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CNN Live Event/Special

CNN Saturday Morning Table for Five. Members of President Trump's MAGA Base Attack "Wall Street Journal" Article about Letter from Donald Trump to Jeffrey Epstein; Congressional Republicans Cut Federal Funding to NPR and PBS; Comedian Stephen Colbert's Late Night Show Cancelling as CBS Parent Company Paramount Plans Merger with Skydance; Political Styles of President Trump and Democratic New York City Mayoral Candidate and Avowed Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani Compared. Aired 10-11a ET.

Aired July 19, 2025 - 10:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[10:00:33]

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: This morning, the X files -- if there's nothing to hide in the Epstein case, why is Donald Trump demanding everyone not to see, including his own base?

DONALD TRUMP, (R) U.S. PRESIDENT: I lost a lot of faith in certain people.

PHILLIP: Plus, the bird and Elmo may not be evicted from the street, but they're a lot poorer after Republicans declare the word of the day -- defund.

Also, CBS puts the late nights to bed. But is the end of Stephen Colbert's show more than just money?

And are New York socialist and New Yorks former socialite using the same playbook.

Here in studio, S.E. Cupp, Pete Dominick, Congresswoman Marilyn Strickland, and Pete Seat.

It's the weekend. Join the conversation at a "TABLE FOR FIVE".

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Good morning. I'm Abby Phillip in New York. Let's get right to what America is talking about.

MAGA asked for details. They demanded details. And now, after new details did emerge about Jeffrey Epstein's life and social circle, they don't want to hear it. It's been a surreal week in the saga, and that's saying a lot in the Donald Trump era. And Trump spent most of it trying to get this story out of the headlines, even attacking his own supporters, calling them stupid and weak for continuing to ask questions about the scandal. That is notable since he promised to release the Epstein files, he hired people who push conspiracies about those files, and his MAGA mouthpieces made it one of their biggest issues. But after "The Wall Street Journal" reports about a racy letter to Epstein bearing Trump's name, MAGA is rejecting it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE BANNON, HOST, "WAR ROOM": President Trump is best when it's attack, attack, attack. This is the deep state. This is the ruling class in America. They're trying to use it to destroy President Trump.

REP. MIKE JOHNSON, (R-LA) HOUSE SPEAKER: He said, I don't talk like that. I don't think like that. They're literally making things up.

CHARLIE KIRK, TURNING POINT USA FOUNDER: This thing was obviously a hit job, obviously a drive-by shooting, trying to go after President Trump, trying to tie some of the Epstein news to President Trump to try to bring down his approval ratings and try to weaken him.

JACK POSOBIEC, SENIOR EDITOR, "HUMAN EVENTS": MAGA hat stays on, all right. The MAGA hat stays on. The MAGA hat is fully on. We're locked in. We are focused. And we'll see. We'll see guys. Give us your best shot, because we ain't going anywhere.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: But perhaps the biggest question of all is, why is Trump protesting so much? For a man who births and breeds conspiracies, his bizarre behavior makes his critics wonder why he cares so much that the Epstein details never see the light of day. It's nothing like a, I guess, a sex scandal to unite MAGA world behind Donald Trump. I mean, it is pretty amazing. It's like clockwork. It's almost as if Donald Trump released this thing himself because he could not have united some of these folks more effectively than "The Wall Street Journal" story.

S.E. CUPP, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It's so bizarre because from a PR standpoint, I think he's handling this all wrong, in fact. I mean, you know, what was revealed in this is gross. I wasn't surprised by it. I don't know many people who would be. And it certainly wasn't criminal. Just own it and say, this is all you've got. This is it. Can we all move on now? And I bet, I bet that could have been the end of the story. But he can't help but act guilty. He is acting like the guiltiest person that could be implicated in this, maybe because he could be, I don't know. But I think he's going about it all wrong.

PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, I think that there are a lot of Trump supporters who wish he just said whatever. But he did not. He was like, get out of the MAGA camp. Don't come back in here. I don't want your support. I don't know that there's any issue that Trump has ever done that to his supporters on, except for this one.

PETE SEAT, FORMER WHITE HOUSE SPOKESMAN, PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: No, and I'm quite proud of him for finally doing it, because some of these folks have caused him nothing but problems for a decade now. Granted, he has fed into some of this. PHILLIP: You want to name some names, Pete?

SEAT: And allowed them to exist.

PHILLIP: Name some names.

SEAT: Do you want me to name names?

