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Pressure Mounts, Democratic Calls Grow For Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) To Resign; Shutdown Nears As Congress Goes Home Without Progress; Abby Phillip Sits Down With Kardal Coleman To Talk Politics; Melinda French-Gates Discusses This Era Of Strikes In America, Income Inequality; Hurricane Watch Up For Portions Of North Carolina As Tropical Storm Ophelia Strengthens. Aired 10-11p ET

Aired September 22, 2023 - 22:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[22:00:00]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: The second dog, a Rottweiler, was in quote, guardian mode, and isn't she just so preciously cute? We are so happy that she's fine.

And thank you so much for joining us. CNN PRIMETIME with Abby Phillip starts now.

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: Tonight, a sitting United States senator is accused of using his official position to help a foreign power in exchange for riches and rewards. And while the allegations of cash, the gold bars, even the convertibles are getting all the attention, the other end of those alleged bribes is downright chilling.

Good evening. I'm Abby Phillip.

The Justice Department, indicting Democratic Senator Bob Menendez and his wife on federal corruption charges. Among those allegations that he sought and received sensitive information about U.S. diplomats in Egypt, information that eventually made its way to people with ties to the government there.

Now, in addition, prosecutors say that he gave non-public information about U.S. military aid, and he's also accused of ghostwriting a pitch to senators on behalf of a foreign government.

Now, that would ease restrictions on arms and ammunition to Egypt. Now, those restrictions were in place, in part due to concerns about human rights and democracy. All of this as he is chairing the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, one of the most powerful positions in the entire government.

These schemes allegedly ended with stacks of cash, more than a dozen gold bars, help on mortgage payments, a Mercedes-Benz convertible, and you're seeing right there pictures of the evidence.

But the timeline is important and also stunning here. This alleged conduct started not long after Menendez escaped conviction on previous bribery charges when a jury deadlocked, but also it allegedly began around the same time that he said this about then-President Donald Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BOB MENENDEZ (D-NJ): The American people deserve to know who they elected to be their president. They deserve to know if he's, in fact, putting America's interests first. And they deserve to know if Donald Trump is wittingly or unwittingly an agent for the Russian Federation. Congress must carry out its constitutional duty to fully and thoroughly investigate where the facts lead.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Now, tonight, the pressure is mounting. The number of Democrats calling on him to resign is growing, both from Congress and from his home state of New Jersey, but Menendez is maintaining his innocence and he says his ethnicity is to blame. Quote, those who believe in justice believe in innocence until proven guilty. I intend to continue to fight for the people of New Jersey with the same success I've had for the past five decades.

This is the same record of success these very same leaders have lauded all along. It is not lost on me how quickly some are rushing to judge a Latino and push him out of his seat. I am not going anywhere.

As for the man in charge of the United States Senate, Chuck Schumer is praising Menendez's work. He says he is temporarily stepping down from the Foreign Relations Committee. And he says that Menendez has a right to due process and a fair trial.

That may be so, but many of his fellow Democrats aren't as forgiving, including my next guest. Joining me now is New Jersey Democrat Steven Fulop. He's the mayor of Jersey City and also a candidate for New Jersey governor in 2025. Mayor Fulop, thanks for joining us.

You are now a part of this growing course of Democrats calling on Senator Menendez to resign. What did you find to be the most damning allegation in the indictment against him?

MAYOR STEVEN FULOP (D-NEW JERSEY CITY, NJ): I mean, I think your intro was pretty spot-on. And if you read the indictment, I mean, it was 40 pages. It read like a movie script. It was really hard to kind of take in from DNA on money and gold bars and, of course, cars and then giving information to the Egyptian government.

So, it was kind of really kind of a salacious 40 pages. And, you know, it makes it really hard to say that everything in there is not true. Maybe Bob Menendez or Senator Menendez could defend some of it. But it will be really tough to say that every component of that is defensible, if any of it. It seems like none of it --

PHILLIP: And tonight, Senator Menendez is now pushing back on those calls for him to resign. He says, as we just read, it's not lost on me how quickly some are rushing to judge a Latino and push him out of his seat. He also says he's not going anywhere. What do you make of that, that suggestion that he's making there, that this is about his ethnicity trying to push out the highest ranking Latino in the Senate? [22:05:00]

FULOP: Well, I mean, I think any reasonable person knows it's not about his ethnicity. But like if you also know Bob Menendez, I mean, he's a tough guy. He is not going to, you know, bow down to any amount of pressure. And that's unfortunate. I mean, the pressure is going to build, but just it's not in his DNA to resign. So, you know, absent the Senate taking action, you know, I think he's going to dig in.

