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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Trump Gets Revenge on Indiana Republicans Who Defied Him; Three Suspected Hantavirus Patients Evacuated from Cruise Ship; Memes, A.I.- Generated Content on the Frontlines of the U.S. War With Iran. Court Orders Release of Epstein Alleged Suicide Note; How A.I. Is Helping Revolutionize Early Cancer Detection. Aired 6-7p ET

Aired May 06, 2026 - 18:00   ET

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

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

This hour, the latest election results proving that President Trump still wields significant power over the Republican Party. The majority of Indiana Republicans who bucked Trump's demands ousted by his handpicked candidates last night. But will the president's tight grip on the GOP help or hinder come November?

Plus, three people evacuated today from the Hantavirus-stricken cruise ship as politicians fight over what to do with the rest of the passengers stuck at sea. Will they be able to get off the boat in the coming days, or will health officials demand more testing as they try to trace a potential outbreak?

Also, some Democrats on the House Oversight Committee now calling for Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to resign after he testified today about his interactions with now dead pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. One of the members of Congress who questioned Lutnick today joins me live ahead to share what he learned.

And it's the latest installment of our series A.I., Friend or Foe, with a medical exclusive right here on The Lead. Today, we're going to be joined by two doctors who say A.I. is helping them revolutionize treatment for cancer patients and even help detect cancer years before a clinical diagnosis.

[18:00:03]

We're going to tell you how that works ahead.

The Lead tonight, President Trump gets his revenge in Indiana, signaling a potential roadmap for Republicans in the upcoming midterm elections. The president and his political operation successfully unseating at least five of the seven Indiana state senators who voted against Trump's redistricting agenda. One of those races has yet to be called. Trump's defiant wins in the Hoosier State demonstrating among Republican voters that this is still Trump's party, despite dismal approval ratings and a highly unpopular war with Iran among the general public.

But Trump's influence will be tested again in several other crucial primaries, including later this month, when his challengers go up against Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy and Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massey in Republican primaries.

Let's discuss all of this with top Trump political adviser James Blair. James, thanks so much for being here. So, on the Indiana results, you said, nobody should be surprised by any of this. Sometimes you can vote your feelings, but sometimes you need to vote with the party. Are you confident that Trump and the Republicans will see the same results in the midterms given the fact that even if he's super popular with his party, he's struggling with independents?

JAMES BLAIR, SENIOR TRUMP ADVISER: Well, the midterms are going to be a story of race-by-race differences, right? There's -- you just had two guys on your show. One of them is a frontline Republican, Mike Lawler, who routinely speaks out when he disagrees with the party on something, and that's really the story of the midterms in a nutshell. I mean, these are won race-by-race in the House or the Senate.

So, the president is very strong with Republicans as you said, and that's a base for which all Republicans can jump off of to get turnout and build sort of the base of what they need to win. And then it's about those candidates winning individually in the middle based on the demographics or issues in their individual races.

TAPPER: Let's talk about Indiana for a second. Spencer Deery was one of the Indiana state senators who defied Trump on the redistricting. He's locked in a tight race against his Trump-backed challenger. Right now, that race is too close to call. You see it there, three votes separate them. They're both at 50 percent.

Deery spoke with CNN's Erin Burnett last night about Trump's influence in the Indiana Republican primary. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STATE SEN. SPENCER DEERY (R-IN): I know that Trump doesn't really have any idea who I am or any idea who my opponent is. This is all just designed to try to show that Washington, D.C., can control Indiana.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: What's your take?

BLAIR: Well, I heard that, you know, he really said that he doesn't regret anything. I couldn't quite hear the clip there, but I --

TAPPER: Oh, I'm sorry. He says, I know that Trump doesn't really have any idea who I am or any idea who my opponent is. This is all just designed to try to show that Washington, D.C., can control Indiana.

BLAIR: Well, I saw a piece of it earlier. I hadn't seen that. And, yes, I mean, I totally disagree. Obviously, the voters are with the president and what the president tried to achieve there, that's very clear. We do know who he is. In fact, we tried to talk to him all throughout the process. And, look, you know, he obviously made a decision, and that may or may not cost him his election. We'll know that soon. It certainly got it close. And it's not about controlling Indiana or anything else. First of all, Indiana's a great ally of the president. It's a state that voted for the president in very large margins. And as we said then, you know, we're not asking for very much, really just one thing there in the state legislature, not many things. But, unfortunately, for them, it's the one thing that mattered.

And the president was very public. He said, look I'm going to run primaries about this, and I think we're going to win, and he was, of course, right about that.

TAPPER: There's at least two other crucial Republican primaries where Trump's influence are going to be tested. Trump has backed challengers against Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy who voted to impeach him and Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massey. What message will it send if Republican voters in either of these races don't follow Trump's lead? And also, secondarily, both of these guys are reliable Republican votes, I mean, vote with the party more than 90 percent of the time.