CUPP: Dan Bongino, Kash Patel.

SEAT: Charlie Kirk is on that list. Kash Patel certainly on that list.

CUPP: Dan Bongino.

SEAT: Where it's easy to stand on the sidelines.

CUPP: Right.

SEAT: And to stoke the conspiracies, to get the clicks, to make money off it all. But let's give them some credit.

[10:05:01]

CUPP: Who them?

SEAT: Kash and Bongino. They get in the seat. They realize it's not what they thought it was. And they're doing what I think is the responsible action, and that is not releasing information that could potentially smear -- but we don't know --

REP. MARILYN STRICKLAND, (D-WA) MEMBER, ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE: I will take the credit You're giving them away from them.

SEAT: We don't know what's in there, I don't know what's in there. Andrew McCabe was on CNN earlier this week and he said there could be names in these files of perfectly innocent individuals. You release this, you smear them. You can't put the genie back in the bottle.

PETE DOMINICK, COMEDIAN: Yes, but you also can't have it both ways. You can't create a monster and then say, stop talking about it. Trump absolutely did, all those guys you just mentioned, absolutely did. I'm giving them no credit. I also disagree with S.E. that it would have been easy to just dismiss it because of the phrase we have a wonderful secret. You and I have known each other for 10 years, and we have zero wonderful secrets. And if I said that to you, you'd be like, we're not friends anymore, because that's super bad. Weird. What is your wonderful secret? I'm going to go ahead and say it's not baseball and blackjack. It's something about what their -- I won't even say. I won't even speculate. But the point is, I think that that phrase alone is terrible to have said to this guy.

STRICKLAND: Well, I think the fact that there's this idea that he wants to protect the innocent is completely absurd. He campaigned on this in 2024. He talked about releasing these files. He had Kash Patel ready to do this. And all of a sudden, they care. And I want to talk about the people that I served with who are Trump's

enablers. This really wasn't coming up very often. And you watch a couple of evenings of Trump's unhinged tweets about this. It's like the contractions got closer, and then all of a sudden they decide, my colleagues in the GOP, that, well, this really shouldn't happen. This, this is a -- it's a hoax.

PHILLIP: You should name some names, too, Congresswoman.

SEAT: Let me ask you, Congresswoman, why didn't President Biden release this? If there are guilty parties in these files, if there is a list, why didn't he --

CUPP: He couldn't. They were under seal.

STRICKLAND: Well, not even that, though.

SEAT: But he didn't, he didn't try. He couldn't try.

CUPP: He couldn't. They were under seal. But here's the other thing, too.

SEAT: But did you did you ever ask that they be released?

STRICKLAND: So President Biden served under a Republican majority in the house. They didn't do anything about this either. So this whole idea of, oh, why didn't the Democrats. Donald Trump is the president right now. Let's talk about him. Let's talk about the election.

SEAT: Biden was there for four years.

(CROSS TALK)

PHILLIP: But hang on, but hang on just one second. I mean, so, Pete, I think the other part of this is that I think Democrats are absolutely being opportunistic right now and saying, release the files. That is totally true. But Republicans were the ones who, rather than say release the files because we need to bring people who actually committed crimes to justice. They said, release the files because prominent Democrats are in the files. Bill Clinton was always --

CUPP: Bill Clinton was supposed to go down.

PHILLIP: Yes, it was always supposed to be about the political enemies, not about actually bringing people to justice. And that's really the issue.

CUPP: But it's gross because it does, I think it implicates both sides, right? Because they see what they want in this Rorschach test, and they're hoping it brings down their perceived political enemies. I just think, and I'm not saying this isn't a big story. It is. That's not what I said at all. What I'm saying is --

SEAT: You said he could have handled it better, but -- CUPP: -- take a page from Bill Clinton. When Bill Clinton was going

through his scandal. He's a pig as well, but when he was going through his scandal, he was going through a scandal, he was asked about it constantly. And all he kept saying was, I'm getting back to work. He ended up leaving with a higher approval rating than he had during the scandal.

STRICKLAND: He got reelected.

CUPP: And got reelected. Now he's a pig, too, but like, that's how you get out of a scandal.

PHILLIP: But now Trump is actually literally suing "The Wall Street Journal" for libel.

DOMINICK: Good, we'll have a discovery phase, which will be really --

PHILLIP: Yes, he's not going to want to do.

