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Table For Five

CNN Saturday Morning Table for Five. President Trump's Approval Rating Falls to 33 Percent in Recent Poll; President Trump Separates His Popularity from Headwinds Republican Congressional Candidates Face in Upcoming Midterms; Younger Democratic Politicians Highlighted in Media as Attractive New Generation; Rosie O'Donnell Guest Hosts on Jimmy Kimmel's Late Night Show as ABC Sues Trump Administration; Republicans Worried Backlash against Building of Datacenters for Artificial Intelligence Infrastructure May Hurt Their Midterm Election Chances. Aired 10-11a ET.

Aired August 22, 2026 - 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)

[10:00:34]

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: Today, Donald Trump's fastball takes a curve.

DONALD TRUMP, (R) U.S. PRESIDENT: Pee-wee Herman, Pee-wee Herman lookalike.

PHILLIP: From nicknames to numbers, the president enters the midterms behind the plate.

Plus, biceps, no buttons, fresh faces. One outlet asks if Democrats are in their thirst trap era.

Also --

ROSIE O'DONNELL, COMEDIAN AND ACTRESS: Right now, he's in the White House crying because I haven't mentioned him.

PHILLIP: Rival Rosie fills in for rival Kimmel as ABC sues the administration.

O'DONNELL: Hi. I know you're watching.

PHILLIP: And the data debate, why one of the sleeper issues in the midterms may be toxic for Republicans.

TRUMP: If I were the mayor of a town or the governor of a state, I would absolutely want it.

PHILLIP: Here in studio, Geoff Duncan, Yemisi Egbewole, Pete Seat, 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.

Is Donald Trump losing his fastball? It's clear that his party and he are facing an uphill climb just months before the midterms. But this week alone, his approval ratings plummeted to 33 percent. That's a new record low for his presidency. His madman foreign policy hasn't ended the war in Iran. And in fact, Iran is reportedly looking to go on the offense. His clout in Congress isn't what it used to be. They're currently on vacation without taking up his voting bill demands. Now, even his nicknames, which helped his rise, aren't landing like they used to

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) U.S. PRESIDENT: You mean Pee-wee Herman? Pee-wee Herman lookalike.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: And of course, despite a war and a rough economy and a new record for American debt, this is what seems to be consuming most of his attention.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) U.S. PRESIDENT: Every stone is two degrees rounded. It's called a flawless granite. It's rated a million-year plus. That means it has a million-year life. It's a slope for the rain, but I felt it was too much slope.

The grass was in terrible shape. You know, grass has a life like humans have a life. We put topsoil, brand new earth on top. That's a tapered bowl. Great. I'm very good at flagpoles.

All of these letters are hand carved and put into the black stone.

The ballroom is so much a military component with the drones and the bomb shelters that goes down five stories. You know, it goes down almost 65 feet.

This is a helipad at the highest level. You look at the lettering and you look at the joints, they're like flawless.

You look how fine, how fine that's cut. When you see it, you won't even believe it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: So I'll go to the resident baseball player at the table.

GEOFF DUNCAN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I couldn't help but notice the analogy, losing his fast ball.

PHILLIP: Yes. I mean, what do you think? I mean, is the president showing that he's lost a step, both politically and, I mean, frankly, some of this construction stuff obsession is weird.

DUNCAN: Well, yes, it's weird. And I don't think there's probably, hopefully a person in America that doesn't realize that Donald Trump's approval ratings are where they're at. I mean, it's very, very obvious he's not really getting anything right outside of a handful of technology companies that seem to be flying. Their stock prices seem to be flying. And so you see it one thing after another.

There's so many similarities to this. I keep making this comparison, but it feels like we're just living in this synthetic economy that's wrapped around a Ponzi scheme of disinformation, right? It just seems like so many major decisions about wars and gas prices and economic situations and interest rates are just relatively, just stuff the real facts in a box. And that's where we're at. It's going to be interesting to see how politically this plays out.

KMELE FOSTER, EDITOR-AT-LARGE, "TANGLE": It's something like an improvisational presidency is the phrase that comes to mind when I think about the Trump administration.

DUNCAN: That's much better than a Ponzi scheme.

