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CNN Saturday Morning Table for Five. Some Claim Elon Musk Possibly Overshadowing President Trump; Some Republicans Privately Worrying about Department of Government Efficiency's Operations; Trump Administration Appearing to Favor Russia in Negotiations to End War with Ukraine; Trump Administration Bans Associated Press Reporter from White House and Air Force One because Outlet Continues to Use Name Gulf of Mexico Instead of Gulf of America; Republicans' Positive Reaction to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s Push for Healthy Foods for Children Compared to Their Negative Reaction to Michelle Obama's Similar Initiative; Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s Controversial Opinion on Vaccines Examined. Aired 10-11a ET

Aired February 15, 2025 - 10:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:00:31]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: This morning, the X man getting more power, but who is policing Elon Musk's raid of the government?

Plus, inflation is up, tariffs too, and so are Donald Trump's approval numbers? So do Americans care about the high cost of his presidency?

Also, did the United States betray Ukraine?

JOHN BOLTON, FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: President Trump has effectively surrendered to Putin.

SIDNER: After years of blood and treasure, the invaded suddenly takes a back seat to the invader.

And do as we say or fall overboard.

KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: It is a fact that the body of water off the coast of Louisiana is called the Gulf of America.

SIDNER: A punishment that flirts with propaganda.

Here in the studio, Kara Swisher, Larry Wilmore, S.E. Cupp, and Melik Abdul. It's the weekend. Join the conversation at a "TABLE FOR FIVE".

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: Good morning to you. I'm Sara Sidner in for Abby Phillip from here in New York. President Trump doesn't generally cede the stage to anybody, but we

saw an exception, though, to that this week. The world's richest man standing in the spotlight. Elon Musk is having quite a week. Trump made him and his mysterious team even more powerful with the stroke of a pen. His federal government crushing DOGE continues to empty government agencies without much or any at all oversight. More and more workers are getting fired with little warning or explanation, and more states are now suing over what they call Musk's unchecked and unconstitutional power.

Musk, who is unelected, defended that power in the Oval Office, standing over the man who was elected to the office, sort of a surreal photo op, including Musk's young son on the scene, making Trump look a bit like he's playing second fiddle. In another photo op with India's prime minister, Musk look like he was the head of state.

And despite his unfettered access to the highest office, some question whether he stands or understands America's system of checks and balances after saying this, "If any judge anywhere can stop every presidential action everywhere, we do not live in a democracy."

All right, let us get straight to our panel. You there?

KARA SWISHER, PODCAST HOST, "PIVOT" AND "ON": Yes. Hi.

SIDNER: You know Elon Musk more than anyone.

SWISHER: I used to know.

SIDNER: You used to know.

SWISHER: Right, yes.

SIDNER: But you've talked to him more than any of us at this table.

SWISHER: Yes, absolutely, yes.

SIDNER: He did, in your book, say, well, you are right once, so maybe you will be right now.

SWISHER: This was about the Muslim ban. I had insisted to him that Trump was going to do one. He insisted to me that he wasn't. And we had a bet. And I won that bet.

SIDNER: Does Elon Musk want to be president knowing that he can't because he was born in South Africa?

SWISHER: No. I think he likes the idea of power that he can exercise behind the scenes, except that he is someone who needs so much attention. He likes to be in front of the scenes. And, you know, in a lot of ways, he's someone who's extraordinarily bored and wants to try a new thing, right? He's manic, he's bored, he wants to try new things, and he thinks this is interesting to him. And he conducts his life a little like a video game, which is a very good video game player, although there's some controversy around that, too. But he, he wants to, he wants to run things and show people his ideas first. And over time, as he's become wealthier and more imperious, he's wanted to impose it on everybody else.

SIDNER: When you look at what is happening with Musk, do Republicans have questions about this? Are they concerned in any way? Because you're not hearing a lot of it. You're hearing little dribs and drabs, but -

S.E. CUPP, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I'm hearing privately, right. That's always the case, privately. Republicans are nervous about how reckless and capricious a lot of this seems to be. Look, Republicans, especially in the Senate, still like some order to all of this. They want to know what's coming. They want to know how things are going to work. They would like some advance notice. And what's happening at DOGE is just so impulsive and impetuous that I think privately there is some concern. There's also some concern over the conflicts, many.