DOMINICK: Can we just disabuse -- can we just quickly disabuse? We can all agree that that being a sexual deviant, a pervert, or criminal who assaults people is not a province of your political ideology? It's not liberal. It's not conservative, it's not Republican, it's not Hollywood. It's men. I'll say it. It's just men. Men do this, and powerful men are really, really good at it. And if you think it's just one type or the other, then you're missing out on a lot of criminals.

STRICKLAND: Absolutely. And the victims here, let's not forget about them. They should get justice. And as I think about this particular scandal, honestly, I was surprised it came up. I didn't expect to have this implode the way it did. And the fact that the most diehard Trump supporters were the most vocal about it really, really --

SEAT: What did the Biden administration do to get justice for the victims?

DOMINICK: Thats a terrible topic.

CUPP: It's lazy, I's lazy.

SEAT: For four years.

DOMINICK: You're talking about the Biden administration.

CUPP: Justice for the victor, that's not what they've talking about that.

SEAT: -- and just ignore and gloss over the fact that your president, Democratic president.

DOMINICK: You know Biden wasn't best friends with Jeffrey Epstein. The current president was best friends. They were best friends for years.

[10:10:00]

STRICKLAND: There aren't photos Joe Biden with Jeffrey Epstein. But again, Donald Trump is the president now.

SEAT: I agree, justice for the victims.

STRICKLAND: Absolutely.

SEAT: What did he do for it?

STRICKLAND: Donald Trump is president now. Donald Trump is the one going ape -- on social media.

(CROSS TALK)

PHILLIP: Congresswoman, do you think that Pelosi, for example, is right when she says this is this is a distraction from other things?

STRICKLAND: Well, I mean, there's so much that comes out from this administration every hour on the hour. So I do agree in some cases that it is a distraction and justice should happen. But let's not forget what's happening right now. People are about to lose their health care. Kids are about to go hungry. They just passed this ugly recissions, which is going to take away funding from public radio and national, and television, and then also, too, taking away foreign aid. So there are much bigger things that are happening right now, not to minimize what's happened to the victims, because they deserve justice.

SEAT: Will you admit that you only care because Trump is in office?

DOMINICK: Don't even answer that. Can you just answer --

SEAT: It's true.

PHILLIP: Can I just say for Pete, Trump and his people put this on the agenda? If had they not done that, I'm not really sure we'd be approaching it quite this way.

SEAT: All this feigning of outrage from Democrats.

PHILLIP: As I've said, as I've said, Democrats, the polling is very clear. I mean, we have it. Is the government hiding Epstein, info on Epstein's death? Democrats are the most likely to say yes. And the same is true when you ask them if they're hiding info on Epstein's client list. Democrats are the most likely to say.

SEAT: You have a poll for once, the only reason I'm asking now --

PHILLIP: Well, here's the thing.

SEAT: Of course they're going to think Donald Trump is hiding something.

PHILLIP: I know, I know, but I'm actually agreeing with --

DOMINICK: Because he's best friends with him.

PHILLIP: But Pete, I'm actually agreeing with you. The reason I showed that is to say that right in this moment, Democrats are the most exercised about this. But the reason we don't have comparative polling data is because this did not come up for four years. Democrats did not put this on the agenda. Republicans have. So they have to -- they have set their table. Now they must eat from it. OK, this is where you all put here.

DOMINICK: Pete is trying to eat from a different table right now. And I'm telling you, and I'll say to the Congresswoman, I don't think anybody should be eating from anything but the Epstein table. The idea that Nancy Pelosi said this is a distraction. Democrats should 100 percent focus on this scandal and almost nothing but it for as long as it stays in the news, because this is, as Abby just said --

PHILLIP: Although questionable whether or not this is actually negatively affecting Trump. I think it's just taking up a lot of oxygen in the news space, but it's unclear whether or not really anybody but those five people we were just talking about --

DOMINICK: It might not matter. He got everything he wanted.

PHILLIP: OK, next for us, though, Republicans finally did it. They took revenge on Elmo. And so -- and Sid the Science Kid, by making them poorer. We'll discuss that. Plus the late night shocker raises the question about whether free speech is now being punished and the future of political comedy to boot.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:17:38]

PHILLIP: This morning, Capitol Hill comes for "Sesame Street." After years of vilifying Elmo and Abby Cadabby as liberal hacks, Republicans controlling Congress right now have voted to cancel all federal funds from public broadcasting. Now, the irony of all of this is that PBS and NPR will, in fact, survive, since their money is just only a small part -- this money is only a small part of their budgets. But the ones who actually get hurt the most are the local stations that get more than half of their funding from the public broadcasting pool.