BLAIR: Yes, well, Thomas Massey's not a reliable Republican vote. He's never there for us when we need him at all. So, we can start there. That's the next one coming up in a couple of weeks. I mean, he's there to vote with us when we don't need his vote, and whenever we do, he's nowhere to be found.

The Republican voters in his district are going to punish him for that. In fact, if you go look at Thomas Massey's ads right now, he's running ads all about how much he loves President Trump and how he's trying to get the Trump agenda done, even though he voted against all of the most consequential votes of the Trump agenda this term. I think the Republican primary voters are going to punish him for that.

Obviously, Senator Cassidy's in a different situation. I think there is a vote and some other history there that's playing into that. And to be frank, I don't think he'll make it through his primary either.

TAPPER: What did Massey do that bothers you so much? I mean, he was one of the big -- one of the guys pushing for the release of the Epstein files, but President Trump signed that into law.

BLAIR: Yes, we don't have a problem with that. The president had nothing to hide, which has obviously been proven by everything that came out, and --

TAPPER: So, what's the issue with Massey?

BLAIR: Every time we've asked him to be there on tax cuts, on securing the border, on giving us the funding we need to get out from the -- what we saw coming, that the Democrats were going to shut down border enforcement in that country, Massey was nowhere to be found on those votes. In any -- again, any vote we need, he's not there for. Otherwise, he's there.

TAPPER: So, despite what happened in Indiana in state legislative special elections since Trump returned to office, Democrats have outperformed Kamala Harris' 2024 margin by about 13 points on average.

[18:05:05]

There is momentum with the Democratic Party right now. That's not so uncommon for the party out of power in the midterms, but still it's there. There's frustration even among some Republicans, even among some of the president's supporters when it comes to the Iran war, gas prices, and the like. How do you fight that in the midterms? How do you stave off those headwinds?

BLAIR: Well, I would say that you're not looking at a dynamic that's atypical of when one party has the trifecta in Washington, right? You see the opposition engage very heavily, particularly in off-year elections and midterms, and the party in power, voters don't engage so much because, frankly, they're happy, and anger is perhaps more of a motivator than happiness when it comes to electoral politics in America.

But what you do is, again, you create a contrast race-by-race and you ask the voters who do they trust more on the issues that they care about. And poll after poll after poll still shows that, generically, the voters trust Republicans in Congress more than Democrats on the vast majority of the issues that they're voting for.

TAPPER: But Democrats win on the generic ballot right now. I mean --

BLAIR: Yes, that's true. And, again, that's not atypical. And, in fact, if you look at times in 2024, that was true as well. They're winning by on the generic ballot by less now than today than they were at the same point in 2018. This is a substantially different map than 2018.

So, we've got a lot of wind at our back. There's other things that don't factor into that, like voter registration. Everywhere in the country is trending to the right since 2024. And the number one way to tell people how people are going to vote is what party they're registering with. We're expanding our pool of voters at a faster clip than they are in every state. It's not just one state.

So, when you take all of this into account and then you realize that these elections are going to be candidate-by-candidate, issue set-by- issue set, against the backdrop, Jake, of a very unpopular Democrat Party, which really has no agenda and a terrible record to run on. They tried to raise taxes by $4 trillion last summer. Every single one of them voted against every tax cut. Right now, every single one has taken the position that we should have zero border enforcement in this country. We should have --

TAPPER: I don't know --

BLAIR: -- zero customs --

TAPPER: I don't know.

BLAIR: That's what they're doing with their votes, right? They've defunded -- TAPPER: You say because they defunded the DHS.

BLAIR: Yes, absolutely. That's true.

TAPPER: But hasn't that been restored, that funding, the DHS funding?

BLAIR: Because of us. No, DHS funding outside of Customs and Border Patrol and ICE, they are still zero funding those two things, which is why we're running a reconciliation bill.

TAPPER: Well, you had funding for it in the big, beautiful bill. Anyway, we're not going to --

BLAIR: They're on the record and we're going to make those votes clear to the voters.

TAPPER: All right. James Blair, thanks so much for being here.

We appreciate it. Let's bring in Indiana State Senator Greg Walker. He's one of the Republicans who voted against Trump's redistricting agenda. He's projected to lose his re-election to Trump-backed challenger Michelle Davis by about 17 points.

So, Senator, Trump's top adviser, you just heard him defend their actions in Indiana. It ended with you losing your seat. What's your reaction to all of this?

