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Table For Five
Republicans Criticize Leftwing Democrats like New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani as Communists; Negative Effects of Iran War on U.S. Economy Likely Influencing Midterm Election Polls; Conservatives Compare Olive Garden's Requirement to Show I.D. for Dinner Special to Voter I.D. Requirements; Trump White House Continues Pressuring Senate Republican to Pass SAVE America Act Requiring Voter I.D.; France Bans Children Under 15 from Accessing Social Media. Aired 10-11a ET
Aired July 25, 2026 - 10:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[10:00:40]
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: Today, Republicans sound the alarm on the Democratic message and the messengers.
SEN. TED CRUZ, (R-TX): I'm not celebrating.
PHILLIP: Why the left's message is sparking fear on the right.
Plus, the Iran war escalates. So do the economic warning signs.
HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICS WRITER AND ANALYST: Nutter Butter. This is movement that kills parties.
PHILLIP: New polls show Americans trust Democrats more to handle inflation.
Also, the White House has a warning for John Thune -- pass the SAVE Act.
KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: His patience is running out.
PHILLIP: Thune fires back.
SEN. JOHN THUNE, (R-SD) SENATE MAJORITY LEADER: Maybe she or somebody else ought to get on the phone and get the votes, right? It's 50 around here.
PHILLIP: And why are so many Republicans talking about Olive Garden?
And France bans kids under 15 from accessing social media. Would it work in the U.S.?
Here in studio, Sabrina Singh, Marc LoPresti, Peter Meijer, and Kmele Foster. It's the weekend. Join the conversation at a "TABLE FOR FIVE".
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Hi everyone. I'm Abby Phillip.
So how do you handle progressives? Well, it appears that both Republicans and Democrats don't quite know how to answer that question. The leftwing of the Democratic Party has the GOP in a tailspin, particularly New York City's Mayor and self-described democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani. And conservatives are employing a new tactic to paint him and the rest of the party as pro-communism. And while some on the right believe Mamdani is a gift that will help them in the midterms, Ted Cruz isn't one of them.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. TED CRUZ, (R-TX): Mamdani is the single most powerful Democrat in the country. I think this is bad for the country. I think this is unhealthy. I want to see two normal parties that are not filled with crazy people who can actually do something reasonable, and who actually love the country.
And the problem is these communist radicals, they not only don't love America, they hate America. If you're a small business owner, they hate you. If you're a Christian, they hate you. If you're a Jew, they hate you. That is dangerous.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez thinks that those fears are unfounded and that the American people know that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But isn't there concern that, you know, this slippery slope towards socialism inevitably ends up as full blown communism?
REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ, (D-NY): I think that that's, I think it's very silly.
Do Republicans really think that this stuff is going to happen? No, they don't. They're trying to scare people. They want to call everything they don't like communist because if people actually wake up to the -- to the fact that their elected officials are screwing them over when they get here, then they're going to realize that they deserve better.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: But there is something to be said, or I wonder whether you think so, Peter, for there is a level of hyperbole in what Ted Cruz was saying. You know, they hate Christians. They hate America. They hate you. I don't know. I mean, when you look at the polling that shows popularity of communism dropping among everybody, and then socialism curiosity rising, it suggests that a lot of regular, normal Americans are kind of saying, this thing isn't working for us.
PETER MEIJER, CO-FOUNDER AND HEAD OF STRATEGY, THE NEW INDUSTRIAL CORPORATION: And buy this thing, you mean our current system of government, or economic --
PHILLIP: Well, the way that our current system is operating. Let's put it that way. Yes.
MEIJER: I mean, I'll be very honest. There's a lot of areas where I think there's a tremendous lack of gratitude. There's little frustrations, but it amounts to the equivalent of I'm tired of the color of the paint in my kitchen. So let's burn the entire house down. Like there's no --
PHILLIP: Wouldn't be the first time in American politics, right?
MEIJER: There's no consideration of the trade-offs. There's no appreciation for what has been gained. It's very easy to look at the things that are wrong, and we should endeavor to fix those. But the idea that everything is bad so we need to throw it all out. Like, my God, I wish we were still in an age where fascism and communism were third rails as opposed to we're making excuses for a guy who had a nazi tattoo.
[10:05:05]
SABRINA SINGH, DEPUTY PENTAGON PRESS SECRETARY: They are.
