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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Trump Orders DOJ To Block Results If His Candidate Loses; Trump To Walk Back Some Tariffs To Help GOP Candidates; Trump Warns To Veto Everything If Democrats Win Midterms; Trump Says Elon Musk Will Not Do Anything Wrong. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired October 23, 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, it begins. The feds sue to block one state's election certification if the Republican loses. So, who ordered it?
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: I'm the one that said, do it.
PHILLIP: Plus, Donald Trump says tariffs are making America rich. So, why is he walking them back to help Republican candidates?
Also --
REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D-NY): Day one, we need to be opening investigations into the heads of every single one of these agencies.
PHILLIP: -- Democrats are foreshadowing what happens if they get back power while the president is doing the same.
TRUMP: You veto, veto, veto, and then they come and they say, how do we get it done? And you make a deal.
PHILLIP: And as the world's richest person is reportedly making decisions about life and death in war, the man letting him do it reveals why.
TRUMP: He's a very good person. He's not going to do anything wrong.
PHILLIP: Live at the table, Katie Porter, Joe Borelli, Keith Boykin, Lauren A. Wright, and Niall Stanage.
Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here, they do.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIP (on camera): Good evening. I'm Abby Phillip in New York.
We begin with the breaking news. Tonight, just 11 days before the midterms, the president of the United States is putting his thumb on the electoral scale, seeking to block election results in the state of Alaska if his candidate narrowly loses. The Justice Department has filed a preemptive lawsuit in case incumbent Republican Senator Dan Sullivan loses his Senate race by a small enough margin due to what they're calling a spoiler candidate with a similar name.
Trump wants a court to potentially delay the certification of the election if Senator Dan Sullivan were to lose, but would not have won without the votes cast for a challenger, Daniel J. Sullivan.
Now, for months, Republicans have tried to get Daniel J. Sullivan off the ballot, going so far as to ask the state Supreme Court, but that effort was ultimately unsuccessful.
Trump took credit for the legal challenge, claiming the Democrats were behind the other Sullivan's candidacy. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I'm the one that said do it. They have two guys who are named Dan Sullivan running. So, the Democrats put up a guy, never -- I don't think he ever voted before. All of a sudden he decides to run for the Senate, and his name is Dan Sullivan. One is Daniel S., one is Daniel J. The Daniel J. is the fake.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Before we open it up to the table here, we invite you at home to join the debate. Go to cnn.com/abby and weigh in there. We'll get to some of your comments throughout the show.
President Trump very quickly taking credit for a DOJ action is its own story in and of itself. But also as we're coming on the air, Senator Lisa Murkowski, the other Republican senator from the state says, Alaskans don't need any help voting for their preferred candidates. And the State of Alaska has already handled this by clearly distinguishing the candidates on this year's ballot. The Department of Justice should never have filed this lawsuit.
Katie, what do you make of the Department of Justice doing something that frankly defies its own internal regulations? And I can't think of another precedent in which they've actually asked to not certify an election.
FMR. REP. KATIE PORTER (D-CA): No, it's unprecedented, but this lawsuit also may come to a very quick end. There is no legal basis for this lawsuit. They're relying on the preamble to the statute, which is not law. It's just gobbledygook that Congress says when we're doing something, it's not the actual law itself.
So, they're relying on the National Voter Registration Act. They do not have any statutory basis for this law, so it's very possible that as soon as it gets to a judge, it goes right -- It's dismissed immediately. But the threat, I think, is the point.
PHILLIP: Now that we -- now we know, because yesterday on the show we were talking about -- Todd Blanche made some comments. He was asked pointedly, would you try to stop the certification of elections? And let me just play again what he said to that reporter who asked that question.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Is there any scenario in which DOJ would weigh in on the, that certification process or try to block states from certifying?
[22:05:00]
TODD BLANCHE, ATTORNEY GENERAL: I mean, is there any scenario? Yes, of course, there's scenarios that we could all come up with hypothetically, you know, some doomsday scenario, for example, right? So, I don't think it's proper to make any kind of conclusory statements about what's going to happen in the future, because I have no idea what's going to happen in the future.
It is not DOJ's intention to -- and it's never our intention, to improperly interfere with elections or the state confirmation process or certification process. But, you know, to say that there's no circumstances that we would ever do that, of course, I'm not going to say that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: And here we are the very next day.
LAUREN A. WRIGHT, POLITICAL SCIENTIST, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY: I read that as a no. I really did. I mean, it's a much weaker answer than Trump would have preferred, that's for sure.
PHILLIP: I mean, he said, is there a scenario? Yes, of course.
WRIGHT: An imaginary scenario.
PORTER: But he made it --
PHILLIP: But the scenario is --
PORTER: He made it sound like I'm going to have to imagine some colorful event.
WRIGHT: I mean, the really interesting thing here is, obviously, it is a problem if candidates are impersonating a sitting senator in order to spoil an election, but there's really not a legal path here either federally or statewide.
PORTER: And he also isn't doing that. The man's name --
WRIGHT: Well, we don't really know that.
PORTER: Is -- we know what the man's name is.
WRIGHT: We don't know what the intention was.