And, you know, from a Democrat standpoint, it's really hard to be critical of indictments that surround former President Trump or be critical of Clarence Thomas, and then at the same time, from a Senate standpoint, not take aggressive action against Bob Menendez with the same sort of allegations.

PHILLIP: All right. Mayor Stephen Fulop, thank you so much for joining us tonight.

FULOP: Thank you.

PHILLIP: And let's continue this conversation here with former special assistant to the president, President Biden, Michael LaRosa, also with us, Republican Strategist Shermichael Singleton, CNN Political Analyst Laura Barron-Lopez and former Federal Prosecutor Joseph Moreno.

Joseph, I want to start with you here. As the mayor just said, it really does read like a movie script. It's the kind of thing, the kind of plot, meeting a girlfriend, marrying her quickly after, and she just happens to have contacts who are close to the Egyptian government that then are seeking information from a sitting United States senator. How strong do you think this indictment is?

JOSEPH MORENO, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: I mean, gold bars, wads of cash, Mercedes convertible, tawdry, absolutely. But tawdry does not always equal illegal. And the Supreme Court has made it pretty difficult to bring these bribery cases against elected officials. You need not just a quid pro quo. You need an official act, an exercise of governmental power, so a vote on something, approval of a policy.

And when I go through basically those four kinds of conspiracies that Senator Menendez is accused of, I see holes in at least two of them.

PHILLIP: But what about providing that information? According to the allegations, he received -- he sought information from the United States government that was non-public and provided it to these contacts who then passed it along to the government.

MORENO: Unclassified, but sensitive, absolutely. But he's not facing espionage charges. I mean, maybe he should be, but they're not in there. So, I mean, again, real -- it looks really bad. The optics are horrible here. But as a defense counsel, I could definitely poke some holes in this.

PHILLIP: Shermichael? MICHAEL LAROSA, FORMER PRESS SECRETARY TO THE FIRST LADY JILL BIDEN: Yes. And I think one of the things that I noticed today was a very splashy presentation. Sometimes I think, I'm not a lawyer, but from a communications perspective, it seems as though when prosecutors make these kinds of large presentations before the media, sometimes it seems like their cases might be weaker than perhaps we think they are and they're trying to argue their case in public opinion instead. And that's why they're doing such visual presentations.

PHILLIP: I mean --

LAROSA: No, go ahead.

PHILLIP: Yes, no, you go ahead.

LAROSA: No. And I was just going to say, I just don't think that the seat will be competitive from a political perspective, and whether he should resign or not, you know? I think what's funny about my party is we quickly fall apart, whereas the other party tends to fall in line pretty quickly. We have no problem throwing each other under the bus and eating our young, but it seems like Republicans, they stick with each other.

PHILLIP: I mean, I hear what you guys are saying, but, again, just a normal person reading this document, what it sounds like he's being accused of doing is taking money, almost $500,000 in cash, in exchange for providing information, actually even acting to facilitate the interests of a foreign government.

LAROSA: There's no doubt it looks terrible, but should he be held to a different standard when it comes to running for office than Santos or Donald Trump.

PHILLIP: Well, actually that's exactly the question.

SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: It's a fair critique, Abby. But I would say, as someone who had a top secret clearance having gone through that process, this has been a one-year investigation. This guy is the chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, one of the second most prestigious, one of the most powerful Senate committees that's over foreign relations for this entire country, and he's essentially acting as a foreign agent against the interests of the United States.

Now, look, I agree, George Santos is a problem, and Republicans should have expelled him from the House, but I expect Democrats, including the president, to speak to this front. Because if this were a Republican, I would argue that the expectation would be for Republicans to speak out against that individual.

PHILLIP: I mean, how, if you are Senator Schumer, would you be able to say that George Santos, for example, should leave the House and not say that the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who's under this kind of investigation should not be in that post?

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, that's exactly why I think you're seeing, Abby, so many Democrats, in particular New Jersey Democrats, the governor of New Jersey, but also a number of Menendez's colleagues in the House that are saying he has to go, he has to resign.

