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ICE Agents Told to Ramp Up Daily Arrests Despite GOP Unease; Latino Vote Shaping Up as Key to Midterm Battle; Russian Strike Kills 33 in Kramatorsk, Ukraine in Deadliest Single Attack This Year; Police Clash With Student Protesters in Paris, 488 People Detained During Tuesday Protests; NFL Asks Supreme Court to Allow States to Regulate Prediction Markets Like Gambling; Rays Sweep Yankees After Fan Interference Call; Hurricane Isaias Gaining Strength Along Gulf Coast. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired October 08, 2026 - 13:30   ET

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

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[13:31:47]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Now to a CNN Exclusive. Sources say ICE agents have new orders to increase immigration arrests by 1,000 per day, bringing the agency back to its previous goal of 3,000 daily arrests. Some Republicans are uneasy about who's being targeted ahead of the midterm elections.

CNN's Priscilla Alvarez has the latest on this. Priscilla, what can you tell us?

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brianna, ICE agents have been told that they need to pick up immigration arrests. They are, in other words, not letting up. And they've been given some numbers that officials described to me as goals. That is 3,000 daily. Remember, that is something that the White House wanted last year.

And the agency struggled to meet because it is an unprecedented number to meet in a day. So far, they've been hovering around 2,000 arrests a day. And then 19,000 arrests weekly. Now, the reason that the math doesn't quite add up there is because weekends, I'm told, are slower and there are less officers in the field. So, again, that is 3,000 daily, 19,000 weekly.

Now, the Department of Homeland Security has repeatedly said that there are no quotas on agents. Again, officials have described this to me as a goal that they're trying to reach as they try to push ICE agents to arrest more and more people. And in a statement, a spokesperson for DHS said the following, quote, "There are no quotas on arrests. Under President Trump and Secretary Mullen's leadership, ICE has been supercharged to find, arrest and deport illegal aliens from the United States using every lawful tool available."

And they have had some success over recent months in doing just that, reaching record monthly highs. In July, for example, they arrested 46,000 people. In August, 51,000, and that is expected to continue to climb or hover around there in September and in the months moving forward. And it's notable against the backdrop that, as you mentioned, Republicans have publicly and privately expressed some unease over the tactics ICE has used to arrest people, but also the population of people that they are bringing into custody.

Remember, if you increase arrest, you're also going to cast a wider net over who's eligible to be arrested beyond those that are the public safety and national security threats. And that is where Republicans have chimed in, for example, in Florida, where 50 percent, the Republican representative there, Maria Salazar had said 50 percent of those arrested didn't have a criminal record.

But the reality here, Brianna, is that the agency is going to continue to ramp up arrests. And even in a contract solicitation that we reviewed, they talk about including, or rather finding someone to set up temporary spaces in agency offices around the country. And they say that that is because they're increasing their tempo of arrests.

So they're building out the infrastructure as they are also giving this instruction to agents to pick it up. So despite the unease that Republicans have shared so far about the administration's immigration crackdown and only weeks shy of the midterms, ICE is telling its agents to continue to increase the number of people they're bringing into custody.

KEILAR: All right, Priscilla, thank you so much for the very latest there. Boris?

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": As we draw closer to the midterms, there is renewed focus on the Latino vote. As President Trump wrapped up his third visit to Texas since late August, Latino voters there will be critical, especially in border districts where many pivoted to the GOP in the last cycle.

[13:35:00]

A new NBC News-Telemundo poll shows Latinos have soured on the president and his party, though. In the survey, 59 percent of Latino voters say they'd prefer Democrats win control of Congress in November, compared with 35 percent who prefer Republicans. That is a 24-point margin.

Joining me now to discuss is Kristian Ramos, the Founder and Principal of Autonomy Strategies, and a former Spokesperson for the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. Kristian, thank you so much for being with us.

So this NBC-Telemundo poll, it shows more support for Democrats than we saw at this point in a cycle in 2024, but not close to what we saw in 2018 during those midterms. Is that a real return to the Democratic Party or an indication that this is a vote against the current party in power?

(LAUGH)

KRISTIAN RAMOS, FOUNDER & PRINCIPAL, AUTONOMY STRATEGIES: Well, let's be clear here. Republicans have done literally everything to push Latinos away, whether it's their immigration policy which is going after American citizens, which is detaining and deporting people who have no criminal records, whether it's the war in Iran which is raising gas prices and diesel prices in rural areas that are really affecting a lot of Latinos out there, or the energy prices that are going up in your homes, whether it's data centers and so on and so forth.

So they've done a lot to push Latino voters away. Democrats have a golden opportunity now, right, as we're going into 2026, because you've got to remember, at least 10 percent of all registered Democrats, registered voters in congressional districts are Latinos in these competitive districts. If we can turn those voters out, we're going to win.

SANCHEZ: Yeah.

RAMOS: But that does not mean that they are solidly with the Democratic Party right now. They're really angry at Republicans. Going forward into 2028, that is the real opportunity there to (inaudible) them.