MEIJER: But, but the communist component --
SINGH: I think Ted Cruz and Republicans throw out socialism, communism, fascism. And I think, I think it also works on the Democratic side. I think fascism gets thrown around. And the reality is, is that this is not going to be a country that goes down that route. This is a country that is founded and is going to continue as Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez was saying, on democratic principles that are you're never going to have two sides that go down that path.
And so I think you're going to have sides that are getting farther left and farther right. I do think, even though I don't agree with anything that Ted Cruz said at the end, but he has a point of, like, where are the people in both sides of the party that can work together? Do I think Ted Cruz is one of those people? I don't. I think those comments are absurd. But I think there are people and there are candidates running across the country. I mean, we have in the Democratic Party, we have many veterans running right now who want to make government work, who know how government can work, and they're running as moderates.
MEIJER: Where are they?
SINGH: Oh, Kate Connolly --
MEIJER: What just happened in Maine. My gosh.
SINGH: -- in New York, in the Hudson Valley. Bob Barrett in Pennsylvania, 17. He's a firefighter. He's a former bartender. And then you also have a Navy fighter pilot in New Jersey 7 running. I mean, you have -- you have great candidates with incredible backgrounds, diverse backgrounds. And those are just a few. I mean, there are other veterans running across the country, but they're the moderate wing of the party.
PHILLIP: Let me just play. This is Meghan McCain, no fan of Zohran Mamdani or his ilk, but she had a warning about the resonance of the message that he carries. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MEGHAN MCCAIN, CONSERVATIVE COMMENTATOR: I was so struck by how charming and folksy and everyman and, like, I'm your best friend vibe He was giving out. his economic message about why Republicans have abandoned the working class, why no one can afford anything, why what he's doing is working in New York City is really compelling. He's a generational talent. He's like Obama.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: I think this is what I'm asking about. It's not in any way to, to sort of soften the fact that these people are, they're saying they're socialists, right? However, when you tell Americans who are listening to what they're saying and they're kind of nodding along, and then you say to them, well, if you are not along to this, and then you're a communist who hates Christians and hates America, it sounds like that's something that people are going to eventually start to tune out. It could backfire, is what I'm wondering.
KMELE FOSTER, EDITOR-AT-LARGE, "TANGLE": I do think that the existential narratives, we've been hearing them for a very long time from Democrats and Republicans. I am inclined to agree with you. I think America's best days are ahead of it. I think in general, most people are pretty sane. But with respect to the kind of the, the prevalence of socialism in our politics now and how to talk about it in a thoughtful way, I'm someone who is deeply skeptical of socialism. I think Zohran Mamdani is exactly as talented as Meghan suggested, and he is charismatic, to borrow a phrase from Joe Biden, he is clean, articulate, and bright.
(LAUGHTER)
FOSTER: The thing about him, though, that is very different than Barack Obama, is a lot of those additional things that were said about Obama, about his radicalism, I mean, he was fairly moderate. This is a guy who was not in favor of gay marriage at the time he was elected, at least not publicly. Zoran actually has these inclinations and these predilections that do make him rather suspect.
I don't think he's antisemitic or anything of the sort, actually. But I do think he has this unhealthy obsession with particular foreign policy issues and particular foreign policy questions that raise question marks about him. And I think it's totally sober to ask questions about that. But I would agree with you, Abby. I think Ted Cruz and so many
Republicans are dramatically overreaching here. It will animate a portion of their base. But so many independents who are just socialist curious are going to be willing to take a flier on some of these candidates, or at least express support for them if they know they can't win in their own districts.
PHILLIP: So, so Ted Cruz also, he, he suggested that AOC would run for president. There has been a new New Hampshire poll from the University of New Hampshire showing AOC at the top of a long list of potential Democrats. This is -- I mean, look, it's a very early poll, but like, look at this. Kamala Harris is second to last on that list. AOC, Pete Buttigieg, Buttigieg did well in the primaries, Iowa and New Hampshire. So, I mean, yes, I mean, Ted Cruz is -- that's maybe the one thing he's not wrong about, that if she's looking at these numbers, she's probably thinking, if I'm not taking this seriously, I would be foolish.
MEIJER: And not only AOC, she's smart. I think there's a lot of her early comments and being a member of the squad was easy to kind of paint her into a corner.
[10:10:01]
I think she has navigated the current moment with the DSA very intelligently, to the point where some of the DSA folks have expressed a lot of frustration that she's not --
PHILLIP: She skipped the whole Platner thing.
