Return to Transcripts main page
CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip
Lewd Posts By Trump-Backed Candidate Vanish On Porn Site; Harris, Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) Push To Attract White Male Voters; Joe Rogan Sings Harris' Praises, She And Team Nailing It; Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff Hits Back At Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders For Her Comments; V.P. Kamala Harris Improves Her Margin With Black Voters. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired September 20, 2024 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[22:00:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR (voice over): Tonight --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: it's like a fine line.
PHILLIP: -- the list of shady characters in Donald Trump's entourage is not aging well.
DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: We're going to use our best people.
PHILLIP: So, what would a second presidency without guardrails look like?
Plus, a camouflaged Walz.
GOV. TIM WALZ (D-MN), U.S. VICE PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: It's an old school carburetor.
PHILLIP: A heat-packing Harris,
KAMALA HARRIS, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT, DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: They're getting shot.
PHILLIP: And the race for the white male vote.
JOE ROGAN, HOST, THE JOE ROGAN EXPERIENCE: She's nailing it.
PHILLIP: Also, an explosive development in one swing state could mean we don't know the next president until Thanksgiving, or even Christmas.
Live at the table, Van Lathan, Kristin Davison, Shermichael Singleton, and Hilary Rosen. 46 days to go, Americans with different opinions aren't talking to each other, but here they do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP (on camera): Good evening. I'm Abby Phillip in New York.
Let's get right to what America is talking about. The list of shady characters in Donald Trump's entourage, it's getting a lot longer. And the question tonight is, will those characters ultimately cost him the election? Or, if he wins, would they show up in a season of the real West Wing?
The latest is the Republican candidate for governor in North Carolina, Mark Robinson. The campaign is now grappling with the impact of Robinson's black Nazi porn scandal, which could hurt Trump in a key swing state. Those graphic posts suddenly have vanished from the Nude Africa porn site. Yes, those are real words I just said.
Robinson hasn't yet been invited to Trump's North Carolina rally that's scheduled for tomorrow, but he is hardly the only character with recent guest appearances on the Trump show. There's 9/11 conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, ex-con Kwame Kilpatrick, the scandal-ridden Trump whisperer Cory Lewandowski, and the conspiracist- in-chief RFK Jr.
Joining us in our fifth seat is Kierna Mayo, cultural commentator and executive editor of One World. This is, crazy that I have to say black Nazi, nude, porn scandal on T.V., but that's real life, like this is where we're at. And Trump, first of all, he attracts these people around him, but then never seems willing to say, get away from me, I don't want to be associated with you.
KIERNA MAYO, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, ONE WORLD: Birds of a feather. I mean, this is just magnetism. We are drawn to one another because we are base. You know, I was thinking about this conversation before I got here and I said, the joy of not being a political commentator, not having to appear objective, not at all having to feign any journalistic integrity, the man makes my skin crawl, and as does Donald Trump, but for the same reasons, but particularly with Robinson.
The piece that really rubs me and the piece that impacts me as a cultural commentator is the legacy that he stands on. I just think about the servant leaders, the fact that Donald Trump compared him to Martin Luther King, I mean, it's just so insensitive. It's really beyond words in many respects because it -- and I want us to feel that energy. I want us to feel what I feel because I think average Americans are encountering this person as an anomaly. He is not like us, right? He just isn't.
And I don't want to pretend for a minute and give him space and the ways in which Donald Trump, again, the entire collective of misfits, because here we are with actual misfits, is threatening to our entire future, to my children's future, to their children's future. It feels like a joke, but it's not a joke. And so I'm angry. I'm pissed. I'm scared, but like I'm throwing stuff at my television when he's on. It's that visceral for me.
HILLARY ROSEN, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Well, Donald Trump compared himself, said that he did more for black people than Abraham Lincoln.
[22:05:00]
So, it's not unusual that he would embrace Mark Robinson.
MAYO: It isn't. It's to be expected. And you think that you can't be impacted. Like I was surprised at how I gasped. I think it was the King piece from Trump which really brought out like that kind of visceral emotion that reminds me how intensely racist. This is like when your racism, racisms, you know, we have this character in Mark Robinson where Donald Trump wouldn't even know this man if he wasn't looking for his African-American to make him look a particular way --
PHILLIP: The more you're willing to be controversial, maybe the more you're willing to do the conspiracies the way that Donald Trump likes them, the more likely you are to end up somehow in his orbit at the end of the day.
SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I mean, look, that may be true, but the reality is Republicans want to win a race. I don't think Mark Robinson is the best example of what conservatism should appear to be. That's clear, right?
PHILLIP: I mean, certainly.
SINGLETON: I mean, this is a guy that --
(CROSSTALKS)
SINGLETON: But here's a guy that, you know, you're looking at his public statements and then we find statements from eight years ago, like in transgender porn. That's his thing. That's his thing. I read another thing this morning that he slept with his wife's sister.
But I'm just saying, like, as a conservative, as someone who goes to church on Sundays, this is not the example that I would like representing any member of the Republican Party. And I think it's why the guy is likely going to lose the seat. It's why the guy is behind by 10, 12 points, and he's been behind for such a long time now.