Now, the Senate Republicans who voted against the cuts argue that Congress is surrendering the power of the purse to a branch that, frankly, is doing a lot of things unchecked right now. And this becoming this sort of like major national issue is all just politics. It's all just partisanship. And with all the issues that we have as a country, I'm really shocked, Pete.

SEAT: Well, dating back to at least Ronald Reagan, Republicans have tried to cut funding for NPR and for PBS.

But I'm so glad you made the point about how minuscule it is in their budget. "Sesame Street", four percent, according to their own audit, only four percent is government funding. If they can't survive without that for percent, that's a problem. An analysis that was published on the NPR website Friday morning, eight to ten percent of NPR stations and about 15 percent of PBS stations rely on government funding, it's the 15 percent of their budget is government funding. If you can't find 15 percent to cut, you've got bigger problems. PHILLIP: Well, what are the reasons? I mean, as we talked about here,

it's really actually in some ways, I think, maybe the places that are represented probably by a lot of Republicans, rural parts of the country, places that are kind of very far flung, where they can't rely on their member base in order to sustain their budgets. And on top of that, the impact that this will have on the sort of bottom up, the kind of local to national pipeline of information, I think is what I think about as a journalist, and that -- I don't think that helps Republicans. I mean, if anything, they should be wanting these parts of the country to have more of a voice, not less of a voice. I don't know.

STRICKLAND: Yes. And I would say, you know, when you think about your local PBS affiliates and NPR affiliates, the word "public," the word "public" is the second word in those titles, which implies public support.

[10:20:02]

And to your point, Abby, about what's going to happen to rural communities, right? They don't have the donor base. They don't have the tax base. And so how do they continue to provide vital information in emergencies? And, you know, that's the case that Murkowski was making.

DOMINICK: Republicans have been attacking the public for as long as I've been alive. They hate anything that's in the public's interest. Public reporting, public transportation.

CUPP: Public schools.

DOMINICK: Public schools I've been on the fight in the front lines for. Anything that has the word "public" in they want to defund. PBS and NPR should do nothing but talk about this on all of their channels and affiliates between now and when these cuts go through. This money is so important. You have to ask why Republicans are against it, why they don't want the public to do, as you mentioned, with journalism, that's in the public's interest. It's so vital for so many reasons. And it built this country. And without it, it's scary to think. And you can't make money doing journalism.

PHILLIP: Let me just play what Katherine Maher said about this on CNN on Thursday. She's the CEO of NPR.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KATHERINE MAHER, CEO OF NPR: The biggest harm to losing federal funding will be at the station level, which means that of the hundreds of stations, public media stations that cross the country, small stations in rural areas are likely to go dark because they will not have the funding to continue. Just last night, while the Senate was debating this bill, there was a 7.3 earthquake off the coast of Alaska, and three local stations went immediately into action, broadcasting alerts to their communities. And staff members at at least one of those stations stayed in the path of a potential tsunami in order to ensure that that information went through. This is not a service that can be replicated in other ways.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DOMINICK: I don't know if the public needs to be warned about tsunamis or earthquakes.

PHILLIP: Well, if you're in Alaska, you beg to differ.

CUPP: He's being sarcastic.

PHILLIP: I know, I know. I mean, hey, and the thing is, Alaska, it's such a unique case. But, I mean, that's what this is for, right?

CUPP: It is. And I think when people think of the media, and especially because this is what politics has done, they think of us, right, the national news, they think of "The New York Times," "The Washington Post." What they're not thinking about is the fact that the media is a public service first and foremost. Yes, we do our opinions here and we participate in sort of an infotainment version sometimes, but at its core, journalism is a public trust, and it's a public service. And at the local level where it's being gutted the most is where it matters the most. They've done.

DOMINICK: It's not profitable either. It's hard to make money at the local level doing journalism.

CUPP: They've done studies that have shown that when a local newspaper or a local TV station or radio station shutters in a town or city or county, the corruption in those places goes up because the only people covering it in those cases are the local journalists. So in addition to flood alerts and weather services and agricultural reports, you're also losing people who are on the ground in your community where you're not. I'm not. We can't be everywhere. But these people are there.

PHILLIP: And they are trusted. I mean, look at this Pew Research Center.

CUPP: More trusted than we are.