FOSTER: There's maybe a little lyricism in it, but I think your analogy is, is probably a little more accurate than mine. I think that the, the administration always has this persistent effort to try and recast reality, to talk about things as though they aren't really happening. Scott Bessent, you'll see these clips of him out on the stump saying the most audacious and insane things. I heard him suggest the other day that the debt, we've probably reached the height of the debt. It won't get any worse. Probably. Are you kidding me? There's almost nothing more certain about our reality.

[10:05:00]

But I think, in particular, the foreign policy debacles are the things that have me the most frustrated and nervous, frankly. I can remember when the president launched the assault on Iran and thinking to myself, of all of the places that you might adventure, this is one of the most dangerous places that you might go. They have a long history of making an absolute mess of the global stage, of using their proxies to kind of engender all sorts of awfulness all around the world. And the president of the United States is kind of casually entering into this misadventure. And it is -- I, for a moment hoped that things might go well, because it is something we actually do need to address. But no one should be surprised that this hasn't turned out.

PHILLIP: You know, it's interesting because, I mean, there's so much hubris that has characterized this second Trump administration where because he won a second time after, you know, being thought to be politically dead after January 6th, I think he felt like he could do whatever he wants. And then he's also now being fed, to your point, a lot of misinformation. He spoke to his one-time lawyer, fixer, Michael Cohen this week. They had a reconciliation. But here's how Trump described his political standing. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MICHAEL COHEN: What do you say to these people who keep bringing up polls when you're not even running for office again? What's the point?

DONALD TRUMP, (R) U.S. PRESIDENT: Well, I'm not, and I think that were doing really well in the polls, the real polls. If I were running today, I think I'd win by 25 points. I think we'd win by a lot. The economy has never been stronger. We're doing numbers that nobody's ever seen before. The economy is a renaissance. There's never been anything like it. We had the greatest economy ever in my first term. This is going to blow it away.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: So look, I mean, Pete, there's not a universe in which what he just said is true, but I'm sure he believes it. I'm sure that is what he is being told. But it is not true.

PETE SEAT, VICE PRESIDENT, BOSE PUBLIC AFFAIRS GROUP: Well, these numbers are certainly bleak for the president. He seems unfazed and unbothered by them because he won't be on the ballot. Republicans, on the other hand, should be bothered by these numbers because they will be on the ballot.

If you look at the polling, though, you know, Democrats universally disapprove of Donald Trump, obviously. There's been some erosion among Republicans, not a whole lot. Where the damage is being done is among independents. The question is, do those independents turn out in this midterm election? Are they so dissatisfied that they want their voice to be heard at the ballot box, or are they so disillusioned by the entire process that they sit home and say, I don't care.

What Republicans are trying to do, and I didn't listen to this, this Michael Cohen interview, because I have far too many other things to do with my life --

(LAUGHTER)

SEAT: -- that are more enjoyable, like brush my teeth and comb my hair. But, you know, what the Republicans are going to run on is a contrast, and to say we get things done. CNNs most recent poll showed that the American people believe that Republicans are the party that gets things done. So you take that and contrast it with what Democrat socialists are trying to sell this country and put some fear around that, that's the gameplan for Republicans. We'll see if it's enough to win the day.

YEMISI EGBEWOLE, FORMER BIDEN PRESS OFFICE ADVISER: A whole agenda built on fear. I think people are almost --

SEAT: Kamala Harris did it, too, and Joe Biden did it, too.

EGBEWOLE: And is Kamala in the White House? I don't know. I mean, what are the ways that we actually win? I think that the president does a disservice, honestly, to Republican members because he oftentimes divides himself from them. He says, well, the way people feel negatively about Republicans is different than the way people feel about me.

And that's an interesting thing, because I think oftentimes the president is supposed to be the person who leads the party. Whatever happens in the White House is married to whatever happens in Congress. And for him, it is a great divide. And I wonder if it's because at one point, yes, he was he was totally done in politics, and he was forgotten by a lot of Republicans. And now, while he's remaking this entire White House and parts of D.C., he's leaving his mark. And I wonder if that's because he doesn't want to be forgotten, and if this obsession with being remembered, especially when you were thought to be done, is plaguing some of this as we go into the midterms.

