one best served cold. that's tonight on "news night." ♪ good evening. the former president's to-do list if he's elected again is looking more autocratic than democratic, more vengeance than governance. how do we know that? well, his own words. item number one, revenge. the "washington post" reports that he and his allies are plotting to take control of the justice department to punish his perceived enemies. this includes president biden and his former officials from john kelly to bill barr. it's something that trump also admits out loud. >> if i happen to be president and i see somebody who's doing well and beating me very badly, i say go down and indict them. mostly that would be -- you know, they would be out of business. they'd be out of the election. >> he floated the death penalty for retired chairman of the joint chiefs of staff mark milley. item number two, he's planning to purge the government of employees to install his own loyalists. axios reported that 50,000 workers could lose protections, including those in national security posts, intelligence, law enforcement, the state department, even the military. and of course, he has also said that part out loud as well. >> this is the battle with you at my side. we will demolish the deep state. we will expel the warmongers from our government. we will drive out the globalists. we will cast out the communists. we will throw off the sick political class that hates our country. >> item number three, he wants to consolidate presidential power. the "new york times" reporting that he would increase his grip on every part of the federal government from the fcc to the trade commission. he could also even refuse to spend money the way that congress intended. item number four, he's once again teasing even more travel bans for a wide swath of people. again, he's saying it out loud. >> in a second term, we're going to expand each and every one of those bans, because we have no choice. we aren't bringing in anyone from gaza or syria, somalia, yemen or libya, or anywhere else that threatens our security. >> number five, i'ddealogical tests for anyone trying to enter the united states. >> i will implement strong idealogical screening of all immigrants. if your don't like your religion, if you sympathize with jihadists, then we don't want you in our country and you are not in. [ cheers and applause ] >> we don't want you. get out of here. you're fired. >> item number six, in addition to banning them from entering, he is also vowing a historic removal. >> whethe will begin the larges domestic deportation operation in history. >> number seven, also involving immigration, trump threatening to restart family separations, taking children away from their parents at the border. remember, some of these families were never reunited. >> when you say to a family that if you come, we're going to break you up, they don't come. >> now, you may recall that his administration actually first denied this was happening at all. and now he's out there touting this policy. >> a lot of people didn't come. it stopped people from coming by the hundreds of thousands, because when they hear family separation, they say, well, we better not go. >> number eight, he says he'll pardon many of those convicted in the january 6th attack. >> i will be looking at them very, very seriously for pardons, very, very seriously. >> number nine, he'll attempt to invoke the insurrection act. that's according to the "washington post." he and his allies want to use the military to quash protests. and item number ten, a question mark over the most powerful alliance in the world. >> in a second trump term, we'd almost certainly withdraw from nato. >> donald trump himself continues to brag about telling nato allies that he would not defend them unless they paid more. while many of his republican rivals jabbed trump for refusing to debate and be on that debate stage, that particular platform is not necessary to understand his vision, one that includes retribution and spite at the heart of it. i want to bring in former defense secretary under trump mark esper. thank you so much for joining us. there is this reporting that trump would invoke the insurrection act, which would allow him to basically put military troops in america to deal with protests that might arise if he were reelected. from your perspective, could anyone in the military push back on an order like that? >> well, i think if something like that were to happen right after an inauguration in january 2025, i guess, look, there would not be a civilian change of command in place at that point in time, first of all to push back. there would probably be an acting secretary. he or she would then have to decide whether or not to implement that order. otherwise the military chain of command would be intact. there's nothing that prevents the president from asking a governor, a friendly governor to mobilize his national guard to assist as well. >> i mean, ultimately it sounds like it's likely that it would be an order that is carried out. would it be legal, in your view? >> once the president is signed into office, it is completely legal for him to invoke the insurrection act. now, there are a few steps that have to happen. my recollection is that the process begins with the attorney general. i assume that early in the term, there would not be an attorney general in place. again, there would be an acting attorney general. but my understanding, my recollection is the process actually begins with the attorney general making a recommendation to implement the insurrection act. >> so trump obviously would come to a potential second term with a litany of grievances. he's been very clear about that. there would be, i think, fewer guardrails than perhaps in his first term. what do you think as someone who served with him? what do you think that could mean for this country? >> look, i've told others that i believe the first year of a second trump presidency would look like the last year of the first trump presidency. in other words, you'd see him surrounded by a lot of loyalists, people willing to do his bidding, whatever he wants. that would be his metric, his litmus test for anybody he brings into his presidency the second term. i think that's the biggest lesson learned for him and for his team. we know now they are building lists of people, of loyalists they would bring into office. we know right now who some of them are. he's not going to make that same mistake twice. >> there's also obviously a war between israel and hamas, a war between ukraine and russia. trump, looking abroad, could very well