MEIJER: She did.
PHILLIP: And everybody else jumped on the bandwagon. Even at the very end, she skipped it. No thanks.
MEIJER: And she is smart. There were a lot of folks, like the Bulwark guys, not smart, like they jumped on and they were like, well, let's make excuses for nazi tattoos. Did not age well. What AOC has done, I think, is, again, to her credit, if you look at that list of folks, you can kind of say, who are the ones who are rising, is the people who are intelligent and not impatient.
FOSTER: But she's being careful now. She hasn't always been so careful. She got really animated during 2020. She was one of the most --
SINGH: She's navigating the moment, she's navigating this election cycle, I think in a very smart way. And I think, to Abby's point on the polling, I think, you know, polls are always a snapshot in time. And I remember on 2020 when it was Elizabeth Warren at the top, and it was Bernie Sanders. And I was -- I worked for Cory Booker then, and polls, you know, will change over time. And certainly by the end of 2020, our nominee was Joe Biden, who was not polling in, I think even the top five at this time.
PHILLIP: Polls are like stocks. Polls go up and polls go down. MEIJER: Matthew McConaughey.
PHILLIP: Let me just play really quickly. This is Zohran Mamdani speaking to Jon Stewart this week about the attacks on him.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAYOR ZOHRAN MAMDANI, (D) NEW YORK CITY: If you go back to some of the Democrats that we most admire, FDR, LaGuardia, you will see a lot of democratic socialist principles in their vision. Now, if today you and I were to introduce the idea of a building that lends out books for free, we would be slandered in the same way that so many new ideas are slandered today. And yet that's the library. And the same thing with the fire department. The same thing with public schools. And it's to say that a lot of politics has been a debate about who deserves what. And I would prefer a politics that debates how we can deliver that to everyone.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: So Marc, a couple seconds for you to respond to that, because look, he's laying it out. This is the -- this is the roadmap for how you run on his platform, because he can't run for president, but somebody else will.
MARC LOPRESTI, CEO AND SENIOR MARKET STRATEGIST, MARKET REBELLION: Yes. Well, this is part of what makes him so dangerous is that he's so slick in such a good salesperson that there are people out there that are buying this horse hooey. I mean, let's be honest, he's comparing himself to FDR and his policies, his economic policies to, akin to the library system and firefighters? Who doesn't like firefighters, especially the dalmatians? That's the only one that Ted Cruz left off the list, by the way, I think is the dalmatians.
SINGH: I don't think he was comparing himself to FDR or LaGuardia. He was saying there are Democratic members that have, or Democrats in the party, principles, that those principles are still espoused today.
PHILLIP: And LaGuardia was at one point a socialist.
FOSTER: And FDR had plenty of bad ideas, too.
SINGH: Yes.
LOPRESTI: Theres no doubt.
FOSTER: His experimentation included destroying foodstuffs at a time when prices for food were already too high.
LOPRESTI: And rounding up and interning enemies of the people in mass camps.
FOSTER: So I don't mind that parallel as much.
PHILLIP: All right, we'll leave that one there. Coming up for us, gas prices and inflation are driving fears about affordability. And a new poll shows that Americans now trust Democrats more with the keys to the economy.
Plus, the public feud between the White House and the Senate over the SAVE America Act. John Thune says that numbers aren't there to pass it. The White House says time is running out.
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[10:18:05]
PHILLIP: An economic crossroads. A month ago, the Iran war appeared to be winding down. The economy, markets, gas prices were responding accordingly. But now the ceasefire is over and some of the market gains have been wiped out. Gas prices have risen more than a quarter per gallon in just two weeks. And this week, President Trump added another layer of stress to an already fragile economy. He's bringing back new tariffs between 10 and 12 percentage points to dozens of U.S. trading partners.
Now, that comes as rising oil prices and inflation fears rattled the world's largest bond market, sending the 10-year U.S. treasury yield to its highest level since Trump took office. And a translation is that that's usually a marker that the government has to pay more to get people to buy its bonds. And it's not usually a good thing.
So, you know, it is always confounding to me when Trump is in a position where he needs to take some pressure off the economy, he keeps adding more bricks on the on the back of the economy. And I'm not -- I truly do not understand the logic, but I don't know, maybe you see it --
LOPRESTI: I kind of respectfully disagree with some of the fundamental premises there. I mean, the economy is actually doing quite well. We just were in the middle of another earnings season where earnings are beating on average expectations. That makes the ninth earnings quarter over quarter in a row of earnings that have beat expectations --
SINGH: Prices are high for individuals.