But I think, to Kar's point, he's a solutionist. And solutionist, I've always thought, are very dangerous people. These are people who, I'm reminded Larry and I had this conversation recently about solutionist. There are people who are successful in one area of life and then think they can solve all the problems everywhere, no matter how complex --

SWISHER: -- like that in general.

CUPP: Well, yes. And so Bloomberg was one, Michael Bloomberg thought he could solve obesity with banning big gulps and salt, right?

(LAUGHTER)

[10:05:3]

CUPP: I mean, you know, Donald Trump with Ben Carson, a brilliant heart surgeon in charge of housing for some reason. Solutionists have an arrogance to them because they think all the world's problems simply haven't been solved yet because I haven't contemplated the solution. And so that kind of arrogance to Elon Musk, combined with Trump's just unleashing him to anywhere, I think makes a pretty dangerous combination.

SIDNER: Someone that, you know, Larry, who has made this statement that were in our monarch era. I think you know who said this, and I'm wondering if that's how you see things.

LARRY WILMORE, COMEDIAN AND PODCAST HOST, "BLACK ON THE AIR": Well, I love watching the dynamic between these two, because to me, it's kind of like a Batman-Batman scenario that we have going on right now. And Trump, Trump doesn't even look like a Batman-Robin scenario. I mean, the MAGA mob threatened to hang his last Robin. He was like, I have no problem with that, you know, which is so bizarre.

(LAUGHTER)

WILMORE: But when you look at this power dynamic, it's fascinating because I love Kara's take on this, because she's absolutely right. I mean, think about this. I mean, he is in Trump's office with his overcoat still on, he's got his t-shirt under, he's got his cap on. His son is with him like he was just in the drop-off line at his school or something, right. And he's coming in there like he's the boss coming to get the cash out of the safe and Trump's the manager just waiting for him to leave. I mean, that's the dynamic. I mean, Trump was so like diminished in there. And you look at less of the body language. He's standing there.

SWISHER: At least he's at the desk, right?

WILMORE: Yes, he's very strong standing there with his son there, commanding all the energy. I'm like, I don't know how long this marriage is going to last.

SWISHER: I think it actually is, because in a lot of ways, Trump has a heat shield in Musk. Musk can go and make chaos and Trump can go, oh, that's Elon. And he did that several times. And then Elon takes all the attention away from what he's doing.

Now, the problem is the sloppiness along the way is like rife for all kinds of hacking. They just put some classified information on the DOGE site. It was hacked yesterday. I mean, this is not the smartest group of people, even though they put themselves out as the smartest techies on the planet. They didn't understand COBOL, which is it was a system the government uses, and were making all these claims about people being paid from 1875. It's actually just a programing thing having to do with this thing.

I mean, it's a bit of a mess. And it also gives opportunities for countries like China and Russia to hack us. Every cybersecurity person I know is on high alert, and they're not thinking this is funny in any way.

SIDNER: That's saying something.

MELIK ABDUL, RADIO HOST AND GOP POLITICAL STRATEGIST: And I will say, and to piggyback off of S.E.'s comments as far as your question, and responding to your question, yes, Republicans are talking about this. Some of this, a lot of this really is private. I know I've had the conversations, but I've also had conversations with people who say, hey, because there is this narrative that is out there that the administration has pushed, that we voted for Elon. I will say here, no, we did not. We voted for Donald J. Trump and J.D. Vance. It doesn't mean that you have to support everything that everyone around Donald Trump does.

I think the biggest problem for Elon Musk, and Republicans have a problem with it, but I'll say it again, elevating Elon Musk to what is almost presidential status will be a problem in the fact that he's giving a press conference from the Oval Office, and one of the first tweets that Prime Minister Modi sent out was his meeting with Elon Musk. So when you talk about Donald Trump, we say Donald Trump and Elon Musk. I think that that is a problem that's going to happen.

CUPP: I'm wondering, and I don't disagree, I'm wondering, and, Kara, you might know this. I'm wondering if Trump is fearful, worried that if he marginalizes Musk or pushes him away a little bit, that he'll retaliate in some way. SWISHER: Look what happened to the Biden administration. They didn't

invite him to one conference, the conference. He went, you know --

CUPP: Nuclear.

SWISHER: Nuclear. I think he's useful for the midterms because he can threaten various congressmen with primaries.