[22:10:01]

Because -- and even one of his former colleagues, Tom Malinowski, who used to serve in the State Department, said, how can we as a party be calling for Donald Trump, say that Donald Trump is not fit for office, but then not call for the resignation of Menendez?

So, it doesn't look as though it will be a sustainable position from Schumer to not speak out more aggressively on this matter.

PHILLIP: I mean, he's also now bringing in the fact that he's the highest ranking Latino in the Senate.

LAROSA: And his state is 22 percent Latino, and he has a huge base of support. This is like a Kennedy in Massachusetts.

SINGLETON: But, Abby, I would say that's like Clarence Thomas, all of a sudden, saying, but I'm the black guy on the Supreme Court. I'm not exactly sure how much room he has to maneuver by saying I'm the senior Latino in the United States Senate.

Look, I think this puts Democrats in a very precarious political predicament. They've gone after Donald Trump under the idea that Donald Trump would somehow sell the secrets of the United States to any highest bidder. And here, you have Bob Menendez, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, essentially selling secrets, if you will, to a foreign entity, acting at least in the interest of a foreign entity. I think Democrats have to address this, Abby.

PHILLIP: I've got to go back to you, Joseph, because I -- help me understand this. Because what sounds like you're saying is that, generally speaking, unless he took a vote for the Egyptian government, he can accept hundreds of thousands of dollars in gold bars, he can accept $500,000 in cash in exchange for facilitating their interests informally, almost like a lobbyist would, from the halls of the United States Senate. Is that what you're saying?

MORENO: Don't get me wrong. I'm horrified by this being here.

PHILLIP: I'm just asking. I'm just asking because I think that that's kind of what it sounds like you're saying.

MORENO: If you're looking at it purely legalistic, right, it has to be an official act. And throughout that indictment, those 40 pages, you'll see that term peppered all throughout. It doesn't mean, though, that they can actually prove that beyond a reasonable doubt. So setting up meetings, making phone calls, establishing goodwill in terms of a relationship, those are not official acts.

BARRON-LOPEZ: Sharing staff details about a U.S. embassy in Egypt, that's not. MORENO: It's wrong. But that's not part of his job as being a senator. Making votes, making nominations, right, maybe putting a hold on foreign aid, now, that's a good one.

PHILLIP: He's using his role as a senator to access that information. If he were just a regular Joe, he would not have access to that.

MORENO: That's right. Look, this is the loophole. This is the Bob McDonnell from Virginia, or Bob Menendez several years ago. That's why they couldn't get him the last time. And so I think he could drive through the same holes that prevented the DOJ from getting him the first time around.

SINGLETON: But even if that is the case, I mean, shouldn't we have a stand as about ethics in this country, whether it's a Republican or Democrat? I think the American people have the expectation that our elected officials serve our interests and not their own interests, let alone the interests of a foreign country, and that appears to be what Menendez was doing.

PHILLIP: Do you think, Laura, that this is going to be an issue on the issue of Trump, the central issue with Trump for Democrats as law and order? Can they make that case with this sitting right in front of them with Bob Menendez?

BARRON-LOPEZ: I think given the speed of how many New Jersey Democrats, including the governor, have come out to say that he should resign, that as soon as lawmakers come back next week, and they'll be back by Tuesday, they are going to -- the Democrats are going to be peppered with questions in the Senate about this.

PHILLIP: The president will, too.

BARRON-LOPEZ: The president will, as well. And I think that we are going to see more and more Democrats start to say that he should resign.

LAROSA: We should be clear, a lot of the Democrats that came out tonight, today want his seat because these seats don't come up very often in like Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey.

The governor would probably love to run in a year for that seat and spend his own money, millions of dollars running for Senate the way he did for governor. Several Congressmen who've been in office for decades want that seat.

PHILLIP: I imagine they also want that seat because Menendez has been indicted twice in the last decade and it seems like they ought to be --

LAROSA: They spent $30 million against him last time after the last one and he still won by 12 points and now he's running in a presidential year.

SINGLETON: This may help him. This may help him. PHILLIP: Who knows? Stranger things have happened, guys. Interesting conversation. We'll continue to follow this story. Thank you, everyone.

Coming up next for us tonight, we are now seven days away from a government shutdown. Next, I'll speak live with one of the Republicans at war with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy about the path forward. Congressman Matt Gaetz joins me live, next.