PHILLIP: PBS, the BBC, the AP, NPR, among the most trusted news sources. I mean, Pete, you made the case that they've been trying to do this since Ronald Reagan. What is really the reason for this, given that Republicans say, oh, we don't trust the media anymore, but Americans actually do trust these sources.

SEAT: Well, I'm less concerned about this ideological fight and this claim that it's about, you know, woke reporting or whatever. There's a lot of cherry picking going on there. But as I dive into the budget and how it works -- and I'll be honest. I didn't understand how this all operated until recently. But, you know, NPR likes to say they only receive, I think it's less than two percent in direct federal funding, which is a nice talking point. But what actually happens is the stations that we mentioned, 1,500 PBS and NPR stations around this country, they're paying licensing fees back to the network so they can run the Lawrence Welk specials that were made in the 1960s. Maybe they can cut the licensing fees for that. Maybe "The Antiques Roadshow" doesn't need to go on the road. They just posted on Thursday that they've been to 49 of the 50 states.

PHILLIP: The Antique Roadshow?

DOMINICK: Those shows are cherry picked. You just cherry picked two of the shows.

SEAT: I'm sorry, there are cuts that can happen anywhere.

PHILLIP: I'm sorry, "The Antiques Roadshow" is a national treasure.

SEAT: That's fine. But who's to say that there's not bloat there?

STRICKLAND: Well, when I think.

PHILLIP: I think you're going to get a lot of hate mail about that.

SEAT: It wouldn't be the first time, Abby.

PHILLIP: All right, we've got to hit pause on this.

Coming up next, Colbert gets canceled. Is it just a case of bad timing, or is there more at play here? We'll discuss that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:29:24]

PHILLIP: If terrible optics could talk, they'd give an opening monologue on this one. CBS canceling Stephen Colbert and its late night franchise altogether, citing a money decision. But it is notable for its timing, given that just a couple of weeks ago, the company settled with Donald Trump over a bogus lawsuit, and just days after the late night host ripped that idea on air.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHEN COLBERT, LATE NIGHT TALK SHOW HOST: Now, I believe that this kind of complicated financial settlement with a sitting government official has a technical name in legal circles. It's "big fat bribe."

(LAUGHTER)

COLBERT: Because this all comes as Paramount's owners are trying to get the Trump administration to approve the sale of our network to a new owner, Skydance.

(MUSIC)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[10:30:09]

PHILLIP: And now senators are demanding answers about whether the cancellation was just political. So is it just the new reality for old TV and linear television, or is it a chilling episode of free speech being under attack in the Trump era?

CUPP: It's B. And yes, and it's really, really -- it's not about Stephen Colbert, who is wonderful. No one is ones precious, right? We could all be fired at any moment. It's about the bigger picture. It's about Donald Trump going out and saying, I've been beating the media, aka the First Amendment. I've been beating them. He can say that credibly to his audience, because CBS and ABC capitulated and paid him tribute. And we'll see who else continues to do that.

So he gets this talking point that he's been beating us because they let him beat them. So it doesn't almost matter if this was political, financial. The perception is it's political. The perception is this was a bribe to condition a good, a favorable environment for Skydance going forward. And that's really, really a shame.

PHILLIP: And Trump reinforced this in a truth social post, saying, "I absolutely love that Colbert got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings. I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next. He even has less talent than Colbert." Look, Trump is happy about this. But on the Skydance part of it, the reporting is that the likely incoming owner of -- new owner of CBS was just in to see the FCC chairman this week. And they also had they had to give a filing on this. Here's what it says that they discussed. "We discussed Skydance's commitment to unbiased journalism and its embrace of diverse viewpoints, principles that will ensure CBSs editorial decision-making reflects the varied ideological perspectives of American viewers."

STRICKLAND: This is and this is crazy, because what Trump is doing is running around bullying people when they hurt his feelings. And if you look at Stephen Colbert's show, he talks trash about everybody. And the idea that he's happy that Colbert's show got canceled because there's a merger he wants to happen is another example. Has there been another president that has spent more time litigating against media outlets?

DOMINICK: No, of course not. But I mean, this is -- will we ever know if this is why it happened, because the parent company in the merger? No. But also, yes. Because you know why, you don't kill your cash cow? I mean, TV is losing money across the networks, and that's the trend that we're going. But Stephen Colbert is number one and has been for a long time. Also, Stephen Colbert.

SEAT: The show is losing $40 million a year.