STATE SEN. GREG WALKER (R-IN): My reaction has always been consistent. As a leader in our state, I believe that my constituents wanted the D.C. politics to stay out of Indiana. The Senate Republican majority, that is the Republican Party, did vote to block midterm redistricting. And at the time, I was getting calls from all parties, Republicans definitely a major part of that saying, this is not what we want as a state, this isn't fair, this isn't right. The bill itself was unconstitutional.

And so having defeated midterm redistricting, I'm very happy with my vote, and I'm happy with the race that I ran. But there was a lot of propaganda. There was a lot of dark money. There were -- millions of dollars was spent, unknown amount of money, but millions, possibly $9 million spent against incumbents that did not support midterm redistricting.

And, clearly, Washington wants to send a message that states are not sovereign --

TAPPER: So, you don't regret it at all?

WALKER: -- that they should be punished.

TAPPER: You don't regret it at all?

WALKER: Oh, completely. I stand proudly on my vote. And I'm not even dissatisfied with the outcome. I'm disappointed with the level of propaganda and untruths that were said about me, but I don't have any control over that. I ran a good race and -- TAPPER: What untruths were said about you?

WALKER: Pardon me?

TAPPER: What untruths, what propaganda and untruths were said about you in your race?

WALKER: Oh, from the thing that I wanted men's and women's dressing rooms, which I expressly voted against, I've got a record on that, to I was soft on China, where my record was better than the incumbent that ran against me with Trump's support, to I wanted to give driver's licenses to illegal aliens, which is just preposterous. I was working on getting a driver's test and insurance in order to drive without a license, require those regardless of whether you're licensed or not, in order to protect who's your drivers. I mean, just the things like that were just completely preposterous.

TAPPER: What are you most proud of from your legislative career? Is this moment? Is voting against redistricting at the risk of your seat?

[18:10:02]

Is that what you're proudest of?

WALKER: I had already decided not to run again because of the loss of my wife and the grief I was in. I jumped back into the race because, as a citizen of Indiana, not a legislator, I thought it's important to stand up against the outside control and the -- we had people being promised special positions in Washington if they went along with the redistricting effort. We had all kinds of untoward, illegal, and unscrupulous attempts to influence in the elections.

And we have laws against us in the countries which are not being enforced. I stood with the citizens who just want the right to be able to vote.

TAPPER: What are you going to do next?

WALKER: I am going to continue to serve my community and serve my Lord, and I have ideas. I had already started some new approaches to how to make a living, and I continue to pick those back up to where I left them off last fall when I just got encouraged to jump back in and do what I could to save Indiana from federal influence on elections. It's a completely wrong direction for Indiana, and I completely believe that still.

TAPPER: Indiana State Senator Greg Walker, thanks for joining us, and I'm so sorry for the loss of your wife.

WALKER: I appreciate it. Thank you.

TAPPER: Up next, the latest in the cruise ship stricken with Hantavirus. Tonight, health officials are racing to contact 88 people who were on a flight with one of the victims before she died, as they try to fully grasp the extent of the outbreak.

Stick with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:15:00]

TAPPER: In our Health Lead, three people were evacuated from that Hantavirus-stricken cruise ship off the coast of West Africa. The plan to dock the ship at the Canary Islands is facing some pushback now from the island's regional government, despite Spain's health minister insisting that the ship will land there.

CNN's Melissa Bell has the latest on what is next for all of these stranded individuals.

MELISSA BELL, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Jake, the situation tonight is that the ship has now left Cape Verde off the coast of West Africa to head towards the Spanish Canary Islands. So far, three people, of course, have tragically died as a result of what's now been identified as the Andes strain of the Hantavirus, a strain that the World Health Organization is insisting is not as contagious as the flu or as COVID. This is not, they say, the next pandemic. Still, it needs to be treated very carefully.

We understand also that three people were successfully disembarked in Cape Verde and then flown onwards to Amsterdam, two who were confirmed to have the virus and a third suspected of having it. So far, five people in all, beyond those who've passed, have been confirmed as carrying the virus.

Strenuous efforts also underway to try and establish contact tracing for anyone who might have been on or near the flight that went from a Southern Atlantic island towards Johannesburg and that carried one of those who sadly died. It was not known at the time that anyone on the plane was unwell, but still that contact tracing essential to figuring out that the virus does not spread any further.

This is, says the World Health Organization, something that is now being very carefully taken care of, and that ship very closely monitored. We understand also there is some wrangling between the president of the Canary Islands about the disembarkation in Tenerife that's expected in the next two to three days, and authorities in Madrid. The president of the Canary Islands insisting that he needs to be absolutely certain that this will happen in the best possible conditions.

What we understand as well is that this is a strain endemic to Argentina, and it is believed by Argentine authorities that the initial couple who contracted it may have done so from bird watching before they embarked, and then spreading it to others on the ship. Jake?

TAPPER: All right. Melissa Bell, thank you so much for that update.

