take, take, they just grift, grift, grift, how did I wind up being the one who gets caught?
Now, I'm not excusing what she did. It was clearly unethical, but this entire administration has been corruption central. And so, frankly, she was just doing what was on brand for what everybody else is doing.
ANA NAVARRO, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, the Kimberly Guilfoyle thing had a, a particular problem, right, which is that the donor she begged for $100,000 to pay off her American Express bill has the receipts and is talking and talking and talking like a parakeet.
HILL: Yes.
NAVARRO: He looks -- you know, every time I turn on the T.V., he's on our air talking about all the information he's got, all the threats he's making, talking about how he has been in communication with the ranking members of the Oversight Committee, Jamie Raskin and Robert Garcia, how he's willing to go and testify. So, this was a problem that was not going to go away. If anything, it was going to get bigger.
And I agree with you that people -- that it hurts even more when people can't pay for gas, people can't pay for diesel, meat prices, grocery prices are so unattainable. But also, remember, for Republicans, the Hunter Biden issue was such a huge issue, right? Hunter Biden getting a board seat with Burisma, he testified about it, what, seven, nine hours in front of Congress. He's gone to trial. He was found guilty, all of these things. He was held accountable. He's paid the consequences and the price. He ended up being pardoned by his dad.
But for MAGA that has spent the last four years obsessing about Hunter Biden, what Hunter Biden did is like chicken feed in comparison to the billions that Witkoff and Kushner and the Trump kids and Trump himself and Melania, the $40 million from Amazon for the documentary, the watches, the crypto grift, the wedding parties paid for by Russian oligarchs.
I mean, we could spend your entire show talking about ways that Trump and his inner circle have profiteered off of the White House and the presidency.
HILL: But that's why I said that if you're Kimberly Guilfoyle, you're kind of mad because you're looking at all of this --
PORTER: Can I just say though, I think Kimberly got punished because she got caught.
HILL: Exactly.
PORTER: In other words, they're all grifters in the Trump White House at night.
NAVARRO: They're not even hiding it. What is there to get caught about? They're not even hiding it.
HILL: Like the Trump family is out, or the Trump administration's out there selling pardons basically, and she's probably looking at this like, what is my meager $100,000 compared to all of this?
JENNINGS: The president made the correct call on this. There's something about the allegations from Deters, that's the person she was in contact with, that have been a little unsettling to me, and I don't know if -- are there any attorneys here tonight? But he has been saying that he has been emailing the White House chief of staff saying, if you don't take these actions that I demand of you, I'm going to enact retribution, political retribution by releasing this information.
PORTER: But that's against the law.
JENNINGS: So, that's my question. I don't know the answer to this, but is that extortion in the legal sense? Because it sounds like it to me, but I'm a layperson.
PHILLIP: Yes, I mean, I think it --
JENNINGS: But it's very unsettling to me.
PHILLIP: I think it could very well be, but it also highlights the reason why the allegations are so serious because it opens her up to being extorted, which is the exact reason why things like this are not supposed to happen.
JENNINGS: No. I'm saying he's committing extortion against the White House right now is what I meant. PHILLIP: No. What I'm saying is that maybe so, but there's a reason that any public servant is not supposed to do what she did, and it's because what Deters is doing in public --
JENNINGS: Oh, I'm in full agreement with you.
PHILLIP: -- many people would attempt to do in private, and that would be a problem for the United States government. So --
JENNINGS: Yes they made the right quick call on this. There's no doubt about it.
PHILLIP: Well, it's interesting because the president -- you're talking about the family, people may remember Kimberly Guilfoyle was engaged to Donald Trump Jr. for a time, and --
[22:10:09]
NAVARRO: Four years.
JENNINGS: Was she ever engaged or married anyone else?
PHILLIP: And here's what the president said about that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: She was almost a member of your family. How surprised were you to learn about these allegations?
TRUMP: No, she wasn't a member of my family. She, I guess, dated my son a long time ago, but she wasn't. No, she wasn't great. She was doing a good job, but we didn't like what we were reading.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JENNINGS: She was a member of Gavin Newsom's family though.
PHILLIP: She was a member of Gavin Newsom's family.
LYDIA MOYNIHAN, CORRESPONDENT, NEW YORK POST: I haven't seen him comment on this one.