CUPP: But so can Trump. But so can Trump.

SWISHER: Not the kind of money that Elon can bring to bear. And by the way, Elon's doubly as rich because of Trump. That might eat at Trump in some way. His fortune doubled, even though Tesla sales are going down.

I think the problem we've got here is that this guy is an -- you think Trump loves attention. This guy loves attention more than anything. And I suspect he can make as many mistakes as possible because of his wealth. The question is, what mistake could he make that would send it over the edge? So far none.

ABDUL: Well, he said in the press conference, remember in the press conference in the Oval Office that we're going to get some stuff wrong.

SWISHER: Oh, the condoms.

ABDUL: What?

CUPP: He said, I'm going to say stuff that's wrong.

ABDUL: And it's up to you to check me. If you see any discrepancies. If you see anything in there that shouldn't be in there.

SWISHER: But then he doesn't correct it. But then he doesn't.

CUPP: But the problem is it is up to us. It is up to journalists to check and hold people accountable. They don't like that either. And really, Elon Musk does not like that.

WILMORE: And in a game of Trump versus Musk, my money is on Trump. Trump is more of a national cult hero.

[10:10:00]

I mean, he's Donald Jesus Trump after that assassination attempt. Elon was one of his disciples. Trump has the -- he's the one that people are following. He's the one that people voted for. If I were Musk, I would be careful, actually, of having, being able to be that close to power and using that for whatever influence he was is because when Trump is through with you, he's through. And his followers, I mean, Trump even said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and his followers would still follow him. He's not wrong when he says that.

ABDUL: We don't even talk about Vivek Ramaswamy, because we love him.

WILMORE: That's exactly right.

SIDNER: J.D. Vance, he's just now sort of coming up in the news because of the comments he's made. But there are a lot of people that are not being talked about who were elected. Elon Musk is sucking up all of that energy and all of that -- views. Everyone is trying to figure out what he's doing.

CUPP: No elected and not confirmed, by the way.

SWISHER: Let me say, unfettered, unelected, richest person in the world. It does sound -- it's not Batman and Batman. It's Joker and Joker, right? It's more of that. And it feels like a Bond movie we're living in.

ABDUL: And if you replace Elon Musk with George Soros, conservatives would be apoplectic.

CUPP: My memory is long.

(LAUGHTER)

SIDNER: All right, we are going to continue the conversation. There is a lot more that we need to talk about, so stick around.

Next, the White House bans an A.P. reporter from the Oval Office and Air Force One. Why does this matter to you? We will explain.

Plus, is the U.S. suddenly betraying Ukraine and ultimately Europe? The president is now distancing America from the invaded nation and helping praise and pouring praise on Russia. We'll discuss the worldwide ramifications of all of this coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:16:20]

SIDNER: Welcome back. We're still here. Is the United States, though, betraying Europe? It's a provocative question, but after the lecture they received from Vice President Vance and the messaging to Ukraine, we have to ask. And here's why. The Trump administration spent the week distancing itself from the nation that was invaded by Russia, saying quips like Ukraine could become Russia one day. His first call to start peace negotiations was an invite to Vladimir Putin to come to the United States for the discussion. The second call was the president of the country Putin invaded unprovoked, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

And then there was this. Trump is echoing Russia's talking points for its rationale for its war.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) U.S. PRESIDENT: Now Russia has taken over a pretty big chunk of territory, and they also have said from day one, long before President Putin, they have said they cannot have Ukraine be a NATO. They said that very strongly. I actually think that that was the thing that caused the start of the war. And Biden said it and Zelenskyy said it. And I think that was one of the reasons, one of the starts of the war.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: All right, that is exactly what Russia says as to one of its reasons. They did not call it war at first. It was illegal in Russia to use the word "war" for the longest time. People are dying. I was there on the ground. It is a war beyond wars.

ABDUL: They called it a military operation.

SIDNER: They called it a military operation. It is not. It is a war.

So to you, Melik, when you hear these words parroted, exactly the same words that were used by Putin and in Russia, is this a betrayal straight out of Ukraine?

ABDUL: Some people will look at it that way. But I think when you consider what we are now, in three years into this war, there was the World Economic Forum. There was another event, I think, somewhere in Switzerland, where Ukraine, they've hosted these peace summits. In each of these, Russia was not present. So I think it's a very good thing that Donald Trump is at least talking to Putin, because the world has pretty much shut him out. You can't have a peace summit without inviting the other party there. So I think it's absolutely significant.