And I think this is a part of the problem that the party sort of faces as a collective. When you have these people who praise the former president, and he likes them, and I get it, it's his personality, he can do whatever he wants in that regard. The problem is, though, this stuff doesn't bode well in tight elections because it turns off a lot of people, and we're seeing that in real time.
PHILLIP: You know who agrees with you? Ben Shapiro.
SINGLETON: I know Ben. He's a friend.
PHILLIP: Well, here's what he said. Perhaps the American primary voters should start nominating normies for high office. I don't know, just a thought. By normies, I don't mean people who don't know or care about policy, I mean people who lead normal lives, who don't go to sex parties while locking you down in New York, or spend their days trolling porn sites, leaving strange comments, or nail powerful politicians just to get ahead. I mean, Ben Shapiro saying this is a little rich, but --
VAN LATHAN, PODCAST CO-HOST, HIGHER LEARNING: So, I guess my question is, for everything that you just said, how do you feel like Mark Robinson makes it to the top of your party? Like what is (INAUDIBLE)?
SINGLETON: I would say, Van, if this was ten years ago, Mark Robinson couldn't have raised his name to be even considered.
LATHAN: But it's not.
(CROSSTALKS)
KRISTIN DAVISON, PARTNER, AXIOM STRATEGIES: It's not a new phenomenon. Bad candidates exist all the time. Remember Kyle Cunningham. Kyle Cunningham was --
SINGLETON: Yes, but not to this extent.
LATHAN: No. What I mean in this particular situation, I think this is the most dangerous thing about Trump. The most dangerous thing about Trump to me is he is a deeply unserious person who seeks the most serious office in the entire world. And that means that you have to look at things and take things on with the degree of, you have to -- there's some empathy there. You have to think beyond yourself. You have to think for other people. He doesn't have the capability to do that.
SINGLETON: Yes. But, Van, what responsibility do the people of North Carolina have for voting for someone like Mark Robinson? I mean, I don't know if you can put all of that on Trump. I mean, people do have some level of autonomy to decide I'm going to vote for someone who's a disgrace, or I'm going to vote for someone with values and standards. Like some people clearly chose to vote for Robinson.
LATHAN: That gets us back to the divide in our country, right? I think that gets us back to what we're asking ourselves. We're asking ourselves if we can actually depend on half of the country as Americans to actually put country and democracy and things like that first and not just the whims of one guy.
PHILLIP: And both of those things can be true at the same time.
SINGLETON: No, absolutely.
PHILLIP: I mean, voters do have the responsibility to vote for people who are not, you know, off the deep end, but that does not absolve Trump from his response, especially to -- he actually embraced Mark Robinson when all of this stuff -- so much of this stuff was out here, not just the latest porn stuff, a lot of the other stuff. Trump brought him in. Trump elevated him. He did not have to do that.
SINGLETON: I accept that point, Abby. But I will say, from my understanding, the campaign recognizes the problem that Mark Robinson is.
PHILLIP: Now.
SINGLETON: Now. Okay, better late than never. And the former president is attempting to distance himself from Mr. Robinson. I think J.D. Vance was supposed to do an event with him, I think, a day or two ago. They canceled that event. Robinson wasn't invited to the Trump event, I think, today or tomorrow.
And so I think you're going to see this continue. I think the bigger question for me, though, is, what does the Republican Party of North Carolina do? I mean, granted, they can't kick the guy off the ballot, but they don't necessarily have to support him either.
PHILLIP: They could have done this two weeks ago. Why didn't they?
DAVISON: I mean, it's -- I don't think we've had an opposition research failure this big since 2017. We didn't see Governor Northam's blackface photo.
PHILLIP: Do you think that this is an opposition research failure?
DAVISON: It is.
[22:10:00]
He had an opponent that spent $10 million and didn't do any research. So, whoever ran that race, I don't know who it was, but they need to re-evaluate how they do it.
PHILLIP: These things have been publicly reported for months.
LATHAN: By the way, he was -- we can talk about what was found on Nude Africa or any of these other sites, but the guy, to me, and his rhetoric was disqualifying way before this.
DAVISON: Of course, he's a terrible candidate.
LATHAN: He was disqualified. And the reason --
ROSEN: Wait, he wasn't a terrible candidate, because, you know, to Shermichael's point, he actually won his primary.
DAVISON: Of course, he won.
ROSEN: Principally because he has become a Trump acolyte. And that is -- we have seen all across the country where Donald Trump has embraced people who flatter him.
PHILLIP: He came from the internet.
ROSEN: They embrace people -- he embraces people who flatter him and go all the way out, as far as Donald Trump needs them to go. And that is not something that mainstream Republicans have historically done, but these guys have.
LATHAN: Voters vote. People who are actually voters, they vote, right? Cultists obey. PHILLIP: Yes.
LATHAN: And I know that that is probably a triggering to people, but voters are people who go out and they look at policy, they look at their communities.
SINGLETON: So, you don't think the people who -- I'm not saying that --
LATHAN: No, what I think --
SINGLETON: Do you not think that there was something, whether it was his articulation of this populist anger that people saw, they believed it and said, all right, you know what, this guy is speaking to my plight, my critique of the political party, the political establishment, the government writ large, he has my vote?