PHILLIP: And she's been -- but she's been in many a Trump family photos. There's a lot of evidence of it.
MOYNIHAN: She's had some great photo shoots with the Trump family.
PHILLIP: And I will say, you know, why did she end up in this position if not for her closeness to the Trump family? Because, I mean, that's part of the problem is, you know, the Trump administration putting people who are wholly unqualified into positions where then things like this happen.
MOYNIHAN: I mean, I think we can debate her merits. She's obviously spent a lot of time in politics and in the news business. So, I think that's a matter that's up for discussion. But I do think what President Trump has done in a very unique way is initiate an entire task force devoted to finding fraud, and they've done just that.
PHILLIP: Are they going to investigate him and his own family?
MOYNIHAN: They found they found $260 billion in fraud in a lot of blue states like California, where we're seeing something like $20- plus billion --
PHILLIP: Is fraud only happening in blue states?
MOYNIHAN: It's happening in a lot of blue states and blue states --
(CROSSTALKS)
MOYNIHAN: That's why we're seeing, that's why we're seeing Peggy Flanagan potentially getting replaced with Michele Tafoya.
PHILLIP: Let's be real. There's plenty of fraud happening.
MOYNIHAN: Why are we seeing Gavin Newsom trying to crack down on independent journalists, like Nick Sandmann?
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: You know that fraud doesn't just happen in blue states.
MOYNIHAN: I'm saying it happens everywhere.
PHILLIP: The reason I know is because --
MOYNIHAN: Obviously, it's pretty notable in California and Minnesota.
PHILLIP: President Trump keeps pardoning fraudsters. He keeps pardoning people who are convicted of fraud, nullifying their settlements that are designed to rectify the wrongs to the people that were harmed, and that is just in this term. Now, I'm not even going to go back to the first term.
So, look, if you really cared about fraud, you wouldn't care whether it came from red states or blue states, right?
MOYNIHAN: I think we care about it in every state. I think it's much more pernicious when it's government money that's taxpayer paying for.
PHILLIP: Yes. And I think you would also care, wouldn't you, about whether or not people who have the ability to influence public policy are also profiting from that policy? Wouldn't you also care about that?
MOYNIHAN: Yes.
PHILLIP: Okay. So, that's what this is about.
HILL: That was a reluctant yes.
PHILLIP: When Americans say -- yes. When Americans say, hey, we think that people in power are using their proximity to power to make money, that's a different -- that's -- there's fraud, and then there is defrauding the American people by utilizing your your position of trust in order to make money, and that is what's --
(CROSSTALKS)
NAVARRO: There are people in jail right now, public officials who are in jail precisely for that. Bob Menendez is one of them. Last week, two weeks ago in Miami, former Congressman David Rivera, Marco Rubio's best friend of life, was just convicted for using his connections to Marco Rubio and his former elected office to profit from representing the Maduro regime.
So, yes, it happens in blue states and red states. It happens with blue elected officials and red elected officials. But at the rate and the amount that it's happening right now, I don't think it's happened ever in our history.
PHILLIP: Okay. Katie?
PORTER: When I was in -- one thing, when I was in Congress, I tried to do a bipartisan bill the very end of my time in Congress with a surprising partner, Jamie Comer, Republican, head of the Republican Oversight Committee. We tried to do a bill called the Presidential Ethics Reform Act, and it dealt with adult children, including in- laws.
And we worked really hard on this bill. I mean, it was what Americans want Congress -- this was 2023 -- 2024. It's like what people want Congress to be. Like two people sitting in a wood-paneled room thinking about the law, looking at problems. We came up with this bill and we could not get either Democrats or Republicans to go for it. Every Democrat I went up to said, this is just going to be used against Hunter Biden. Every Republican that Jamie went up to said, this is just about punishing Trump's kids.
So, for me, that was really kind of one of the final straws of my time in Congress, and it was that, here I'd reached across the aisle. I'd done exactly what American people say they want to see to solve a real problem, to try to restore faith in government. Adult children didn't used to be a problem. We used to have cute little kids running around the White House, and now we have these middle-aged dudes, like these, you know, divorced people.
[22:15:06]
We have in-laws. We have people with child support problems. I mean, look at the cast of characters we're getting out of these presidential candidates and these presidents. And we couldn't get either side elected official wouldn't go for it.