make good on his desire to rethink u.s. alliances, especially nato, which he's been incredibly critical of. even if another president who came later tried to undo a change like that, pulling the united states out of nato, for example, what would that mean for the united states and its standing abroad going forward? >> sure. well, i think a real consideration is the fact -- and he's talked about it already, that were he to come into office, i think he would cut off funding for ukraine. that, of course, i think would initiate a collapse of western support for ukraine in its conflict with russia. united states support is like the biggest block in a jenga tour. at what point in time does he move to pull the united states out of nato? maybe he makes a move to pull u.s. forces out of germany first. that's something i pushed back against and was able to reposition troops closer to russia at the time, actually. but i suspect at some point he would look to actually pull u.s. forces out of nato if also that he saw that our european partners weren't contributing their fair share to the alliance. >> mark esper, a lot to chew on there. thank you so much for joining us. >> thank you. and for more on this and on the turbulent week in politics, i want to turn to steven a. smith, host of espn's "first take" and the steven a. smith podcast and show on youtube. thank you so much for being here. >> good to be here. >> trump, as we were just discussing, reportedly wanted to initially -- this was two years ago, three years ago -- unleash the insurrection act against black lives matter protesters. it seems he might do it again against any protest that arises in a potential second term. do you think that voters are taking that threat seriously? >> in all likelihood, no. number one, because they know it's very, very predictable. you're not going to anticipate that he's going to be upstanding, that he's going to be honorable and put the country first. he's going to put his own self-interests first and he's going to convince people who follow him to believe that. in all likelihood, they will. you've got to understand there's a whole bunch of people that love the job that trump did. tens of millions of people did vote for him. he lost the election. let's be clear about that. let's remind him and the rest of the world he lost the election in 2020. that doesn't negate the fact that he has a cult following. they believe in him and the policies he implemented. they believe and wholeheartedly embrace his distaste and disdain for the nation's capital and how business is conducted in the nation's capital and they have a lot of oh supsupporters who fee same way he does. whatever lies he tells, whatever the case may be, people are saying that's par for the course. tell me another politician who hasn't done that. these that's how they think. it's who they are. it's what they believe. in a lot of instances, they have valid points because he's not the only so-called politician that has lied,that has not told the truth, that has not been completely honest and forthcoming. the difference between him and most others is he seems to do it continuously. he's unapologetic about it. he dares anybody to stop him, even when there's been four indictments against him with 91 counts, for crying out loud. >> that is exactly the question now. believe it or not, there was a republican debate this week that almost came and went without a whole lot of notice. this smaller group of republican hopefuls on that debate stage, trump was not there, they hardly talked about trump, who is leading by far in the race. do you get the sense they are doing enough to put up a fight if their goal is to beat trump? >> of course they're not doing it. but it's understandable why. here's the deal. if i know that i am a republican and i utter a negative siyllabl against this man and my primary objective is to get into power, what am i going to do? i'm going to shut the hell up. ron desantis gave new meaning to evasiveness with a plethora of topics thrown in his direction. nikki haley was the star of the evening in a lot of people's eyes. ramaswamy, you see the disdain he's fomenting amongst his so-called contemporaries in the republican party. you see a lot going on that's very unattractive. you also see a level of fear. they don't want to alienate the trump base. when a man is walking around with a 46% jump on everybody, he hasn't shown up for a debate, he barely acknowledges the competition most of the time. everybody and their grandmother is saying he's going to be the gop nominee. >> and they need those voters. >> it's one of those situations where how do you get by it. they haven't if figured it out. >> stand by for us. i want to ask you about a few more things including the polls that show president biden losing support from his own base. plus, a former republican senator will join me after she says she was sexual assaulted while on a run this week. and a big story, the fbi escalating the investigation involving new york city's mayor eric adams. democrats pulling off some surprising wins this week, but at the same time their leader is still struggling in the polls. a cnn poll this week finds that president biden is behind in a theoretical matchup with trump. and congressman jim played those numbers saying they need to get voters in sync with the campaign. li listen. >> i think what those polls tell us is that there are some people that are not yet in sync with the campaign. i think we know who they are and we know why. and what we've got to do is make sure that people understand what we've done and why we did not do more. >> i'm back now with steven a. smith. so do you buy that, what congressman clyburn is saying? is it just a messaging issue with voters? >> no, not at all. that hurts me to say, because do i admire representative clyburn and all he has done for our country and our community. but no, there's no way on earth that is the issue. the issue is the president of the united states is 80 years old. we see it every day. there's a lot of 80-year-olds walking around that seem a bit more lucid and together and vibrant than he does. it is just a fact. we have to stop acting like we don't see what's transpiring in front of our very eyes. for all the things that we want to say about trump, all the negative things that people could come up with, he doesn't look less energized or lucid or there per se. that's not the complaint you hear about him. you're hearing that a lot about president biden. even though you have a lot of folks within the black community that have been supportive of him trying to close