LATHAN: I think all of that language is translated through Donald Trump's aura. And I think right now there's such a capture on the right. And to be honest with you, a lot of conservatives that I've talked to, a lot of friends of mine, I'm from Louisiana, it's not like I don't know as liberal as they come, but they want their party back.
And what Ben Shapiro is actually saying right there is forget about Trump and flattering him and everything that you just said. They want conservatism back that they can be proud of and they don't see it in a lot of --
ROSEN: They had a chance to get their party back.
SINGLETON: But likely conservatives, I understand. But there is something to a third of the country supporting the former president. And I don't think we can necessarily discard that. What is it about this grievance that these people are asking for political leaders to pay attention to? The Republican Party, the establishment in particular, had a long time, Van, to address these issues. They had a long time, the Tea Party. They had a long time to address some of this and they didn't do it. So here we go again.
PHILLIP: I have a follow-up question for you.
LATHAN: I think their grievances and I'm -- look, I look at this as like a good old boy. I think their grievances had to do with the realization that they could be in a post-Obama America where their very existence -- and, look, I'll give some ground here. I personally think that in Obama's first and second term, a lot of my friends were looking at the political landscape and they were saying, there will never be another Republican president for 25 or 30 years. And I think there were people that come from places like we come from that maybe felt a little alienated.
But I do think that that mutated. I think it mutated into something that was anti-American, anti-black, anti-trans, anti-gay, anti-woman. And I think that if conservatives want to have a real voice in America moving forward, they got to take their party back.
SINGLETON: Yes, but that's half of America though, Van.
PHILLIP: Can you address the substance of what he just said? Do you think that an element of the support for people like Mark Robinson is motivated by those things that he just ticked off?
SINGLETON: I mean, Mark Robinson is black. I mean, I don't know, in terms of the racial elements of it, I'm not necessarily sure. But I do think Mark Robinson did speak to a grievance, a very real grievance, that a lot of voters in that state believed he was the best representation to actualize those grievances in some real terms.
PHILLIP: What are the grievance?
SINGLETON: I think the grievances could have been they felt economically behind. They feel that in terms of their academic attainment for their children, their falling behind. I mean, I could go on and. I'm not saying that --
PHILLIP: But how does Mark Robinson's racist --
SINGLETON: But what I'm saying, though, Abby, if you looked at some of his statements in the past, I think observing some of the statements, I think a part of the reason a lot of those people voted for him was when he's saying the culture is changing and people are allowing certain things that we don't agree to -- but people -- but I think people --
(CROSSTALKS)
ROSEN: We're forgetting we had Donald Trump as president for four years and Joe Biden for the last three.
PHILLIP: We have to go, but let's be clear about the kinds of things Mark Robinson said.
SINGLETON: I know what he said, and I'm not excusing him.
PHILLIP: He was saying, let's go back to Jim Crow. He was saying women should pull their skirts down so that they don't get pregnant and then they won't need abortions. If that's going to take people back to that era, then I think we should just --
SINGLETON: I think we could, you know, ignore that. But I do think there are some people who do believe the culture of the society has gone too far in one direction and I think there are certain individuals who appear to speak to that for some of those people, and they're clearly supporting that.
[22:15:00]
PHILLIP: I just think that at this table, you know, we try to do --
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: We got go but --
DAVISON: What should the Trump campaign do now, Republicans do now? You move forward.
PHILLIP: We got to go. At this table, we try to keep it real. It just sounds like -- it sounds kind of like you're just papering over things.
SINGLETON: Oh, come on, Abby, seriously?
PHILLIP: Seriously.
SINGLETON: So, now I'm supporting Mark Robinson here?
PHILLIP: I didn't say that you're supporting him. I just think that it sounds like you're trying to put frilly language around this guy.
SINGLETON: That's not what -- no, it's not what I'm saying at all.
PHILLIP: Okay. This is someone who --
SINGLETON: No, what I'm saying is, as I observe this, like as a conservative, and I'm thinking about why are people supporting people like this, I'm wondering what is it about these people and what they see in our society that they personally believe is diabolically changing against what they think America should look like and why they're attempting to actualize those things and protect those things with people like a Robinson. That's all I'm simply saying.
ROSEN: But there's no question that Trump put his finger on the scale for Mark Robinson to get this primary, to be the nominee for this gubernatorial, and he owns this.
PHILLIP: All right. Kierna, thank you very much for joining us. Everyone else stick around, of course, because ahead, we're going to tell you why a move by pro-Trump allies could ultimately delay the election results in Georgia by weeks, maybe even months. Another special guest will join us in our fifth seat.
Plus, from packing heat to fixing engines, see how Kamala Harris and Tim Walz may be trying to appeal to white male voters.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROGAN: She nailed that one speech, she's like, say it to my face.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:20:00]
PHILLIP: Only six more Fridays until the election. Who's counting? And Democrats are trying to convince more white men to join their cause. Kamala Harris lately has been talking up her fondness for guns, of all things. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HARRIS: I'm a gun owner too.
OPRAH WINFREY, T.V. HOST: I do not know that.