There's a new front on the war in Iran. It's the internet How Iran is using memes and A.I.-generated content in the propaganda wars to troll the Trump administration, and how the U.S. is responding in turn. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:20:00]

TAPPER: In our World Lead, is the United States losing the propaganda war to Iran? Let's start with the most recent big exchange. This meme from the White House two days ago shows President Donald Trump holding Uno cards, and the text states, I have all the cards. Now, unfortunately, if you've ever played Uno, the objective is to have no cards. Having all the cards is a losing hand. So, the Iranian Consulate General in India replied on X with a meme saying, yes, we have less cards, and his cards are draw four, which is how you win Uno, forcing the other person to have all the cards.

Since the start of the war, official Iranian government and embassy accounts, plus some regime and propaganda groups-based in Iran have been dropping a whole bunch of English language memes and A.I.- generate-generated videos all over the place. Trump allies might be concerned. Some of these posts are racking up millions of views, and they borrow from American culture and mock Trump.

There's these viral videos from a group called Explosive Media that show A.I.-generated animation in the style of the Lego movies, with world leaders caricatured as yellow bobbleheads, missiles as plastic bricks. The Iranian Embassy in South Africa posted a 1980s-style A.I. video of President Trump singing about a blockade in the strait. Here's a post from the same embassy with the caption, the way the United States closed the Strait of Hormuz, and it shows a guy accidentally welding his own head inside a railing.

Here's another from the same embassy showing Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth as the miserable pirates of the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz. The Iranian Embassy in Thailand posted this Trump campaign poster saying, Trump twenty twenty-eight per gallon, $28.28 per gallon, mocking high gas prices.

Let's bring in Peter Pomerantsev. He's a senior fellow at the Johns Hopkins Agora Institute researching propaganda, disinformation, the impact of information warfares on politics.

Peter, I hate to say it because the regime clearly are the bad guys, but they're not bad at this.

PETER POMERANTSEV, SENIOR FELLOW, JOHNS HOPKINS AGORA INSTITUTE: No they've really been very, very cunning and very successful. I mean, we saw the Lego videos where, you know, the Iranians are using Lego videos to kind of do two things. They're cleansing their own image, because no longer are they the mad mullahs of our narratives. They're now these cute Lego characters.

TAPPER: Right.

POMERANTSEV: While at the same time making Trump look small. So, in one little move, you've changed how people perceive you, you've detoxified yourself, and at the same time you've humiliated Trump. That's pretty canny.

TAPPER: So, I do wonder, I mean, I know it's probably impossible to gauge like how effective one video is because, you know, we're not creatures -- we're not brains in a vat, right? I mean, like, you know, we're experiencing everything all at once, but this seems like pretty effective compared to other stuff I've seen from other enemies of the United States, whether Hamas or the Russians or the Chinese.

[18:25:10]

What do you make of it? First of all, who's making these videos? Are they just people in Iran?

POMERANTSEV: Yes, there appears to be, from the reporting that we know a unit within the Iranian forces, not actually that big, but clearly with an incredible understanding of American narrative sensibilities and culture, and they're weaponizing American culture against itself, which is, you know, the really clever thing to do in propaganda. You're using kind of the force of your enemy against them.

It is hard to measure effect. I mean, in terms of views, we're talking actually hundreds of millions of views for some of these videos. It's spectacular. Are they making -- and they're clearly aimed at making the war less popular in America.

The war was pretty unpopular already so it's hard to measure change. A lot of them are also -- look, they're fluffy. I put that in inverted commas. They're deeply anti-Semitic. You know, a lot of them are very much aimed at the idea of a kind of Jewish conspiracy running America. We can see the figures around support for Israel, the rising anti- Semitism in America.

Are they helping that? Are they surfing the wave of that? That's very hard to tell, but they're definitely like within a context that is increasing.

TAPPER: In terms of the information wars, I mean, what we saw out of Gaza during, you know, the really intense war of Israel versus Hamas, a lot of that wasn't like this. A lot of it was just victims of war. This is a very different approach.

POMERANTSEV: That was very, very effective as well and that sort of like, you know, the videos of, you know, that horrendous suffering was very powerful.

TAPPER: Yes.

POMERANTSEV: My sense, these videos, however, might get to a different audience, because that audience affected people who were open to that kind of sympathy. My sense, these videos are going for MAGA supporters. They're going for the kind of the supporters who might go with Trump a lot of the time because they're not playing that card. They're not playing the sympathy card. They're playing issues around, you know --

TAPPER: Well, they're saying Trump is corrupt. He's controlled by the Israelis.

POMERANTSEV: Well, they talk about two things, Israel and Epstein, Epstein and Israel. That is a huge dividing line within the MAGA coalition.