PHILLIP: You're talking about, you're talking about --
LOPRESTI: I'm talking about corporations.
SINGH: Corporations are doing great, yes, sure.
LOPRESTI: Well, that's an indication of how the economy is doing.
SINGH: I would say the family that's going to fill up a gallon of gas that's over $4 from where it was in May does not --
PHILLIP: And the corollary to that on the consumer side is that inflation has outpaced earnings for the last two months.
Now, Trump, on the inflation side, got a little bit of a signal of, OK, you're doing the right thing.
[10:20:01]
The ceasefire brought down inflation. But now there's no ceasefire anymore. So I think we can probably expect that number to start to rise again. So that's what I'm talking about, Marc. It's, look, I think the economy has been incredibly resilient. But it is in spite of not because of Trump's policies that, frankly, have added to costs for Americans.
LOPRESTI: What the president has been trying to do, Abby, as it relates to tariffs and other policies, are to level the playing field. It's long term gain for some short term inflationary pressure.
PHILLIP: For whom?
LOPRESTI: And I think the -- for everyone.
PHILLIP: Wait, what do you mean leveling the playing field? Who is paying the tariffs?
LOPRESTI: The playing field --
SINGH: The tariffs get shifted to the consumer, which are Americans who buy goods from countries that are being taxed, like Canada or Mexico.
LOPRESTI: The last, the last three quarters --
SINGH: So tell me how that makes sense for American families.
LOPRESTI: The last three quarters of corporate earnings have not demonstrated --
SINGH: You're talking about corporate earnings, which is very different from a family living in, let's say, Michigan, who is going to the gas pump --
LOPRESTI: I'm looking at what corporations are saying about their places and raising prices.
SINGH: -- to maybe fill up either diesel or gas, and they are seeing higher gas prices, higher diesel prices. And then they go to the grocery store. So on top of the higher gas prices, then they get to get the gift of driving to the grocery store to see grocery prices higher, because guess what diesel does? It takes the goods coming off of those trucks and gets to the grocery store.
So yes, those supermarkets or the corporations might be getting a higher earning paycheck here, but the average family is not.
LOPRESTI: But that's not the message that I'm trying to transmit here. So in breaking down corporate earnings reports since liberation day, corporations have reported by and large that they are not raising prices and passing the costs.
SINGH: That's not true. They absolutely are. Grocery prices are higher.
LOPRESTI: I spend most of my days pouring through --
PHILLIP: Well, I would say, I mean, I would say, look, first of all, I do think that some corporations, the larger ones, are able to absorb some of the costs. But, but some of the costs are still being passed on. And when it comes to grocery prices, that's where the Iran war starts to come into play, because you've got fertilizer and nutrients and some of the basic fundamentals of farming going through that part of the world. That's not going to get resolved anytime soon. And that's part of the picture that Americans are facing.
FOSTER: No, I think that's absolutely right. You mentioned liberation day. I think part of the issue with the tariffs in particular, and Trump's desire to keep going back to this well, is that they've been instituted. They've been repealed. There is profound uncertainty. I don't know that it is at all obvious that the tariffs have a great deal to do with corporate earnings, as we've seen them.
And importantly, there is a great deal of uncertainty about the tech sector, which has been a huge driver of those corporate earnings. And there are big questions about the future for Nvidia, for Anthropic, for OpenAI, for Tesla and SpaceX. SpaceX goes out with this boom and is suddenly trading below what it opened at. Those are huge, huge red flags. There's lots and lots of concern out there.
And the fact that consumer sentiment is already flagging while corporate earnings and people are continuing to message about the economy is good actually, it seems like any single any moment you have politicians and pundits who are saying things are actually pretty good when in fact people feel otherwise is probably not a good moment.
SINGH: They tried that during Joe Biden's time and it did not work.
PHILLIP: The widespread nature of the dissatisfaction is going to be a real issue here for Trump. His handling of all these issues is deeply underwater among this -- in this poll of registered voters. His job as president, 61 percent disapprove. Inflation, 73 percent disapprove. That's an amazing number. Sixty-seven percent disapprove of his handling of the economy overall, 66 percent disapprove of his handling of the Iran war. And even immigration, 57 percent disapprove.