DOMINICK: Every show is losing money. It's still making them plenty of money in ad revenue every year. But, you know, listen, Stephen is -- I worked for Stephen for six years.

PHILLIP: Yes. I was going to say you've --

DOMINICK: And I know him really well. And he's beloved by everybody and everybody who works on the staff's family. But the thing that really put him on the map, really made him super famous, was speaking truth to power, to the president of the United states at the White House Correspondents' Dinner in 2006. Every night at "The Colbert Report," an audience member would ask him about that moment. He's always done that. He's always punched up at power, speaking truth to power. And wherever my camera is, I want this one. I want to tell Stephen, you should run for president, sir. Do it. Run! He's running.

PHILLIP: Either that or launch a Netflix show or whatever. You know, I don't know. I mean, whatever is next, I mean, he will have an audience. And --

CUPP: Welcome to Substack, Steve.

(LAUGHTER)

PHILLIP: He does also -- right, in the sense that. Yes, I mean, there is a decline in linear television period, right? Ad. revenue is on the decline across the board. But relative to his peers and his competition, his show is doing actually quite well. So it's questionable. And the timing -- the timing is questionable. But I will say that Skydance, or excuse me, Paramount says that they had to do it now because they've got contracts coming up. These are unionized crews, all of that stuff, just to just to tell you what they're saying.

SEAT: Yes, the timing is undoubtedly suspect. And CBS, as I understand it, wanted to wait to make this announcement. It was Stephen Colbert who preempted that because he was worried about leaks. So yes, it looks bad. And perhaps that was his intent, that he wanted it to look bad to get some extra attention. But you can't just dismiss that the show is losing $40 million a year. Yes, it's the highest rated, but that doesn't equate to dollars.

DOMINICK: Pete, that's not a good argument. It means it used to make more money. It's making less money doesn't mean you kill it.

SEAT: But when you have a balance sheet, it does matter. It also matters that late night TV has been decimated.

DOMINICK: Right.

SEAT: "The Late Late Show," which used to be on after Colbert has been completely off the air for two years now, I think, when James Corden left. Before that you had --

CUPP: You guys are making it about this one show, and it's not.

[10:35:00]

What ABC and CBS did when they paid ransom is they endangered the lives of every journalist everywhere. And they made it harder for all of us to do our jobs, because the president is pointing at us, putting a target on our backs. And they helped him do that. And so it's always the case when you pay off a pirate, when you pay the ransom, the tribute, to navigate safely through the waters, the waters are never safe. No matter how much you pay. The waters are unsafe because there's pirates in those waters. And Donald Trump is a pirate, and he wants to maraud through the seas of the media landscape. He's doing it with our help, which is the worst part. PHILLIP: Let me play a little bit of how Stephen Colbert may have

gotten on the wrong side of Donald Trump, because, as you said, he says it like he feels it.

DOMINICK: Always.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHEN COLBERT, LATE NIGHT TALK SHOW HOST: Trump reportedly said why are we having all these people from -- hole countries come here.

(LAUGHTER)

COLBERT: Sir, they're not -- hole countries. For one, Donald Trump isn't their president.

COLBERT: Trump continued to insist America is going to do great with this pandemic as long as you don't count half of America. This is unspeakably monstrous, especially for the president of the United States.

A lot of voters didn't want to believe everything that was obvious to so many of us, that Donald Trump is a fascist.

Hey, remember when Donald Trump said he was going to be a dictator only on day one? Well, evidently his first act as dictator was declaring the day one never ends.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Now, I get, Congresswoman, that on Capitol Hill, there's definitely a lot of Democrats who would like to do something about this, but is there really anything that can be done?

STRICKLAND: It's hard to do something when you're in the minority, you don't have the majority of votes in the house. The number is 218. There are 212 of us, and we don't have the majority in the Senate.

PHILLIP: Coming up next for us, Donald Trump and Zohran Mamdani are political polar opposites, but are they more alike than they think? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:41:43]

PHILLIP: They're both from New York. They both have a populist message, and they both shocked the political establishment. So is it possible that Donald Trump and the socialist candidate Zohran Mamdani, are birds of the same political feather?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. DEBBIE DINGELL, (D-MI): Donald Trump and he both get out and they talk to people, and they listen to people, and they understand how people feel. And he's using social media the way that Donald Trump has. And you know what? All of us in life have different perspectives, different experiences. He's running in a city that's very different.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: And hey, she means that as a compliment. She really does. And I yes, I mean, I don't think she's wrong in the broad strokes of it. What do you think, Pete?