Plus, why the mayor of Dallas is changing his party affiliation from Democrat to Republican.

And the chilling words now that we are hearing from the former Trump aide, Cassidy Hutchinson, who testified about what happened to her in Washington after January 6th.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CASSIDY HUTCHINSON, FORMER TRUMP AIDE: I could not go back to my apartment. I ended up moving down to Atlanta for several months.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:15:00]

PHILLIP: You're looking there at live pictures of Capitol Hill where the clock is really ticking on a potential government shutdown. It's just now seven days away and time is of the essence, except that most members are now nowhere in sight. They were sent home for the week without a clear plan after conservative hardliners once again scuttled Kevin McCarthy's plans.

One of those hardliners, Congressman Matt Gaetz, joins me now. Thanks for being here, Congressman.

REP. MATT GAETZ (R-FL): Absolutely. Thanks for having me, Abby.

PHILLIP: I should note you are still on the Hill. So, I'll take that as a sign that perhaps things are moving forward. But I have to ask you, because this is starting to come to a head here. If Speaker McCarthy puts a continuing resolution on the floor to keep the government open for 30 days, is that enough in your mind to force a vote to kick him out of his job?

GAETZ: I agree with many of my colleagues who say that if Speaker McCarthy embraces a clean, continuing resolution to continue the spending policies of Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden, that would most likely trigger a motion to vacate.

Remember, I gave a speech last week detailing multiple areas where Kevin McCarthy has breached his agreement with House conservatives. There was a big thrust of that, the spending commitments, but also a vote on term limits, a vote on a balanced budget amendment, release of the January 6th tapes. These are things Kevin McCarthy promised. He hasn't done those things. We're here to hold him to account. And there are meetings happening. I just left a meeting with Congressman Biggs about the finer points of our Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill.

[22:20:05]

We have a rule being drafted right now so that we can pass appropriations bills for our military, Department of Homeland Security, for our agriculture priorities, and also the Department of State and Foreign ops. So, those bills will have a good amalgamation of policy and spending cuts, and I think it will put our country on better fiscal footing.

PHILLIP: Do you have enough support to actually take away McCarthy's gavel?

GAETZ: Well, that depends on the Democrats. I saw in an interview this morning that Democrat Whip Catherine Clark said that if Democrats were to bail out Speaker McCarthy, they would require concessions. And that should trouble a lot of Republicans because if we have a Republican speaker who is working for the Democrats because they're the ones who bailed him out, then I doubt we'll be able to make much progress for the voters who elected us.

PHILLIP: But I'm asking actually -- what I'm really asking is, what's the plan B. If not McCarthy, then who? You?

GAETZ: No, I don't want to be speaker, but I do know we have a very talented group of members. It's a little uncomfortable to discuss right now because our number two, who would be naturally someone we would look to is right now getting treatment for blood cancer and is not with us. We hope he has a full, fast recovery and would be right back into our leadership structure.

Our number three is Tom Emmer. He's our whip. He's got a lot of credibility across different sections of the conference.

But getting rid of McCarthy, if he has failed us for eight months, if he has delayed the appropriations process, as even his allies conceded earlier this evening in the Rules Committee, then getting rid of him is sort of an end unto itself because it shows that we've got the ability to pivot, make a better choice and go forward and actually deliver.

PHILLIP: But how is getting rid of McCarthy an end unto itself? If you get rid of him but you can't elect a replacement who will do what you want them to do, that's seems to kind of defeat the purpose. Do you have the votes do you think to elect someone who, in your view, would be better than McCarthy?

GAETZ: Oh, sure. I think that if we were back in a speaker contest, any number of people who would be able to assemble a coalition and --

PHILLIP: There weren't the last time around. There weren't the last time around. GAETZ: Right. But we've had eight months of experiences that inform how we think about these things now. Eight months ago, Kevin McCarthy hadn't broken the series of promises that he only made at that time. Eight months ago, Kevin McCarthy hadn't stalled the appropriations process.

I mean, a Democrat from Colorado, Joe Neguse, made excellent points today haranguing some of the Republicans in the rules committee, saying, well, gosh, if the border is such a priority, and if the appropriations committee had a border funding bill in the summer, why did more than 100 days pass before Kevin McCarthy put that legislation on the floor?