So, these ads seem to be really going for that. They're not going for Columbia students. They seem to be going for the heart of the MAGA coalition. Whether it's successful, we would need to research.

TAPPER: Very interesting. Peter Pomerantsev, thank you so much, fascinating stuff.

Studies about vaccine withheld, a college targeted for admitting transgender women, federal workplace discrimination investigation at The New York Times, the latest culture war issues being waged by the Trump administration, we're going to talk about that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:30:00]

TAPPER: In our Politics Lead, some would say it's been a productive few months for President Trump's administration. Of course, that depends on your priorities. Let's take a look at some of the headlines this week.

The New York Times reports that officials at the FDA recently blocked the publication of several studies that support the safety of widely used vaccines that protect against COVID and shingles. On Tuesday, the Trump administration's Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, or EEOC, filed a lawsuit against The New York Times on behalf of a white male employee who claims he was denied a promotion because of his race and gender. And Trump's Department of Education is investigating Smith College, an all-women's college in Massachusetts, because they admitted transgender women as a potential violation of Title IX, the civil rights law that bans sex-based discrimination in schools that receive federal funding.

This is President Trump's government, make no mistake. He ran on all of these culture war issues, and now we're seeing it in practice. Let's dive into all this with my panel. Former Indiana Republican Congressman David McIntosh and Democratic Strategist Maria Cardona is here.

Now, Congressman, one could say this is not an example of traditional conservatism in terms of limited government. I mean, this is, at least in terms of the EEOC and in terms of the DOE actions, this is big government in some ways, or at least a government that's activist.

FMR. REP. DAVID MCINTOSH (R-IN): I think what you're seeing in these actions by the administration is saying, we're going to apply the laws. And if the law says you can't make discriminatory decisions based on gender but you get an exception when you're a women's college, and Smith's is a great college, then you have to follow the exception. And if they want to be a women's college, great, but if they want to be a women's plus others, then they don't have the exception. They can't discriminate. They have to let everybody in.

TAPPER: Maria?

MARIA CARDONA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think that this is an example as to why Donald Trump is so unpopular now. You mentioned that, yes, he talked about these culture wars during the 2024 election, but what did he run on the most, Jake? He ran on making things -- lowering the cost, making things more affordable for voters. He talked about lowering the cost of groceries, gas, and rent. He talked about lowering inflation. He attacked Joe Biden about it every single day.

And now what do you see? American families have higher costs, higher inflation. They can't make ends meet. They see an administration that is focused on these issues, which to them are frivolous, while they are spending billions of dollars a day on a war that no one wanted and no one needed, on a ballroom that is less popular or as unpopular as Donald Trump is. That's why you're seeing these unpopularity numbers are actually getting worse for the president every single day, and this is why.

TAPPER: You have a relationship with President Trump.

MCINTOSH: Oh, I do. I think the most important thing to know is that Americans got the highest tax refund ever because of President Trump and the bill, one big, beautiful bill, and that's all going to click in. He's also eliminating a lot of the regulations that have added all these costs in healthcare, in gas prices.

TAPPER: Yes.

MCINTOSH: And when that happens, Americans are going to see that come down.

TAPPER: When you talk to him, because you do talk to him, does he -- do you ever express concern that there is too much of a focus on things other than bringing down prices, bringing down taxes and regulations?

[18:35:05]

MCINTOSH: When we talk we talk about what can we do in the big, beautiful bill that will help Americans, his heart is with Middle America, working families, and he realizes that big government is often working against them, and that's what he's trying to root out in his administration.

CARDONA: But, David, if that was true, then in this big, beautiful bill, which is not beautiful for the millions of American families whose Medicaid coverage was taken away, those families don't look at that and say, wow, the president is working for me. They look at that and they see the massive costs of the tax cuts. For who? Billionaires and corporations. That is not who needs the help.

MCINTOSH: Average Americans were about to get hit with $4.5 trillion in tax increases that had been put into place -- TAPPER: With the expiration of the Trump tax cuts.

MCINTOSH: With the expiration of that. And we had to restore it.

But, you know, President Trump, on the Medicaid, he wants to stop sending the subsidies to the insurance companies, the big insurance companies, give it directly to the people so they can afford to buy their plan.

TAPPER: So, I want to turn it back to some of these issues, because on the vaccine studies, the current head of the CDC responded to the earlier reports by CNN and other outlets that the CDC was blocking research about the safety of the COVID vaccine. In an op-ed, he wrote, at a moment when public trust in institutions like the CDC is fragile, we cannot afford to lower our standards. He said it was more a question of methodology than the conclusion.

I have to say, Operation Warp Speed was one of President Trump's greatest achievements. Getting that vaccine out there saved millions of lives. And I've never seen a president run away so much from an achievement as this president, or at least his administration, run away from the COVID vaccine.

