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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Jamaica Braces for Worst Hurricane Ever to Hit Island; Trump Reveals He Got an MRI But Won't Say Why; U.S. Warship Docks Near Venezuela as Trump, Maduor Ramp Up Fight; Mamdani, Sanders Take Aim At Trump At NYC Rally; Third Game Of Tied World Series In Los Angeles Tonight. Aired 6-7p ET

Aired October 27, 2025 - 18:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[18:00:00]

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Welcome to The Lead. I'm Jake Tapper.

This hour, Hurricane Melissa is now the strongest storm on planet Earth this year. The storm is bearing down on Jamaica tonight as a deadly Category 5 hurricane with sustained winds of 175 miles per hour. The storm's turbulence is so rough, even a hurricane hunter flight aborted its mission. CNN's live on the ground in Jamaica ahead of landfall.

Plus, millions of low-income Americans who rely upon food stamps are at risk of losing them in just days due to this government shutdown. The program is set to run out of money this weekend, but the Trump administration says they're not going to tap into the emergency funds they have to keep food stamps running. Will this deadline force Democrats and Republicans to make any sort of deal.

And brand new questions about President Trump's health after he told reporters that he got an MRI scan during a recent trip to Walter Reed. Trump won't say why he needed an MRI or why he made this unusual second hospital visit when presidents usually have their checkups only once a year.

The Lead tonight, one of the strongest storms ever recorded in the Atlantic is heading straight for Jamaica. This is an urgent situation. Category 5 Melissa has sustained winds of 175 miles per hour with stronger gusts and is expected to make landfall in Jamaica early tomorrow. Mandatory evacuation orders have been issued. Officials are predicting widespread flooding and landslides and extensive infrastructure damage that will cut off potentially entire communities. The entire Caribbean region is on high alert.

CNN"s Patrick Oppmann is on the ground in Cuba, but we're going to start with CNN's Derek Van Dam in Kingston, the capital on the south of Jamaica. Derek?

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, Jake. What our viewers need to know is that this is now the strongest storm on the planet in 2025 at 175 miles per hour. This monster is slowly crawling towards an eventual, unavoidable direct hit with the south coast of Jamaica here within the next 24 hours. We're in Kingston right now where we have a triple threat of not only storm surge closer to the coast that's behind me to the right, as well as flash flooding, mudslides, and landslides, the catastrophic wind. This is why it's so important and imperative to have this exact forecast track as we finalize the moments leading up to the landfall because we do see more of a trend in the models that will be more of a west side of Jamaica that will get the catastrophic winds that will make that area potentially cutting off communities for days, according to the National Hurricane Center.

You can see the palm trees, they're not even swaying. So, we don't have the wind at this moment of time, but, of course the worst is still yet to come for the country.

And when we talk about Jamaica in particular, this area is surrounded by mountains. The Blue Mountains, you may have heard of Blue Mountain Coffee, you may drink that, that's all farmed here in the mountains behind Kingston, the nation's capital. About a million people reside here. But that water that will be funneled in from those mountain ranges will make its way down through the communities and the valleys below, and that is what we are so concerned of.

So, yes, maybe the capital city will be spared the worst catastrophic winds but the rain and the flashflood threat and mudslide threat is very real here.

So, there have been preparations on the ground. We talked to the prime minister earlier today. He said that they have buses funneling in and out of some of the hardest and most vulnerable areas across the south coast of Jamaica. And there are over 800 emergency shelters that have been evacuated. They're trying their hardest to get every person, the most vulnerable communities out of harm's way as quickly as possible. Jake?

TAPPER: Patrick Oppmann in Cuba. After Jamaica, Hurricane Melissa's expected to hit Cuba. How seriously are Cubans taking this?

PATRICK OPPMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we've already seen some of the tens of thousands of people who've been evacuated across this island here in Santiago de Cuba, where you have a lot of low-lying areas. We've seen the government come in today and tell people they need to just get the belongings and leave. Some people resisting that.

But if you are in the low lying areas there will be that storm surge. Their mounds behind me is well just like in Jamaica. And you will see heavy, heavy rain, which could lead to rivers going over their banks, that the dam is failing. So there are any number of threats to this region. And in an impoverished country, Jake, you just don't have the kinds of supplies you see elsewhere.

So, people have been lining up today just to buy water, to buy a little bit of bread, to get some cash out of an ATM.