HARRIS: If somebody breaks in my house, they're getting shot.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Her running mate is talking up his love of cars, with a new video portraying himself as a pep boy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WALZ: You can always tell something about somebody's maintenance when how clean their air filter is. Look, to be able to work on this thing, you got a manual. It shows you exactly what to do to fix things on this. Donald Trump and J.D. Vance have a manual too. It's called Project 2025, and it's a way to stick it to the middle class by giving tax cuts to the wealthiest, rigging our economy to make it more difficult for people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Joining us in our fifth seat is Philip Bump, national columnist at the Washington Post, and a white man.
PHILIP BUMP, NATIONAL COLUMNIST, THE WASHINGTON POST: Yes.
PHILLIP: So, Philip, tell us, do you think that this makes sense to you electorally for them to go this particular route to reach white male voters?
BUMP: Yes. I mean, look, everyone realizes this election is extremely close. And so what that means is that come Election Day and come the early voting period, which is getting underway, turnout is the issue, right? They need to get their folks out to vote, or they need to get the other guy's folks less excited about voting for him. That's what they're doing here, right?
When we ask questions like, does this work, you know, the thing with him messing with that truck, which is a great truck, by the way, does it work? I mean, yes, we're sitting here talking about it, right? It's been effective. Like I saw it before I got to CNN, right? It's spreading around. People are looking at it. People are talking about it.
And that's the sort of thing where when you are looking at the Democratic ticket, which in 2020 had Joe Biden, who was specifically meant to target Rust Belt white guys who the Democrats freaked out about having lost in 2016, they lose that when Biden steps aside and then they gain it with Tim Walz. So, get Tim Walz back out there. He's from Minnesota. He can speak that language.
And it's very much about encouraging as many people as possible to give Harris a chance or to not be too worried about going out and casting a ballot for Donald Trump. DAVISON: I think it shows us that Tim Walz can fix a car, but they've given us nothing about fixing the economy, and that's really what a lot of these Rust Belt white voters want to see. They want to know what -- they are hurting, their bills have gone skyrocketing, their energy bills have gone up. Kamala and Walz have given zero -- you know, Harris was asked again last night, what's your plan for the economy? I don't really know what the answer was. Can anyone here tell me what her response was for how we fix the economy? They can't articulate it.
So, it's great. He's fixing cars. I guarantee you very few union workers in Wisconsin and Michigan and Pennsylvania have seen that. Because tonight, they're not watching this, I'm sorry. They're not. They're sitting at home trying to figure whether they're going to go to a soccer camp tomorrow or go to church. That's what they're figuring.
BUMP: That's fine. But Rust Belt union voters aren't doing this based on economics. The Rust Belt union voters are doing this based on the cultural issues that have been driving everything since 2016.
DAVISON: I disagree. I think that everyone is voting with their pocketbook this election because it's gone so poorly the last four years.
ROSEN: I think he was plain spoken this video about what the economic issues are because he said, look, you know, the other side, Donald Trump is going to give tax cuts to the people who don't fix their own cars, and not you guys. And that, I think, is essentially a, a simple way to frame this that's effective. And as somebody who has watched a million YouTube videos to fix stuff, I was like, don't count out the lesbians. We watch those YouTube videos too to fix stuff.
PHILLIP: You guys have to fix your own cars.
ROSEN: We fix stuff, right?
LATHAN: I think the video hits at something else, and I think a lot of those voters, if we're talking about, you know, those white male voters, they see black, they see woman and they feel uncomfortable. And I think it's important to name that. I think it's important to say that they see black, they see women, they feel uncomfortable.
And when they see Tim right there under the hood of the car, they see their uncle, they see their dad, they see somebody that they know, they see someone from Minnesota, someone who's speaking in the language that they speak and they don't feel as other.
[22:25:08]
Now, I don't think they have any reason to feel uncomfortable, right? I think that a black woman is primed to run this country, but I think more actually making them feel the soft and fuzzies, the warm and fuzzies is probably the aim of those --
(CROSSTALKS) PHILLIP: That's to Phil's point. I mean, that if all of this were just solely on economics, I think we would be looking probably at a different election than we are right now. And also that's as evidenced by the fact that just simply Joe Biden suddenly leaving the race, suddenly changed everyone's perspective on whether a Democrat should be president.
BUMP: But we've seen polling on this. We've seen -- Harris has drawn even with Trump on polling on who's better on the economy. The race hasn't changed.
SINGLETON: But the gender gap is a real thing. And I'm not convinced -- the truck was really nice. I agree, it's a beautiful truck. And he clearly knew his stuff, I'm a car guy. But this one video is not going to be enough to close the margins and the gaps for the Vice President as it pertains to Donald Trump. You're looking at younger men under 30. For whatever reason, they've been moving more to the Republican side since President Obama, and you've written about this.
And so I don't know if they'll be able to make enough ground game to shore up young men in the Rust Belt between now and, what, 56 days remaining, Nice try, but I don't know if it's going to work.
BUMP: They don't need them all.