MCINTOSH: I think the big lesson we learned in COVID was that you can't cancel culture people who have opposing views. You got to get all the facts out there. And what they're saying is the conclusions of this report are political. The real facts don't support it. What we need is the real data, what works in science, what doesn't, and then have the experts debate it.

TAPPER: So, Maria, the --

MCINTOSH: Don't make political conclusions and say, as we did in COVID, we're not going to listen to the people who told us we were on the wrong track.

TAPPER: The Trump administration's lawsuit against The New York Times from the EEOC alleges discrimination against a white male employee came on the heels of a Times report about the EEOC, quote, field staff at the federal agency that enforces civil rights laws in the workplace say they are under intense pressure from leadership to bring in cases that fit the Trump administration's priorities, including charges of discrimination against white men and charges of anti-Semitism on college campuses.

Now, if that's true, this is Times reporting, not mine, that would be the kind of politicization of facts that the congressman was just talking about. Again, this is not my reporting.

CARDONA: Yes. And, you know, The New York Times is standing behind their decision, and they're saying that their decision was absolutely merit-based, that it was focused on giving the promotion to the person or the people who deserved it the most or who were the most qualified.

And, you know, this is an issue that clearly has been a focus of politics for this administration because we know they hate diversity, equity, and inclusion, and they have done everything since the moment that Donald Trump walked into office to make it clear to the American people that they're not going to focus on trying to make communities of color continue to have the level playing field that they have enjoyed thus far. And I think Americans understand that racism still exists in this country, and that those kinds of policies don't work.

TAPPER: I have to change the subject just because we have a Hoosier here, a former Republican congressman from right in the Muncie area, and obviously a big victory for the president last night of the seven state senators that he targeted, five lost their seats. We're still not sure about the other two. Are you surprised, and what do you think this says?

MCINTOSH: Yes. It was a big victory. What I really think it says is Republican voters want Republican leadership to support the president when he's fighting things in Washington. And this was about, would Indiana send two more congressmen to help keep the majority? And the voters in the Republican primary said, we don't want status quo. We don't want the old politicians. We want new, younger, vigorous people who will stand up and fight.

The real person who I hope pays attention to this is Senator Thune, that he's got to fight if he wants to make sure he keeps the majority in the Senate.

TAPPER: All right. Former Congressman David McIntosh of Indiana and Maria Cardona, thanks to both of you. I really appreciate having you.

CARDONA: Thanks, Jake.

TAPPER: President Trump's commerce secretary testified behind closed doors today. It's the House Oversight Committee's Epstein investigation. Did he reveal any new details? Why are Democrats accusing him of lying? We'll talk about that next.

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[18:45:00]

TAPPER: Breaking news for you now, a court has just ordered the release of Jeffrey Epstein's alleged suicide note. This is an alleged suicide note, not from his actual, quote/unquote, suicide, but from an attempted suicide from before the one where he died.

CNN's Katelyn Polantz is in the newsroom with details. Katelyn, tell us more.

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Jake, one of the most sought after documents that you could imagine in the situation around Jeffrey Epstein and a moment of transparency, this is an apparent reported suicide note. Now, there isn't a full authentication of this, and just this document has been unsealed by a judge in the case of the man who was in a cell with him in July of 2029.

This note, it apparently says, and I'll read it because it is very hard to read the handwriting there. And some of these translations that we're making from the words may not be exact given how difficult it is to read his handwriting. But, Jake, it says, they investigated me for month, found nothing, so 15 or 16-year-old charges resurrected. It is a treat to be able to choose one's time to say goodbye.

[18:45:00]

What you want me to do, burst out crying. No fun, not worth it.

So this is a note that reportedly was discovered by the cellmate of Jeffrey Epstein after his arrest in 2019, and it was discovered in July of 2019, a time when he had apparently made a suicide attempt in jail and survived it.

But then, several weeks later, killed himself. There have been so many investigations around Epstein, and the Justice Department has been looking to release so many documents. This one, though, was tied up in the case of his cellmate, and it now has been released at the petitioning of "The New York Times".

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: All right. Katelyn Polantz, thank you so much.

With us now to discuss, one of the Democratic members of the House Oversight Committee, which is investigating Epstein, Virginia representative, Congressman James Walkinshaw.

Congressman, your reaction to the breaking news?

REP. JAMES WALKINSHAW (D-VA): Well, look, I think it's going to raise new questions of the circumstances around Epstein's suicide. You know, one of the frustrating things is that in 2023, the I.G. did a report investigating those circumstances, determined they felt it was a suicide. This note wasn't even part of that investigation. So I think it's going to add to some of the theories that are out there that it wasn't really fully investigated.