PORTER: We know his name is Daniel J. Sullivan. And we have this kind of thing happen all of the time. When I ran in California, there was another Katie running in a Democratic district. She -- we were not incumbents. We didn't have the same name recognition. And so the standard for this is very, very high for a reason, because it's trampling on people's rights to get on the ballot.
So, the Alaska Supreme Court, as you said, Abby, has already come to the conclusion that there's no problem here. They're demarcating the sitting senator with incumbent and Republican. And if you can't figure that out, you know, there's a hole in the electoral system.
JOE BORELLI, FORMER REPUBLICAN LEADER, NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL: Well, Congresswoman, do you believe that this was just a genuine good faith effort by the other Dan Sullivan, who was a park ranger, didn't get involved in politics other than voting for the Democratic candidate that he would like to help? Do you think it's a genuine, sincere effort to run for Senate?
PORTER: I can't know that, but I can tell you that in California, we get a bajillion candidates on our ballot.
BORELLI: In Florida -- in 2020 in Florida, the same thing happened, and it was a Republican who committed this, this sort of act, and they found someone with a name, and Democrats were outraged because it was a deliberate attempt to mislead voters for the two people with the same name.
PORTER: There's just no evidence.
(CROSSTALKS)
NIALL STANAGE, WHITE HOUSE COLUMNIST, THE HILL: No, but did Democrats try to get that invalidated or something?
BORELLI: Yes, they did actually. That's what I was about to say.
STANAGE: Okay, go ahead.
BORELLI: You cut me off. You actually stopped me, and I was about to say that.
So, they demanded this person resign, and they couldn't do that because the election was already certified. So, the Miami-Dade County opened up an investigation, and they found that this person actually did it in exchange for some value.
STANAGE: I'm not sure that's a different scenario.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Joe you're invalidating your --
BORELLI: No.
(CROSSTALKS)
BORELLI: My point is this person -- this person did not coincidentally wake up. We already know there was --
PHILLIP: I mean, I just --
BORELLI: Do I ever get to actually finish a statement without everyone interrupting me?
PHILLIP: Hold it. Excuse me. Hold, excuse me, Joe. Just --
BORELLI: Every time I get interrupted.
PHILLIP: Please.
BORELLI: There was metadata on the press release from a Democratic operative.
KEITH BOYKIN, FORMER CLINTON WHITE HOUSE AIDE: It's always me.
BORELLI: That's pretty consistent with someone trying to manipulate this election by putting someone who has the same name in.
PHILLIP: Joe.
BORELLI: I'm done right here.
PHILLIP: Calm down.
BORELLI: No, I'm done.
PHILLIP: So, here's the deal. You just laid out evidence that there was collusion between maybe the party and this individual. Maybe there was money being paid. I'm not familiar with this case. But just based on what you laid out, does that exist here in Alaska?
BORELLI: So the people in Florida didn't know that either, and it was too late to act.
PHILLIP: You're not answering my question.
BORELLI: I am answering it. You're not listening to my answer. The people in Florida didn't know that answer either. They demanded the person resign, then they opened an investigation, and then after the fact found out that not only was this person unsincerely running for state senate, that he was actually being paid to do this.
PHILLIP: So, I guess what my point is --
BORELLI: that could be the case and you don't know it.
PHILLIP: Hold on, my point is that there was --
BORELLI: You're saying it was not the case. You don't know it's not the case.
PHILLIP: No, I'm just saying --
BORELLI: I don't know it is the case, but you don't know it's not the case. PHILLIP: I'm just saying there's a -- you've just laid out that they were able to determine that there was something nefarious, maybe even illegal, that happened here. This has gone through the court system in Alaska, and it's been --
BORELLI: They didn't judge on his sincerity. They judged whether he was qualified for the ballot. The Supreme Court of Alaska said that he is qualified for the ballot. No one's debating that.
PHILLIP: So --
BORELLI: No one's debating that.
PHILLIP: So, what would you have the Supreme Court of Alaska do then? And also my second question is --
BORELLI: Again, just to mimic what Democrats required of this candidate in Florida.
PHILLIP: -- where is the evidence in this Florida scenario that the Department of Justice asked Florida to invalidate the --
BORELLI: There was the Miami-Dade Election Authority who did it.
PHILLIP: Yes. Well, I'm asking you whether the Federal Department of Justice weighed in on whatever happened in Florida and said, you can't certify those election results.
BORELLI: It didn't happen.
PHILLIP: Did it happen?
BORELLI: They listened to the local elected officials.
PHILLIP: It didn't happen.
BOYKIN: And that's the point. That is the point.
PHILLIP: The point is it didn't happen. That's the bottom line, is that it did not happen.
BORELLI: You're just saying that the only law enforcement of elections is the federal DOJ.
PHILLIP: I'm just saying -- I'm actually saying --
BORELLI: If another agency opened up an investigation and found some sort of a fraud or hearsay, I forget what the actual charge was, but the person who was convicted went to jail.
[22:10:07]
PHILLIP: Well, Joe, do I get to finish a sentence?
