Thank you so much thank you so much for joining us. Cnn news night with abby phillip starts now tonight, i'm a republican imagine if 2000 for her this from 2020 before dick cheney will be voting for kamala harris, a nailbiter election turns american politics upside down, plus whatever sentence since donald trump receives, voters won't know about it until after they cast their ballots also the republican nominee rips his female accusers while he tries to port female voters. She would not have been the chosen one. And an obama vet warns that democrats are too confident i think it's very possible to election were held today, trump would away live at the table, shermichael singleton, ashley allison, bryan lanza, keith boykin, and geoff duncan welcome to a special edition of newsnight state of the race good evening everyone i'm abby phillip in new york. Let's get right to what america is talking about hell has officially frozen over tonight. Former vice president dick cheney, who democrats have spent decades calling evil and darth vader. He says he's voting for kamala harris in a statement, he says there is no greater threat to the republic than donald trump, and that he can never be trusted with power again meanwhile, cheney's daughter, former republican congresswoman liz cheney, endorsed harris earlier this week here she is today slamming trump and his running mate, j. D. Vance every opportunity that donald trump gets to show the american people who he is he pretty clearly and look his running mate is doing this too. I mean, you know this is my diplomatic way of saying it there massage and pigs joining us in our fifth seat tonight a republican who's done the same thing as the chinese former georgia lieutenant governor geoff duncan. Geoff if you're in the upside down world where dick cheney is now voting for a democrat this is a moment, i think, and it's amazing that democrats who really hate dick cheney. I mean, i cannot underscore i cannot underscore that anymore. I mean, they really do not like him at all, but they are welcoming this yeah. I think the republican playbook says i'm supposed to be surprised, but i'm not. In fact, i think i'm actually surprised when i watch levelheaded republicans not come out and endorsed kamala harris, knowing all the things we know about donald trump. I mean, look, i i've lived this out since the hours of after the 2020 election debacle there's been republicans that have quietly come up to me. It for years and have said, hey, look, i cannot believe we're gonna do this again and, you know, post dnc speech. I mean, i'm giving high fives, walking up the street to the studio, hear from folks that are recognizing and saying, hey, i'm a republican too. Thanks for doing the right thing. I'm going to follow your lead. It's happening all over the country. There's a quiet momentum building against donald trump, even amongst republicans. It feels different in a lot of ways from what we've seen before because dick cheney is just as republican as mitch mcconnell. I mean, you could even argue maybe more in some ways, dick cheney is not at some guy who's prone to fuzzy feelings about really anything. But on this particular issue he has drawn a line. I'm wondering if you think that you might see other people who have been hesitant to do this in the past because they say, oh conservative principles and congress, the house, the senate, those people well might suddenly say, wait a second, this is different i don't think that matters because i think if you look at the polling since since january, you donald trump has held what is it, 92% of the republican vote the most impact of the dick cheney, liz cheney are going to have or leads easies, former public is we have a driver going to have or convincing other republicans to sort of move away from prison trump. And you just don't see in that data at this point of the election, you didn't see it six weeks ago, you didn't see it six months ago i don't know that the opposition at this point matters. I think the voters have sort of baked in january 6 and they've made a decision that the biden administration, whether it's right or wrong, is so bad at inflation and immigration at the correlations that value to them that they're willing to overlook january for sex. I mean, that's what the data shows. I think that's where we're headed and you're seeing more people come out, but i just don't think it's going to move the needle. I want to play what liz cheney did in addition to all of this it's not just at the top of the ticket. Here's what else she's doing colin, all read is somebody i served with in the house and somebody who really when you think about the kind of leaders, our country needs and go into this point about, you might, you might not agree on every policy position, but we need people who are going to serve in good faith and in this race that is colin all read. So i'll be working on his behalf she is going to campaign for a democrat who is running against a republican in the senate in the state of texas. She said she's going to campaign for kamala harris. I mean, that is extraordinary i rarely i'm speechless and i find myself speechless. I mean, i think i started voting through the bushcheney era. That was my first election. And you're right, you know, democrats, we were he was just the enemy but i also appreciate people like yourself. I never thought you were then to me, just be clear, but thank you for clarifying friday night she did, but but but i think it is refreshing in a moment, we are so polarized for people to really rise above it, rise to the occasion and say this actually is not about politics, this is actually about our country and what i think is best for our country. So i still to this day, doubt that i agree with anything that liz cheney or dick cheney stands for on a policy position, but i do agree that you have to put country over party and they are doing that. And so i'm in line with them and i am appreciative of them and still somewhat speechless, but good for them i mean, look, in terms of modern contemporary politics, it is significant former vice president, republican, very conservative, endorsing the democrat. I don't think anyone would have ever expected that, but it does showcase this huge ideological shift, abby, within the republican party of the more chamber of commerce establishment wing, educated wing of the party that are clearly moving somewhat to the democratic side, maybe because of trump. I don't know if it's temporary, jeff, or maybe it's permanent. Brian, i think we'll have to see. And then you're sort of seeing this populist, nationalist working class movement of people who were once reliable stars of the democratic party. Moving over to the republican side. So this shift to me is really, really fascinating outside of just a trump and kamala harris dynamics, i'm curious to see where does this go over the next 40 to eight years. I'm also curious where george w bush's, yeah, i think i mean, also keith i mean, you've been around in the democratic politics for a long time are you good with this big tense? dick cheney? liz i posted about this earlier on twitter and i was not surprised. That everybody attacked me for posting. So my liberal democratic friends attacked me for saying we shouldn't be celebrating dick cheney. He's a war criminal. Yeah, i get all that. But the fact that he is actually endorsing kamala harris for president. It does surprise me. I don't know why other people were not surprised by that. I would be less surprised if he just said i'm not voting for donald trump, which