(CROSSTALKS)
PHILLIP: Well, they certainly don't need them all. But I want to play -- we played a little bit of this earlier, but this is Joe Rogan, who has -- you know, I would say some people would think that maybe he leans a little bit more right. But here's what he's been saying lately about Vice President Harris.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROGAN: I just want to say whoever's helping her, whoever's coaching her, whoever's the puppet master running the strings --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
ROGAN: -- You did a (BLEEP) amazing job.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She did a great job.
ROGAN: They did an amazing job from the moment Biden drops out, forcing Biden to drop out, right, whatever they're doing, whoever's writing those speeches, getting her to deliver them, coaching her, she's nailing it. She nailed that one speech. She's like, say it to my face. There was cheer.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, she nailed it, dude.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: That's some real earned media right there. And he has a huge following, a lot of young men, a lot of young, unmarried, white guys. SINGLETON: I mean, look, I don't know if this is going to work for men, but, generally speaking, they're running an incredible campaign. I mean, no one can deny that. The amount of money the vice president is raising, the number of volunteers, I mean, people are really excited about her, about the possibility of making history, a lot of women, especially black women, are really enthusiastic about this. And I certainly understand why.
You know, I think the Trump campaign has to realize this is not running against Joe Biden. This is a very different and a formidable candidate. I watched the vice president today in Atlanta and I made a couple notes and I thought, man, if this is what she's going to continue to do for the next 50 plus days, this woman might actually win this thing.
ROSEN: Listen, you can't underestimate the need for the comfort level. And that's why these little videos matter because it's not -- you know, when she says I need to be the president for all Americans, this is a message that we have not heard from our leaders, right? People have felt, for right or wrong, Joe Biden was divisive and not capable. There's no question people feel Donald Trump is divisive. And when you have a candidate who spends so much time trying to appeal to people who are not naturally her voters, that is really something that people can get behind in a way that I think we underestimate that, you know, that comfort level matters.
DAVISON: Well, how do you explain then that Trump is also winning voters that weren't normally his voters, so the Teamsters? The percentages with minorities, with African-Americans, with Hispanics, the highest they've ever been. And he is making an effort to do that.
So, to say this is all one sided --
ROSEN: I can explain that easily. And it's two words, unfortunately, it's Joe Biden. And the problem is, is that we have a little bit of leftover with Joe Biden and that we're not there. And there's been a lot of frustration, you know?
BUMP: The union issue is non-college educated white guys. That's the union issue, right? I mean, the union movement is a lot less densely white --
ROSEN: And they've moved away from Democrats for years.
DAVISON: If you look at the target white male voter that is a swing voter here is the college educated white male voter in a suburb. They're the ones that right now, maybe voted for Trump the first time, voted for Biden the second time, they don't know where to go this time. They are economically driven voters. They're Peloton dads. These are guys outside Atlanta, in Philadelphia.
ROSEN: They've had a couple of bad years with inflation, and, unfortunately, the economic messaging hasn't been as effective. But the economy has been more effective, and I think that people are starting to give it more of a chance.
DAVISON: Well, I hope that they keep --
PHILLIP: Last word to Van.
LATHAN: So, you saw Joe Rogan there. You saw him change his tone a little bit. Joe Rogan is a vitality guy. He's a guy that wants to be excited by a candidate. And what he's essentially talking about there is energetically how someone makes him feel. I will say this before we get out of here. Let's talk to brothers too now. I want to say, I want to see Tim Walz play some spades.
[22:30;00]
I want to see him play some dominoes. You know what I mean? We're fixing the car, we're doing all that. Do you know what I mean?
PHILLIP: We do have to go. But I did think that her comments on guns would be just as effective for a lot of black men as it would be.
LATHAN: Sure.
UNKNOWN: Did someone ask her what kind of gun she owns?
SINGLETON: I don't know about that, Abby.
DAVISON: I don't think so. I don't know if she could answer that.
LATHAN: I don't know. What I'm saying -- what I'm saying is, I'm a black man, I'm a gun owner that come from a legacy of gun owners. So --
PHILLIP: And there are a lot of black men who are gun owners.
SINGLETON: I know that but I don't think --
PHILLIP: I know you know that but I'm just saying that the idea that she --
SINGLETON: I don't think it's really black men though, Abby, that the Vice President really has to win over. I think it's a lot of those white men.
PHILLIP: She does have to -- she does have to win back a lot of black men.
SINGLETON: Yes, but she's been improving her margin. I just saw Harvard University survey I think two days ago. She's had 82 percent with all black voters. So, she's clearly improving her margin of black voters.
HILARY ROSEN, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: We're really looking at suburban independents outside of Philadelphia, getting those numbers pumped up outside of Milwaukee. This is going to be a very technical election and it's not going to be a sweeping demographic election. It's going to be who gets out to vote.
PHILLIP: It's going to be maybe a few thousand voters in Georgia. Those votes are going to matter.
BUMP: Yes, but the very quick point.
PHILLIP: Yes.
BUMP: When we're talking about these young white guys, too. Young white guys who are mad at the establishment don't vote. It's not up to Harris to get them out to vote. It's up to Trump to get them out to vote. He has no ground.
UNKNOWN: Yes, that's a good point.