BORELLI: Yes, you do. I'm sorry. PHILLIP: Do I get to finish? I'm -- the question that I'm raising is whether or not it's within the Department of Justice's jurisdiction to weigh in on these issues. I'm not saying that there are not issues, but I'm -- but the question is, where is their jurisdiction? Where is the law when it comes to what they are allowed to do?
They acknowledge the states are responsible for administering these elections. Unless you can give me an example of the federal government saying to a state -- You must invalidate these election results because the party that we, that is in power may not win, then I don't think that there is a --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: So, you don't have any law to support your argument.
BOYKIN: I think you hit the nail on the head, Abby. There is no federal precedent for doing something like this, and that's the problem.
I'm familiar with the case in Florida, too. I know what happened. The guy's name was Alex Rodriguez, and the candidate who was running was, his last name was also Rodriguez. And we found out after the fact that the Democrats are the ones who lost that race. They lost by 32 votes and the guy got 6,000 votes. It would have affected the election.
BORELLI: And the cheater is still in office.
BOYKIN: Right. I understood that. But this was -- we don't know -- there was -- the cheater -- you're assuming the Republican candidate was a cheater.
BORELLI: Yes.
BOYKIN: No. But the person who won in that race was not the cheater. It was somebody else. It was a third-party candidate.
So, the question is, whose role is it to enforce these laws? In that case, it was the state's role. And --
BORELLI: I would say the federal government has a role in the disenfranchised vote in the Voting Rights Act.
BOYKIN: Just like you said before, Joe -- like I said before, Joe, you don't get to own the conversation when other people are speaking.
And in this case, in Alaska, the state has the role of deciding this. The state has already done this. They've gone through the judicial process. They've gone up to the Alaska Supreme Court.
For Donald Trump to order his Justice Department, to order Todd Blanche the day after he just said he was not going to get involved, to go in and file a peremptory lawsuit to challenge the results only if the Republican candidate doesn't win is a gross miscarriage of justice. PHILLIP: Okay. Let's talk about Donald Trump's role in this, because I do think that that is the other part. I mean, that in and of itself would have been the entirety of the story, and it is important. Exactly. That, again, Todd Blanche, also this week, says, I know who my boss is, not the American people, not the Constitution, it's Donald Trump. And then Donald Trump on Friday says, I ordered this case to be filed.
STANAGE: Exactly. And I think that is the bigger picture point here, right, that we have those statements. We have Todd Blanche saying things like, well, we would only intervene in a doomsday scenario. In another instance, he said, we would only intervene if something improper happens.
That means you're giving over the definition of those terms to an attorney general who says he works for Donald Trump, to someone who was previously in private practice a lawyer for Donald Trump, and a Department of Justice that has a banner of Donald Trump hanging from the building. Those are not the ingredients to assume that there's a good faith effort to define these issues.
PHILLIP: There's also -- I mean, there is a world in which the DOJ has a role, but according to their own manual for how they conduct themselves around elections, it would have to take place after the election, where if you wanted to investigate whether there was some kind of collusion between Dan J. Sullivan and the Democratic Party, you could certainly do that. You could launch an investigation.
Doing this kind of thing, filing a case that has been described by one election law expert, Rick Hasen, as essentially something that he would give a failing grade if it were written by one of his students, he's called it an embarrassment to the Justice Department and extremely unlikely to succeed. It makes the DOJ look like they are acting politically, as opposed to acting in the interest of justice, which would -- it seems to me there is an interest in knowing, how did Dan J. Sullivan get on the ballot?
PORTER: Yes.
PHILLIP: But you do it after the election. You conduct a real investigation, right?
PORTER: You have to have a legal basis.
WRIGHT: Yes, and I agree with Katie, actually, on the legal basis.
There's also a public opinion question here. So, I do think people look at this and they think Trump's overstepping, and this is really a lot of sketchiness vis-a-vis the DOJ. I also think a lot of voters look at this and they think there is no way in hell there's two random Dan Sullivans running. That's a common sense issue that Joe is raising.
So, there's the public perception, and then there's the law, and Alaska has decided the interpretation of the law, and enough is enough. They have a week left, and this is over for now, after the election would absolutely be the proper way to look into it.
BOYKIN: But it's not even clear that he would make a difference. I mean, in the Alaska election --
WRIGHT: So what? It's a problem --
BOYKIN: Well, it's important though because it, in the last election, Mary Peltola got almost 50 percent of the vote. And I think Dan Sullivan got 41 percent. And so if she wins, you know, outright majority, which I don't think is possible, it's possible.
[22:15:02]
But, I mean, if she wins enough votes so that she's -- his -- for his votes don't make a difference, do you still proceed with this lawsuit?
BORELLI: The motion actually mentions --
WRIGHT: I think you do want to find out if it's a very clever plan by Democrats or not.
BOYKIN: So, why not -- yes, that's fine, but why not wait until after the election and then file suit? If there's some sort of reason why he might have -- the way the law works, you can't just file a lawsuit because you have some sort of problem with somebody. There has to be an actual case or controversy.
WRIGHT: That's what I just said.
BOYKIN: What's the case or controversy here?