PHILLIP: But I cannot, I can't get over I mean, even just what you said He did say, oh, well, Americans are mad, but they're not mad at me.

(LAUGHTER)

PHILLIP: They're mad at everybody else. They're mad at the Republicans. That's not true, OK. His approval rating, as we just said, is at a record low. Sixth-five percent of Americans think that he and his policies have worsened economic conditions. Again, the president is not living in the real world. And I'm not sure if that will ever change, but there -- seems like that has real significant consequences for his party.

[10:10:00]

FOSTER: I mean, I think, and I wonder, anyways, if the fact that he doesn't really have an ideological center. I mean, he's someone who is a bit of a partizan carpetbagger who showed up as a Republican all of a sudden, one, and as president has continued to lead the party, but has never really been in a meaningful sense a member of the party.

MAGA in so many respects was kind of a, I'm going to say, mind virus. I don't mean it in in the sort of most pejorative sense, but in the sense that it shows up and it kind of displaces all of the things that the GOP was traditionally recognized for, this commitment to free markets and limited government out the window. Now, suddenly, the federal government of the United States is a joint owner of 31 odd American companies that are publicly traded, in some cases. It's an extraordinary change. This is the most economically interventionist administration of my own lifetime. And they're Republicans. This isn't how any of this was supposed to work. And suddenly, this is -- this is what conservatism is in America. It is a very strange change.

PHILLIP: He's now even price fixing the beef. I mean, all the while making an argument, by the way, against the socialists running for office. So we'll see how that goes.

Next for us Democrats in their thirst trap era? That's how one outlet put it. But is there something to the trend of liberal stars that is emerging?

Plus, Rosie O'Donnell has filled in for Jimmy Kimmel all week on the very day that ABC sued the administration. We'll talk about her performance and whether the networks are finally standing up to Trump.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:16:22]

PHILLIP: Are Democrats in their thirst trap era? "Axios" posing that question as the new generation of liberals enter stage left. The outlet points out that several stars, including Abdul El-Sayed, Jon Ossoff, Zohran Mamdani, AOC, and others are getting their attention, whether it's showing off their physiques or getting personal in their TikToks. And while appearances certainly matter in politics, is the real takeaway here that Democrats and America are ready for fresher and younger faces in their politics?

There's also, by the way, the trend of some of these folks who are probably running, growing facial hair to look a little bit more manly. So there's a lot of stuff going on here. Are they trying to sort of like put on a picture of youthful, you know, vigor?

EGBEWOLE: Yes, Dems are hot again, coming out of the closet as hot people. And I'm so excited for this.

PHILLIP: Oh, my God.

SEAT: Forget the policies. They're nice to look at.

EGBEWOLE: Well, I think I think they're learning from Trump. I mean, entertainment really sells.

DUNCAN: I wouldn't call Trump hot.

EGBEWOLE: Well, I said entertainment, I said entertainment. For the record, I did not say physical attractiveness. Entertainment really sells it, and it captured people. Particularly, I think Trump's relationship to young white men was something that people paid attention to. He went on podcasts that are less policy and more entertaining. And it showed Democrats, OK, maybe we do need to loosen up in some ways.

And there is also another generation coming in finally, that is trying to take a little bit of the mantle, and they are more attuned to this economy, which is an attention economy. I'm sorry, but people don't watch three hours of C-Span anymore or the Senate floor. It is 15 to 20 second increments. And in that small moment, you have to capture people's attention. So frankly, if you don't get elected, who even cares about the policy? I think it's really time for Democrats to engage on this.

SEAT: I think this is hilarious because when Republicans, you know, flex their biceps and wear tight shirts, it's toxic masculinity.

EGBEWOLE: Who has biceps? Who has biceps?

(LAUGHTER)

PHILLIP: To be fair, yes. SEAT: No. But when Democrats do it, their thirst traps and eye candy

and we all love it. I mean, Democrats have a history of being seduced by charm and looks. John F Kennedy, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama.

EGBEWOLE: All great presidents.

SEAT: This has happened. It's not news.

FOSTER: I remember Paul Ryan flexing and working out --

SEAT: The question -- and he's a genius.