We don't really have good answers to those questions other than the fact that it's always the parlance in Washington to just wait until the very end and then jam all these bills together and get one up or down vote on funding the entire government.

That isn't the way we have run since the mid-90s. And I'm trying to break the fever and liberate us from those up or down votes and get to single subject spending bills. It's an idea even folks on the left support, because it leads to more transparent, honest and open government.

PHILLIP: So, Congressman, a number of your Republican colleagues, they say that they're at a loss for understanding your strategy. Listen to what they have to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. DAN CRENSHAW (R-TX): We need to pass appropriations bills. It's not a C.R. Okay, we're trying to pass appropriations bills. Well, let's do that. So, stop voting with Democrats.

I think everybody is just confused, because there's not rational explanations on the opposition.

REP. MIKE LAWLER (R-NY): At the end of the day, any final bill is going to be bipartisan. And if somebody doesn't realize that, they're truly clueless.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: I understand what you're saying, that you want to take this bill by bill, but the question is how will you do that in the next seven days in a bipartisan way that will end up with something that is the law of the land?

GAETZ: There's no doubt that we are behind in the House of Representatives because we are poorly led. But to my friend and colleague, Dan Crenshaw, he probably should have watched your program ten days ago when I laid out exactly what we want, a vote on term limits, a vote on a balanced budget amendment and then single subject spending bills.

Now, we've been dilatory and delayed in that, and it was frustrating to me, Abby, that yesterday, 3:00 on a Thursday, Kevin McCarthy sent everybody home as if we're operating in the French work week. We should be starting at 7:00 in the morning, finishing at midnight, and getting our work done. There are members from across the Congress and across the Republican conference who are here doing that, but we are doing that in spite of our poor leadership, certainly not because of it.

And to my friends and colleagues, I would say pretty simple, we want to vote individually on these appropriations bills, and we will not tolerate them being lumped together.

[22:25:00]

PHILLIP: I think a lot of Americans would agree that they'd like to see folks working through the weekend to resolve this before there's a government shutdown. But I wonder, I mean, don't you think it is reasonable for members -- I mean, you heard Mike Lawler there talking about a bipartisan fashion. Don't you think it is reasonable for them to work on the other side of the aisle if it means avoiding a shutdown that can actually hurt Americans, including thousands of your constituents?

GAETZ: No doubt. And Mike Lawler is right. The final solution in divided government always has to be bipartisan. But the question is what platform and what paradigm do we use to engage that negotiation. I believe that we should negotiate each agency of government and each appropriation bill separately so that we get to a programmatic level of analysis.

What I disagree with is the notion that we should start with the premise that we just fund everything the way it's been going the prior year, whether it's worked or not, whether it's exceeded, it's expended, it's expected distributions of funds or not. You see, that just leads to more of the same.

It's actually precisely the reason that we are $33 trillion in debt, facing $2 trillion annual deficits. We cannot go on as a country that's spending $7 trillion and bringing in $5 trillion. So I hope we can get bipartisan agreement to reduce spending.

PHILLIP: Look, I understand what you're saying about the spending levels. But the question is, how do we get from point A to point B from where we are right now, which seems to be chaos, to a point where there's a solution and the government is not shut down in a week. This could have real impacts on a lot of federal workers, people who are working without pay, military service members who are actually in the line of fire right now, in harm's way right now.

Are you confident that this will not have a shutdown, will not have a national security impact on this country, in addition to the economic impact that it will have?

GAETZ: Well, we have endured shutdowns before. And while they're certainly not helpful, and they do bring pain upon Americans who've done nothing wrong to lead us to that moment, we're at a moment right now where we have to take the bold action to break the fever, to stop governing by omnibus and continuing resolution.

I am not certain that we are going to avoid a shutdown, but a shutdown of maybe 10 or 11 or 12 days certainly is different than a shutdown that would span multiple pay periods for federal employees. Let me make this one other point.

PHILLIP: What is the longest you would go in a shutdown?

GAETZ: Well, I don't want to go at all, and I certainly think that the sooner we could get the government funded, the better. But there's a reason why we put the defense appropriations bill and the Homeland Security appropriations bill first, because we want to be able to say as House Republicans that we moved options for the Senate and Democrats to negotiate with us on the military spending bill so that our troops are paid, and on the Homeland Security bill so that we pay our Border Patrol and ICE.