BORELLI: Keith, if they do find out that there was a bad faith effort and the Democrats planted this guy, should she resign if she wins, if it was in the margin?
BOYKIN: Did the Republican candidate resign in Florida when she won?
BORELLI: That's the problem.
WRIGHT: Very good.
BORELLI: That's the problem. The problem is that the person who won with only that margin of error is now the state senator of wherever it was.
BOYKIN: Yes. And we don't know, we don't have any evidence of that right now, but I'm saying --
BORELLI: They had evidence of that.
BOYKIN: but this is actually a problem with the law itself, though. This is the reason why Donald Trump can tear down the East Wing of the White House, and then the courts can say after the fact, oh, well, we're going to look at it. Well, it's too late now. The East Wing of the White House is gone. PORTER: Although there is -- with election law, there is a process by which you can contest somebody getting onto the ballot in the first place.
BOYKIN: And they did that already.
PORTER: That's -- that already happened. So, that process happened. I mean, Rick Hasen was -- taught election law at U.C. Irvine. He was my colleague. I now teach election law at UCI. This just isn't any legal basis.
So, the fact that the Justice Department is agreeing to do something with no legal basis, for me, is the big problem here.
STANAGE: And just briefly, Abby, the ballot says Dan Sullivan, Republican incumbent, and the other one.
PHILLIP: It does.
All right, next for us, the president is walking back some of his Canadian tariffs to help Republican candidates, including Susan Collins. We'll discuss.
Plus, as AOC warns that investigations start on day one if Democrats win back power, Trump is threatening to veto everything.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:20:00]
PHILLIP: President Trump is giving Senator Susan Collins a midterm assist by exempting tariffs on key Canadian products that are hurting Maine's agriculture industry. The exemption covers goods used by Maine's blueberry, potato, and apple producers, as well as packaging and refrigeration equipment.
The latest CNN poll shows Collins is facing a difficult reelection fight against Democrat Troy Jackson, with no clear leader in that race. And, once again, tariffs prove to be exactly what they are, not great for the economy.
Every time the Trump administration acknowledges this, I don't know, they don't seem to really internalize their own message.
STANAGE: No, not at all, not at all. I mean, this is a -- sorry, were you going to go?
No, I mean, this is a scenario where they are doing this obviously because they have an election to win, but that involves backing away from a policy that the president has adamantly insisted is of critical importance. He has talked endlessly about Canada ripping us off, ripping off farmers and businesses. But it turns out if Susan Collins is in a tight election, you can now pull back from that and let them rip us off for a few more weeks, because otherwise you're going to lose the election. So, it's the combination of the economic effects and the electoral effects that are being detrimental. WRIGHT: Susan Collins has been remarkably consistent on tariffs, though. In 2025 alone, she voted against Trump's tariffs four times. She co-sponsored legislation to restore Congressional oversight over tariffs. Her opponent, by the way, has not. He's kind of a Bernie Sanders flip-floppy protectionist. In '98, he was literally leading a blockade of Canadian loggers on the border to prevent them from taking jobs away from Mainers.
Not to mention the rest of his positions, I think, are totally psychotic, abolishing ICE abolishing aid to Israel, abolishing private health insurance. I can't stand this guy. I think she's going to be just fine. I think she's going to be fine, and one of the reasons is she's very consistent on economic policy. So, this is not a Susan Collins issue.
BOYKIN: Apparently, Donald Trump doesn't think she's going to be fine because Donald Trump is abandoning one of his key policy positions --
WRIGHT: He's not in Maine.
BOYKIN: -- key policy positions in order --
WRIGHT: Good. I hate the policy.
BOYKIN: Well, so do I, but he's abandoning his key policy position because he wants to help Susan Collins. And he's showing that it was never really about policy in the first place, it's about politics. And Donald Trump is such a transactional figure that he's even willing to work with Susan Collins on this issue because he knows that he has to get Susan Collins on board to win the midterms.
I think this is a reflection not only badly on Donald Trump, but also on Susan Collins. I don't know where she is. You say she's consistent on things, but, you know, she's not consistent on Donald Trump. She voted for -- voted with him 95 percent of the time on almost every major issue. But when it come --
WRIGHT: Actually, the denominator is wrong in that study, but go ahead.
BOYKIN: But on 95 percent of the time on major issues, she voted with Donald Trump.
So, she's trying to separate herself now from Trump because she knows she's in a tight election, Trump isn't popular, but where was Susan Collins on the issues when it really mattered?
PHILLIP: So, Troy Jackson, here's how he's talking about this. He says, Susan Collins enabled this chaos, voted to confirm the people behind it, and now wants credit for bringing a cup of water to put out the fire.
I think part of the argument against Susan Collins, not just on this, is about a lot of her votes to confirm Trump cabinet members. And on this issue where in Maine, 70 percent of Mainers say it's a bad thing that Trump has put tariffs on Canadian goods, it was a huge problem for her politically, and not to mention the actual practical economic effects.
[22:25:07]
BORELLI: The reason why he had to go after her votes on confirming the people who put tariffs in place, presumably before they put the tariffs in place, is because they couldn't find votes of hers or statements and comments of hers in support of these tariffs.