[18:05:03]

And those simple transactions sometimes take hours and hours behind me on roofs all day long. We saw people taking down structures that can be turned into missiles by Hurricane Melissa's powerful winds. And so this is very scary for an island nation where people simply cannot evacuate. They're going to have to hunker down where they are or go stay with relatives or go into shelters, but they won't be able to get out of the way of the storm.

And so hundreds of thousands of people will be threatened by a direct hit from Melissa. It's expected to come here as a major hurricane Category 3 or stronger, and that could just be catastrophic. I remember being here in 2012 when Hurricane Sandy came through Santiago de Cuba and leveled much of this city, and that is still considered a once-in-a-generation-type hurricane by the many people here who survived it. We hear the government say today that as bad as Sandy was back then, Melissa is going to be far worse.

TAPPER: All right. Patrick Oppmann in Cuba, Derek Van Dam in Jamaica, thanks to you both. Please be safe, both of you.

Joining us now from Kingston, Jamaica, is Jonathan Petramala. He's a journalist and a documentarian who focuses on documenting major disaster events. So, Jonathan, based on the latest forecast, what sort of damage are you expecting to see as Hurricane Melissa aims directly at Jamaica?

JONATHAN PETRAMALA, JOURNALIST AND DOCUMENTARIAN: I'll be honest, Jake, it's been a really tough year as far as weather models go and consistency. The cuts this last spring I think are having an impact in terms of what we know what to expect. And even in this late hour with Hurricane Melissa, we, experts and tracking storms like this, are having trouble deciding exactly where this is going to be, what the main impacts are going to be. Is it still going to make that right hand curve?

Here in Kingston, the biggest threat is going to be not necessarily the wind but absolutely the rain. You know that the mountains right above us that feeds into the rivers. The water's going to rush down those mountains into what they call goalies. And just like they have in Los Angeles, what they do here in the goalies, they have them made into cement. And that's good because it rushes the water into the ocean. But if these forecasts ring true in terms of 20, 30 inches of rain, and it comes in a shorter amount of time, that's going to overwhelm the system. And so the water will leave the banks, go into communities.

And so the government has been rushing for the last few days clearing out some of these goalies. We saw one just to the east of Kingston today, a backhoe working away, trying to dig underneath an overpass, trying to clear that path enough so the water will indeed rush to the ocean and instead of leaving its banks and going into homes and businesses right along that goalie.

TAPPER: Have you ever actually been in the middle of a storm as powerful as this one is forecast to be?

PETRAMALA: Hurricane Beryl last year in Carriacou, we were the only two journalists in the path of that storm as it came across just north of Grenada, into that tiny island. The eye directly went over our head. The hotel we were staying in, the roof flew off above where we were filming and documenting the front eye wall. So, yes, we've been in a storm almost similar exactly to Melissa. Of course, Melissa appears to be a different beast. It's stronger. But you get to that upper level Category 4, Category 5 level, and it's absolutely a terrifying sound. It sounds like a jet engine as the winds really start to kick off in that front eye wall.

And then if you're in the center of that eye, as it crosses above you, you get that still -- you know, the stillness, you can maybe even see the blue sky above you, and then the backside comes. So, you can imagine the front side winds blow everything one direction. It's like if you're bending a twig. You bend it that one direction and then the backside of the eye comes with winds going the opposite direction and everything breaks. And it becomes a tsunami of debris.

So, absolutely, the winds are going to be terrifying in this, but it's going to be contained just along or around that core of the storm, the eye of the storm, and the eye wall surrounding it. So, it's not going to be a massive wind field. This is going to be a buzz saw.

But as you get further away, the winds might lessen, but the problem is when it drags that moisture with it, all of that rain, if a rain band were to set up right over Kingston, it could be quite disastrous in a different way from just the violence of the water coming in off the mountains.

TAPPER: Jonathan, earlier in the show we talked to Jamaica's information minister who expressed concern that not enough locals, not enough Jamaicans, are heeding the evacuation requests and heading to the shelters. Can you shed any light on that for us? What's your experience with talking to locals?

PETRAMALA: I went to a town called Port Royal Jamaica. It's a very historic village. It sits on a literal spit of sand, just a sandbar, essentially. It's by the international airport. It's about ten miles into the harbor here around Kingston.

[18:10:01]

And it's a fishing village now, no one there plans to evacuate.