Americans are also reporting that the costs are causing them serious hardship, 34 percent say a serious hardship. That's up eight points from a year ago.
There is a real problem, and we've talked about this. I mean, some of it is just how do people feel? How do people feel? Yes. But I also think that people don't like going backwards. They don't like taking a step back. And where they were a year ago, a year-and-a-half ago, the day before Donald Trump was inaugurated, by all these different measures, inflation was lower, gas prices were lower. That's what they're looking at. And they're saying, this is not what we're supposed to be doing here.
MEIJER: And the easiest thing that you can point to and say, wow, I'm paying too much for this thing is if you're driving and you see the gas prices, because that is just, it is the number one, the simplest thing to see. It's advertised on the highway. You see it when you fill up your tank.
This is -- this is politically challenging 100 percent. And we're talking about that question of the feelings. All of the sentiment indicators that we have, you know, there was an interesting study on some of the kind of forward looking sentiment from studies coming out of the University of Michigan, and right around 2020 to 2022, the predictive value of those in politics just diverged.
[10:25:04]
The question of whether or not we're living in a vibe session where, again, unemployment rate is fine. It is right near target. Inflation is -- it's higher than we'd like it to be, but it's nowhere near the levels that we saw even four years ago, let alone 30 years ago, right.
So the way in which our registers are unable to account for, you know, we'd like this to be better, but again, it's been much worse. That's not great, but there's no sense -- we're unable to get that calibration. I think that's the frustrating thing is the understanding of, what would the alternative be if the other party was in office? We'll, let's just see. Right. We don't -- we didn't like this guy.
PHILLIP: I mean, let's play that out. Let's play out the, the, the thought experiment. What would the economy have been if Trump were elected but he had not instituted liberation day tariffs, he had not gone down that road, he had not launched into the war in Iran? And that is actually the counterfactual that I think a lot of Americans are thinking of. They voted for Trump thinking that he would kind of build on the progress that was being made, and that he made some really key decisions that they strongly disagree with. And that is what you're seeing in these --
SINGH: I think if Trump, I think to the point that you made of just if he had not taken all these steps with tariffs, the war, all this, this administration would be looking very confident going into the midterms with a very, very strong economy.
And to all of your points, I think you're pointing out the fact that inflation is sort of on target. Unemployment is sort of on target. The problem is, and this is something that we wrestled with in the Biden administration, is we told people that the economy is doing really well. But it turns out what people --
MEIJER: But inflation was seven percent --
SINGH: No, no, no, no, but, but, but, no, but, but the economy in after the pandemic was coming back and was doing better. And we told people that. And the problem is, is that when you tell people that they need to trust you that it is going to continue to get better. And to your point, they drive by the groceries -- they drive by the gas station, they're on the highway, and they see those prices. Then they go to the grocery store, they get their electric bills. It's just not a reality for people. LOPRESTI: Consumers have no patience. Unfortunately, there's no
economic patriotism. There's no sense in these modern times of like, OK, this sucks right now. I might wish this was I wish groceries were down. I agree with all of that.
PHILLIP: I think Americans are asking, why on earth do I need to sacrifice in this moment? I think that's a fair question, too.
Next for us, all you can see and all you can eat salad and breadsticks and a side of politics? Well, Republicans are using Olive Garden to push Trump's SAVE Act. We'll tell you how.
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[10:32:11]
PHILLIP: This morning, pasta and politics? Olive Garden has been tossed into the center of D.C.'s debate over voter fraud after the restaurant chain responded to a diner's question about the policy for its never-ending pasta pass that requires a valid photo I.D. to use. Republicans have now seized on the post to make their own push for the SAVE America Act, which has been stalled in Congress.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. STEVE SCALISE, (R-LA) HOUSE MAJORITY LEADER: For God's sake, you can't go get pasta at Olive Garden without a picture I.D. Why not be able to show a picture I.D. to vote?
REP. BRIAN STELL, (R-WI): I used to work at Olive Garden, so this hit close to home. Madam Chair, we're protecting our breadsticks more than our ballots in jurisdictions across this country.
ERIN MAGUIRE, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: I get more security getting a bowl of pasta at the Olive Garden than I do voting in New Jersey.
PATRICK BET-DAVID, HOST, "PBD PODCAST": Wait a minute. I need an I.D. to get this unlimited pasta because it's so important. But I don't need an I.D. to be able to vote for president. Can you imagine, what's more important, Vinny, pasta or president?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: I love me some Pasta and salad.