TAPPER: How confident are you that Epstein committed suicide, that his death was by suicide?

WALKINSHAW: I think that is the most logical outcome, but I'm not 100 percent confident.

I mean, I think we have real questions that still need to be answered. We're going to have Tova Noel, one of the prison guards, before our committee next week, and we're going to have some tough questions about large cash deposits that she made in the weeks before his death.

And there's been reporting that Epstein was paying protection payments to folks in the prison. I think there's still a lot of questions that need to be answered.

TAPPER: So, speaking of tough questions, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was on Capitol Hill today to talk to the House Oversight Committee about his relationship with Epstein. Your fellow Democrat, Congressman Ro Khanna, called testimony, contortions and lies.

What do you think?

WALKINSHAW: Well, look, here's what we know. Secretary Lutnick went on a podcast and said that he visited Epstein's townhouse once with his wife, and he was so disgusted by Epstein.

TAPPER: He was like -- he said, in 2005, 2006.

WALKINSHAW: That's right, he pledged. I'm never going to be in a room with that guy again. When the files were released, we learned he was in a room with that guy with Epstein multiple times.

And when he was asked about that today, rather than fessing up to it and saying that he misspoke, or in my view, lied, he dissembled he tried to argue about the definition of the word I. He said he meant that he wouldn't be in a room himself, one on one with Epstein again. Apparently, he was okay being in a room with Epstein and Lutnick's wife and family.

TAPPER: And his wife -- his wife and family.

WALKINSHAW: That's right.

TAPPER: Yeah, yeah.

WALKINSHAW: That's right. Strange thing. He was so grossed out, he didn't want to be in a room one on one with --

TAPPER: His kids are fine.

WALKINSHAW: He would bring his kids.

TAPPER: Yeah, it's weird.

WALKINSHAW: Doesn't make any sense to me.

TAPPER: Yeah. Unlike other witnesses before the committee, testimony was not videotaped. Why not?

WALKINSHAW: I think it's part of the ongoing coverup, right? And I never say the cover up is worse than the crime here, because these Epstein crimes are horrific. But there's been a concerted effort by the administration and the Republican allies in Congress to keep the American people from seeing this. The American people deserve to see Secretary Lutnick struggle to answer these basic questions. They deserve to see the painfully odd, awkward and weird responses he gave.

TAPPER: And you guys asked him about his previous comments that Epstein had engaged in blackmailing and videotapes?

WALKINSHAW: That's right. We asked him what evidence he had for that. He said it was his, just his speculation at the time. He since changed his mind about that. Having heard from officials in the Trump administration who don't believe Epstein blackmailed anyone.

TAPPER: Your Democratic Virginia colleague, Congressman Suhas Subramanyam called for Lutnick to resign. Do you agree? WALKINSHAW: I do. Look, I think it's a breach of trust. And I know

this is an old-fashioned view. I don't think a cabinet secretary should just flat out lie to the American people in the way that he did. If he had come in today and shown some remorse for that, some contrition for it, I might feel differently.

But that's kind of the way of this administration. You know, lies are a currency in the Trump administration, and I don't think they should continue to get away with it.

TAPPER: All right. Democratic Congressman James Walkinshaw from the great commonwealth of Virginia, thanks for being here. Really appreciate it.

Our new series, "A.I., Friend or Foe?" is next. We're going to be joined live by two doctors who are using A.I. to revolutionize cancer treatment and detection.

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TAPPER: Now to our latest in our series, "A.I.: Friend or Foe?". Today, it's good news. We're looking at two incredible breakthroughs in early cancer detection made possible by artificial intelligence. In a study published just hours ago, researchers with the Mayo Clinic and Stanford Medicine have developed the first blood test to map the ecosystem surrounding cancer cells. This allows doctors to identify better treatments and avoid potential side effects.

And in another groundbreaking study, an A.I. model developed by the Mayo Clinic has shown it can detect pancreatic cancer on routine abdominal CT Scans up to three years before clinical diagnosis.

The physicians behind these incredible advances are with us now, Dr. Ajit Goenka, as well as Dr. Aadel Chaudhuri, who's joining us for his first television interview since the release of this remarkable A.I. powered advancement.

Adeel Chaudhuri, let me start with you.

You're behind this new study on blood tests identifying cancer neighborhoods. Explain what that is and how you're using A.I. to do this.

DR. AADEL CHAUDHURI, PROFESSOR OF RADIATION ONCOLOGY, MAYO CLINIC: You know, just like tumors, just like -- just like a plant uses soil to grow, tumor cells require normal cells that form nests around it, called the tumor microenvironment, in order to sustain the tumor and ultimately thrive and cause problems for the patient.