Like Lauren said, she's been pretty remarkably clear on where she stands on that issue, but it also highlights why Mainers have sent her back to represent them several times. She has been the moderate. She has been the person who, who will linger in between parties and make the decision that she feels is best for people in her state. That's why people like her.
And I think, you know, maybe you could argue the problem with the tariffs, that's fine. You could try to link Trump to her and the tariffs, that's obviously what they're going to do. But, fundamentally, this shows that she is someone who's willing to push back on her own party when she thinks her state is at risk.
I don't think this is a --
BOYKIN: How is she pushing back on her party when she's accepting Donald Trump's endorsement and it --
PHILLIP: Well, let me ask you this, Joe. I mean, is it time for Trump to abandon this disastrous policy?
BORELLI: I think this presents a good example. The statement they said around why they've removed some of these tariffs is that American companies couldn't either produce some of these products or produce them in a timely and cheaply manner. If the goal of the tariff is to get behavioral change inside the U.S. and manufacturing, if that's not going to happen, then there's no point to the tariff in the first place.
So, is it backtracking? Perhaps. But is it at the same time admitting that there's a fluidity to some of these tariffs when they're not going to have the desired impact to pull them away? I think there's some --
PHILLIP: Why do you have to stick your hand in the oven to know that it's hot is really the question.
PORTER: Well, and, Joe, you wouldn't claim that this is the only -- that it's only blueberry and apple products --
BORELLI: And seaweed.
PORTER: -- where we're having these problems, and seaweed. I mean, surely we have the same factual scenario where the tariffs are not having whatever desired effect Trump had, and yet the only place, the only people who are getting any relief on this are people who produce blueberries, apples, and seaweed, and there are millions of Americans who are being pounded on with cost of living because of these tariffs. Why aren't they getting help?
The answer has to be that this is about the upcoming election in Maine. It is not about a thoughtful rethinking of trade policy.
PHILLIP: Even in Michigan, where another -- there's another competitive Senate race, Mike Rogers, who initially was supportive of the tariffs now says this on the campaign trail.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MIKE ROGERS (R), MICHIGAN SENATE CANDIDATE: I have stepped back and said maybe these Canadian tariffs were not well thought through mainly because of the interaction between our automobile companies in Canada when it comes just in time manufacturing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WRIGHT: It has the benefit, by the way, of being the classic conservative policy. I don't -- I think that's why some Republicans are not having trouble distancing themselves with Trump on this, because we have completely done an about-face on economic approaches to pricing and trade.
PHILLIP: But it's like --
WRIGHT: A lot of Democrats, I believe, would be okay with some of these, by the way, if there was a Democrat in the White House implementing them.
PHILLIP: Well, there are some tariffs that Democrats are supportive of. Steel tariffs are a good example of that. But, I mean, does anybody actually believe that when this election is over, Donald Trump is going to, you know, renounce his love of tariffs? That's part of the issue, is that I don't think voters believe that, right?
So --
STANAGE: It's like one of the very few consistent beliefs he has actually had through his political life is the belief in tariffs. But, of course, Trump being Trump, he applies them in this enormously arbitrary way.
My favorite Trump tariff story is how he bumped them up on Switzerland after the president of Switzerland had annoyed him. Then some Swiss business executives arrived, giving him a Rolex and an engraved gold bar, and tariffs on Switzerland came down by about 20 points the next week.
PHILLIP: It's like magic.
STANAGE: It is.
PHILLIP: Tariffs are like magic, according to Donald Trump.
All right, next for us, AOC warns the Trump administration the Democrats are going to start investigating on day one if they win back power, and the president delivers a warning of his own we'll discuss.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:33:50]
PHILLIP: Tonight, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez reveals her playbook for what happens if Democrats gain control of Congress. At a campaign event with Maine Senate candidate Troy Jackson, she highlighted what she called the weaponization of the Justice Department, particularly the investigation into Trump's foes like New York Attorney General Letitia James and former Fed Chair Jerome Powell. And she made clear how she wants Democrats to wield their power.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ALEXANDIRA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D-NY): We've known that Kash Patel has purged the FBI of many serious investigators. We've known that the Department of Justice has also been weaponized in its absolute groundless indictments.
Day one, we need to be opening investigations into the heads of every single one of these agencies, and we need to hold them accountable. I'm talking subpoenas, I'm talking investigations, I'm talking, if necessary.
And if the evidence leads us there to court, because I don't care if you are a criminal on main street or a criminal on Pennsylvania Avenue everyone must be held to the same standard and rule of law.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[22:35:04]
PHILLIP: So that worked really well in that room in Portland, Maine, but I wonder, though, for the rest of the country, how high of a priority is it for Democrats to do these kinds of investigations versus dealing with the big issue, which is cost of living?
BOYKIN: Well, I think they have to do both, because if you look at the polls lately, one of the surprises is that corruption has now taken over affordability as a top issue in some of the polls.
And I think that means that the voters want some sort of accountability. That doesn't mean you have to go and create a quote- unquote "witch hunt," but you have to at least hold the people accountable who've been profiting off of the presidency.
