Good evening.
Before we begin
with tonight's broadcast,
I want to say something about what
we witnessed at last night's town hall.
Many of you have expressed
deep anger and disappointment.
Many of you are upset
that someone who attempted to destroy
our democracy
was invited
to sit on the stage
in front of a crowd of Republican voters
to answer questions
and predictably continued
to spew lie after lie after lie
And I get it.
It was disturbing.
It was disturbing to see and hear
that person
refer to a black law enforcement
officers, a thug,
an adjective he used many times.
Describe black men.
And called Kaitlan
Collins, the moderator, nasty,
which is what he calls
any woman who stands up to him.
It was disturbing to hear him
speak so highly of Q
and on conspirators and insurrection
is who assaulted
police officers
in our democracy on January six.
And it was awful to hear him spread
ridiculous lies about the election.
And it was certainly disturbing
to hear that
audience, young and old, our fellow
citizens, people
who love their kids and go to
church, laugh and applaud his lies
and his continued
defamation of a woman who,
according to a jury, of his peers,
he's sexually abused and defamed
as good a job as Kaitlan Collins did,
trying to fact check him.
It is impossible to fact check fully
because he lies so shamelessly
Now, many of you think CNN shouldn't
have given him any platform to speak.
And I understand the anger about that,
giving him the audience the time.
I get that.
But this is what I also get.
The man you were so disturbed
to see and hear from last night,
that man is the frontrunner
for the Republican nomination
for president.
And according to polling
no other Republican is even close.
That man
you were so upset
to hear from last night.
He may be president of the United States
in less than two years.
And that audience that upset you,
that's a sampling
of about half the country.
They are your family
members, your neighbors,
and they are voting.
And many said they're voting for him.
Now, maybe
you haven't been paying attention to him
since he left office.
And have you been enjoying
not hearing from him,
thinking it can happen again?
Some investigation is going to stop him?
Well, it hasn't so far.
So if last night showed anything,
it showed it can happen again.
It is happening again.
He hasn't changed and he is running hard.
You have every right to be outraged today
and angry.
Never watch this network again.
But do you think staying in your silo
and only listening to people
you agree with
is going to make that person go away?
If we all only listen to those
we agree with,
it may actually do the opposite.
If lives are allowed to go unchecked,
as imperfect as our ability to check them
is on a stage in real time,
those lies continue
and those lies spread.
If you're angry or upset, I understand,
but you have the power
to do something about it.
You can actually get involved.
You can make a difference.
Whatever side of the aisle you're on
after last night none of us can say,
I didn't know what's out there.
I didn't know what's coming.
We asked Republican senators
for their thoughts about last night.
Some prefer not to say anything
others did.
Here's a sampling of what we heard.
What was the reason for
not supporting him? Where do I begin?
President Trump's judgment is, is wrong
in this case.
President Putin
and his government have engaged
in war crimes.
I think people saw last night
what they would get with
another term of
Donald Trump as president,
which is completely untethered
to the truth.
Uncertain as to whether he wants Russia
or Ukraine to win.
And they
a brutal conflict
which Russia has imposed on Ukraine.
You're asking me,
do I think you should
pardon people
who engage in rioting behavior?
No, I don't.
Anybody who crossed in
to the end of the capital
under the circumstances
that I witnessed firsthand,
it's hard for me to have
a positive predisposition towards them
more now from Jessica.
And she's had the capital for us.
And I.
What more are you hearing
tonight, Jessica?
Well, let's start first
with the Republicans, both in the Senate
and the House.
You just heard
from some Senate Republicans
there, Anderson.
And people like Senator Mitt Romney.
And that's somebody
who has been pretty outspoken
against former President Donald Trump.
But it was somewhat
surprising to see somebody
like Senator
Josh Hawley
push back against some of his positions
that he took last night.
And what we heard again and again
in talking with these Republican members
who who pushed back against
and had very different opinions
than former President Trump,
it really kind of circled around
three issues.
It was Ukraine and Vladimir Putin.
And if he is a war criminal or not
and who should win that war?
It was January 6th
and former President Trump's
pledge to perhaps pardon
people who were here at the Capitol
as insurrectionists
who have been convicted
and are serving time.
And then it was also,
of course,
the debt ceiling,
which is what
looms very heavy here right now
as they work toward that
June 1st deadline
and allowing the nation to default.
Those were really the key issues.
We also heard similar things
from members of the House
GOP who kind of
came back to those same issues as well.
But, Anderson,
even in hearing some of these Republicans
speaking out against the former
president, that's
that's still just a handful of people.
And let's be very clear,
he still has an enormous amount of power
and an enormous support system
here among Republicans on Capitol Hill.
And what about reaction from Democrats?
Well,
as you can imagine, Democrats
have never been fans
of the former president.
And that certainly continued.
And what we saw
was the Democratic Party
really trying to attach
Donald Trump,
the MAGA,
MAGA Republicans,
which has really been their line
that they have
that President
Biden has used as well,
to kind of put them all together
as a party that is too extreme to lead.