(LAUGHTER)
PHILLIP: However, It ain't a constitutional right, As last I checked, to be able to go into an Olive Garden and buy and eat as much pasta as you want. However, voting is. Voting is the one thing that everyone who's a citizen has a right to do without impediment. Period.
FOSTER: I can appreciate that point, and I'm generally inclined towards that in the sense that I am not concerned about this kind of mass campaign of voter fraud. I do think, however, that there's two ways in which this kind of goes
to bad messaging on the democratic side. This actually resonates with plenty of people, like showing your I.D. to do something basic. I go to pick up my kids from daycare. I show my I.D. There's so many times a day where I have to do that. It's not an unreasonable request.
And in much the same respect, though, when the president goes and talks about voter fraud in campaigns that were stolen, even the ones that he won were somehow fraudulent in certain ways, I think he's doing it exactly wrong. If Republicans were calm, thoughtful, coherent, do something that kind of resonates broadly with people and just it's a casual, obvious, good idea. Look at Olive Garden. You have to show I.D., why shouldn't you have to show id to vote, without the hysterical existential nonsense and conspiracy theories, they would be in a much stronger position.
I think even labeling this to SAVE America Act as opposed to the common sense voting act is kind of evidence of the ridiculous way that they've approached so many issues which have actually managed to ostracize plenty of people. I think Democrats, again, have messaged on this, but so have Republicans. So -- but again, I'm inclined to agree with you.
SINGH: The only thing on that, I agree with everything that you said, but probably I would assume when you go to daycare, you don't have to show your birth certificate or your, you know, show proof that you're a U.S. citizen.
[10:35:05]
FOSTER: Olive Garden doesn't require proof of citizenship.
SINGH: Right, proof of citizenship. And that, and like, I don't think Democrats have an issue with --
PHILLIP: Actually, before people get on me about this, you're joking.
(LAUGHTER)
FOSTER: Olive Garden does not require proof of citizenship.
SINGH: Does not yet, does not yet.
PHILLIP: All right, go ahead.
SINGH: But I think, you know, Democrats broadly and who I've spoken to are in favor of showing I mean, you show I.D. to get on a plane, you show I.D. to pick up your kids or whatever it is. That's not what the SAVE America Act is, though. The SAVE act is about showing proof of citizenship. And I think many people in this country actually don't have a U.S. passport. They don't travel, or they can't find their -- they don't know where their birth certificate is. And that's where the conversation of, are you restricting voting access comes in.
PHILLIP: So let me just play. I mean, the White House tried to lean on the Senate and John Thune, the leader in the Senate, about the SAVE Act, and he pushed back. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: His patience is running out. He wants to see as much of the SAVE America passed as possible by the August recess. The House did its job. The Senate needs to do its job, too.
SEN. JOHN THUNE, (R-SD) SENATE MAJORITY LEADER: Maybe she or somebody else ought to get on the phone and get the votes, right? It's 50 around here. If there are Republicans that they think are gettable, get on the phone.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: OK, he's saying that because of exactly what Sabrina just said. The SAVE America Act is not just a voter I.D. bill. It's something entirely different, because in some of these states that do have voter I.D., you can use your hunting license to vote or your or your concealed carry to vote. You're not going to be able to do that if the SAVE America Act passes.
MEIJER: I think one of the challenges with the SAVE America Act is, number one, I mean, the general election is three months away. I mean, this is coming up very, very quickly. And you have issues with trying to implement election changes rapidly in advance of that election.
But number two, the unworkability is the reason why you can't get to 50, because folks know if you pass this, this will just cause so much chaos going into November. The challenge is, and I wish they should just say, you know what? We can't get the SAVE America Act. Let's do the voter I.D. that you're talking about. You know, we'll have an aspiration to get to the point where were having, you know, either proof of citizenship being provided or having states have to affirm, you know, that they can go and find citizenship for the folks who are on their voter rolls, because that was something in New Jersey. There were 6,000 non-citizens who were registered to vote.
SINGH: But the SAVE Act wouldn't have done anything about the DMV.
MEIJER: No, correct.
SINGH: And that's a big discrepancy is we're talking about voter fraud. And what New Jersey found was about the DMV.
MEIJER: Yes, if I can finish. But there were several hundred of those folks who were non-citizens who had voted. And we had the same thing in Michigan. It was probably closer to half dozen that we could confirm. And the challenge there is it's unfalsifiable. You can't figure out how many folks are actually doing it.