(LAUGHTER)

SEAT: But the question I think that we have to ask ourselves, folks, is, you know, are people voting on the eye candy, or are they actually listening to the policies that these democratic socialists are putting forward? Are they actually, like, making a conscious choice when they go to the ballot box? Or is it just, it's youth, it's generational change, and they're hot?

DUNCAN: Well, I fell way short of the bar. I recently became a Democrat. I ran for governor and got single digits. And so I'm obviously 51 years old and well past the looking curve for sure.

But I do think there's something, I think there's a correlation here outside of just the younger looks. I think it's also younger ideas. I think we're trying to find a breakthrough from just stale historical formulas to try to solve problems, looking outside the box. And I do think there's a youthful vigor to those new ideas that capture people's attention.

EGBEWOLE: And I will say, it's not just the DSA. A lot of this thirst trapping or whatever we want to call it, are coming from red states. Candidates in Indiana, candidates in Montana, they're the ones doing the ads a la Joe Manchin with guns. They're the ones in the tight shirts.

PHILLIP: Well, there are a lot of old people in Congress. And I think that some of this is just straight up generational. It's, you know, when you look at this cycle, five of the seven Democrat incumbents who have lost have been of retirement age, 78 years old, 71 years old, so on and so forth.

[10:20:06]

I mean, several of them aren't even on here because they died in office before they could be challenged in a primary. And so there is, I think, among the voters, a desire to see people who understand them. I mean, when AOC, you know, she caused a stir with her IVF live posting, which she's been doing all week, it's not even so much the topic, although the topic is important, it's just the fact that she's literally posting, you know, two-minute videos or longer every day on social media, communicating directly with people.

And I think that Democrats might be, I don't know if they're catching up. Maybe they're catching up because I think Republicans have this whole like podcast sphere. But they are recognizing that younger voters need that kind of communication. It's different.

FOSTER: I do wonder about propensity to vote, though, because that is still an important part of the story. And it's the case that Donald Trump has animated a lot of contempt on the left, and that that alone has helped to drive voters out. I'm not sure that watching AOC do these videos of her kind of injecting herself or checking for bloat is actually going to translate into people saying, you know what? The economy is all in the crapper, and I'm a little uncertain about foreign policy issues. I'm going to vote for AOC because I remember --

PHILLIP: But doesn't it create a relationship between you and the candidate that's different? I mean, Mamdani did the same thing, because you can't even talk to them about getting out to vote if they're not listening to you to begin with.

FOSTER: I think that's true. But the kind of relationship matters. There are people who call me for advice of various sorts, but if you want me to help fix your car, that's probably a mistake. And this, it feels like there's something about that.

Look, Mamdani is having a lot of success. He is incredibly popular in New York city. I'm interested to see what things look like several years down the road when we've actually had a little bit more time, when you can't do that kind of misdirection with respect to how you save the budget by getting bailed out by the governor of the state.

PHILLIP: I don't know if the budget's the reason. I think it's that he's fixing potholes and repairing parks. I mean, I think it's just straight up constituent service that he's then putting straight up online. And people are watching -- people who are not plugged into politics in New York City can just go online. And they're seeing a video of Zohran Mamdani himself going and fixing a pothole in Queens.

(LAUGHTER)

FOSTER: But the systemic failure --

PHILLIP: So they don't even know about the budget, you know?

DUNCAN: There's something to be said, too, about somebody in their 30s and 40s, like you look at a John Ossoff when he sits there and he talks about education, he's got kids going through the school system. When you talk about the cost of health care and somebody in that age bracket that's not on Medicaid or Medicare, trying to, you know, 70 something year old, when you hear somebody talk about the job market who is younger, I do think it brings the issues that are two dimensionally flat into three dimensional life. And it just there's a, there's a stronger takeaway and you can speak more compassion to it. But when somebody is 80 years old talking about the cost of health care, I mean, what are they -- I mean, it just doesn't come out as real.

FOSTER: Well, Ossoff is certainly more compelling to me. PHILLIP: And look, on the Republican side, there will be some younger

folks, you know, J.D. Vance, Pete Hegseth, as you mentioned. So maybe we'll see the Republican thirst trap era coming soon.