PHILLIP: No president wants to subject themselves to, you know, these proverbial handcuffs, but they should.
PORTER: Yes.
PHILLIP: And I think that's part of the problem when you have -- (CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: And Congress wants to ban insider trading, but they want to exempt the executive branch.
JENNINGS: They tried it with the insider trading.
PHILLIP: But they exempted the president and his family
JENNINGS: They tried to ban insider trading. Somebody filibustered it. Who was it?
PHILLIP: It doesn't make any sense to exempt the president and his family.
JENNINGS: Who was it?
PHILLIP: All right, we got to go. We got to go.
NAVARRO: Abby, but going back to the Kimberly Guilfoyle of it, we all know why she ended up ambassador to Greece. It was a bone that Donald Trump threw a person who was incredibly loyal to him and who was engaged to his son. I mean, they owned a house together, she and Eric Trump, in what's her name -- his name, Donald Trump Jr., in Florida. That's why she -- it was a great way to get rid of a problem and throw her a bone.
PHILLIP: Which is, you know -- and ambassadorships tend to be that, a great way to get rid of a problem.
All right, next up, J.D. Vance makes lewd jokes about James Talarico, and that includes one that insinuates that the Democrat is gay.
Plus, White House officials are giving bad reviews for the new press secretary after her first briefing. We'll discuss how that went.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:20:00]
PHILLIP: Scandal-plagued Ken Paxton is facing yet another controversy as the Texas Senate race heats up. There's new audio that's been obtained by the Wall Street Journal showing that the GOP candidate celebrated New Year's in 2024 in Dubai with his girlfriend and two U.S. fugitives who had been indicted on healthcare fraud charges.
According to campaign finance records reviewed by the Journal, one of the men, Anosh Ahmed, donated $190,000 to Paxton, including $25,000 after his indictment. Paxton's team told the Journal, like President Trump, Ken Paxton has been politically persecuted for years, and every time voters have seen through it and sent him back to office because they know that he has always fought for Texas.
If you didn't notice there, there was no actual addressing of the allegations in the story. Not surprising. It's a little bit of spin there, but it doesn't address two elements of it, one, which is the partying with the fugitives, and then, two, the fact that he was partying with a girlfriend who is not his wife.
PORTER: Well, and all the money that he spent, like $190,000 -- or $1.9 million. I can't even remember the number. I can't get the zeros right, that he spent flying around on the people of Texas' state taxpayer dollars, committing fraud, flying around to watch fireworks in Abu Dhabi. Well, and there's also --
NAVARRO: Does Texas not know how to do fireworks?
So, the reporting is that Trump was told, I guess -- I guess John Cornyn's team must have had the oppo research, and Trump was told, listen, but before he endorsed this guy, there's more controversial revelations that are going to come out, negative revelations that are going to come out on him, and Trump didn't care. He went ahead and he endorsed him.
But the part that gets me about this is he was in Dubai watching fireworks with two American fugitives who committed healthcare fraud in a red state after he was impeached for using his office to, you know, abuse of office and corruption, and after he was investigated for securities fraud.
So, knowing that he is under the microscope, knowing that he has narrowly escaped impeachment, and when he was impeached by the Republican legislature, by being convicted of the impeachment, he then years later goes and continues doing this kind of thing. It tells you this guy -- I mean, this guy has nothing that's a semblance of a moral compass. He has no remorse, and he has no shame.
PHILLIP: Isn't this kind of thing why this race is close?
JENNINGS: Yes. And, look, I don't know how to address it because they haven't addressed it. But this is one of those kinds of things that deserves to be addressed, and the campaign, I assume, is going to have to address it.
Look, a lot of allegations and oppo research gets dumped in campaigns, but something like this, you got to address it. And, yes, these kinds of stories are why this particular race is close. I don't know. You know, I've had my doubts the Democrats would be able to finally turn Texas blue. They haven't elected a Democrat there in a very long time.
But you talk to people involved with the campaigns down there, everybody is, you know, puckered up a little bit in certain areas, and it's because of these kinds of issues. And so they're going to have to address it. And I don't know what else to say about it.