And what happens in these situations, Jake, there's a couple of situations that happen with this. First and foremost, people take into account what they've experienced in the past. That's the lived experience is what people make decisions on more than what people are warning. And so folks around here went through Hurricane Gilbert in 1988. And they survived and nothing happened to their homes, for instance, they're on in Port Royal, and so they're going to stay based on that.

Another factor is resources. A lot of poverty exists here and the resources are very difficult for people to leave their home, leave it unprotected and go to a shelter, and then they don't know when they're going to come back. And that provides a whole other level of stress on people that often they don't want to make those decisions to go away from home because then they don't know if and when they're going to be able to go back. It could be days, could be weeks, and they've had bad experiences in the past in shelters.

And so I think those factors are really what's keeping those people away, just lived experiences from past storms, even though each storm is its own storm with its own circumstances and own hazards, it's really difficult to convince people what's coming, especially in a storm like this, which has been crawling ashore for so many days. And at this point, the weight is making people think, is this really going to be as bad as everybody's been talking about? Because we haven't really experienced anything yet. And it's been, you know, since Wednesday at least.

TAPPER: Jonathan Petramala in Kingston, Jamaica, thank you so much. Please stay safe. We'll continue to track this monster storm as it bears down on the Caribbean and threatens to drop up to 40 inches of rain in some places.

Plus, the new questions swirling about President Trump's health after he reveals that he got an MRI, but he won't say why

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TAPPER: In our Health Lead today, President Trump (INAUDIBLE) had an MRI during his recent visit to Walter Reed Medical Center earlier this month. The screening happened during his second medical exam of 2025. That's a break from the normal presidential schedule of one comprehensive checkup a year.

Let's bring in CNN Medical Analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner. Dr. Reiner, MRIs, as far as I know, are not part of a standard physical. Can you explain what exactly an MRI is and why someone may need to have one done an MRI.

JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: An MRI is an imaging exam that uses a strong magnetic field to get very detailed images of just about any part of the body. And apparently the president's medical team had some kind of concern, either a generated --

TAPPER: Dr. Reiner, we're having audio trouble right now. We're going to take a quick break and come back to and fix the audio trouble. Sorry about that.

U.S. warships are moving closer to Venezuela after a series of U.S. military strikes on what the Trump administration calls drug boats. How big of an escalation is this? After we bring back Dr. Reiner, then we're going to talk about Venezuela.

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TAPPER: Sorry about the technical issues, folks. We're back in our Health Lead. Dr. Jonathan Reiner here to discuss President Trump's recent disclosure that he had an MRI during this unusual second physical he's had this year.

Dr. Reiner, sorry about that. What is an MRI? Why would somebody need to have one done?

REINER: An MRI is an advanced imaging test performed by a radiologist, which uses this really remarkable technology that involves a strong magnetic field and radio waves. And it basically realigns your hydrogen ions and then lets them relax back and different tissues have different signals that come back. And this technology can provide very detailed images of virtually any body part. But we don't even know what type of MRI he had. We don't know whether he had a head or brain MRI. We don't know if he had an MRI of the chest or abdomen or prostate. And we don't know what symptoms promulgated this kind of testing.

I will say that just routine MRI testing is not part of a standard physical either in the civilian world or in the White House executive medicine world. So, obviously, some kind of complaint or symptom or physical finding prompted the White House medical team to go ahead and get an MRI.

And, again, it's important to understand that the White House can do a lot of testing in the White House and you only go to Walter Reed when you need a test that just simply cannot be performed there, like an MRI. So it made sense that he was going there for a certain test like this. And in fact, his physician, Dr. Barbabella, said -- in fact, he used the euphemism, he said, we did advanced imaging. I'm not sure why he just didn't come out and say he had an MRI, but now we know.

TAPPER: So, over the summer, the president was diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency. We all have seen the swelling in his ankles and the bruising on his hands. Sometimes the bruising covered with a heavy makeup. Is any of that related to his need to get an MRI?

REINER: Maybe. Those symptoms didn't quite match, you know, make sense to me. First of all, they called the swelling in his legs chronic venous insufficiency, which it could be except his yearly physical in April stated that he had no swelling. So, swelling in July would be acute venous insufficiency, which is entirely different animal than chronic venous insufficiency.

The bruising in his hands, you know, they say that he's bruising because he shakes a lot of hands, but that's not really a likely scenario. We see bruising on the back of hands of people who are on blood thinners. And while it's possible the president is on it, his team has never disclosed that. So, who knows? People take blood thinners if he is taking a blood thinner for things like atrial fibrillation or history of pulmonary embolism or deep vein thrombosis in the leg. But, again, the White House hasn't, you know, disclosed that that is indeed the reason for the bruising.