UNKNOWN: And even Trump's --
PHILLIP: That was a good last point. Everyone hang on for us. A pretty explosive move in Georgia tonight, speaking of, by a pro-Trump election board. And it could mean that we don't ultimately know who's the president for weeks, maybe even months. We're going to discuss that next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:35:50]
PHILLIP: If this election comes down to the state of Georgia, we may not know the winner until you're eating turkey or even waiting for Santa to drive through the chimney. In a wildly controversial move, the state's election board today voted to require hand-counting of all ballots in the state.
That board, you might not be surprised to know, is dominated by Donald Trump's allies. There is bipartisan backlash tonight to this. Some say it is illegal. Others say it erases guardrails or quite simply, it is just impossible to pull off.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRAD RAFFENSPERGER (R) GEORGIA SECRETARY OF STATE: That we're too close to the election. We're 50 days out before we have our election. In fact, we're really just three weeks before we start early voting. And it's just too late in the cycle.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: We're back at the table. One of the things that Donald Trump and his allies learned after 2020 is that the secret to sort of getting some of this silly, basically the outgrowths of election denial into the system is to appoint people to these boards. And they've done that successfully in this case. But what is behind this is fundamentally untruths about what happened in Georgia the last time around.
ROSEN: Well -- and the other thing that's interesting is, and that was Brad Raffensperger, the former Secretary of State -- the Republican Secretary of State of Georgia, who Donald Trump tried to get to hand him some votes when Georgia's numbers didn't come out the way he wanted to.
But the thing is, it's not even clear which way helps Donald Trump, right? You know, if they would spend half the energy getting their vote out, getting mail ballots out there, doing organizing, getting people to do early voting.
If they would spend half their energy doing that, then trying to stop people from voting or worried about fraud, they might actually win this election. And I think that's the crazy thing. It's like, this doesn't even seem smart strategy for me.
PHILLIP: The solution is for there to be more votes for Donald Trump than for the other candidate. But delay is part of Donald Trump's tactic. I mean, I will never forget being on TV for like four days. And in that four-day time span, the main thing that Trump did was use the delay to suggest that inherent in delay is fraud.
BUMP: Yes, not exactly right. This was his game plan in 2020, looks like he's doing it again. You get all of your folks to vote on day of, then they're counted, then you say you have the lead, and then over the course of the next few days, that lead erodes because you're counting more ballots that often were cast before election day, so they're actually older ballots and then pointing to that and saying that they're injecting fraud.
There's an aspect here that I think has gone unrecognized, which I think is really important. That is that after Donald Trump made these claims about the election being stolen and everyone said there's no evidence of that, there's no fraud, you're lying, yadi yadi yada.
He and his allies pivoted. His allies didn't want to say, oh, there's fraud because they knew there was a lie. So, they said, oh, the election was rigged. And one of the key things they pointed to about the election being rigged is, rules being changed in the election. So, this is exactly what they were saying was rigging the election in 2020, is these sorts of rule changes.
PHILLIP: That was not lost on me either. Exactly this little kind of rules change. That also, officials in Georgia do not even think this is legal.
SINGLETON: I was just going to say that. We don't know if this thing is going to withstand a court challenge. A judge may knock this out and say, look, this is impossible. It's not practical, it's weeks before the election. And I also think some good news here though is if they do this and it moves forward and the judge says that it's okay, there is no way in the world you can say that the election was stolen.
LATHAN: Oh, he wouldn't even, of course.
SINGLETON: Every single vote. No, I'm not saying that he wouldn't claim it, but my point is, if every single vote is counted by hand -- how in the heck can you make an argument that it was slow? I mean, you couldn't make a stand.
LATHAN: You couldn't really have a good argument in 2020. But you definitely would have an argument back. Every single vote was counted by hand.
PHILLIP: Let me explain one element of this, because I think it's actually really important for you to really understand what's going on here. It's not even that they're retabulating the results of the election.
They're literally taking the ballots and stacking them into stacks of 50 and then counting the stacks of 50 and saying, we have the number of ballots that the machine said that we had. It's a laborious process that actually serves no purpose. It serves no purpose.
UNKNOWN: They need to introduce the errors.
PHILLIP: And they need to introduce those errors.
ROSEN: We can't forget this.
[22:40:00]
History is repeating itself. In 2000, when Al Gore and George W. were in a dispute over ballots in Florida. It went on and on and on and the country was exhausted and it went to the Supreme Court who ultimately said we can't keep doing this and can't keep sending it back because the country needs a president. And so, there is something crazy to delay.
BUMP: But you know what?
ROSEN: People get impatient.
BUMP: The lesson there for me is there was also a thuggish incident in which these dudes in suits came and tried to break everything up.
ROSEN: That's right.
BUMP: That's what I'm worried about. This thing goes on for multiple weeks and they're counting the ballots and all of a sudden a bunch of guys with AR-15s roll in.
DAVISON: It's not just going to be Georgia. Pennsylvania is going to take a long time. Arizona is going to take a long time. So, we're really focused on this, which I agree. We don't know if it's going to stay this way or not and if it's going to hold up.