PHILLIP: It also -- by the way, I mean, this is sort of like there's a, a kind of rule in politics that, like when you see these types of things from candidates, it's usually doesn't -- it doesn't go away when they get elected. So, this is probably going to be a thorn in their side, even if Ken Paxton were elected. We don't know what's going to happen.
I also think J.D. Vance, he's been out on the campaign trail, just listen to how he talks about James Talarico and what it says about how he thinks they should prosecute this race as Republicans. Listen.
[22:25:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VANCE: I love you too, sir, in a totally platonic way. To be clear, I'm the vice president, not James Talarico.
He was asked what he loves in life besides his own family and friends, and he responded without skipping a beat, and I quote, trans children. Now, you got to wonder what the internet search history of a man like that looks like. Ladies and gentlemen, you don't want to find out. Neither do I.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HILL: Oh, I know he lying.
PHILLIP: There is an edge -- you know, I think if, when you have the substance to talk about, you talk about substance. When you feel like you have the upper hand on real things, you talk about real things. When you don't, you make up innuendo about James Talarico's search history. And I think it's very telling, don't you, about how he -- J.D. Vance at least is grasping at straws here.
MOYNIHAN: Well, I think even the almost $200 million ads that we're seeing in the final weeks of the campaign are trying to highlight the trans issue. You know, Talarico is for they/them, Paxton is for you, which is sort of a spin-off on the very successful ad that Trump ran in Pennsylvania in 2024.
And so I think the Republicans are really trying to highlight the fact that James Talarico is very out there, he's very far left, and some of those social issues are really alienating to voters.
PORTER: He had -- James Talarico has never had a weapon in his life. That guy is so square --
MOYNIHAN: But the average Texas voter does not have a favorite drag queen.
PORTER: He is so pure.
MOYNIHAN: The average Texas voter does not think there are six sexes. There are things that are just not in line with the average Texas voter. And that's what J.D. Vance is trying to highlight.
PORTER: That boy was the Sunday school teacher's favorite pupil. Talarico is so squeaky clean.
MOYNIHAN: Is that same Sunday school teacher the one who says abortion is biblical?
PORTER: I think that's -- I think that he is so clean that it's a real contrast here. So, it's not just that Paxton is a grifter and --
MOYNIHAN: Okay, then why did he go AWOL for nine days?
HILL: Apparently, he was at his house.
MOYNIHAN: I don't -- I think there's --
PHILLIP: There's video evidence that he was sick at his house.
PORTER: I had my appendix burst on the campaign trail.
MOYNIHAN: He just disappeared for nine days. Don't you think that's weird?
PORTER: I disappeared for nine days when my appendix burst on the campaign trail this exact time of the year.
MOYNIHAN: He didn't have the flu.
PORTER: And I won. Like I just think that the contrast with Talarico here, I mean, he's so -- and, look, he -- the problem -- I think this is going to bounce back and actually help Talarico, Vance saying this kind of stuff, because Talarico's basic statement was, love the children. Love the children. Like love others. Be Christian. Be kind to others. Love every human being. It's a very wholesome kind of -- he's talked about his faith a lot on the campaign trail, and like Vance just looks like a creeper who wants to go seeing what's in the dark corners of the internet but is afraid to look himself.
PHILLIP: The proof is in the pudding, okay? If it was working, it would be working, and it's not working.
HILL: Well, it's not working. I just think it's strange that everything I hear from this race when it comes to -- like I expect debates about issues. Like that's what you expect in any political race. Everything that I hear from the Republicans about James Talarico is about how he's not manly enough, and then these insinuations about his sexuality. What are the issues?
NAVARRO: Or that he eats vegetables.
HILL: Or that he eats vegetables. It just sounds so dumb and like middle school and like very childish.
And it's like at this point that I understand that there's this perception of what a Texan is, and I get it, but neither one of them dudes winning a pushup contest. So, like I don't even know what this is really about. So, for J.D. Vance, he ain't going to date you, dude, so I don't know what to tell you.
PHILLIP: I would say the way the Democrats defend Talarico does not help the situation in terms of -- what did you call him, a Boy Scout. And the other day Van Jones said that he was cute.
JENNINGS: No, he said he was adorable.
PHILLIP: Adorable. He was adorable.
PORTER: I wouldn't say that.