An MRI of the head, if indeed he had an MRI of the brain would be done to interrogate a symptom. Did the president have, you know, transient slurred speech or weakness or tingling? If it was, you know, a different part of the body, MRI can be used to assess the heart. It's a very elegant test for examining cardiac function and structure. Look, there there's no sin in being tested at age 79. Everybody has something. And our president doesn't need to be superhuman.

TAPPER: Yes, I just wish presidents would disclose everything, whether this one or the last one or the next one, just disclose everything.

[18:25:05]

The American people deserve it.

Dr. Jonathan Reiner, thank you so much. I appreciate it.

REINER: Yes.

TAPPER: In our World Lead right now, a U.S. warship, the guided missile destroyer, USS Gravely, is docked off the coast of Trinidad and Tobago, joining the close by USS Gerald Ford aircraft carrier, dubbed the most lethal combat platform in the world by the U.S. Navy, both blaring signs of President Trump's campaign to increase military pressure on neighboring Venezuela and its strong man leader, Nicolas Maduro, whom Trump accuses of orchestrating drug trafficking into the U.S.

Maduro criticized the U.S. ship movement as an attempt by the U.S. to create a, quote, new Eternal war. Maduro's vice president claims they've already captured CIA-linked mercenaries in Venezuela.

Joining us now is retired U.S. Navy Vice Admiral John Fozzie Miller. Vice Admiral Miller, thank you so much for joining us. Give us a sense of what these two ships are capable of.

VICE ADM. JOHN FOZZIE MILLER (RET.), U.S. NAVY: Oh, thanks for having me. A carrier is an extraordinarily capable platform all by itself. Whether it's the Ford or one of our newest class carriers, it brings with us with a tremendous amount of air power, strike fighters, about 44 or so strike fighters, electronic attack, airborne early warning for surveillance, all of the Super Hornets that are embarked can do surveillance as well, so intelligence gathering, there's large staffs on the carrier that can take in this intelligence and evaluate it and make assessments and recommendations. And, of course, we have one or more destroyers that are going to come with the Ford and they're capable of carrying land attack missiles, anti-submarine missiles, anti-ship missiles, so quite a formidable platform.

TAPPER: So, Democratic Senator Mark Kelly, he served in the Navy, he says that a president either deploys a battle group because he's trying to intimidate, trying to start combat operations. Which one do you think this is?

MILLER: Well, we move carriers around the world routinely --

TAPPER: To intimidate?

MILLER: Well, in order to make sure that people understand that we're interested in what's going on in that part of the world. And, certainly, you do that when you bring an aircraft carrier into a region. You're as visible as you want to be. We can say that we're deploying that carrier, but they'll never see it, or maybe they will see it, it'll get close enough to land to be able to see it, but they'll know it's there.

So, it does indicate an interest on the part of the United States. Is that intimidating? I think for the most part, yes, and that's the reason we send them.

TAPPER: Yes.

MILLER: It's to send a signal.

TAPPER: So, the U.S. has been conducting these strikes against boats that the Trump administration asserts are boats of narco-terrorists. The Colombia's president has called them extrajudicious. We've also heard some criticism of that from Democrats on the Capitol Hill, even a Republican or two. What do you think of the Trump administration carrying out these strikes in international waters and justifying it by designating these individuals as terrorists?

MILLER: Well, that's really a discussion for members of Congress and policymakers in terms of what the aviators are doing and or what the ships are doing and attacking these ships. I think one of the things that we can be proud of at least is that they're conducting themselves in a very professional way, so they receive a set of orders. They deemed them to be a set of legal orders. They carry out those orders and they do so quite professionally. Whether or not that's the right thing from a policy standpoint, that's a different discussion.

TAPPER: Does the U.S. Navy, when it gets an order like that -- this is a newly -- this is a new theory, the idea that the powers that presidents have been using to strike people with ISIS or Al-Qaeda, that the U.S. can now do this on narco-traffickers under the decision by the Trump administration that they are terrorists too. Does the U.S. Navy have its own JAGs that check that out and or do we just take the president's word for it?

MILLER: Well, all of the chain of command has a JAG officer. So, that's everybody from the secretary of defense down through the combat commander, in this case down in Southern Command to the Strike Group commander on board the Ford. They all have lawyers that they can talk to. They understand the rules of engagement. They have a chance to make an input into those rules of engagement. So, this is all done in a very, well-defined process and there are no surprises. There's no doubt when someone goes up and mans an air mans up an airplane, that the mission that they're tasked to carry out is a mission that they're legally authorized to do.