But if you listen to Pete Hegseth, our secretary of defense said that this issue of this possibility of Ukraine getting NATO membership, it is a no. And if you consider what our military has said, even last year, you have military analysts saying that Ukraine -- this is aside from the 2014 borders -- that Ukraine was unlikely to get any of the territory that Russia has gotten so far. I think that it is now time to have a serious conversation about our investment in Ukraine. And I think that Donald Trump is doing -- Donald Trump is doing the right thing with forcing these sides to actually talk, because Europe was not interested in doing this.

SWISHER: Except he's giving away the store before it happens. I mean, why would you say we're not going to do this, we're not going to do that, and then the whole thing about territory? I mean, you know, someone pointed this out in Britain. What part of the United States would you give away if Canada invaded? Would it be Maine or Michigan? I don't know if they were in it. Russia was the invader here. And right now they're talking about you can't be a NATO. We're going to let them keep their territory. It just feels like you don't negotiate ahead of yourself. You have a firm stance. And they had to pull it all back.

ABDUL: I think part of the problem is that we've been negotiating really with one side all of this time. If you think about a few months ago, the whole idea of sending in the ATACMS, sending the ATACMS to Ukraine, it was supposed to put them in a better negotiating position. I haven't really checked lately, but I don't know if Ukraine is in a better position today than before we sent the ATACMS to them. CUPP: Well, I think Biden was a bit stymied, right?

[10:20:00]

Biden had this reflexive, and Obama had it as well, this reflexive like, don't get involved, but actually get involved. And, you know, the red lines and we're going to help them, but we're not going to help them. And that really kind of split the baby, and I don't think was very effective in moving things along. But Trump is just coming out and saying what he says he never wants to do, which is give it away, and tell people in advance what he's going to do.

To a very important point, Ukraine is an ally. This is a way we're talking about an ally. And I can't imagine how heartbreaking and terrifying it must be for Ukraine to hear this. So far, it's just words, and rhetorically both Vance, Trump, and Secretary of Defense Hegseth, which always makes me laugh, have rhetorically for sure betrayed an ally with their words. We still have to see if anything can happen here that would actually put an end to this awful, awful, tragic war.

WILMORE: I'm really, really shocked by a lot of this from a historical standpoint. I mean, this is unlike what any Republican president would ever do. To have a foe like Russia and the history of the region there, and just even knowing what the history of it is and our relationship, and to me, the Trump and all of them, they're engaging what I call ventriloquist diplomacy. Like Putin talks and Trump moves his mouth, basically. And it's just shocking to me. I've never seen anything like it. And so I think for, I mean, for all intents and purposes, the Republican Party basically is gone on the world stage, and it's the Trump party. I mean, this is what --

SWISHER: There have been some senators who pushed back. There are several, the head of the Foreign Relations Committee, everything else, is saying Russia is the enemy. Let's keep that in mind.

SIDNER: Senator Roger Wicker, talked about what Hegseth did, which was basically giving away the plan that America has and messaging to Russia and to Ukraine and to Europe. Here's what the United States is going to do. We're not going to do this, this, and we're going to let Russia keep this pre-2014 border and blah, blah, blah. So this is what Senator Wicker said about all of this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. ROGER WICKER, (R-MS): Everybody knows and you know, and people in the administration know, you don't say before your first meeting what you will agree to and what you won't agree to.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I was puzzled by that, too.

WICKER: I was puzzled, too. And I was disturbed. I was disturbed by it.

(END VIDEO CLIP) SIDNER: He's not only disturbed, but he called it a rookie mistake. And I'm going to just throw this out there so that you guys can pounce on it. There's been a lot of talk about DEI lately and a lot of talk about how people are not well-versed and well-educated for -- that's how they see DEI. Is Hegseth ready for this? Because he's calling it a rookie mistake.

SWISHER: No. I mean, I don't know. No, no. There's so many good people they could have had running the Defense Department. This guy is not qualified in any way. I mean, you know, the joke among the comics was DUI, but the -- I'm sorry, it was a meme. It was a meme.

WILMORE: Change the letters.