PHILLIP: I'm not sure that this is like what Talarico wants on the poster board there.
PORTER: I kind of do because he is -- like, look, they don't want to talk about the issues. So, the more that they go after Talarico is the problem they have is Talarico actually is pretty good on the issues.
I mean, he's a Democrat, so that's tough in Texas. We know that. But as Democrats go, this is a pretty good fit, and he's going to win on the issues.
JENNINGS: On what issue do you mean?
PORTER: Data centers, A.I., he is way stronger, and people are big mad about that. And they are going to hold -- We have seen other A.G.s step up and do things on data centers, and other governors take action, and we have not seen that out of Texas.
Oil prices, the price of fueling up, filling up their pickup truck, the issues --
JENNINGS: What has he proposed to doing about that? He's come after the oil and gas industry. He's called it a blight. He's tried to get rid of it. He's come after capitalism. He's referred to being a white male as a, quote, virus. Do you think that sounds like a middle of the road Democrat that a Texas could identify with?
PORTER: You are cherry-picking statements. I'll see you on Election Day.
PHILLIP: All right.
JENNINGS: I mean, I'm not cherry -- they're just what he said.
PHILLIP: It's okay. Speaking of James Talarico, tomorrow Senate candidate James Talarico will come face to face with Texas voters, perhaps on some of those very issues.
[22:30:01]
Erin Burnett moderates the CNN and Jubilee town hall at 8:00 P.M. on CNN and streaming live with an All Access subscription. You can also catch a special edition of the "NewsNight" table debate at 10:30 until midnight Eastern tomorrow night, that's right after the town hall.
Next for us, brutal, awkward, stilted, and unusual. That's just some of the ways that the White House insiders are describing the new press secretary on her first day in the briefing room. Will she survive? We'll debate.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:35:10]
PHILLIP: Tonight, a quote "brutal" first briefing for newly appointed press secretary Katie Zacharia. Not my words, that's how one White House official described it to CNN. Here is a taste of the 15-minute briefing.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KATE ZACHARIA, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I have wanted to work for him for a very long time. I'm looking forward to working with each of you as well, especially as we are in the middle of the midterm blitz with energy and excitement never seen before in the history of midterms thanks to President Trump.
I get to do what I was doing on the outside already, which was hoping to amplify, multiply, and expand upon President Trump's incredible agenda for the American people. And what I hope to do in this position is to take that into an official capacity and only build on, only amplify, and only multiply to the extent possible all of the wins he's making for Americans.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: We should note that she called on just three reporters for questions before leaving the podium, but that didn't stop the White House from calling it a commanding inaugural briefing in a press release. But behind closed doors, White House officials are questioning how long Zacharia will hold on to the job.
One tells CNN, why did they put her out there so quickly? There was literally zero reason to put her out on her second day unprepared.
Another advisor says, no question that we're all missing Karoline.
I don't know, maybe the reason to put her out there on her second day is because she has the job and ought to be able to do it? I don't know. Is that too much to ask?
HILL: No, and then especially considering this administration has had so many constant conversations about merit and people deserving or people who should be in deserving positions. And we heard all that DEI talk and that, all right, you know, because there's a lot of people at home probably shaking their fist and saying, so this is what you consider qualified.
They look at this whole administration as a total train wreck. And to be honest, she is just the latest iteration of what we see, wholly unqualified people, for the most part, with very few exceptions, that are in a job capacity that they are not qualified for. And she is just the latest example.
PHILLIP: So Scott, how do you think she did?
JENNINGS: I'm going to give her a little grace. You just have to be thrown out there, I think, in a job like this. It's one of the few jobs in the world where if you go out and make a public utterance, every single television station will carry it, which is what happened to her today. You know, I think Karoline is a tough act to follow. I mean, that's
another part of this. She was so good at it, she was breezy and in full command, really, for the whole time she had it.
So anytime you're following someone that good, it's difficult. So, you know, my advice would be take a few days, get briefed, hang around the building, talk to the cabinet, talk to the staff, particularly the national security staff.
You know, feel like you're in the jet stream of how the issues are being discussed in the building, and that'll make you feel more comfortable and prepared for the next one. But everybody's had tough days in whatever job they've had. She might have had one today, but there'll be better days.