TAPPER: Retired Vice Admiral John Fozzie Miller, thank you, sir.

MILLER: Thank you, sir.

TAPPER: Great to have you, sir, I appreciate it.

Millions of Americans who depend on food stamps are at risk of losing this help in just days due to the federal government shutdown. Is there any hope for a deal before that happens? I'll ask a Democratic senator in moments,

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REAR ADM. BARRY BLACK (RET.), SENATE CHAPLAIN: Lord, remind our lawmakers that no gold medals are given for breaking shutdown records.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Senate chaplain earlier today appealing to lawmakers on day 27 of the shutdown, the second longest in American history. A critical deadline looms this week, SNAP, food assistance benefits are set to expire Saturday for more than 40 million low-income Americans. The Department of Agriculture says that they will not use their $6 billion contingency fund to cover the program, setting up another pressure campaign along party lines.

Joining us now, Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar from the state of Minnesota.

Senator, so the Federal Workers Union said today that it's time to reopen the government. And here's what one mother who relies on SNAP or food stamps, here's what she told CNN's Pamela Brown earlier today about how she feels about the partisan fighting on Capitol Hill. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NAJEE KINARD, SNAP RECIPIENT: We are really taking the actual hit of the effects of their choices. And if we don't receive relief soon, it can put people in desperate situations to make mistakes that they cannot come back from, and that's not okay.

[18:35:00]

So, you guys should both to come to whatever consensus that needs to be done in order to put the American people first.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

So what's your message to her?

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN): It's very clear the Republicans right now could make sure that those food benefits that I have fought so hard all year, they're the ones that cut them and I strongly opposed it. They could make sure that she got the help that she needed. We know it because we could read it on their website that they nicely took down, but we got a screenshot on September 30th when they sent out the USDA put out their plan for the shutdown. And they said multi-year contingency funds are available to fund participant benefits in the event that elapse occurs. And now they have taken that down.

They know they have the funding to do it. It is very sad that the president has decided to turn his focus to raising money for a ballroom that's going to cost $300 million or more instead of coming to the table and negotiating as every shutdown has ended with compromise, with a negotiation.

But you asked before we got to this segment, if there's going to be a negotiation. Well, not unless he is serious about it and comes to the table, because the House isn't even here because they're afraid of voting on the Epstein files. He has to demand the House comes back, and he has to come to the negotiating table. But even before that, they could give those benefits to this recipient.

TAPPER: The last government shutdown was because Republicans wanted money for the wall, and Democrats in the majority said no. The one before that was because Republicans wanted to end Obamacare, and Democrats in the majority said no. This one is Democrats saying, we want healthcare changes, especially these Obamacare subsidies extended, and Republicans are saying no. I'm not sure what compromises were made in those previous government shutdown compromises to end the shutdown. My recollection is that the minority party, then Republicans, in your case, Democrats, finally just folded.

Obviously, you're fighting for --

KLOBUCHAR: With all due respect, I was in the negotiations for the second longest one, the Ted Cruz shutdown, and that was major negotiations that went on between the leadership in the Senate. I was in some of those rooms and then between a group of senators. That went on and there was an agreement made on a number of fronts. That is not happening right now. They are not serious about it.

And, by the way, when you look at these healthcare premiums, it is premiums that are going to double for millions of Americans. And they've already started to get their notices. They know what's happening. The November 1st is the day. That is the day when the marketplace opens. And a lot of my constituents are saying, we can't even afford to continue our healthcare. With breast cancer month here, they don't have -- if they don't have the insurance and they're not on a plan, they don't even get their screenings. This is the kind of thing we're talking about.

So, I don't see this as a demand for Democrats. I see this as a demand for the American people, especially given that 75 percent of the people on the Affordable Care Act live in states that Donald Trump won. My Republican colleagues are well aware that we should have negotiations, and that many of them care a lot about an extension on these tax credits which helps their constituents even more than it helps people in blue states.

So, what I'm saying is I think there is a possibility, but Donald Trump has to get serious about it and not use food as a bargaining chip, not use hungry children as a bargaining chip.

TAPPER: I have other questions, but I'm told you have to go vote. Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, thank you so much for your time.