SWISHER: Change the letters. But no, he's not qualified in any way. And look at what he did. It's not a rookie mistake. It's someone who's unqualified for the job. I mean, no insult, but Larry would be a better secretary of defense.

WILMORE: Well, the other thing that is, it's such a snotty approach to government, too, is the erasing of institutional knowledge. And when you get rid of the people who are actually doing the hard work in a lot of these departments by this DOGE thing or whatever it is, you are losing your ability to have a starting point that is based on history.

And now people's opinions are the thing that that fly, you know? So a Trump opinion is the thing that matters, not the history of negotiations, the history of the region, and all these factors that are very important in these types of negotiations, which people who are much smarter than I will ever be in this know because they've been in these situations year after year after year, and they know that. They're not Democrat or Republican. It's the institutions that count. But they don't care. They're very they're very snotty about that. That really upsets me a lot.

SIDNER: We're going to come back to this. So first we're going to do a little bit about this First Amendment fight at the White House over what to call an international body of water. My panel will debate the slippery slope, Gulf of America, you say, or Gulf of Mexico.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:28:53]

SIDNER: It is no secret that President Trump likes to pick fights with the press. But one battle this week is a direct fight against the First Amendment. For multiple days, the White House barred an Associated Press reporter from entering the Oval Office, and as of yesterday, Air Force One. Why, you might ask? Because the news outlet, which is one of the world's largest, dared not to adopt Trump's renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I was very upfront in my briefing on day one that if we feel that there are lies being pushed by outlets in this room, we are going to hold those lies accountable. And it is a fact that the body of water off the coast of Louisiana is called the Gulf of America. And I'm not sure why news outlets don't want to call it that, but that is what it is.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: All right. Is it a fact? I'm sorry, I had to ask the question. Kara is losing her mind.

SWISHER: No, it's the gulf of masculine fragility is the joke on.

(LAUGHTER)

SIDNER: The comedian.

SWISHER: I'm going to start calling Karoline Leavitt Tracy Flick just because I feel like it. It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous.

CUPP: There's a lot here.

[10:30:00]

One, I'll just say. I'll just say, listen. No administration, no government, no White House should punish the press in this way. It's what Trump loves to do. But I'm not sure this is the hill A.P. should die on. There are worse things happening now and down the pike. But I'll also say there was a time that the press, when the press united. I remember during the Obama administration, he tried to have FOX News kept out of the press pool, and the rest of the pool, including our Jake Tapper, who was at ABC at the time, said, no. You ban one, you ban us all. That camaraderie and support is kind of gone.

SWISHER: Well, "The Times" backed ap, "Wall Street Journal" didn't yet.

CUPP: Yes, they did, but you're going to need so much of that in this administration as we did in the in the first Trump administration, where the press is not saying, OK, FOX is the enemy of MSNBC, and CNN is the is the enemy of Newsmax. Or we need to be a community and a family because we all should have the same goal, which is holding powerful people accountable.

SIDNER: You talk about the hill that they should die on. Is this the hill the administration should die on? I mean --

CUPP: Of course not.

SIDNER: What is happening here?

WILMORE: It's really surprising to me, too, that the right would become the speech room monitor. I mean, that was the job of the left.

SIDNER: The people that were talking about censorship, censorship --

WILMORE: Yes, that's the job of the left to monitor speech. You know, that the right is going to do that is very surprising to me.

Also, but once again, this is a schism between Trump and the traditional right, or that type of thing, or Trumpies. And it doesn't surprise me about Trumpies that these are people that would change the name of the equator because it sounds to DEI. You know, so that that's probably that's probably next, you know.

(LAUGHTER)

ABDUL: I think it's its petty. It is very petty. I don't think that this is something that the administration should do. And I think that there are probably, and there will be valid reasons to consider whether or not you want to deny someone's access because, as they say, this is a privilege, not a right. But in this case, over the naming of the Gulf of Mexico versus the Gulf of America, and what I, what I don't -- what I'm not comfortable with, if you listen to Karoline Leavitt, what she essentially said was, is that A.P. lied. And so if you lie, then we're going to hold you accountable for lying. Like there are other things that she could have said. But to say that the A.P. lied, I think --

CUPP: This is a fact. And what the A.P. should say is, well, we have an alternative fact, right?

SWISHER: Hire Kellyanne Conway.