the racial gap, some of the things he did to address minor crimes like nonviolent crimes involving marijuana use along with various other things he has done particularly with the student loans and what he tried to pull off. there's a few things that african-americans can point to and look at the president and say, okay, we're pleased with that even though we ain't pleased with inflation and the pla price of food and gas. at the end of the day, you want to see a man you can project two years from now, four years from now, five years from now he's going to be around and vibrant as ever to do the job. i would challenge anybody that says they have supreme confidence that's what you feel when you look at our president. and that is the issue. i mean, you don't need 2020 vision to see that. >> the cnn polling we released this week seems to support that. we asked people about all of those factors. they rated in many cases trump over biden on all of those characteristics. one of the interesting things this has produced is a lot of hail marys it seems of this person should run, that person should run. one of them was dwayne johnson saying he was contacted about a possible run for president. listen to what he said. >> in 2022 i got a visit from the parties asking me if i was going to run and if i could run. >> wow. >> it came out of the blue. >> wow. >> it was one after the other. the reason why i had given that response, that's truly what the people want, of course i would consider it. after that response, that's when the parties came in. [ laughter ] >> i mean, look, he's a popular guy, but what do you make of just the idea that according to this, real people in politics have approached him and said you should consider this? >> first of all, real people in politics have approached me and talked to me about running. it ain't happening. i'm not interested. it speaks to the level of desperation that exists in this country. it's not about dwayne johnson. it's about an indictment against the presumed candidates for the 2024 election. like you pointed out at the top of your show, you've got one former president that without question he will engage in a campaign of vengeance if he is the president of the united states again. he will not rest until he gets back at everybody who's gotten at him. that's his m.o. in the case of biden, we're seeing somebody that just doesn't seem lucid and competent enough to be in that position four years from now. maybe at this moment, yes. but do you have the confidence he can do what you need him to do in running this country for four years starting in 2024 when he's 82 years old? the answer is absolutely not. guess what? if you want to ask me or anybody else, dwayne johnson, yeah i'd vote for him before i voted for one of those two. you got marianne williamson that wants to run. she's not going to get any votes. >> will you vote for a third party candidate over trump or biden? >> i would say this to you. the only reason i wouldn't is if you told me definitively that i was throwing my vote away because it would facilitate one or the other winning. but if you told me we had a three party system that really worked and you really stood a chance and you can look at the candidates and how viable they are -- let's take dwayne johnson into consideration. successful, brilliant, heart of gold, in the right place, cares about what's in the best interest of america. isn't that what we're looking for in a president of the united states? you want a commander in chief that is interested in governing all of the people, not just looking out for his constituents and throwing everybody else by the wayside. you don't want that. you look at the democrats and see some of the stuff they get caught in, it is one of the most disgraceful things i have ever seen in the history of politics in the year 2023 and we're talking about liberals, progressives relying and practically bigg begging an 80 plus-year-old man to run for office again. gavin newsom makes a very viable point on behalf of liberalism. i think he would be a strong candidate on the left. if you're trump or a trump supporter, okay, fine, that's cool. you got people talking about how they'd vote for him for president even if he were in president. that's how sick we are in society. it's a damn shame. i cover sportes. i see sports people being held more accountable than grown men in their 50s, 60s and 20s who are literally elected ed offic in office and they don't know how to conduct themselves better than 20-year-old sports figures that i cover every day. it's a damn disgrace, but it's no surprise. >> i better put my steven a. yard signs back in the attic, but it's not going to happen in your presidential run. before we go, i want to ask you about the big ten conference sanctions today, the news today against the university of michigan's football coach and head coach jim harbaugh over the sign stealing investigation. he'll be suspended now for the last three games of the season. do you think this sends enough of a message? >> no, absolutely not. i think that michigan football -- and i sooe've states for the record -- as long as there's an open investigation devoid of a conclusion by the ncaa in the big ten conference, michigan should not be allowed to participate in the college football playoffs. i said it last week while i was on campus giving a speech at the university of michigan just a few yards away from the big house where they play football. i'm saying it now on national television. if you have a situation where you have somebody who was a now former employee that was literally infiltrating another team's sidelines, stealing signs to give your team an advantage, that's cheating. that's actually acquiring an unfair advantage, which is what the big ten acknowledged in the punishment they handed down to jim harbaugh. they said it's really not about you, it's about the program. because the program is contaminated with all of this, we have to make sure we send a message. well, the message that should be sent is they shouldn't be allowed to play in the college football playoffs. some people say, oh, that's so unfair. what about the kids? they're undefeated. they beat penn state and maryland and ohio state to close out the season. they deserve it. what about alabama? what about texas? what about washington? what about florida state? what about oregon? last time i checked kids played there too. if they are in a position where they can get to the college football playoffs and they're com exiled from that possibility because michigan is in there when there is evidence that cheating was t