KLOBUCHAR: It's great to be on Jake. Thank you. TAPPER: Heavy hitters turn out in the final days of the New York City Mayor's race, the messages from Senator Bernie Sanders and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as they rally for Zohran Mamdani to lead New York, New York, the city so nice, they named it twice.

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[18:40:00]

TAPPER: In our Politics Lead, we are eight days out from the critical gubernatorial race in New Jersey, and as CNN's Arlette Saenz explains, it may all come down to the Latino vote.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Two very different candidates for governor in New Jersey with a similar mission.

Democrat Mikie Sherrill's insistence New Jersey is a blue state put to the test in a race against Republican Jack Ciattarelli, one year after the state moved dramatically towards President Donald Trump. That shift fueled in large part by Latino voters, a group both parties are targeting in the final stretch.

REP. MIKIE SHERRILL (D-NJ): We need everybody here in Passaic County to get out the vote.

SAENZ: No New Jersey county saw a bigger swing towards Trump than Passaic, home to the state's largest share of Latino residents. In 2020, Joe Biden beat Trump there by 16 points. Four years later, Trump flipped the county defeating Kamala Harris there by nearly three points here.

JACK CIATTARELLI (R), NEW JERSEY GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: I want you to continue to grow. I want you to continue to prosper in his third run for governor. Ciattarelli looking to build on that progress.

CIATTARELLI: There's 2 million Hispanic Americans that call New Jersey home. We've worked every minority community hard all across the state.

SAENZ: Trump's gains in New Jersey mirror his improvement with Latinos nationwide in 2024.

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: Latinos support Trump. I love you.

SAENZ: A trend Democrats want to reverse.

Why do you think Latino voters gravitated towards him? People are very sensitive here.

He committed to driving those down and in fact has done the opposite.

In this year's governor's race, both candidates putting economic concerns at the center of their pitches.

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[18:45:11]

SAENZ (voice-over): On the first day of early voting, Democrat Jennifer Suarez said she's concerned about the treatment of immigrants in the U.S. and expressed frustration with the Latino shift towards Trump.

JENNIFER SUAREZ, NEW JERSEY VOTER: This is my personal opinion. It's like the folks that are climbing the ladder and cut it down below them. And I'm not about that life. My family's not about that life because, again, we want, you know, you want a better world for -- for the future.

SAENZ (voice-over): Ciattarelli is banking on voters like Leonardo Pomales.

LEONARDO POMALES, NEW JERSEY GOVERNOR: This is my first time actually voting for a governor.

SAENZ (voice-over): Families voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 before switching to Trump.

POMALES: The Democratic Party has always said they're going to do something. They don't. They only want our votes. And then they don't. They don't do nothing. He's not perfect. But hey, that's what we want. We want -- we want to feel safe in our own country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SAENZ: Now, the Trump administration has said that they will be keeping an eye on this Passaic County. The Justice Department will send a federal election monitors to polling sites there on election day, after a request from the state Republican Party, which has alleged that there was vote by mail fraud in the past.

Now, the Democratic state attorney general who leads the state's voter protection initiative. He has said that that move is highly inappropriate and says they're looking at all steps to try to prevent any voter intimidation from occurring.

TAPPER: Fascinating stuff. Stick around, Arlette.

My panel joins me now.

And, Jonah Goldberg, you heard Arlette report on Trump's gains with Latinos nationwide in 2024. Do you see this environment and Democrats like Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey or Abigail Spanberger in Virginia, able to chip away at some of the leads that Donald Trump made?

JONAH GOLDBERG, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, part of the problem is connecting the governor's mansion with federal policy, which takes some political skill to do. It's also worth pointing out, though, that while it's absolutely true, Trump gained impressively with Hispanics, his support among Hispanics right now has plummeted. And it kind of matters where those Hispanics are, though, and what

ethnicity. The way we talk about Hispanics like this monolithic bloc --

TAPPER: Right.

GOLDBERG: -- is one of the dumbest things in American life, right? I mean, it's like talking about Europeans, like Russians and Swedes or something or Russians and Ukrainians.

TAPPER: Right. Cubans and Mexicans are quite different.

GOLDBERG: Right. And so there are a lot of Puerto Ricans in that -- in New Jersey that maybe aren't as affected necessarily as a lot of Mexican Americans. But his support among Hispanics generally has really, really plummeted and it would take a real bit of malpractice by Democrats not to figure out how to exploit that.

TAPPER: Don't -- don't put it past them. They can always figure out a way to commit malpractice.