CUPP: That's a thing, right? Alternative facts, right? That's your thing. OK.

WILMORE: The great Bob Saget, the late, great Bob Saget had a joke. He said, no, that's true, I read that. No, really. I wrote it down and I read it. I believe everything I read.

(LAUGHTER)

WILMORE: That's pretty much how it works. They write it down, and then they read it, and then it's fact.

ABDUL: This is unnecessarily petty, though. I mean, there are reasons to be petty.

SWISHER: I wasn't sure how many people care, right, about these kinds of things. To me it's a waste. It's not a waste of A.P.'s time, necessarily. It's a waste of the Trump administrations time to have this kind of fight when they should be doing whatever they want to be doing that's actually real, that they believe in. But again, it's the typical kind of petty fight they would like. And she would stand up there and do and waste her credibility and time doing.

SIDNER: And the reason why I just wanted, you know, one of the reasons why people should potentially care about this is that if the A.P. is getting punished like this, what if you say something on X that Musk doesn't like? What if you say something that Trump doesn't like? It can --

SWISHER: Yes, 100 percent. But it does show what he was talking about, the censoriousness -- look, Musk knocks people off all the time. So does Zuckerberg. So do -- they all do. And then they get up and do their free speech warrior thing, except when it doesn't suit them. And so, you know, same thing with a lot -- this whole free speech thing goes a little too far on all sides. But it definitely is a situation where free speech for me, but not for thee kind of thing.

ABDUL: All I know is that I was referencing Elon Musk and tagging him, calling him Prime Minister Musk over and over again. And a couple of days later, for the first time in my Twitter history, I got a notification saying that my account had been flagged.

SWISHER: Shadow-banned.

SIDNER: To be fair, it's not true. It's just for a lot of people seem to think it is.

SWISHER: I'm going to call it the Gulf of Larry.

SIDNER: Gulf of Wilmore.

WILMORE: I think the moon is going to called Mar-a-Lago. That's going to be the moon.

SIDNER: And with that, we will be right back. We'll be discussing something else.

(LAUGHTER)

SIDNER: What does 15 years and a change in administration mean? Republicans who hated Michelle Obama's push for healthier food now adore RFK Jr.'s push for healthier food. How come? We'll discuss.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:39:24]

SIDNER: All right, he has spoken out against vaccines and crackpot science and pushed baseless conspiracy theories, and now RFK Jr. is now officially in charge of the nation's health. But his first goal is regulating what people eat. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR., HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY: We want to do a number of things, but not take away choice from people. The one place that I would say that we need to really change policies is the SNAP program and food stamps, and end school lunches, because there the federal government in many cases paying for it. And we shouldn't be subsidizing people to eat poison.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[10:40:00]

SIDNER: Republicans love this push for healthier food. But when Michelle Obama lobbied for the very same thing, this was reaction. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GLENN BECK: When I heard this, I thought get your hands off my fries, lady. If I want to be a fat, fat, fatty and shovel French fries all day long, that is my choice.

SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS HOST: We're going have the government fining us if we use salt.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A new report finds that Americans are consuming a dangerous amount of salt. And right now, the FDA is pushing to regulate how much salt is in certain foods. But is salt always a bad thing?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I hate the government getting involved in telling me what to eat or not eat.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Food police.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you think the government should regulate the ingredients in the food we eat?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We make our own decision about whether or not we want to salt our food.

HANNITY: An Obama government obesity task force.

Does every American family need a dietitian appointed by the government to tell them that this food is going to make you fat, and this food is not?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: All right, I want to start with you, S.E., because this is an issue that despite what Michelle Obama said and what they're saying now and back and forth, but the food issue is a real issue that goes across Republicans, Democrats, independents. A lot of people are concerned with what is happening with the ingredients in the food that most Americans eat regularly. Does RFK have a window here to do something with this, or are we going to end up like that, just a mess?

CUPP: He does. He is the worst possible vessel for this push because he promotes junk science and quackery routinely. I say that as both a sentient being but also a parent in the autism community. He pushes fake autism cures. He says vaccines cause autism. That is 100 percent not true, and so, so, so dangerous. So he is the worst person for what is, I think, a really good and important message.