SEAT: Well, they are certainly similar in terms of the political playbook that they're running. I want to make sure we're all clear. They're not similar in terms of their ideology. There's nothing that's similar about them.

But this all reminds me of a little experiment that AOC ran on her Instagram account right after the election. She asked voters who split their tickets and voted for her and for Trump or Trump and another Democrat, why? Why did you do that? Polar opposites of the ideological spectrum. And it came down to the same reason for almost everyone, to a person -- authenticity. Feeling like those politicians understand the struggles that you face, and that makes a difference. And I don't care for Mamdani's politics at all, but he has tapped into that. He has been able to --

PHILLIP: Can I just argue, make a little quibble with a little something? Because I do think that Donald Trump, more than any other Republican, he has actually done state -- partial state ownership of private enterprises. He is populist in the sense that he is anti- globalization, anti-trade, effectively. So there are some actual policies that do not make him aligned with long term --

CUPP: Mamdani is anti-globalization, except when it comes to the intifada. But Zohran Mamdani, I don't see this parallel really, and I think we're projecting a lot on Zohran Mamdani, who is very unknown. And he reminds me kind of a Beto O'Rourke. Remember that guy? Progressives were trying to tell us --

PHILLIP: That he won?

CUPP: No, I know, I know, that he won an election. But let me just put a little, throw a little cold water on. New York's got over 8 million people. A million people voted in this Democratic primary. That's an eighth of the population. Of that million people, half of them voted for Zohran Mamdani. He got 1/16th of the New York population. And we'll see what happens in the general.

But I lived in New York a long time. New York City is liberal. It's not Portland liberal. And I don't think most New Yorkers who live in the financial capital of the country, if not the world, want to globalize the intifada, want government-run supermarkets. I just don't think a lot of this stuff was well known to a lot of voters. And had he had a Republican challenger who was competitive and not Curtis Sliwa, maybe someone could have been making all of these arguments to a majority of New Yorkers. Again, we'll see what happens. But I think there's a lot of projection onto him right now.

PHILLIP: Massive, massive questions about what happens.

DOMINICK: My friend, S.E. Cupp, he does not want to globalize the intifada. He's never said that he wants to do that.

[10:45:04]

CUPP: Does he know that?

DOMINICK: He's never said he wants to do that. Let's be clear. But he has been really -- I don't like this whole comparison between Trump and Mamdani, because --

PHILLIP: I know people don't like it.

(LAUGHTER)

DOMINICK: Obviously --

PHILLIP: It's very convenient to not like it.

DOMINICK: Because I'll tell you why.

PHILLIP: I mean, populist politicians do often run with the same --

DOMINICK: But you mentioned it.

PHILLIP: It doesn't really matter what the policy is actually, in a way.

CUPP: I have a theory.

DOMINICK: But he's been on -- but Trump has been on the side of -- on every side of every issue. So he's not actually that authentic. He takes every position possible and then just lies about it.

Mamdani is principled. Whether you like his ideas or not, he's not been on every side of every issue. He's far more authentic in every possible way that you can imagine than Donald Trump, who has lied more than anybody to his own people. The comparison to me, I'm having a hard time with it.

STRICKLAND: Let me jump in here, though, for a second, because when we think about politics, we often talk about horseshoe politics. So if you look at the shape of a horseshoe, the extreme ends are actually not that far apart from each other. And the other thing that I've learned in my time as an elected official and gone through a lot of elections, is that people love the idea of change, and that's what Trump represents, and that's what that's what he represents to. And so I think sometimes, especially with people who don't pay attention to politics inside the bubble like we do every single day and every week, you have someone out there, they're charismatic, they're tapping into your angst and anger.

CUPP: They're talking differently.

STRICKLAND: They're talking differently, and they're talking about change. And I think, you know, one of the challenges that the Harris campaign had was, it's like no one says, yay, status quo. But you talk about wanting change. Even if it's not necessary, right, people want change. Barack Obama was about hope and change.

PHILLIP: And sometimes they want it to be dramatic. And that's why --

STRICKLAND: Very much so.

PHILLIP: -- when somebody says, you know, were going to open up grocery stores the government runs, so the prices aren't so high, I don't know, they might say OK. And Donald Trump is literally pointing the finger at corporations and saying, do not raise your prices. He wants to control prices for corporations. He's doing that too.