New York City mayoral hopeful Zohran Mamdani held a rally last night with Senator Bernie Sanders and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio- Cortez. When it came to messaging, they were in lockstep. Take a listen, Dave Weigel.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT): New York must have a mayor who represents the working families of this city, not the billionaire class.

ZOHRAN MAMDANI (D), NYC MAYORAL CANDIDATE: While Donald Trump's billionaire donors think that they have the money to buy this election, we have a movement of the masses.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Can that populism work for Democrats elsewhere?

DAVID WEIGEL, POLITICS REPORTER, SEMAFOR: Well, I'm glad you said elsewhere. It has worked in New York. Bill de Blasio won two landslide elections with that message.

Can it work elsewhere? I have a story in. Semafor today about centrist Democrats looking at what has worked and not worked for the party the last 12 years. Answer, basically, what has not worked is identity politics. Maybe using Duolingo and talking to Hispanic voters about immigration. What has worked is an economic focus. And they say Zohran has some of that.

Do they think every message Zohran has is effective? No. Do they think bringing every single thing back to cost and being an outsider who is not responsible for inflation, like Biden could be, that works. That will work everywhere.

You're seeing that -- I think if Democrats have a good week next week, they will point to Mikie Sherrill talking about electricity costs. Abigail Spanberger talking about tariffs and how they're raising prices in Virginia and every other issue that blew them off message, they will push that out of the way and say, no, we won because we talked about costs and that overwhelms every cultural issue that you can think of.

GOLDBERG: But you actually have to have competence, right? And so, de Blasio didn't have a lot of that.

And so, the message is -- message -- the populist messaging works. But then you have to have some sort of follow through. The Democratic Party is the party of big city urban liberalism. And if it can't actually run big cities well, what is it here for? And that's I think, the real problem for Democrats is Mamdani's got a lot of interesting ideas. I don't think free busses is going to change the underlying problems that they don't. They're not very good at running big cities anymore.

TAPPER: Who would you vote for if you live in New York?

GOLDBERG: I have no idea. Out of nostalgia, probably Sliwa.

(LAUGHTER)

TAPPER: Arlette, Mamdani told CNN yesterday he would take the Trump administration to court if he was mayor, but also that he would speak to Trump if it was an issue that would benefit New Yorkers. What kind of relationship do you think Mamdani, who is clearly the frontrunner, and the White House will have?

SAENZ: Well, maybe I'll be wrong, but I don't think that there's going to be any type of kumbaya moment in the Oval Office. This is a question that Democrats are grappling with across the country when you think about Gavin Newsom and J.B. Pritzker and their pushback against Trump.

[18:50:05]

But then you look at someone like Gretchen Whitmer, who has found ways to work with the Trump administration. I anticipate that Mamdani will follow more in the pathway of Newsom and Pritzker. He's already said that he's willing to challenge them, borrow from some of the Democratic playbook that we've seen across the country, challenge them in court. But then I think what's very unique about New York City is that Donald Trump has a very personal interest in New York City as well.

So I anticipate that he's going to have a lot of opinions about the way that that city is being run and potentially look for fights.

TAPPER: I think they'll talk -- I think Republicans are going to talk about Mamdani quite a bit.

Dave, on that piece that you just talked about, this group, this new Democratic group called welcome that asserts that the identity politics has wrecked the Democrats brand. You report, quote, most voters -- this is according to the -- to the study. This is not your assertion, nor is it mine. Most voters believe the party over prioritizes issues like protecting the rights of LGBTQ+ Americans and fighting climate change while not caring about securing the border or lowering the rate of crime.

Do you think Democrat lawmakers, Democratic lawmakers, are willing to listen to this kind of feedback? And as you note, Bernie Sanders used to be much more in terms -- he used to speak, you know, we have a right to have a border. We should -- he was much more anti-illegal immigration than he was before -- than he came to be as a candidate.

WEIGEL: He was. But there was this interregnum in 2019, 2020 and the Bernie immigration plan 2019 is decriminalize border crossings. Remember, everyone raised their hand. That was something he was going to raise his hand for, changing ICE, dismantling ICE, and breaking up the functions. And Democrats don't talk like that anymore.

So yes, Democrats are willing to hear this sort of language in this report, this advice. Important, the report does not say there's some group that we can blame for this. Theres some interest group that got in the room. The ACLU did this to us.