And listen, I was at FOX for all of those conversations. I was there. I was doing it. I was saying stop, Bloomberg and Obama, with the food police. I got that. I got that resistance. But you have to want government to do its job in some places. And the places where it should do its job, he is absolutely right, is what we're feeding our kids. Kids who in the SNAP program, and I do work for No Kid Hungry, have no choice sometimes of what they eat because they'll eat what they're given, and they're so grateful for it. And they need it so much. We should be giving them healthy food, and we shouldn't not want to look at the science of this. The problem is, he is not the best advocate for science.

SWISHER: So he's essentially going to make us healthier, and then we're going to die from whooping cough because of vaccines.

CUPP: Exactly, or measles.

SWISHER: Healthy but dead. You know, I think it's, again, the same thing we've just been talking about. A grain of truth. We don't want war. A grain of truth, kids, especially poor kids, shouldn't have to eat crappy cheese and things full of chemicals, processed food. I mean, the food industrial complex, the processing is a dangerous thing to the nation's health. And that's not a controversial thing to say. As much as you might want to eat your French fries, it's still problematic.

SIDNER: We're the most obese population --

SWISHER: Correct. And you look at somewhere like Europe, and they do these things without a lot of controversy. And let me tell you, the butter is better, the milk is better, it's safer. It's kind of a disease of this country in that regard. And even if he's slightly right, it doesn't really matter because that industrial complex is going to push back against him no matter what.

WILMORE: Yes. And -- oh, go ahead.

ABDUL: No, no. Please.

WILMORE: Well, one of the problems with RFK, I agree with you he's coming from a good place, I believe. But, you know, if I'm going to continue my Batman analogy, you know.

SIDNER: Oh please do.

WILMORE: He would be the Riddler, you know, in my mind, because you always have to try to figure out exactly what he's saying. And this is part of the whole Trump Rosetta Stone, Rosetta Stone policy that they have is that they all speak English, but they all need interpreters to tell us what they really mean. You know? You know, so.

SIDNER: Or clean it up.

WILMORE: So it's all the Rosetta Stone, no matter who is speaking. And he's like the king of this, RFK. No matter what he said about vaccines, we need an interpreter to tell us what he really meant to say about it. That's very troublesome for somebody who is in the position he's in. I'm also a parent of an autistic child who has Aspergers, and I followed all that same stuff that you're talking about, and it really concerns me to have someone talk that way about vaccines in the way that he is. And I'm sorry it is such an amateurish way to approach something and say, I'm just asking questions. You're asking dangerous questions.

CUPP: Also questions that have been answered. Science has answered the question of whether vaccines cause autism.

WILMORE: Those types of questions, it's also dangerous exercise. It's a rhetorical, stupid little exercise that people like to do to make points where they say, I'm just asking questions. No, you're really making points with those questions that are bad points.

SIDNER: Tucker Carlson is famous --

WILMORE: He does that all the time. Exactly. That's exactly how.

SIDNER: How did Republicans get here? Because at first it did appear that there was some real concern. And if you look at anything that RFK has said in the past about vaccines over and over and over again, I mean, he's -- go online, you can Google it. It's right there. It comes up during an interview. No vaccines are safe. How did they get here?

[10:45:05]

ABDUL: He's Trump's guy. And I think that that was the understanding that he was Trump's guy. I actually liked RFK when I saw him in the confirmation hearing, much better than I did going into the confirmation hearing. I think that there is, you're right, there is some bipartisanship around what we have in our foods. And obviously there is a lot of hypocrisy on the Republicans position now.

But this is something that we've just seen in our politics. We know whether its, you know, Democrats being for the border wall when Obama was in office, and then they decided it was, you know, an evil thing when Trump got in office. We've seen a number of times, even on the, you know, Melania Trump, her Be Best initiative. Barack Obama had an initiative. It was an anti-bullying sort of initiative.

SIDNER: Right, but her husband was bullying people while she was doing hashtag Be Best. And that was why --

ABDUL: But she's still the first, but that's the same -- that's the reason why the right did not like Michelle Obama. It wasn't because of Michelle Obama. It was because of her husband. And I think in one of those instances, you can say that there was an element of sexism in there in the same way that it was for, Melania Trump in that people dislike them even more because of their husbands, not because of anything necessarily that they did, but because of their husbands. And I think that's what we're seeing.

But I think that this RFK -- this is a good effort. We don't know what he's going to do. I'm not as concerned that he's going to do things around the vaccine, because at the end of the day, Operation Warp Speed, despite what conservatives may say, that was Donald Trump's thing.