SEAT: I want to jump on what S.E. said. To your point, right after that primary, right after the election, Google search terms for "socialism" skyrocketed in the city, because people didn't understand that's who he was, that's what he stands for. And I don't agree with your definition of "authenticity." What people think --

DOMINICK: I'm shocked that you --

STRICKLAND: What people this is authentic is saying what's on your mind. And that may not be consistent, but it's authentic.

DOMINICK: It may not be Donald Trump. Right?

PHILLIP: I guess Pete is probably right about that.

DOMINICK: Which Pete?

(LAUGHTER)

PHILLIP: This one, this one. Because the idea that Trump's authenticity is tethered in truth and reality is usually not necessarily the case.

But next, for us, the panel's unpopular opinions, what they are not afraid to say out loud now.

But first, a quick programing note. Don't miss an all new episode of "Live Aid, When Rock N Roll Took on the World," which looks at how organizations actually made the legendary concert happen. That's Sunday night, 9:00 p.m., right here on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:52:55]

PHILLIP: We're back. And it's time for your unpopular opinions. You each have 30 seconds to tell us yours. Pete Dominick, you're first.

DOMINICK: Well, it's that hair matters.

(LAUGHTER)

CUPP: Sorry.

DOMINICK: Well, some solidarity here, but you have had a number of different evolutions over the past year alone.

PHILLIP: Yes, that's true.

DOMINICK: I'm a big fan and follower on Instagram, and I watch the show. Pete is blessed somehow, for some reason, that he's been able to hold on to it. And good for you.

SEAT: For now.

DOMINICK: I don't know. Yes, but I mean, I went through puberty late and lost my hair early. Thats not exactly something I advise for any young man. But now look at you all. I save money, I don't waste any time with it. I don't worry about it. And look, I'm gorgeous.

(LAUGHTER)

CUPP: You do have facial hair.

PHILLIP: He is not wrong. Go ahead, S.E.

CUPP: OK, the Coldplay couple is my favorite story. It's the only thing I care about right now.

(LAUGHTER)

CUPP: And I hope it goes forever, OK. However, we need to get rid of the kiss cam. It's so weird.

PHILLIP: It is.

CUPP: When you think about what this is, you're training a camera on two people who've just come to for, like, a basketball game or a concert, and publicly pressuring them to kiss each other. It's really weird and puritanical, and I don't like it. And I don't know why we keep doing it. It's also very heteronormative. Like, I don't understand. You're only picking out straight looking people. Sometimes it's a brother and sister and it goes badly.

(LAUGHTER)

CUPP: Why are we doing this thing? It's weird and creepy.

PHILLIP: Oh my God. OK, go ahead, Congresswoman.

STRICKLAND: So my hot take is the Seattle Supersonics will win an NBA championship before the New York Knicks do. Seattle doesn't have a basketball team right now. And I'm a Knicks fan. I'm a Knicks fan. And the last time they both won championships was in the late 70s.

PHILLIP: Wow. That's --

STRICKLAND: And I'm here in New York, CNN studios.

PHILLIP: I was going to say, we'll make sure you have protection as you walk down to the gas station after this. Go ahead, Pete.

SEAT: I'll try to top that. No sauces.

[10:55:01]

I believe that if you cannot eat a food on its own merits, you should not eat it.

CUPP: You are wounding my husband now.

SEAT: No sauce for ribs.

CUPP: He only eats things with sauce.

SEAT: No ketchup for French fries. No dressing for salad.

PHILLIP: No sauce for ribs?

SEAT: If you, if you like it so much, you're Asian zing or your ranch, put in a cup and drink it.

CUPP: People do.

DOMINICK: This is one way.

SEAT: And they're fine with me.

DOMINICK: The whitest opinion I've ever heard. I just got to say. It is. You're welcome. You're welcome. Because I, too, come from a no sauce family. But I learned growing up --

PHILLIP: Is that a thing?

DOMINICK: It's -- listen. Let's just let it be between Pete and I.

(LAUGHTER)

PHILLIP: Wow, you learn something new every day. I am pro-seasoning, thank you very much.

CUPP: Me too.

STRICKLAND: As am I.

PHILLIP: Everyone, thank you, and thanks for watching "TABLE FOR FIVE". You can catch me every weeknight at 10:00 p.m. eastern with our Newsnight Roundtable at any time on your favorite social media, X, Instagram, and TikTok. In the meantime, though, CNN's coverage continues right now.

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