NAVARRO: My advice is don't get a long-term rental. I'm not sure. I mean, what do you think of the over and under on whether she'll beat or exceed Scaramucci?
PHILLIP: It's one-eleventh of a Scaramucci, according to Scaramucci.
NAVARRO: Well, Scott, you might get another shot at the opera. You never know, because --
JENNINGS: I think you're more interested in that than I was. I think you're more interested in it.
NAVARRO: Are you leading the panel? Maybe.
PHILLIP: Okay.
JENNINGS: It would make your job easier, wouldn't it?
PORTER: I mean, I will say, she's got a lot of issues, but she also, that is not a strong public speaking performance.
She made it through three words before she was struggling. I am so honored. I mean, that's to be working for President Trump.
I mean, she just needed to practice more. So I actually think that giving people some grace is not a bad thing. I think everyone pounces on everyone in politics.
But she's got a whole -- I don't know that you can get her ready this fast. I remember Republicans saying, well, they just have to prep darling, grumble a little more before the next debate. And it's like, you can't.
It's stupid, it didn't work. And I'm worried that they're not going to have the time. I mean, she does not have the --
HILL: But isn't that like a job? That was like a job is to publicly speak.
PHILLIP: Why is the bar so low? Why can't the President hire somebody who's qualified, who actually knows how to speak publicly, who can handle the job?
[22:40:00]
It's not like there are not people who can do that. Maybe one of them is sitting at the table today. I don't know.
But there are a lot of people who can do that. Why won't the President just pick people who are qualified for jobs?
MOYNIHAN: Well, I never thought I'd hear the mainstream media talk about how great Karoline Leavitt was. So that's an unexpected advancement.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Just to be clear, just to be clear, Scott said that. And I'm not arguing that Karoline -- truth be told, I'm not arguing that Karoline was bad at her job.
I'm just saying that Trump has a long history of putting people who are not qualified into roles, watching them flounder, and then leaving them to hang out and drive.
(CROSSTALK)
MOYNIHAN: I mean, this is one of the hardest jobs in the world. So I disagree with that premise. And I think at the end of the day, she got out there, she broke some news, and being Trump's press secretary, your job is to let him be the star. And he was --
PHILLIP: He made an announcement. Let's not call it breaking some news.
MOYNIHAN: And here's my story.
PORTER: The President has asked -- I'm not really about --
MOYNIHAN: I think we've all had tough days.
PORTER: We've all had tough days.
PHILLIP: Last quick thing. The questions about whether she actually is a lawyer, as she claims.
In response to questions about her legal credentials, the White House told CNN that Zacharia moved to China with her husband after graduating from law school, citing his job at an American private equity firm, and that she worked on international transaction law at the time. But the official did not respond to a follow-up question about whether she actually ever passed the bar exam. So maybe she practiced in China.
PORTER: We know she didn't pass the California bar exam, because the California bar has told us that.
NAVARRO: But did she take it? PORTER: We can't know that. That's protected.
So I'm a law professor, so I deal with this all the time, with kids passing and taking the bar. So they do not tell you who signed up. They only tell you who passed so we don't know if she sat for it or not.
But I think it's a pretty safe assumption, given that she graduated from Pepperdine, given that she was living in California, still living there now, that the California bar is likely the one that she took. I think she probably didn't pass.
And I want to be clear, the pass rate in 2011, which is when she graduated, I think was something like 55 percent.
MOYNIHAN: It's so interesting that I have zero interest in Dr. Abdul El-Sayed's medical credentials. He masquerades there like he's a doctor, and the media doesn't push back or ask questions about his licensing, even though that's part of his position. I'm a lot more concerned about El-Sayed's credentials than whether or not he paid the California bar.
PHILLIP: You don't have to be a lawyer to be press secretary. That's the good news for her.
Next for us, the President denies that China and Russia are helping Iran in the war, despite what U.S. intelligence is saying. We'll debate that next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:45:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: Tonight, despite the trillions of articles saying otherwise, and the testimony of multiple officials from his administration, President Trump denies that Russia and China are helping Iran in its war efforts. In a post, he said the radical left morons and lunatics were making those claims, and if China and Russia were assisting Iran, quote, "it's at a very low level, but I don't believe that they are at all." Here is Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and what he said about that in July.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOHN HIEVEN (R-ND): Are Russia and China helping Iran, and if so, how?