CUPP: Well, listen again, I was inside the building when we were doing this at FOX, and we certainly overplayed. Right? Michelle Obama wanted to plant a garden full of healthy food and tell kids to eat more healthy, was not the five alarm fire that we acted like it was. She was not HHS secretary. HHS secretary is now a junk science peddler who cannot speak, in fact, no matter how many times he is told this is the science, stop asking these inane questions. So the intention might be good, but he is the worst possible person to be in this place.

And it feels like a lot of these cabinet posts are like a troll. It's like Trump found the least qualified, least appropriate person for the post that they were given. DNI, let's find someone with no intelligence experience who can't tell the difference between a traitor and an ally, and let's put her there. Health and Human Services, let's find someone with no scientific or medical background who peddles junk science. Let's put them there. FBI, let's pick someone who defends criminals, insurrectionists and put him there.

WILMORE: You know, they always they demand evidence for the obvious, but they want you to swallow the preposterous, you know.

(LAUGHTER)

CUPP: So true.

(CROSS TALK)

SIDNER: Next, the panel's unpopular opinions, what they're not afraid to say out loud.

And tonight, don't miss the season premiere of "Have I Got News For You" at 9:00 p.m. only here on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:52:51]

SIDNER: We are back, and it's time for your unpopular opinions. You each have 30 seconds to hit us with it. So we're going to start here. Malek, what's yours?

ABDUL: Republicans, a message from another Republican who happens to live in Washington, D.C. Let D.C. govern itself. There's been this effort over the years to repeal home rule and all of this. I'm not a big -- I've never voted for Muriel Bowser. She is a three-term mayor. I campaigned against Muriel Bowser, but I think that Muriel Bowser, despite what many people say, has been a very good steward of the District of Columbia. And again, Republicans, let us govern.

CUPP: Without representation?

ABDUL: Yes.

CUPP: You're for that?

ABDUL: I am.

CUPP: OK, so my unpopular opinion is diss tracks, diss tracks are terrible. They are dumb. I don't like them. They are a waste of your talent. They cater to the worst of us.

And they happen in rap, but they also happen in pop when people write about their exes. Stop weaponizing your popularity and your fame to get your fans to turn against other people. I don't like it. SIDNER: Kendrick Lamar is not.

CUPP: I didn't mention any names, Sara. I'm not trying to get in trouble.

(LAUGHTER)

SIDNER: You were about to get all the hate mail.

SWISHER: He was talking about a musical note, OK.

SIDNER: OK, OK.

(LAUGHTER)

SIDNER: A minor. Go ahead, Kara.

SWISHER: Mine is in the in the Gulf of Mexico -- Tracy Flick, that's what I'm calling it -- there is also something happening right now at Stonewall right near here. The National Park Service has taken off transgender from the description. It was it an event that was sparked by transgender people, and removing them in erasing them from history is repulsive. People like Sylvia Rivera, Marsha P. Johnson were critical in the beginning of gay rights. And you do not have history without a T, and you don't have Stonewall. Then it's "Sonewall." And so they need to stop doing this kind of nonsense of erasing real history.

CUPP: Who did it?

SWISHER: The Trump administration.

SIDNER: Online. You can't do it to the building. No, that's not happening.

SWISHER: No, the gays will not allow that.

SIDNER: That is correct. Nor will most people in the --

SWISHER: Yes.

[10:55:00]

SIDNER: To you, Larry.

WILMORE: OK. I'm going to get all the ads now.

SIDNER: Wow, are you nervous?

WILMORE: Super Bowl halftime show, it was just all right. OK? Um, I would not say it was great. Is Kendrick Lamar great? Yes. Was the show a great Kendrick Lamar concert? Sure. But if more people are telling you something is great than are saying that it's great, then it's not great. Everybody says Michael Jackson halftime show great. Everybody says Prince playing in the rain, everybody says it was great. Nobody has to explain to you why it's great. Once you have to explain, more people explaining why than telling why -- it was good. It was all right.

SIDNER: All right, thank you so much for being with us and for watching "TABLE FOR FIVE". You can catch Abby every weeknight as well at 10:00 p.m. eastern with News Night Roundtable. But in the meantime, CNN's coverage continues next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)