The argument is Obama didn't talk like this. Barack -- people did not look at Barack Obama in 2012 and say, this guy is not going to put criminals in jail. They listen -- they -- his brand was very different and his policies were different. And that's the point.

The point is not just we need candidates with better vibes. We need candidates with better vertical videos. It is the party made a bunch of mistakes. We should own those mistakes. That involves maybe throwing Joe Biden under the train and saying, were not going to be like that anymore. And Bernie 2016, what you were just talking about those ideas.

They think they can resurrect if they are willing to admit the party went too far to the left on cultural issues and immigration and crime.

TAPPER: What do you think? Can they do it?

GOLDBERG: I think it's going to be really hard with the existing Democratic leadership. You know, like I spent four years of Joe Biden's presidency screaming, here's another Sister Souljah moment. Here's another Sister Souljah moment.

And there's something internal to the bubble that a lot of the influencers and the Democratic Party are against doing it. And its fairness ain't got nothing to do with it. It would be in their best interest to signal who they're willing to pick fights with. And they don't want to pick fights with the left.

TAPPER: Thanks to one and all. Appreciate it.

The World Series returns to the U.S. tonight, all tied up at one game apiece. We're going to go live to Dodger Stadium ahead of a rather important game three. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:57:14]

TAPPER: And our sports lead. Batter up. It's game three of the World Series tonight. The Los Angeles Dodgers and the Toronto Blue Jays are all tied up with one game apiece. Friday, the Blue Jays trounced the Dodgers, winning 11-4. But then the Dodgers roared back in game two on Saturday, defeating the Jays 5-1.

CNN's Andy Scholes is in Los Angeles for game three, and the first matchup in Dodger Stadium.

Andy, how are -- how are fans feeling there?

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS ANCHRO: Oh, Jake, they're excited and confident and hard not to be when you have the highest payroll in baseball and the pitching staff that the Dodgers do. Their Japanese ace Yamamoto with a complete game masterpiece in game two to even this series at a game apiece.

Tonight, the Dodgers have Tyler Glasnow on the mound. He's been fabulous in the postseason, giving up only one run in 13 innings. He'll be going up against 41-year-old Max Scherzer. And you know, Scherzer, one of the best pitchers of his generation. He's a Hall of Famer.

He struggled in September but then had that vintage performance in game four of the ALCS against the Mariners to really help the Blue Jays get to this point. Scherzer is going to be the first player ever to pitch in four different World Series on four different teams, and he says he just lives for these moments.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAX SCHERZER, TORONTO BLUE JAYS PITCHER, GAME 3 STARTER: This is what you play for, to be able to get to this spot, to get to this moment, to have a. Shot at it. You just think about all throughout your whole life, all the different things that have unfolded and so fortunate to have another crack at this. I mean, there's so many great players, have never gotten a World Series. So many great players wear this, you know, they only have one world series.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: Yeah. Now, Scherzer going to be going against that vaunted Dodgers lineup that starts with three former MVP, Shohei Ohtani and Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman. Those three guys, though, are really yet to get going in this series. Just four for 21 with two RBIs. It's going to be hard to keep them down for long.

But the Dodgers, they're trying to win back to back titles. They'd be the first team to do that since the Yankees won three in a row back in 2000. And I asked the team, you know, what would it mean to make that kind of history?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) FREDDIE FREEMAN, DODGERS FIRST BASEMAN: It'd be pretty amazing. And obviously, doc started in spring training about how cool that would be to be able to do something like that. But when you put on the uniform, you know how hard it is.

MOOKIE BETTS, DODGERS SHORTSTOP: Not everyone can say that they got to play on a team that was expected to win, you know? And so really just understanding, loving those expectations, embracing those expectations has gotten us this far.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: Now last time we saw Shohei Ohtani on this field, he had what people were saying was the greatest game in baseball history. Three home runs, ten strikeouts on the mound, only hitting tonight. He will be the starter for game four tomorrow, Jake. But, Jake, tonight we've got the sports equinox. Weve got all four major sports leagues. MLS even has two playoff games going. It's only the 32nd time its ever happened, so you're definitely going to need that multi-view going. If you're watching sports tonight.

TAPPER: All right. Andy Scholes at Dodger Stadium, thanks so much.

You can follow me on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, the Bluesky and on the TikTok @jaketapper. You can follow the show on X and Instagram @TheLeadCNN. If you ever miss an episode of the lead, you can listen to the show whence you get your podcast.

"ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT" starts right now. See you tomorrow.