is kind of where i think george w bush years because he hasn't said anything about a lot of mitt romney and he would daughter he, donald trump went after his daughter. Any dad is going to say no, but you know, we that's what's so funny about that. Going back to the endorsement colin, i'll read ted cruz is called already upon it donald trump attacked ted cruz's father and ted cruz's wife. He called her ugly and accused ted cruz's dad of being involved in the jfk assassination. And ted cruz inquiry through donald trump and further still went on and supported him after he already condemned and he knew exactly what a horrible person donald trump was. And he continued to support him. That's the lab level of cowardice from the republican party leadership today. So stunning. The party of reagan has disappeared. The party of bob dole has disappeared. Even the party of george w bush has disappeared. Well, have 200 build endorsed kamala harris, former bush, and pushed officials and other officials. You have people like trump might the new election mike pence kennedy, robert kennedy is not even in the equation compared to these people, mike pence was the vice president. I'd states for donald trump and he he is not endorsing donald trump the person who works most closely with donald trump is saying, donald trump is not fit to be seeing across the spectrum. Is that two things. One people like you who still have a very long political career ahead of you are standing up. But people like dick cheney, i think we all assumed that he is reached the pinnacle of his political career. So it's the depth and the spectrum of people who are saying, i'm surrendering my maybe not, maybe you're hoping your party comes back, but i'm actually like i just want to get my country back. That's right. That's what i'm saying. Like you're picking you're not picking yourself kids. I got to stare in their eyes and i got to make sure i've done everything i could do to secure the future for them. And this is really a decision that comes down to democracy or pathway against him, okay. And so for me, i think speaking to this confidence that republicans are starting to get, i mean, there's a lot of confidence out there in republicans to not vote for donald trump. But that means they're not going vote for anybody. But this confidence is starting to show up where folks like look, i'm either going to make a point and not vote for donald trump. I'm going to make a difference in defeat him in his tracks and get our party back longrange planning here. It's going to take more than a day to fix the republican party party, but we got to start somewhere. But, but, but you do see this sort of discontent with the base of the party for folks like bush and cheney. And when you talk to a lot of those grassroots supporters, they will say a part of our reason for supporting trump of part of the reason for the tea party movement is because they felt the establishment wing of the party completely ignore them, completely ignore their grievance it is about the direction of the country. Here we go with donald trump. I do wonder jeff, if trump were to lose in november, will there be a reset of the party ideological we speak and i'm not convinced of that. I think what i think what we're probably in the face of the last two party system, maybe it goes on to 2028 i think across the political spectrum, people are really finding different political homes. So i think maybe in the republican party, there's not a revamp of maga, maga. Saves maga. And then there's a more moderate conservative party, but i also think on the left, green party candidates at run every four years or not. What i'm talking about, but parties like the working families party that worked very hard and have real infrastructure in new york and are doing a different places. I think people are interested in what something different can look like for their future that's an interesting idea. I mean, i do think that there's not a whole lot of evidence at the third party or any other party ever gets far in the national system. But at the local level statelevel of maybe it does. What other interesting thing, a little bit of a different topic, but maybe it's actually the same topic the party, the republican party today is expanding to include people like tucker carlson and all the things that he represents. And we've talked about this earlier in the show. Tucker carlson had this holocaust denier essentially on his show earlier in the week. We also know that j. D. Vance, vice presidential nominee, is going to appear with tucker even after all of that. And here is what vance had to say in defense of his alignment with tucker agree or disagree with anything that tucker carlson harris guests say we believe in free speech. We believe if you don't like an idea, obviously i did the holocaust was a terrible tragedy. And it's something that we have to make sure it never gets repeated again in this country. The best way i think to ensure it never gets repeated again where in the world certainly in this country or anywhere else, the best way to ensure that doesn't happen is to debate and push back against bad ideas. It's not to try to censor and suppress them it's the donald trump approach. It's anticensorship and i'm proud to stand with them. What anti, anticensorship is what he would describe as sitting a holocaust denier basically at the table and saying you're the most wise historian i've ever encountered and there was no pushback by the way, from tucker carlson and i. It's hard to understand that and it's hard to understand why that is consistent with conservative. Again, this goes back to my original point about this ideological paradigm shift that i believe has occurred within the modern republican party this is certainly not the part of the william f. Buckley days of the early years of the national review. It just isn't and so you're sort of seeing this morphine of conservatism that is certainly fuse. We're populism and nationalism and i'm not exactly sure if they've intellectually defined necessarily what this movement will look like long longterm but it is absolutely desperate from conservatism of yesteryear's. That's just a fact. Yeah. Look, the republican party is definitely developing different flavors first inside of it, right? you've got the maga far right side and i don't even know why we call them farright. They're not conservative. I mean, i guess we'd call right and conservative to be equal partners. But i think the left is probably got that same fight going on, but just in different different topics. Who at whichever party takes her medicine first, whichever party shows up and says, you know what, we need to figure out a way to get more towards center. I think that's really been some of the traction that kamala harris has gotten. She's come back to the center on a couple of issues. She's shown a willingness to entertain the middle. And i think if the right could figure out how to do that. I just don't think there's any sense of that until we purge ourselves of this trumpism. And situations like vance, i mean, what did he say i'm going on my washed up minorleague baseball player. I still have a few brain cells. I have no well idea what he was trying to say. Know every day i turn on the tv, i don't know what he's trying to say. It's so interesting because you brought up the national review that they really slammed j. D. Vance earlier this week here's the piece that says, can we talk about just how dumb as rocks stupid this was as a political messaging. Look, i'm aware that the t