And that is the case that we heard
the making
we heard the Senate majority
leader, Chuck Schumer,
talking about how bad
President Trump has, what he called
enormous sway over House Speaker
Kevin McCarthy
as he navigates these debt
ceiling negotiations.
We heard from Hakeem
Jeffries, who leads the House Democrats,
and he said that this was exhibit A
of the trauma that America would see
if we have another four years
with President Trump.
And then we also heard
from Richard Blumenthal,
the senator from Connecticut,
who said that if he were to pardon
those January 6th
rioters, that
that would be grounds for yet
another impeachment in his eyes.
So, again,
a lot from the Democrats
that you would expect
really trying to stake their positions
make it very clear
that they are quite different
than the Democrats offer,
a very, very, very different view
than Donald Trump
and attaching him to that far right
wing of the party
Also interesting, Anderson,
just to go back to the
to the Senate Republicans for one second.
We did talk to the Senate majority whip,
John Thune, who said it
looks like a lot of Democrat
campaign ads were written last night.
I'm just kidding.
Appreciate it.
Want to get some perspective
now with me
here, Republican
consultant and CNN political commentator
Margaret Hoover,
host of Firing Line on PBS
also Anthony Scaramucci,
who briefly served as White House
communications director
to the former president
and our own chief
White House correspondent,
Phil Mattingly.
Anthony,
do you think anything has happened
in the past
24 hours that have changed the dynamics
for this GOP primary race?
Not yet,
but I think you guys are bringing up
something that could change it.
And that is an onslaught of senators
and House of Representative
congressional leaders
going against the president.
I think that would be a snowball
rolling in a direction
that he actually couldn't stop.
And so they're still fearing him
because he's a big bully
and their political consultants
are telling them,
don't say anything about them
or don't make a comment.
But if they start to stand up to him
the way Mitt Romney did,
he saw a glimmer of
that was Senator Hawley.
You will blunt him.
You will slow him down.
And remember
when the witch
and the Wizard of Oz,
the water
accidentally spilled on the witch
and she started melting,
the soldiers turned it.
Dorothy said, hey, geez,
I'm sorry that we did this and I think
we're getting to that point right now
where the water has to hit Trump
and he has to start melting
and they have to show
some bravery and courage.
There's a lot of munchkins on Capitol
Hill, though.
I mean,
are they are they really ready to support
the House
of Representatives in the Senate?
I would say
I mean, that's about
I mean,
this is also about our
electoral incentives
and what it takes
to have political courage
and moral courage. Right.
There are us senators
who have recently been elected
who voiced that,
who absolutely agree with everything
Senator Tillis just said, by the way,
just reelected
and didn't really mince words there.
And in suggesting
that he didn't really support
returning and insurrectionist,
the White House
So so I think you're right, Anthony.
This is the moment
where Republicans and elder statesmen
and women of the Republican Party
have to self-police.
We haven't done it for six years
and we have to start now.
And it's going to be behind closed doors
and it's going to be open and public,
but it has to be Republican
and Republican,
because the problem
with Donald Trump's inertia
right now is that he's
seen as a victim
by the media,
the Democrats, the other people
and that's emboldening him.
But if this is a Republican
on Republican, a front to Donald Trump,
then you've got a chance
at building
a wedge
and actually building momentum
for someone else.
So what are you hearing from
the Biden White House?
Because last night
we're hearing, well, you know,
there are all these attack ads
that were written last night
because of so many lies were being told.
Is that putting a brave face on it
or I mean, or would they spin?
And I think there's this is the value of
I think the Republican senators
are actually
quite good
at kind of surfacing this reality
when you take a step back
from the very visceral
passions of last night.
One, Democrats
and this entire event
was just triggering for our entire party.
And I think we all get it
and understand it.
You addressed it at the top
and you look at the actual content,
substance and policy that was addressed
through the questions
that Caitlin was asking
you realize that the president,
the former
president, former President Trump,
was walking right into pretty much
the entire framing
of President Biden's campaign reelection
launch video.
The stakes of the moment,
the January 6th,
the pardons, that putting the election
in the sanctity of the election at risk
and the Constitution at risk,
but also on
the critical policy issues that Democrats
have run on and one on, both
in the midterm elections and Wisconsin
Supreme Court race.
You look to kind of state
wide in Michigan.
You look at swing states
on the issue of abortion.
That is a winning issue
every day of the week.
And the president can former
president can try and pass on
whether he wants a national abortion ban.
All he wants
what he said on
Dobbs are making very clear
how proud he was of
what happened with Dobbs.
Every Democrat in America
is writing a campaign ad on that issue.
The one thing
and I would just say
one of the things that I was told
last night
is an aide texted
adviser texted me and said
this was a week
this was weeks
worth of damning content in one hour.
It was quite efficient
and the point of elevating this moment
as opposed to letting him
sit in safe corners and just kind of talk
among his own people
underscores that reality.
And we saw it
from Republican senators to.