But just the way the law has been in Pennsylvania and Arizona and these other states, it is going to take every -- every single day. Earlier, I mean, the main point here that everyone should be talking about is who is focusing on the voters, who's turning out. That's all you can really do right now.
ROSEN: That's what you have to do. And these local guys, these election board members who just, you know, salute Donald Trump and -- and you know, forget their job, forget that their job is to actually get people to vote and count the votes and, you know, process democracy here. That's the most shameful thing of all, I think. PHILLIP: You know, it's a small board that we're talking about here.
It's only five members, that the Republican chair of the board voted against this, the three that Trump -- that are Trump acolytes voted for it. And another note, just to tell you how unpopular this is, every single county election official opposed this.
ROSEN: Opposed it, right.
PHILLIP: Because they understand it doesn't really do what they claim it's going to do. Everyone hang on for us. Coming up next, we're going to discuss how the second gentleman has become an attack dog in this campaign.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DOUG EMHOFF, SECOND GENTLEMAN: Because it's a repulsive thing to say.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:46:21]
GOV. SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS (R) ARKANSAS: So, my kids keep me humble. Unfortunately, Kamala Harris doesn't have anything keeping her humble.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Tonight, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff hitting back at Sarah Huckabee Sanders after the Arkansas governor took a shot at Kamala Harris for those comments about her not having children.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EMHOFF: Yes, it's appalling for somebody who is in a position of leadership like governor to say something so repulsive and so out of touch, as if you need to have your own biological children to be humble. But then to say as if women should be humble. And you can see the pushback, even from within her own party, because it's a repulsive thing to say.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: Now, this comes as Harris talks more about her stepchildren in a new video for WIRED.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND CURRENT PRESIDENTIAL NOMINIEE (D): Does Kamala Harris have kids? Yes, I have two. Cole and Ella became my cherished children. Doug, my husband, I was very clear with him that when we started dating, I wanted to see how this thing was going to go before I would meet Cole and Ella.
You know, I'm a kid of divorced parents. It was important to make sure that when I developed a relationship with the kids that it would be lasting. I love those kids to pieces. They are my children, and I'm very proud of them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: The contrast there in the responses is pretty stark. I mean, she -- she's giving the positive version of it. She loves her kids. Doug is the one who, in a fairly soft-spoken manner, is the one who calls it repulsive.
ROSEN: Yes. Look, keep it coming, Republicans. Like, keep talking about childless cat ladies. Keep talking, putting down step parents. Keep talking about eating pets. Like, this is so bad for them. This just does not get them any votes. It doesn't get them support. It doesn't bring them, you know, closer to God. It doesn't do anything for them.
And so, Doug Emhoff, bless his heart, you know, just defends his wife as he should and says, sorry, you know, my wife actually is a mother and women don't need to be put in their place by the governor of Arkansas or anyone else. And that's how people feel. And I just -- I just can't believe that they keep doing this.
PHILLIP: Let me -- go ahead.
DAVISON: Yes, well, I mean, you know, this just seems so out of character for the governor. I mean, and she didn't say, because she doesn't have kids, she could have said, you know, my job keeps me humble, but she chose her kids. Maybe she doesn't think there's anything there.
So, I think we're -- you know, definitely pouncing on the moment. It just wasn't as specific as some other comments for maybe on that. I think the bigger point here -- so I mean, I agree. These comments are --
ROSEN: That's not true. They consistently try and take away her womanhood. They consistently try and denigrate her.
DAVISON: Who's they? Who's they? Let's use proper names. Who are we talking about?
PHILLIP: I do think that Sarah Huckabee Sanders was definitely --
ROSEN: Let's start with start with Donald Trump.
PHILLIP: This was a joke that was specifically about Kamala Harris not bearing children herself.
DAVISON: So, we're putting a lot of words into a phrase. We are --
PHILLIP: In all of these days, I mean --
UNKNOWN: The audience knew it was.
PHILLIP: In all these days that have passed, I have not seen a single statement from Sarah Huckabee Sanders today. Never heard her say I have never denigrated a stepmother. We understand stepmothers and the role they play.
DAVISON: So, what would be great is if she would come out and say that, look, that's not what I was saying. The point I was trying to make, you know, she loves her family, she loves her children, excellent.
Obviously, we all love and respect that. But the bigger point is that she's not showing the humility to admit that she's done a terrible job for the last four years. That because of her policies, that the economy is going down the drain, that the borders are at fail. And there is --
[22:50:00]
LATHAN: Wait, wait, wait.
DAVISON: They're not talking about anything.
ROSEN: They are soaked under --
UNKNOWN: We're talking about --
LATHAN: It's a pivot -- it's a pivot.
PHILLIP: I'm also going to call it what it is. It's been -- change the subject. I'm now going to change the subject.
ROSEN: But that part is true. That part is true.
LATHAN: I'm going to call upon a moment that everyone's here saw and has been replayed ad nauseum. I remember being a younger man when Obama was running against McCain. McCain's doing the town hall. And as soon as I say this, there are a bunch of people that are going to go, oh my God, John McCain did this and John McCain did that.
But this was a moment that I respected from the other side. And somebody tries to insult Barack Obama in a very -- a direct way about who he is and mischaracterizes him in a very direct way. McCain just goes, okay, we're not doing that.