So, there is a reason why we have prioritized some of our bravest and most valued fellow Americans in what we're putting forward to fund.

And if Democrats and senators have ideas on those things, we'd like to negotiate them. We're just not going to negotiate through the context of how Washington has always worked with continuing resolutions and omnibus bill.

PHILLIP: I should note that you did vote against the defense appropriations bill this week.

GAETZ: No, I didn't.

PHILLIP: The rule to --

GAETZ: Abby, this is going to be a very embarrassing moment when the internet corrects you on this. I voted for the defense rule both times.

PHILLIP: Well, I stand corrected. Congressman, I appreciate you joining us tonight. Thank you so much.

GAETZ: Thank you.

PHILLIP: And coming up next, the mayor of Dallas is leaving the Democratic Party to join Republicans. I'll speak live with the head of the Dallas Democratic Party who respond to that.

Plus, Melinda French Gates joins me on healthcare, on the strikes and on criticisms of Vice President Kamala Harris.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MELINDA FRENCH GATES, PHILANTROPIST: I think it's ridiculous that when a woman reaches the position that she has reached, that they're asked whether they have the skills or they're qualified.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:30:00]

PHILLIP: Backlash and some pats on the back for the mayor of Dallas, Texas tonight. Eric Johnson announcing that he is switching parties from Democrat to Republican in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. He slammed the party which he was elected by saying, quote, "The future of America's great urban centers depends on the willingness of the nation's mayors to champion law and order and practice fiscal conservatism. Our cities desperately need the genuine commitment to these principles as opposed to the inconsistent poll-driven commitment of many Democrats that has long been a defining characteristic of the GOP."

Joining me now to respond to this is Kardal Coleman. He's the Party Chair for the Dallas County Democrats. Thanks for joining us here. So, Eric Johnson is blaming Democratic policies for exacerbating, in his words, "crime and homelessness". He says that crime and tax policy are the reasons that he's breaking with your party. What's your response to that?

KARDAL COLEMAN, PARTY CHAIR, DALLAS COUNTY DEMOCRATS: Well, we know that's absolutely untrue. We can see in democratic cities throughout the country where crime is lower than even in Republican states. And so, we cannot allow these false tactics, these fake news, if you will, to be shoved down the throats of Texans and the voters in Texas.

PHILLIP: Well, one of the things that we should note here, just for context. The city of Dallas, he's been leading the city of Dallas for some years now. The murders are down in the city for 15 -- over 15 percent over the last two years. Rapes are down 40 percent. Robberies are down nearly 30 percent. Aggravated assaults have declined five percent.

It seems like his approach is working but his approach actually has been characterized by kind of being at odds with Democrats in the city. So, how is he wrong to take a different approach from the party that he is -- has been affiliated with?

COLEMAN: Well, you know, things have been working in Dallas, right?

[22:35:00]

Not only these numbers or these metrics, but we have to also include community policing, conversations with our neighbors. We have been doing that type of work. And so, to take a pivot right now at this time, we have to ask the critical question, why now? What is it that's on the other end of this that you're not being transparent about with voters?

PHILLIP: Well, you're saying he's taking a pivot, but I guess the point I'm making is that he would say he's been governing from a centrist position.

COLEMAN: Sure.

PHILLIP: Right? And it's working.

COLEMAN: As far as the metrics?

PHILLIP: That's what he would say.

COLEMAN: I'm sure he would say that. PHILLIP: And you don't think it's working, even though the data seems

to show that it might be?

COLEMAN: I believe that the data seems to point to that fact. However, if it is working, why now switch teams? That's the question. PHILLIP: He also, earlier this year, invited Republican Senators Ted

Cruz and John Cornyn to his inauguration. Both senators have -- spoke highly of him. Is there anything wrong with having bipartisan relationships, or do you think that this was a deception to the voters who elected him basically as a progressive, as a Democrat, although in Dallas there's a technicality, they don't technically have party affiliations --

COLEMAN: Sure.

PHILLIP: --but he was elected as a progressive.

COLEMAN: He was elected as a Democrat, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with having bipartisan relationships, being able to get things done across the aisle, specifically in Texas. We know in the Texas House, where she served, Democrats are in the minority and so, there has to be a bipartisan effort and a way to get things done. However, we must be real and transparent about who we are as candidates, who we are as elected officials.