Next for us, Rosie O'Donnell sings to Donald Trump and calls him mango Mussolini while filling in for Jimmy Kimmel. This as ABC sues the administration for what they're calling retaliation. We'll discuss.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:28:13]

PHILLIP: On the very day that ABC sued the Trump administration, one of the president's biggest enemies started to guest host for one of his other enemies. Rosie O'Donnell filled in for Jimmy Kimmel this week, and she wasted no time talking about the elephant in the room.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROSIE O'DONNELL, COMEDIAN AND ACTRESS: A special hello to those of you watching from home and from the White House.

(LAUGHTER)

O'DONNELL: You've got to realize it's time to hang up your wig and let Natalie tuck you in.

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

O'DONNELL: Time to go nighty-night.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: The network is suing the FCC over a, quote, retaliatory campaign against ABC. You'll remember that Brendan Carr ordered a review of Disney's licenses. He says it's because of, you know, their DEI practices, so on and so forth. But it is actually a very -- a big change, of course, for ABC, after they started this whole thing off by settling with Donald Trump over that George Stephanopoulos interview. So is this a positive sign?

FOSTER: I think it's definitely a positive sign and probably indicative of some of the broader changes that we've seen in our politics with primary losses and other defeats for the president. He seems a little more vulnerable, and folks are perhaps a little bit more willing to actually adhere to principle, to try and use the law in their favor and fight the government here.

And honestly, I think it is a great move for the network overall. I do wonder a little bit about late-night. In some respects, like late- night has often gotten itself in a bit of a rut by getting too political and too obsessed with kind of its own kind of moral gravity. I think just being funny and not worrying too much about politics in those contexts is often really valuable. [10:30:00]

So I'm confident they brought Rosie O'Donnell in with the hopes that she would do something a little bit provocative with respect to the administration. But it would also be nice if it could just be a safe place to tell jokes and to make people feel better and forget about politics altogether.

DUNCAN: That was a great joke, by the way.

FOSTER: That was pretty good. That was strong. That was strong.

DUNCAN: Yes, that was really -- it's like the perfect storm. Late night TV, Rosie O'Donnell, Donald Trump. I mean, that literally is like the perfect mixture recipe.

PHILLIP: Yes. And, I mean, and it's probably I can't imagine that that's accidental, right? They wouldn't choose Rosie O'Donnell to fill in for Jimmy Kimmel knowing all the context behind it.

SEAT: She lives in Ireland. She had to fly a very long way.

(LAUGHTER)

PHILLIP: She had to reenter the United States --

SEAT: To get there, and just show up on their doorstep and say I'll fill in.

PHILLIP: -- in order to do it.

And let me just play a little bit more of some of the jokes. I mean, look, it wasn't all Trump jokes, but there were certainly a few. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROSIE O'DONNELL, COMEDIAN AND ACTRESS: I'm back in the spotlight. All thanks to President Oompa J. Loompa --

(LAUGHTER)

O'DONNELL: -- who is watching us this evening from inside a catering cart.

Thanks to everyone who has been watching this week, especially the hungry, hungry hypocrite in the White House.

(LAUGHTER)

O'DONNELL: It's kind of weird to think he spent more nights with me this week than Melania.

Most of all, I'd like to thank Jimmy Kimmel for inviting me to do this and for reminding everyone that we have the right to free speech in this country, whether orange Voldemort likes it or not. (APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: So let me just read what Brendan Carr told NBC News. He says, "It would seem that Disney has become very concerned and worried, and they are now attempting to go to court to get the court to stop the FCC from moving forward, at least with respect to some of the proceedings that are underway. But we feel like ultimately that's going to be a meritless case."

Do you think that their attacks on ABC, which, frankly, seems to be about the political jokes, the political speech, is going to be successful at the end of the day?

O'DONNELL: Well, reportedly, "The View" has already changed how and who they invite to the show. And they're not bringing political guests on anymore because of these attacks.

One thing that I found interesting is I was in the Chicago media market for about two weeks last month, and WLS, the affiliate there in Chicago that is one of the eight or nine ABC affiliates owned by Disney and is part of this whole controversy, they were running advocacy ads on the network, encouraging viewers to contact the FCC on their behalf. I would love to know how many people actually care that much about ABC's coverage and programs that they took the time to contact the FCC.