I don't think it's enough to change elections, but all of those ways in which there are administrative inefficiencies or where there are gaps in the current kind of bureaucratic process, that is where you either invite the fraud on the one hand, which is probably hard to do at scale, but it certainly is easy to point to that and say, can we really trust this if they're making these simple screw ups?
So fixing that, I think, is an important bipartisan process to restore faith and confidence, and an easy way to start that is to say, look, let's pass a national voter I.D. law. And I guess what I'm hearing is I think the Democrats will be in support.
SINGH: I think I think there are Democrats that are supportive and are not in favor of this particular legislation. And I also think Republicans are not. And that's why John Thune does not have --
PHILLIP: That is the entire reason John Thune is not going forward with this, because the opposition is actually quietly on the Republican side on this one.
All right, next for us, tired of fighting with your kids about social media? Well, France just banned children under the age of 15 from using any of those platforms. Would it work here in America? We'll debate that next.
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[10:43:44]
PHILLIP: This morning, France becomes the first European nation to ban social media for children under the age of 15. The new law could block kids from creating new accounts on major apps, including TikTok, as soon as September. If so, it would join Australia, which started enforcing this first of its kind ban in December. Now over a dozen other countries have also proposed or are considering similar legislation.
I think this is actually something that is coming our way in some shape or form. It will probably start with the states first, but it feels to me like, I don't know, maybe it's not the best solution, but it's the one that people are going to grasp for to deal with what we're seeing with kids.
LOPRESTI: And unfortunately, all of the other solutions have fallen short. The teen settings, restricting, being able to monitor, it's just not working and really bad things are happening on social. So while I'm, you know, certainly a free speech guy and don't love the idea of shutting down what has become one of the primary forms of communication, particularly for this generation, I think the bad outweighs the good. There's got to be some restrictions.
PHILLIP: There was a pew poll recently that showed pretty much everybody politically-wise supports this.
[10:45:00]
Republican, Republican-leaning, 59 percent support banning kids from under 16 from social media, 54 percent of Dems do. Even, this is surprising, 18 to 29 year olds, 52 percent support it. I mean --
SINGH: They see how bad it is for them. Yes, I think --
PHILLIP: Yes, I guess they lived -- they lived through it, that generation.
SINGH: I think, I mean, I think this is the right thing to do. I think like when you're a kid, you're a teen, you're still developing, I think social media just can be toxic. And it has been shown that it's very socially isolating, too. I mean, kids are not going out as much. They're not hanging out as much with their friends. And I think partly that's because you live on this reality online that doesn't exist, you know, in the real world.
And so I think countries are doing the right thing. I do think you're right that I think it will be states first that take it up, but I think there actually needs to be federal legislation.
MEIJER: But I think, I mean, this is the parents should be the ones making that decision. And I think parents are like, oh, I hate that my kids are on social media.
SINGH: Did your parents know everything that you did, though.
MEIJER: No, exactly. But this is the point.
SINGH: But that's the problem. They can get online.
MEIJER: The kids are going to learn how to use VPNs, right? They're going to find their workarounds, which I think is actually a helpful thing.
PHILLIP: Which is kind of what happened in Australia.
MEIJER: Exactly.
PHILLIP: Yes.
MEIJER: The challenge becomes, you know, how are you proving you're not a kid? Are we going to have to all submit our driver's licenses in order to get a Facebook account? I have no problem with doing that to vote. I kind of do with eliminating any semblance of online anonymity. I think we lose a lot from that. And I'm not comfortable. I would love to see that outcome. I would love to see, you know, that -- how we get there, though, I think is going to be a very important --
PHILLIP: Am I the only person who is fine with losing online anonymity?
LOPRESTI: I'm certainly not open with that.
PHILLIP: I don't know. I think it's OK. I think we need to know who people are online more and more.
LOPRESTI: No.
(LAUGHTER)
SINGH: If you're a kid, though, if you're a kid?
PHILLIP: I think -- well, I mean, I think that I think that the broader, this broader issue is going to be tied to the question of how much of the internet is real anymore? Because increasingly more and more of the internet is going to be not real. And I'm not saying we need to reveal people's ages, but there needs to be a way to prove that you are a --
SINGH: Oh, you're saying like identify --
(CROSS TALK)
PHILLIP: And in that process, you can say, OK, if you're a teen, a 13-year-old, a 10-year-old, a nine-year-old, no, you cannot access this porn site. You cannot access whatever.