PHILLIP: Do you think that he was not transparent? I do. I do believe that he was not transparent. He was just elected less than four months ago, unopposed actually. And so, he ran on democratic values. I believe the voters trusted him and thought that he would uphold those democratic values and now we see a now-mayor who's turning Republican who has turned his back on the very voters who have advanced his political career.

PHILLIP: All right, Kardal Coleman, thank you so much for joining us tonight.

COLEMAN: Thank you so much for having me.

PHILLIP: And coming up next, President Biden makes a big announcement about the autoworker strike and Linda Gates joins me on inequality in America. Plus, former Trump aide Cassidy Hutchinson, she's speaking out tonight about her fear after testifying and what happened to her after that day.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:40:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) PHILLIP: President Biden announcing that he will join the autoworker picket line in Detroit next week, just a day before Donald Trump is set to appear there, as well. This as the strike expands tonight into more plants. Now, I sat down with Melinda French-Gates to discuss this era of strikes in America, income inequality, and also Vice President Kamala Harris and her deeply personal mission to tackle what she calls the most urgent global issue today.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIP: There are so many issues that face the world that you could be tackling. This one, which is what happens to women, their health, their ability to have children, it's literally the oldest problem that we, as a human race have faced. Why is it still a problem?

MELINDA FRENCH-GATES, CO-CHAIR, BILL AND MELINDA GATES FOUNDATION: Because we don't invest enough in women's health. I mean, the fact that we still have, you know, 800 moms dying in childbirth every day just tells you right there, we know a lot of the right interventions to do. Yes, there are new innovations coming and we can talk about that, but we don't invest enough in women's health to say this is a priority. This is important. Let's not lose this mom.

PHILLIP: Why do you think progress on this particular issue seems to have stalled here in the United States? We may even be going backwards.

FRENCH-GATES: The fact you're ten times more likely to die in our system than in Japan or Israel or Spain, that makes no sense. And the fact that a black or an indigenous woman is three times as likely to die as a white woman, it's because we have a system that is not set up to serve everybody well and to serve them equitably.

And so, we're not making the right investments in data to learn exactly why women are dying. or investments in the system to take bias out of the system and to use all the right tools. It's just unnecessary.

PHILLIP: And your daughter recently --

FRENCH-GATES: My oldest daughter, Jen, recently gave birth. And again, you know, there's a lot of time when you're in the delivery room, if it's going well, where you're waiting. And I could think about the other women who weren't being served well around the world, because I've been in delivery rooms, honestly, all over the world. And thank God, I was so grateful she had a healthy birth for herself and for her child.

PHILLIP: From a policy perspective, especially here in the United States, what's stopping political leaders from actually addressing some of these issues?

FRENCH-GATES: It's will. It's political will. It's saying these lives matter. Every mom matters. To not put women first in our policies, whether it's childcare, whether it's paid family medical leave, whether it's maternal mortality. To say, moms are important to us and we're going to make sure that our system changes for moms. That's what's not happening.

PHILLIP: And perhaps not enough women making those decisions in the halls of power.

FRENCH-GATES: I've become very passionate and I'm actually putting money behind now trying to get far more women into state legislatures. There's 7000 seats that are available. It's a great training ground to be up on the hill. When we get more women and people of color making our policies, our policies will change to support women and families.

[22:45:00]

PHILLIP: I have to ask you, as we're having this conversation, we have a black woman as Vice President of the United States, the first time that's ever happened, a woman or a black woman. But at the same time, she gets questions all the time about whether she's qualified for the job. When you hear that and you compare it to the rest of the world stage that you operate in. What do you think?

FRENCH-GATES: I think it's ridiculous that when a woman reaches the position that she has reached, that they're asked whether they have the skills or they're qualified. I mean, one of the things that to me is outrageous is that we have a Senate in the United States that has no female black senators, not a single black female senator in our country. And yet we have millions of black women. So how can we have a Senate or a House that we say actually represents we the people?

And so, again, it's these biases in the system, it's the harassment. We're sending women and women of color into a broken system. And until we can get them to all these positions of power, we're not going to fix and change that system.