PHILLIP: Well, it's interesting because they did do that. And the FCC actually responded. So, I mean, it felt to me like the message was received, because they criticized ABC for directing their viewers to do this.

But, you know, I think part of your point about how, how this is affecting the programing, ABC talked about this in their filings, suggesting that it has chilled some of their decision-making around political bookings. They're still booking political figures. J.D. Vance was just on the show not that long ago. But they're arguing that there is a chilling effect, which is the point of the threats.

But is it too late for them to push back when they've already kind of sent a signal to the Trump administration that they, they are willing to play ball? If Trump asks for, you know, millions of dollars for his library, they gave it.

EGBEWOLE: Yes, there's a lot of corporations and media companies that are going to do some backtracking on the way that they grasped on to the second Trump administration because they see the changing winds, they see the House might flip, the Senate might flip. We'll look and see what happens in 2028. And they want to be in good graces with some folks.

But I think for a lot of people that are viewers and how we've gotten to where we -- the way we talk about corporations is really because of the way corporations acted when Trump came into the White House. And I will agree with you, I think late-night TV got way too political

at some point. Like, honestly, I could probably take about two of those Rosie O'Donnell jokes and then I would like the rest to be about life itself. So we'll see.

PHILLIP: But you know, that's probably what it was.

EGBEWOLE: Yes.

PHILLIP: Right? Like, I mean, were playing the highlights of the political stuff.

EGBEWOLE: But she was she was invited because of her contentious nature to the president. Yes.

PHILLIP: She's doing a whole show. So the whole show is on other things too.

And I also just, I mean, I don't know, regardless, I think it's totally fine to not like it. I am not a big late-night watcher. But I think the real question is, should the government be involved in this at all?

FOSTER: The answer is obviously no.

EGBEWOLE: No.

FOSTER: Yes, emphatically no. And they, and I think in some respects, to the extent this is bad for the Trump administration, they created this dynamic. They started going after network television hosts who were saying things they didn't like, and comedians who made jokes at their expense.

[10:35:04].

And I hope that they do, in fact, reap the whirlwind in that in that regard. But again, I think you can do a little bit too much of this. And late-night TV has maybe not this particular week with Rosie, although I just haven't been watching either, but certainly in the past has done way too much.

EGBEWOLE: Not a lot of people are watching.

DUNCAN: I think there's multiple ways to kind of explain this, but one is a technical route, like, how many political guests are on, how many jokes are out there. I think there's also calling honest balls and strikes. Donald Trump has thin skin and everybody around him knows it. So as soon as he starts to squawk and dispatch different parts of the federal government to put pressure on people, then it just amplifies those jokes, it amplifies those efforts, and it creates it in the storm.

I think the Natalie Harp situation is so interesting. I mean, there's so many weirdness, cringy-ness, I hope I never hear the details of it. It may cause me to throw up in my mouth. But at the end of the day, it's an interesting fodder that everybody sees enough crunchiness to it where it's just a jokes, a joke writer's --

PHILLIP: I am, I am shocked that he didn't go after Rosie for that Natalie joke that she told. But you know, he's busy, he's busy with Jon Ossoff right now.

All right, it's said to be a sleeper issue in the midterms, and the Republicans are warning that it's getting more toxic by the day. But Donald Trump is oddly embracing it. We'll discuss.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:41:01]

PHILLIP: It's being called a sleeper issue in the midterms. Datacenters which host A.I. infrastructure, are quickly becoming a concern for Americans. They're worried about electricity costs, the environmental impact, even whether they're accelerating job losses in their own communities. There are reportedly 4,000 online centers right now, with another 3,000 in play. But A.I. CEOs and many Republican leaders are growing concerned about the backlash, but not the party's leader, apparently.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) U.S. PRESIDENT: If I were the mayor of a town or the governor of a state, and I had a chance to get a big plant in, an A.I. plant or a datacenter, I would absolutely want it.

What it means for a community is jobs and lots of money and lower taxes. If a Republican is against a datacenter, that's OK with me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP: Yes, so this issue is a bipartisan one, with Republicans, Democrats, independents all skeptical of this. Overall, 70 percent of Americans, registered voters, say that they oppose building a datacenter in their community. And that includes 60 percent of Republicans.