Donald Trump is making billions of dollars off of the presidency. Alina Holmberg, his lawyer, just got a $50 million job after this Venezuelan billionaire got a pardon from Donald Trump. You've got all this stuff going on.
Tom Homan, the border czar, got $50,000 in a cash bag, in a paper bag. I mean, it's like, how much corruption can the American people take? I think if, between Elon Musk and Donald Trump and all the other
people, if Donald Trump is not held accountable, there will be some consequences for the Democrats for not focusing on this issue. Yes, you can do affordability, and you can do corruption at the same time.
PHILLIP: So I think there's some truth to what you're saying, but there's also some cautions, right? So the poll from CNBC this week found 36 percent of registered voters say that government corruption is the most important issue to them, right?
There's another poll, though, an A.P. poll, that asks, what should the highest priorities be for Congress? And investigating Trump is not at the top of the list. Lowering costs of living is, investigating Trump is over at 36 percent.
So yes, there's some kind of balance that needs to be struck, but there's a divide among Democrats, particularly among the sort of progressive, DSA-adjacent Democrats, who overwhelmingly want these investigations to happen. Are they going to be at odds with leadership like Hakeem Jeffries and others who want to deal with other legislative priorities?
PORTER: Well, so I think two things. One, I'm less optimistic than you are about Democrats being able to juggle two different things. Because what I saw when we were in Congress, when we were impeaching Trump, that was about all we did, right, for a lot of time.
And so I think there's an interesting sort of difference between this poll that you didn't focus on, which is, the first poll says that you want to fight corruption. It doesn't say you want to fight Trump's corruption.
WRIGHT: That's exactly right.
PORTER: It says you want to fight corruption. And when I talk to voters, when I was on the campaign trail, there are lots of people who think that the system is corrupt. And they don't mean the Republican system.
I personally think Donald Trump has given us some doozy examples of corruption. But I think Democrats should be careful about doing things about Trump without pairing them with doing things that generally address systemic corruption or perceptions of that.
Things like banning un-congressional stock trading, things like thinking about code of ethics for the Supreme Court. We talked about that stuff when I was in Congress, and we didn't do any of it.
BORELLI: The 2018 midterm was somewhat of a high-water mark for Democrats, right? It was a banner year.
And then, just like you pointed out, they focused on impeachment, and that was part of the criticism that led to the Republicans taking back the House. I think Democrats have a polling advantage, that there has been a consistent issue that they could cite to sort of drum up the base. The problem is, they have yet to come out with a plan of how we're going to address inflation other than opposing Trump. How are we going to address cost of living other than opposing Trump?
So now when you start re-entering this whole, we're going to investigate, it's not just AOC, by the way, it's Hakeem Jeffries himself, it's Reps. Garcia, it's Reps. Raskin, a number of leaders in the Senate, names escape me off the top of my head.
But you have all these members of Congress now shifting their talking points to these investigations, and I think they're actually not helping their own election chances by doing it.
STANAGE: I at least halfway agree with what Drew just said. I think that if Democrats are perceived to only be seeking what some people would consider vengeance and other people would consider justice against the Trump people, that at the expense of dealing with cost of living, there'll be an electoral price for that.
But the flip side of it is, there is actually a moral element to politics as well, even though that's unfashionable to talk about. Keith was mentioning the vast degree to which the President has enriched himself, but there are other issues as well.
Look at things like the bootstraps in the Caribbean that everyone's more or less forgotten about, 270 odd people are dead. Is that not worthy of investigation? That's done, and we know almost nothing about it.
So it's not only about trying to sort of pin Trump for corruption, it's the fact that power has been used in such a way as to invite or require investigation.
[22:40:06]
PHILLIP: Let me play what the President says his strategy is going to be if Congress changes hands. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I think the Republicans are going to win. But if there was, as you call it, gridlock, what happens is I veto everything, and then the Democrats come and they want to make a deal. You veto, and then they come and they say, how do we get it done? And you make a deal.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So after this election, Donald Trump is a lame duck. But the Republican Party has to run a presidential right after this, and it seems to me that that attitude might be one of the biggest problems if you want to have a successful post-Trump Republican victory in a presidential.
A President who does not care whether or not things get done is not a President that's going to be trying to get anything done on behalf of the American people.
WRIGHT: I agree with that, but veto threats are a tool Presidents have used for generations. And the fact that he's saying, I'll threaten it, and then we'll come around and we'll make a deal, that actually is how policy gets done in Washington across partisan lines.
I do think he's not going to have that option, though, because affordability is so high on the priority list for voters of both parties. I think Democrats are totally at risk of having nothing, but they don't have a choice not to come forward with legislation.
PHILLIP: My question is, does he care? Why would he care?
He's not on the ballot. He hasn't cared over the last two years when his midterm fate was literally in his hands. He carried out a policy of tariffs.
He started a war. He did all the things that would lead to higher prices. I'm genuinely wondering if there is a version of Donald Trump after this election that does care about what Republicans would actually need in order to make the case to the American people that they're making their lives better.
WRIGHT: Actually he's very susceptible to swings in public opinion. I think we've seen that time after time. Even on his own policies, he reverses course sometimes.