SINGLETON: Yes, she said he's a Muslim.
LATHAN: He said she's Muslim. He's not exactly, he's like, we're not doing that. He's a good man, he's a family man. Very clear demonstration of what I won't do. You're a political enemy of mine, but you're humanity, who you are, and the fundamental things about you, I am not here to put those into question. And when you talk about someone and their family and their children and they're repulsive -- we all love children. Children are a blessing to society and we should all value them.
SINGLETON: You love them today?
LATHAN: I love them. But when you do that --
PHILLIP: He doesn't mean that about the kids, just by the way. DAVISON: Let's talk more about that.
LATHAN: But when you do that, what you do is you incite people on the other side. You go, this is not something that we can deal with, we have to defeat people who talk to us.
SINGLETON: This is just bad politics. This is bad politics.
DAVISON: But there have also been worse comments.
SINGLETON: But seriously, we have a lot of disagreements with the vice president, but I respect her. And from the interviews I've seen with her stepchildren, they adore the heck out of that woman. And if Republicans want to make the difference, the vice president's flip- flop on, defunding, funding the police, fracking, Medicaid for all, whatever. Let's make those arguments. Those are darn good arguments to make. We shouldn't attack her because she hasn't had her own children. That's not good.
PHILLIP: All right -- give you a second, real quick.
BUMP: There's a through line from that Muslim incident to today and that is what is normal in America. That was a call out to something that's abnormal, and that's what she's trying to play.
PHILLIP: All right everyone, stick with us. Coming up next, the panel will give us their nightcaps, including a warning that Democrats might be using a failing tactic from back in 2016.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:57:03]
PHILLIP: We're back and it's time for the "NewsNight" cap. You each have 30 seconds to say your piece. Hilary, you're first.
ROSEN: I just blanked on what I was saying. The -- Donald Trump has had a terrible, very bad, no good couple of weeks here, right, where -- from the assassination to Laura Loomer, to J.D. Vance, to Sarah Sanders. This is the time now before an election where parties need to get together, get on the ground, get your vote out.
Early voting has started in some states. The super PAC that he has given his blessing to do his ground game has already fired the firm doing two states four weeks out. I mean, they are a mess. Whereas Republican -- the democrats actually have it together on this one. So, if Kamala Harris wins, it is going to be because this ground game of this technical get out the vote has been effective.
PHILLIP: Something to watch for sure.
SINGLETON: Yes, look, I think we've talked a lot about young men. I think a lot of younger men are searching for some form of masculinity. I think my liberal democratic friends in some ways have attempted to change the idea of what manliness looks like. And we're seeing that in real time. We're seeing women surpass men in academic attainment. Going to college at higher rates, graduated at higher rates. There's a
sense of purposelessness among a lot of these young guys and they're searching for someone to sort of point them in the right direction. My fear is that the direction may not be the best direction for them so someone needs to help redirect this movement.
PHILLIP: Very interesting. Kristin?
DAVISON: So, I think Democrats have a risk of making this another fight song year. So, in 2016, they did the "Fight Song", Hillary Clinton. Democrats thought it was the best thing ever. Meanwhile, American Republicans were a little cringe on it. And it really was indicative of the fact that Donald Trump was speaking to America and Clinton was speaking to Hollywood and the liberals.
And I think you see that now when Democrats get very excited about Taylor Swift and writing press releases in her songs and like having Oprah last night with zero content but just feel good vibes -- vibes, will not win the election for her. There's a reason why Donald Trump is still winning in these key states, and it's because he knows how to talk to Americans right where they are, not what's on their TV.
ROSEN: If he can get their vote out.
PHILLIP: To be fair, a lot of people thought "Fight Song" was bad. Go ahead, Phil.
BUMP: So, mine -- I decided to take a break from politics. I think we've had enough politics, and I was, I do this data newsletter that comes out on Saturdays, and I was looking at baseball. It's been a big week for baseball.
Shohei Ohtani comes into this game last night and he's had 48 home runs, 48 steals and he begets 49 steals gets to 51-51, first one ever to do it. At the same time, the Chicago White Sox who are on the brink of losing more games than anyone else has ever lost in history baseball -- I went and looked at it. Shohei Ohtani, for every home run, he's hit the entire Chicago White Sox teams at 2.4 home runs. For every stolen base Shohei Ohtani has, the White Sox have only got 1.7 stolen bases. I think Shohei Ohtani could beat the White Sox in the baseball game.
[23:00:02]
PHILLIP: I don't know what he just said. Go ahead, Van, real quick.
LATHAN: I think we have to expand government. We need bigger government. And we need a special bureau for the freakiness in Washington. We need a watchdog bureau to watch everything that's going on. You all are too freaky.
Every single story in the last couple of weeks, it's about freak nasty stuff going on. Grow government, a new bureaucracy to hose everybody off. This is why we have the gridlock.
SINGLETON: Are you going to run it? LATHAN: I will run it.
PHILLIP: All right, everybody, on that note, thank you very much for watching. Have a great weekend. Thank you for watching "NewsNight". "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.