So this will be of interest to you. The NRSC had this memo out this week about one of the big, big Senate races in Ohio, and they said, "More than anything in this race, datacenters are the anchor hanging around Jon Husted's neck. If he loses and datacenters get the blame, politicians across the country will take notice and they will not go near the next one."

So is it a risk for the president to be constantly all in on datacenters despite the broad concern?

SEAT: It's a bold move, Cotton.

(LAUGHTER)

SEAT: I wouldn't call this a sleeper issue at all. Back home in Indiana, a lot of local elected officials were sent out of office just for meeting with the datacenter company, not passing a datacenter, not zoning one into their community, just having a meeting. Others were voted into office because they promised moratoriums on datacenters.

I think a lot of the concern, some of it is a proxy for anxiety about artificial intelligence and what that's going to mean for us. But it's something else. I think it's something bigger than just datacenters. You know, it gets tagged as nimbyism, not in my backyard. I talked to a state representative back home in Indiana about this and about renewable energy projects and just development writ large. And he said, I can respect nimbyism. If it's in your backyard and you don't want it, I get it. What I can't respect are CAVE people, C-A-V-E, citizens against virtually everything. And that's what this is. It's people want their communities to remain the same as it was the day they moved there.

PHILLIP: But I feel like this has brought out people who are not usually involved in politics. This is -- if you're a politician, that's the scary part --

SEAT: And that's the point.

PHILLIP: -- is that there are people who are not going to town hall meetings who are showing up and they're pissed off. And I think some of it has to do with, I think people feel kind of gaslit by the technology community. They're being told, oh, there are all these jobs, but they're not, they're not being told the other part of it, which is that once the datacenter is built, a lot of those jobs are going to go away. And the rest, there will be some that remain, but not nearly as much as promised.

I just think that -- this is not to be negative about A.I. or anything like that, but just to say people don't feel like they're being told the truth. And that's what this backlash is coming from.

FOSTER: And sometimes A.I. executives are saying, perhaps not so much, too much of the truth, but essentially leading with fear, like they're going to destroy so many jobs. You hear that directly from some of these executives.

I actually think that the president, of course, he's running a risk going against kind of the general direction of public opinion here. But I also think he's right. There is a tremendous amount of hysteria surrounding datacenters.

[10:45:00]

I think it is easy to overstate the benefits of building a datacenter. They're not tens of thousands of jobs that are created by these facilities. They largely run themselves. After they're built, they're just kind of there. But are they a huge strain on the actual resources within a community? You can actually institute pretty smart regulations that cause them to bring their own power, that make them pay for any additional resources that they're utilizing. And water is being used to cool things. They're generally not diverting people's drinking water away.

I think that the hysteria surrounding datacenters is something that we should actually be wary of. And quite frankly, I wish more people would actually be a bit more Donald Trump on this issue.

SEAT: All the datacenters combined use less water than we use to water our lawns.

EGBEWOLE: I will say, I think state and local governments got this wrong in not having a lot of community members in the conversation, and they just presented it to a lot of areas and said, this is good, this is investment. This is like going to increase the tax base. And they were not anticipating that people would actually have mass hysteria about them.

I'm a tech optimist. I think that datacenters are frankly an inevitable, but I wouldn't tell a politician to say that. I think Meta is a great example of a company that is like trying to work in areas. They built multibillion dollar datacenters -- datacenter down in a parish in Louisiana. The teachers in that area have a $50,000 bonus. That's up from 10k that they would have gotten last year. And when people talk a lot about datacenters, they are built in low income areas. Well, Loudoun County --

PHILLIP: But doesn't just seem like a bribe.

EGBEWOLE: No.

PHILLIP: I mean, I guess this is the thing. Listen, I'm just, I'm just presenting -- I presume most people at this table are relatively pro datacenter, but I just want to present, if you're a regular person and you hear that, you just hear that they're going to bribe a community in the short term to build this monstrosity in your backyard and then leave you to pick up the pieces after the fact.

And I guess people, it seems to me they have a right to be concerned about, you know, some of these datacenters are like the size of small, you know, cities, OK? They have a right to be concerned about it and want more transparency around it, and also want answers about what it means for energy. In some communities, like in Colorado, the water thing is a real thing. I don't know, I mean, as a politician, it seems risky to ignore that.