BOYKIN: I don't think so. I mean, look at what's happening right now. He's the most unpopular President in modern history, modern American history, and I don't think that he seems to care.
He's going around talking about his golf courses and his fine palace and his ballroom. He doesn't seem to figure out what the American people want him to do with the affordability issue.
PHILLIP: He vetoed a housing bill that in part he proposed. That was actually bipartisan.
BOYKIN: Exactly, he didn't veto, he just didn't sign it.
PHILLIP: Oh, he didn't sign it. Excuse me.
WRIGHT: But he's had major reversals lately.
PHILLIP: He has never sought to bring the other party in to do anything in the last 18 months.
BOYKIN: But what real legislative tool does a President have when you have the House against you by the government?
PHILLIP: I'm talking about right now when he's in charge of Congress.
BORELLI: The veto tool is a real option for him to have any say in what the legislature does. I'm reminded of Clinton and Newt Gingrich back in the day.
There was a lot of palace budgets. Sometimes having a divided government doesn't necessarily end up in the negative.
BOYKIN: No, but that was if Clinton's (inaudible).
BORELLI: And the markets actually like a divided government.
BOYKIN: And Clinton wanted to be reelected.
WRIGHT: Just to be clear, more things get done than we actually think, statistically.
PHILLIP: And look, Joe, what you're talking about, I totally agree. That was an example of bipartisan cooperation. What Donald Trump just said he's going to do is the exact opposite of that.
BOYKIN: He doesn't care.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: But it's the exact opposite of that.
(CROSSTALK)
BOYKIN: I actually think this is a bigger challenge for Democrats, too, because I agree with you that they should do something about affordability.
But what are they going to do if Donald Trump won't let them? He's going to veto anything that happens.
WRIGHT: Well, they need common sense legislation, which they don't have.
PORTER: -- developing and socializing their ideas. Because when you put up something that the American people like, and Donald Trump, it falls in the bucket of saying everything, which is what he's going to veto. You're laying the groundwork to bring that back when you do have the presidency and push it through.
Very few things in Washington get done on the first pass. It takes a lot of time.
BORELLI: You're too sensible of a candidate.
WRIGHT: Yes, what a concept. Medicard and everything.
PHILLIP: Next for us, Elon Musk reportedly intervenes in the war in Ukraine. Donald Trump shrugs off Musk's power, saying the billionaire would never do anything wrong. We'll discuss.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:45:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: Who ordered the slowdown of Elon Musk's military-grade version of Starlink over Ukraine? Well, it depends on who you ask.
Ukrainian officials say the restrictions are still in place, despite Trump's claim that Musk has restored access to the satellite network. According to the "Wall Street Journal," Musk made the call to throttle the service. And that's complicating Kyiv's war effort against Russia.
But when asked about Musk's reported role in making life-and-death decisions during this conflict, Trump backed him.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Elon's a brilliant guy. And I have an expression.
We have to protect our brilliant people. Because we don't have too many of them. There aren't too many of them in the world.
And Elon's done nothing wrong. Elon is a very good guy. He's a very different.
But I think people have an obligation to protect our geniuses. You know?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Well, we also know the other reason Trump might be saying that. And it's a $445 million reason. That's the amount of money that Elon Musk has donated to Republican groups in this cycle.
[22:50:07]
But if he had not done that, and he was just a billionaire controlling whether or not a nation-state can fight a war or not, should there be a concern that he has that kind of power?
BORELLI: Well, look, both Hegseth and Rubio have made very strong, clarifying statements saying that the U.S. policy on this capability has not changed. I don't have any independent verification of whether the machines are operating as normal.
But I think it's important to remember that the only reason that Ukraine even has this technology in the first place is because of billionaires with vision like Elon Musk, because of American ingenuity.
Europe, who's more at risk from Russian incursion, hasn't had the time, effort, or wherewithal to develop products like this that actually have been helping Ukraine. So, you know, and the other thing with Ukraine's billions, I mean, you can't play one side. The Democrats have billionaires, too, who donate and expect influence and expect the country to be shaped by the vision of whatever they are advocating for.
PORTER: They have most of the billionaires, actually. They have the majority of them.
BORELLI: We said, Alexa, who is the biggest donor of 2022? And people's thing at home heard it, it would come up as George Soros, not Elon Musk.
BOYKIN: I think that's disingenuous. I mean, Elon Musk is an unprecedented figure.
He's a trillionaire, not just a billionaire. South African, foreign- born, who currently, not only is he helping to shape American foreign policy, but he's actually sitting in the White House for the first year of Trump's second term running this agency, this amorphous organization called DOGE, where he had unusual control, expansive control over and access to American records. I just think that we've never seen anything like this.
And then we have the Starlink issue, where he has the capacity to turn on and off or slow down satellites that are needed by our allies. I don't think that's a good thing. It's too much power for one man to have.
WRIGHT: How much money should he be allowed to have, Keith? How much money should he be allowed to have?
BOYKIN: It's not about how much money he should have.
WRIGHT: You just said he's a trillionaire.
BOYKIN: I said it's too much power for one man to have.