PETE HEGSETH, UNITED STATES DEFENSE SECRETARY: Well, Senator, as the chairman alluded to, there's definitely adversary alignment, attempts to do so, and there are many ways that we deter that, some of which are, and the depth and extent of it ought to remain classified, and it should, but there are ways in which both of those countries are limiting at different levels enabling some of the things Iran is doing, yes. (END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: That's a lot of words to say, yes, they are.
NAVARRO: And that was a Republican senator asking --
PHILLIP: Yes, and, look, one of the things in the reporting, obviously some of this is classified, is that one of the ways that they're helping is specifically to target our bases, which is where a lot of our service members are being killed. It's where we are sustaining an enormous amount of damage. I don't understand why the President keeps not wanting to believe what his own administration is saying.
JENNINGS: Yes, I mean, there's so much classified information here, it's hard to know at what level or to what extent this is. I mean --
PORTER: It's not classified that China is an enemy of the United States.
JENNINGS: So, you know, he said, you know, in a qualifier today, it might be at a low level. You know, Hegseth was obviously hedging there in public because some of what he was being asked to talk about was classified. My personal view is, it wouldn't shock me at all to find out that Moscow and Beijing are helping Iran target the United States, even if it's at a low level.
PHILLIP: But why is the President downplaying it? That's the question.
JENNINGS: I don't know.
He is the only one. He is the only one who would have full access to all of the classified information, plus his own conversations with the leaders of those two countries. And so --
[22:50:00]
The reason why Donald places because he loves palling around with Xi and Putin, right? He's scheduled to go to China.
He just had Xi at the White House, rolled out the red carpet, treated him like the second coming of Jesus, threw him a state dinner. So it would be hard to justify all of that if at the same time you were saying, this is a guy sharing intelligence with Iran that is enabling Iran to target U.S. assets in the region.
And Putin, he just invited Putin to Doral Country Club in Miami for the G20. So, you know, it's hard to do both things at the same time.
JENNINGS: I will say, whatever help they were giving him doesn't appear to have worked all that much. We've sunk their Navy and destroyed their Air Force and messed them up pretty badly.
PHILLIP: As I just said, I mean, I just pointed out, if they are helping target bases, which is what some of the reporting suggests, they actually have been doing that. And they've been doing it, and the cost has been American lives, okay? So that's why it matters. It's not a theoretical thing, it's like
people are dying in these bases. Our bases are being destroyed, sustaining significant amounts of damage.
Their Navy might be at the bottom of the sea, but they're still doing that and that's a problem. And the President has this long history of downplaying the behavior of Russia in particular and when it comes to this war. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: But will he punish Putin or Russia if they continue to do this?
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Well, it depends. It depends. So far, I think Russia's behaved quite well having to do with the Strait of Hormuz.
And you have to understand, for everything they do, we do also. You know, somebody was saying about China. What about China? We hear they're spying.
We spy on them too. That's the way it goes.
We'll find out eventually. I'll ask Putin about it, we'll find out.
Hasn't had much impact because we knocked the hell out of it.
I don't think they've been doing it. Certainly not at a high level. And if they have, it has been very unimpactful.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HILL: Well, what we know about this President is that he has an admiration and an affection for dictators. And I think because of his love affair with them as pals, as you called it, is very compromising.
MOYNIHAN: And should he have a bad relationship with them?
HILL: Well, he should have that relationship.
MOYNIHAN: He shouldn't have an open line of communication with two other very important dictators.
HILL: I think he should have a type of relationship to where if you're sitting here and the constant message you're conveying to the American people is how against communism you are, and then you do the exact opposite. There's one thing, diplomacy, I understand that's a part of politics, I get that.
But we're talking about something where he's just basically playing footsies with these deals.
PHILLIP: Lydia, do you think that he should be asking Putin to tell him the truth about whether he is doing malign acts around the world and targeting American troops through Iran? Do you think that we should be taking Putin's word for that?
MOYNIHAN: I don't think Trump is naive.
PHILLIP: Then why did he say, we'll find out if that's true because I'll ask Putin about it? That's naive.
MOYNIHAN: Do you think that maybe he is just saying things for the benefit of a certain audience? I think he probably has a good sense.