DUNCAN: No doubt this is a hot button issue. Every town hall you go to, whether it's a Democratic or Republican town hall, this is the issue. I think part of the problem is that everyone, a lot of people are armed with partial facts, right? Not all of the information, a little bit of hysteria.

But I think two things can be true at the same time. I think there are certain communities that a datacenter would be the worst thing in the world, whether it be from a zoning standpoint or natural resources. But there's also some communities that it would be the ultimate tailwind for them.

PHILLIP: All right, next for us, the panel's unpopular opinions, what they're not afraid to say out loud.

But first, a programing note. The 2000s were a decade of historical comebacks and championship runs. Tiger Woods ruled golf while Serena Williams became a tennis icon. Catch a new episode of "Decades in Sports" on Sunday at 9:00 p.m. on CNN and the next day on the CNN app.

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[10:52:59]

PHILLIP: We're back and it's time for your unpopular opinions. Geoff, you're up.

DUNCAN: Well, look, my family is going to get a lot of pushback on this back home, for sure. But I don't -- I think we should believe the hype in eating at chain restaurants. But I know I'm supposed to be a renaissance man coming to a place like New York City and eating at somewhere unique, with a great list and a great menu. But going to a Chili's and knowing exactly what's on the menu or going to Longhorn or Olive Garden and just dialing it in right from the get go.

(LAUGHTER)

DUNCAN: Sorry, but not sorry.

SEAT: Tell everyone what your nickname is.

DUNCAN: Chainee.

SEAT: Chainee.

DUNCAN: My friends call us Chainee. They ask us where we want to eat. I name something that's a national --

PHILLIP: Hey, look, I'll take an Olive Garden.

DUNCAN: Breadsticks.

PHILLIP: Yes, I'll take an Olive Garden any day.

All right, Kmele.

FOSTER: I want everyone to think that I'm a good parent. I believe I'm a good parent, but I am getting increasingly skeptical of all of the concern about screen time. I don't want my kids to become, like, pale-skinned, glassy-eyed zombies. But I think it is more important to police the things that they're doing online and try to help them learn how to be conscientious internet and technology consumers and users than it is to have this kind of celibacy policy towards, like, all devices in my household. So I let them use the iPad every once in a while, but it's always supervised.

PHILLIP: I don't know. When I take a device away from my child and I see how it turns her into a monster, that has made me a believer in limiting screen time. It's bad.

All right.

EGBEWOLE: I went to Europe for a couple of weeks, and I came back, and I just have to say, I think Europe is overrated. Hear me out, hear me out. I think it is fine to visit. It is really nice to walk around see 400 A.D. castles. But infrastructure-wise, convenience and comfort-wise, I wouldn't pick Europe over America. We have ice cubes here. We have air conditioning.

(LAUGHTER)

EGBEWOLE: We have really, really strong infrastructure. It is OK to visit Europe, but don't pretend that it is more --

PHILLIP: They're got good trains, though, don't they?

EGBEWOLE: In some parts.

PHILLIP: The transportation is good.

EGBEWOLE: It's not Japan. I'm not talking about Asia here.

(LAUGHTER)

SEAT: Mine might be a little off the wall, but my least favorite word in the English language is "marinate".

[10:55:04]

And the reason is because of how people use it. When they say, I marinated this overnight, you did no such thing. You took whatever it is, you put it in a pot, pan, or bag of juice and went to bed. You did no work whatsoever. And so I just have to get that out there. It is stolen valor of culinary linguistics.

(LAUGHTER)

SEAT: You did no work. Stop pretending you did the work and just eat the food.

PHILLIP: I thought -- that's not at all what I thought you were going to say. I thought you were going to talk about like the use of "marinate," like I marinated on this idea, which is a phrase --

SEAT: I like to surprise you, Abby.

DUNCAN: That was nothing short of brilliant.

(LAUGHTER)

PHILLIP: All right, from one culinary expert to another.

All right, everyone, thanks for being here. Thanks for watching "TABLE FOR FIVE". You can catch our weekday show 10:00 p.m. eastern at our Newsnight Roundtable. And in the meantime, CNNs coverage continues right now.

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