[18:55:01]

And for the first time ever, we can use A.I. to profile that tumor microenvironment, that soil that the tumor requires from a simple blood test. TAPPER: It's fascinating. And how did -- how does A.I. play a role in

that?

CHAUDHURI: So, we use neural networks and we developed this insight from spatial transcriptomics of the tumor. We deeply profiled the tumors to learn what really the parts list of the tumor microenvironment. And we learned which ones are associated with better survival, which are associated with worse survival. And we identified this specific spatial ecotypes of the tumor microenvironment have -- are profoundly associated with response to immunotherapy. And then using A.I., we were able to, to find that same parts list from blood using a neural network model.

TAPPER: Dr. Ajit Goenka, pancreatic cancer one of the worst cancers, one of the deadliest. How are you using A.I. to potentially identify pancreatic cancer up to three years before the traditional method? And what is this going to mean for people found to have those signs?

DR. AJIT GOENKA, NUCLEAR MEDICINE SPECIALIST AND RADIOLOGIST, MAYO CLINIC: Absolutely. You know, thank you for having us, Jake.

You know, as you can see on the screen here, what you have is a CT scan of somebody who went on to develop pancreatic cancer about 400 days after the CT scan. And as you can show the CT scan to any radiologist in the world, and nobody's going to say that the pancreas here is abnormal, leave alone talking about cancer.

But what you see on the right side is what the A.I. does is that it removes that mathematical information from the pixels that is well beyond the perception of the human eye. It quantifies that, and it develops that into a risk score. So, what you see here overlaid on that CT scan is that risk score. Using one of those biomarkers that was detected by A.I.

So that is what we are trying to do here is that we are trying to use A.I. to be able to detect cancer and to predict its onset at least a few months to years before the clinical diagnosis.

TAPPER: It's like it can read grains of sand that humans can't read. That's just incredible.

Dr. Chaudhuri, in your blood test study, all 17 tested cancer types shared these cancer neighborhoods.

How big are the potential benefits of this research? When can people watching right now expect to benefit from this?

CHAUDHURI: You know, our -- you know, we've taken the steps to do everything we can to take this technology from this, this game- changing nature paper and bring it to patients. And that requires a process. And we're walking through that process right now. And our hope is that we can get it, get it to patients at earliest, you know, as soon as possible.

TAPPER: Dr. Goenka, these two studies show the amazing benefits of A.I. obviously. Separately, we cover a lot of the downside of A.I., potential downside. But all the -- all the good stories, all the friend of the "Friend or Foe" stories that we've done so far have been in the medical world. Is there any potential downside to having A.I. more involved in our medical histories and treatments? Do you think?

GOENKA: Well, the short answer is definitely no. You know, the stethoscope augmented what doctors did. The microscope did the same for pathologists. So, every generation of medicine, you know, gets a new tool that makes physicians like us more capable. So, I think A.I. is the tool of our generation. And I think it's going to bring a revolutionary transformation to what we do today.

TAPPER: Dr. Chaudhuri, we've covered how A.I. is helping develop new treatments, how its advising doctors, making medical decisions, helping with these incredible breakthroughs. Where do you see A.I. being used next in medicine?

CHAUDHURI: Precision medicine. Right now, we have certain rubrics. We have guidelines that we follow and we bucket, you know, entire groups of patients into one bucket, and we treat them the same way. We need to go do things in a more personalized, more precise manner. And that's where A.I. is going to help us

TAPPER: And, Dr. Chaudhuri, how do you see it? Where's the A.I. in medicine going next?

CHAUDHURI: So -- I, you know, with these blood based tests, you now have a very accessible analyte, human blood, you know, simple to draw. You can collect it pretreatment, you can collect it on treatment, you can monitor on treatment, you can monitor after treatment. So, in this way you get a real time assessment of how the patient is doing. And that coupled with A.I., I see that as being revolutionary.

TAPPER: Just fascinating stuff.

Dr. Goenka, any final thoughts?

GOENKA: Well, I think the one thing I'll mention is that, you know, oftentimes we get asked about is this a replacement story? You know, my counter to that is that unequivocally, no, this is a partnership story.

TAPPER: Yeah.

GOENKA: You know, for instance, in our case, the A.I. reads what the human eye was never designed to see. And the radiologist reads what the A.I. cannot. So, neither one alone is good, as the two together. That's the message I want to leave you with.

TAPPER: Amazing work, Dr. Goenka, Dr. Chaudhuri, thank you so much. What an inspiration story, inspiration -- inspirational story when it comes to the use of A.I. for the good and not the bad. I appreciate your time today.

You can follow me on Facebook, Instagram, Threads. You can follow the show on X and Instagram @TheLeadCNN. If you ever miss an episode, you can watch the show on the CNN app. "ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT" -- Erin Burnett, pick it up.