WRIGHT: But your evidence was the money.
BOYKIN: No, the evidence was, did you not hear what I said about Starlink, the fact that he has access to DOGE, the fact that he was sitting in the White House making policy for the President. He gets $8 million a day in government contracts.
We're supporting him as federal citizens and taxpayers, and this guy has all this power over us, and I think that no one is holding him accountable. And I think that's one of the conversations that's weird.
PHILLIP: Can I have one more minute here?
WRIGHT: Sure.
Do you think that there is a risk to the United States and to other countries that there is one man who can decide whether or not they have the ability to carry out the war? And Elon Musk might be on Donald Trump's side today, but what about another day, if or when he is not?
WRIGHT: That would be a problem, except we do have a chain of command and a contract in place with Starlink. That's my understanding. Joe might know the policy better than I do.
But someone's obviously lying here. I think the government must be making these decisions. I mean, that's how it happened in World War I when we had private telegraph providers.
PHILLIP: Well, if that's the case, then the liars are Pete Hegseth and Marco Rubio and Donald Trump.
STANAGE: I mean, the choices are to be truthful.
WRIGHT: I agree. I mean, I would like, no, I don't think this like, blanket thing about Elon Musk.
PHILLIP: Lauren says she thinks that it couldn't have happened without the U.S. government, so somebody's lying.
PORTER: Why did Trump say that we should protect Elon Musk? Like, what has he done? Has he done something here that he needs protection from?
When you listen to him, he's just saying he's a good guy, we should protect him or protect our geniuses. Regardless of what one thinks of Elon Musk, we should only protect people who are following the law. We should only protect people who are using their legal authority and acting lawfully.
And what Trump didn't say is whether he's done that or not.
WRIGHT: This would be a great investigation for Democrats, Pete, by the way. It's a great example.
BOYKIN: And Elon Musk's afraid of an investigation. I think somebody with that kind of power needs to be held accountable and investigated.
PHILLIP: All right. Well, 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.
One says, is Donald J. Trump assuming that voters aren't smart enough to know which Daniel Sullivan they're voting for and click on the correct choice?
STANAGE: He's pretending to be anyway, because it allows him to lose smoke over the whole thing. But like we were saying, the ballot, you know, makes clear which Dan Sullivan is the correct Dan Sullivan. Not that difficult.
WRIGHT: I actually don't think people know these things a lot of times. One of the advantages Trump had in 2016 was he was a recognizable name on the ballot of like faceless, nameless Republicans. A lot of people don't think about things right up until Election Day.
PHILLIP: There are a lot of low information voters.
BOYKIN: I went online tonight and they have a voter information guide in Alaska. And it shows the two pictures, shows that they're very different and shows that one is listed as the incumbent and the other is not.
PORTER: And I believe it's (inaudible) --
[23:00:00]
(CROSSTALK)
BORELLI: One Democrat suggested that if it's ranked choice voting, people should just vote for both so they don't get it wrong. But that's them saying that in order to get your vote right, you have to do an extra action.
PHILLIP: I mean, you probably should be informed.
Okay, does anyone know this Eddie Murphy movie, "The Distinguished Gentleman" from 1992? One viewer points out that this storyline was covered there.
All right, we've got one more. Can we pivot to something positive for one moment? Abby, when is your baby due?
Well, funny you should ask. He is due literally any minute now. So I'm going to sign off tonight and go do my most important job.
Bring this baby into the world. So I will see you all in a couple of months, everyone. Thank you very much for being here.
Before we go, "Have I Got News for You," their crew is back with another new show tomorrow night. We've got a preview for it. You watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROY WOOD JR., COMEDIAN AND HOST OF "HAVE I GOT NEWS FOR YOU": Bonus points. What else did the President give Ohio voters this past week?
AMBER RUFFIN, COMEDIAN AND TEAM CAPTAIN, "HAVE I GOT NEWS FOR YOU": A little pinch on the butt.
WOOD JR.: But you're close.
RUFFIN: No, boy.
WOOD JR.: It involved that ass.
RUFFIN: No.
DAVID PAKMAN, POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It's Houston's ass.
MICHAEL IAN BLACK, COMEDIAN AND HOST, "HAVE I GOT NEWS FOR YOU": Oh, yes.
PAKMAN: And his muscular hands.
WOOD JR.: Points to you, new guy.
(APPLAUSE)
Trump gave out more compliments for Senator John Houston's big, beautiful butt.
TRUMP: I'm studying his body. I've never studied the body of a man before, but it's never been my thing, to be honest with you. But I looked at his ass.
And then I looked at his legs, and I said, his ass, it's like a pile of muscle. Then I looked at his shoulders, and I tapped him on the shoulder, and it actually hurt my hand. It was like a piece of steel, and he said, this guy's a monster.
BLACK: Tear, oh, tear. Now I know why the President was sweating so much. Good luck.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: You can catch the all-new episode on Saturday at 9 P.M. on CNN, and streaming the next day with an all-access subscription.
Thank you very much for watching "NewsNight." Tomorrow morning, be sure to catch "Table for Five" at 10 A.M. Eastern, right here on CNN. 'Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