LOPRESTI: That's logical, Abby. But the problem is from a technological perspective, the horse has kind of left the barn. And especially when we talk about the advent of A.I.
PHILLIP: It can be done.
SINGH: It can be done.
LOPRESTI: I have an 18 year old who, a girl, who has imposed her own periodic, like social media bans. Like, hey, I was on Abby's show last night, you didn't like it? And she's like, no. Dad. I'm like, for 45 days. I'm just -- I apologize in advance.
MEIJER: It's all right.
LOPRESTI: But the ratings are just crashing down.
But most of the kids are not like that. And unfortunately, it's accentuated all the terrible things about --
FOSTER: The technologies are here. The workarounds are abundant. The real important question is what your daughter is doing there. We will develop cultural antibodies to deal with this stuff. I think young people are going to want those real spaces where they can verify people's identities, and these platforms will come up with much better ways to verify human anonymous, we don't know, and all sorts of other stuff. We ought to allow the market and competition to give us better solutions. We do not want to prescribe top-down federal mandates, I'm sorry, because I think that the likelihood that well get it wrong, that we'll impinge on peoples civil liberties, and that eventually a party you very much dislike will be in control of the government and be in control of those policies.
SINGH: I don't totally disagree on that. But if you are in a state like Michigan, that's like, OK, 16 and under, you can't have social media, and then you go next door to like Illinois and it's like actually 14 under, there has to be some like, if we actually come to mandating who can be on social media, there has to be some federal law.
PHILLIP: It is, it is a form of interstate commerce. I would say in a way. You could make that argument. All right, we could talk about this all day. But next for us, the panel's unpopular opinions, what they're not
afraid to say out loud.
But first, Sunday, former GOP Senator Ben Sasse talks with Jake Tapper about how he's choosing to live as he faces terminal cancer. "The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper" airs on Sunday at 8:00 p.m. on CNN, or the next day on the CNN app.
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[10:54:06]
PHILLIP: We're back, and it's time for your unpopular opinions. Peter, you're up first.
MEIJER: I think we need to have more of a collapsing of cause and effect, and people should live with trade-offs. You don't want that nuclear power plant, you're going to lose power at your house for two hours a day. You don't want that datacenter. Guess what? You're going back and you're getting your Razr flip phone because you don't want the processing capability.
PHILLIP: Who would take their Razr flip phone back?
MEIJER: God bless the neo-luddites. I'm just saying like, we have to take for granted the things we have and why we have them.
PHILLIP: All right, Kmele.
FOSTER: I -- it's a movie take, and I don't know, maybe this isn't sufficiently controversial. I didn't want to talk about how I want to ban public schools or anything like that this week. I just want to say that the Snyder cut of "Justice League" is maybe the best superhero movie ever made, and I do not care what anyone else says about it.
PHILLIP: All right.
SINGH: So I have also a movie take. I think that movies that are longer than three hours or three hours, like "The Odyssey," there needs to be an intermission. You need to be able to take a break 10 to 15 minutes, get up and come back.
FOSTER: That's actually a great take.
[10:55:00]
PHILLIP: As a pregnant lady, I cosign 100 percent.
(LAUGHTER)
MEIJER: I didn't know I wanted that.
FOSTER: I don't think everybody is going to like mine, though.
PHILLIP: I cosign that 100 percent. LOPRESTI: I think if you fly less than 10 times a year, there's your
own line at TSA. I have wasted too much of my time behind people that look like they've been flying for the very first time. They're taking giant bottles of water out of there. It's like, come on guys.
FOSTER: Oh, their own line, because it's going to be so long and terrible.
LOPRESTI: Yes.
FOSTER: This is the best take.
LOPRESTI: Thank you.
PHILLIP: My favorite thing is there are no bins. Where do I put my bag?
LOPRESTI: Yes, go over there.
PHILLIP: On the -- on the belt. Just put the bag out of the way.
LOPRESTI: The things I've seen.
PHILLIP: All right, everyone, thanks very much for being here. And thank you for watching "TABLE FOR FIVE". Check out confessions and obsessions. It's streaming on the CNN app right now, and you can catch me every weeknight at 10:00 p.m. eastern with our Newsnight roundtable.
But in the meantime, CNN's coverage continues right now.
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