I want to ask you just more broadly. I mean, we are also sitting at a time where we're in the middle of all these strikes, right? Auto workers, actors, directors, you name it. It seems like in this country there's a question about fairness in our economy. You've had the, you know, the pleasure and luxury of being a fabulously wealthy person deciding also to give a lot of that, most of it, away. But when you look at the broader society, especially here in the United States, what do you see? Is it fair?

FRENCH-GATES: It's not working for us. What we're hearing from workers is these wages aren't working for us anymore to raise our families so that we become middle-income or we go from middle to high- income. That's the American dream. That's what my grandfather lived, my parents lived, and I've been fortunate enough in the situation I'm in.

Everybody should be able to live that dream. And so, I think you're hearing people rise up and say, let's fix this system. Like, capitalism works in certain ways, but there are certain societal things it's not addressing and that we need to rebalance.

PHILLIP: You walk in so many of these spaces with people of a lot of privilege, world leaders, et cetera. When you're in those rooms, are you thinking the wealthiest should pay even more than they're paying now in taxes?

FRENCH-GATES: I do say that I think we should have stair-step taxes in our country. I do think it's more fair for the wealthy to pay more than somebody who's low income, so I do believe in that. And I believe it's up to the wealthy to give back and give back substantially. If you have anything close to $10 million, you can give back half of it quite easily. And so, it's our duty to give it back and give it back well and show models to other people of wealth of how they can do it also.

PHILLIP: So, Melinda French-Gates. There's Laurene Powell Jobs, MacKenzie Scott, formerly Bezos. A lot of people would say powerful women, women who prioritize giving back. Is there something there? Why is it that women seem to be the ones really prioritizing this, putting a stake in the ground and saying philanthropy is important once you reach a certain point of well (ph)?

FRENCH-GATES: Well, I think you see men and women giving back, but I think you see women doing it in a different way. We are the threads that make up the fabric of society. We are the ones who, in all three of our cases, MacKenzie, Laurene, and me, we've all raised children. We have a different view on society, and what you're seeing all three women do is invest in communities and invest in other women, because we know if you invest in a woman, she invests in everyone else.

PHILLIP: Do you all know each other? Do you talk?

FRENCH-GATES: We do all know each other. Yeah, we all know each other. We've worked on some projects together. Everybody's also working on their own pieces. But these are both women I admire greatly. And when I need advice, they're both two women that I walk with and talk with and ask them, how are you looking at this? How do you think about this?

PHILLIP: Have you found that you have wanted to change your approach or re-establish yourself now as Melinda French-Gates on your own?

FRENCH-GATES: I think I do both. I mean I'm still a co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. I completely believe and I'm still traveling on behalf of that. But yes, there's a mark I want to make on the world and I have a little bit more degrees of freedom to do that. Now standing on my own I've gotten comfortable with it and I feel like I can just speak my mind freely and I enjoy that.

[22:50:00]

I enjoy just being myself.

PHILLIP: Thank you so much, Melinda. Appreciate it.

PHILLIP: Thanks for having me, Abby.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

PHILLIP: And we have some breaking news tonight. A hurricane watch is now being issued for parts of the East Coast as a tropical storm gets stronger. Stand by.

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PHILLIP: Breaking news, a hurricane watch is being issued for portions of North Carolina as tropical storm Ophelia is strengthening. Forecast predicts a storm surge of up to six feet, which is already threatening the coasts. Our Chad Myers is standing by at the CNN Weather Center. Chad?

CHAD MYERS, METEOROLOGIST: Abby, the storm is less than 100 miles offshore, but it really is looking like it's getting still a little bit stronger right now.

[22:55:00]

Winds could be 75 or 80 miles per hour, gusting on shore overnight. That is hurricane force, especially with the gusts now at 49 miles per hour at Virginia Beach already. The biggest threat is going to be the coastal erosion and the surge of the water that runs up these estuaries across parts of the East Coast. The winds are going to blow from the east for a very long time, pushing water along that coast and rising that water up to surge levels of up to six feet in some spots.

So, yes, it begins to slow down tomorrow as it makes -- sure, landfall is going to be probably somewhere between five and 6 o'clock in the morning. But then finally, by Sunday, it's all over with gusts only around 20 miles per hour. Abby.

PHILLIP: All right, Chad Myers, thank you so much. We'll keep our eye on that. But that is it for me tonight in CNN PRIMETIME. Coming up next, Laura Coates will host an entire hour on Senator Bob Menendez's explosive indictment. Stick around for that.

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