PHILLIP: Wait, who's the audience for that? Vladimir Putin?
MOYNIHAN: I have a feeling that he is getting a lot of intelligence that's not just relying on President Putin.
I'm just asking if he is listening to his own administration. That is the question.
MOYNIHAN: I would presume so. There's a lot of free things, there's a lot of intelligence.
PHILLIP: It kind of sounds like what he's doing is asking Putin whether or not he robbed the bank. That's not really a good strategy.
NAVARRO: I think Trump is the benefit of the doubt, why don't we, of all people.
MOYNIHAN: Trump is not deferential in many things. He's not deferential and I would much prefer that he have an open line of communication with every world leader.
PHILLIP: All right, next for us, we're going to react to your feedback from cnn.com/abby. Stay with us, we'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:55:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: And now some viewer feedback from cnn.com/abby.
The first one says, is Ken Paxton invited to the town hall?
Well, good question. The answer is yes. Both candidates were invited to participate in the CNN-Jubilee Town Hall.
Talarico accepted, Paxton never replied to us.
CNN has also invited both candidates to actually have a debate. Paxton has also not replied to that. He also hasn't debated in general, which is kind of a thing in this cycle, maybe in a lot of cycles, but in this cycle, he hasn't wanted to debate.
A lot of other candidates are simply choosing not to face their opponents. This is the reality. HILL: It says a lot about the lack of substance that they may offer,
Abby, because if you're not willing to submit your ideas in the public square, then why should people trust you?
NAVARRO: I think it's a disservice to voters. I think it's disrespectful for voters to not have televised debates and to try to win elections just through negative ads.
PHILLIP: Wow, there's a lot of negative ads right now on the air in Texas. Okay, we've got a second one. This is about the new press secretary.
It says, as a Democrat and journalist, I'm troubled by all this coverage of Katie Zacharia today. It's her first day.
[23:00:00]
Give her some time. She's a human being. This is a non-story compared to all the really important things that are going on, and it comes off as inside baseball and mean.
PORTER: I think we actually all said, well, I don't know.
HILL: No, we did not all say that.
PORTER: We actually don't agree on much of anything, Scott, but I think we both did say that it's her first day. I would give her a little grace. I think what I'm worried about is whether there's room for her to get there, because it was a fast-paced job, and they've already put her out there.
Now, if she goes into hiding for a week, that'll become a story.
HILL: Was that a job?
MOYNIHAN: Careful of James Talarico.
HILL: But is that a job that you have room to get there when the core function of your job is the thing she automatically failed at?
PORTER: I think we've seen press secretaries get better.
JENNINGS: And we've also seen them get worse. The last one we had in the Biden administration was terrible on her first day, and even worse on her last day.
PORTER: Well, now you're not giving her any.
PHILLIP: I think that as somebody who's been in that briefing room with a lot of press secretaries over the years, yes, everybody grows in the job. It's by nature.
But I also think that a 15-minute briefing in which you can't get through a pre-written statement is problematic and emblematic of your preparation for the job. And there are many people who are qualified and prepared for the job. And I think it's a fair conversation to have. Is it the most important thing happening in America right now? Absolutely not.
Okay, next thing. Kimberly Guilfoyle.
Why should we follow the laws when this President and his goons do not? We either live under the rule of law or we don't.
And then another viewer says --
NAVARRO: If you don't follow the law and you're not last name Trump, you're going to end up in jail.
NAVARRO: The other viewer says, related to this, I'm waiting for Kimberly Guilfoyle to write a Trump tell-all.
NAVARRO: Oh, she will.
HILL: Yes.
JENNINGS: I'm waiting for a Newsom tell-all.
HILL: They thought for a clean under the bus.
JENNINGS: He's the one that's going to run for President.
PHILLIP: I thought that already happened.
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: Like, we'll see.
PHILLIP: Yes, I'm not sure. I'm not sure she wants to.
NAVARRO: She's had a hell of a physical and I think personality transformation since those days when you go and look at her interviews back then and what she was saying back then to the person she's become.
PHILLIP: All right, everyone. Before we go, you can stream this show live or watch on demand with an all access subscription. Scan the Q.R. code on your screen or go to cnn.com/watch to learn more.
Thanks for watching "NewsNight." "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