(CROSSTALK)

SANCHEZ: When it comes to the approach for that golden opportunity, as you describe it, I spoke with Bobby Pulido earlier this week. He's running for the 15th district in South Texas. That flipped Republican four years ago after decades and decades of Democratic control, he's made the case that an emphasis on social justice, on identity is not enough. He argues that to win blue-collar Latinos, you have to lead with an economic message.

I wonder how you go about doing that, when in the last cycle, so many voters turned to Trump and Republicans because they were concerned about inflation and issues of affordability?

RAMOS: Well, I think part of it is the candidates, right? You've got your Bobby Pulidos, you've got your Johnny Garcias in Texas, your Joe Mendozas. These are people who come from more of a blue-collar background.

So I think your messenger is critically important there. But also it's a trust issue. It's a question of are we speaking to these things that are clearly and critically important to the Latino community? Look, my family is from Texas. My grandfather was a construction worker. My other grandfather was a mechanic. At the end of the day, what they wanted to do was provide for their family.

They wanted to make sure that they were getting quality health insurance and that their kids went to the best schools possible to get a better life. That's the level of sort of discourse that we need to return to as the Democratic Party. We need to make sure that we're the party of opportunity with Latinos in English and Spanish.

We're the only population out there that still believes that the American dream is possible. That number has come down quite a bit, but we're still number one out of all of those groups. SANCHEZ: Back to that NBC-Telemundo poll, nearly 40 percent of registered Latino voters have a negative view of the Democratic Socialists of America, including more than a third who have a very negative view. When you talk about candidate quality, doesn't the rise of DSA candidates risk turning off many Latinos, especially in critical districts, who've had negative experiences, who've fled socialist and communist regimes?

RAMOS: I would argue that most Latinos have no idea what a Democratic Socialist is. At this point, I think, in Florida, yes, it's probably a huge issue with Cubans and Venezuelans in Florida. I think the rest of the Latino community out in these states, in like Texas and California and Colorado, it's not a factor, really, in terms of what they're looking at.

They're looking at, are you with me? Are you against me? Do you understand the problems that my community is facing? If you do, they're willing to listen. But regarding these terms, most voters have no idea, most Latino voters, I would say.

SANCHEZ: Interesting. I think it's par for the course at this time of an election cycle. You hear this over and over again. It all comes down to turnout, right? It doesn't take a genius to figure that out. Latino voters during midterms tend to stay home. I wonder why you think that is. As we look at these stats, Hispanics are twice as likely as white adults to not have voted at all in the last three elections, actually.

How do you expect turnout among Latino voters to shape this midterm?

RAMOS: Latinos are really, really angry right now. Every poll that I see shows them being absolutely furious. If you look at a place like Virginia right now, where they're in the middle of early vote, Latino voters are actually turning out at higher rates than they did in 2024.

[13:40:00]

It's still early. There's a lot of time to go. But the interest and the level of rage and frustration, not just at our communities being attacked, not just at our communities being detained, but our communities being unable to pay for basic things like health care, gas, making sure that they're able to take their kids to school, making sure that they're able to heat their families during the summer. It is really hard out there.

And they were promised all of these things, none of those things have happened. And so now, they are outraged, angry, ready to go to the polls to make sure that they turn the tide on this stuff.

SANCHEZ: Kristian Ramos, thanks so much for joining us and giving us perspective.

Still plenty more news to come this afternoon. Russia accused of targeting civilians after striking two buses full of people in Ukraine, killing dozens. The latest when we come back.

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[13:45:29]

KEILAR: Ukrainian officials are accusing the Kremlin of targeting civilians yet again. Today's strike hit two public buses, killed at least 33 people. Pictures from the scene, which are blurred here in some of these photos that we're showing you, show bodies and body parts strewn across the road. Police say after the strike, Russian drones began targeting officers as they tried to help victims.

The attack is now the single deadliest in Ukraine this year. CNN's Fred Pleitgen is with us now on this story. Fred, is it clear whether these buses were the intended targets?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, Brianna. Well, that's obviously an accusation that the Ukrainians are making, but it is very difficult to say. One of the things that we have to keep in mind is that this town of Kramatorsk is extremely close to the current frontlines in Ukraine. It actually used to be a place in the rear echelon where the Ukrainians would stage and then go to the frontlines, but now those frontlines have moved extremely close to that town, and certainly there's been a big uptick in drone attacks and also bombings and missile attacks as well.

As far as we know, what happened there is that all this happened at 10 a.m. local time when these two buses were hit. They seem to have been in the vicinity of one another. Nevertheless, the ordinance that was used here seems to have been extremely large.

One of the things that we can glean from sort of the aftermath is we can see that one of the buses seems to have been completely destroyed immediately, while the other one then caught fire. And of course, we've heard the toll from this incident. More than 30 people killed and well over a dozen wounded, and then certainly the first responders there on the scene very quickly.

The public transport, obviously, in this town was stopped immediately. And Kramatorsk is in the east of Ukraine. It's in a place called Donetsk, and that's one of the main battlegrounds in Ukraine. It's part of a series of fortress-belt cities that the Ukrainians say they definitely need to hold if they want to stop the Russians advancing further into Ukrainian territory.

So they're extremely important for the Ukrainians, but also extremely important for the Russians who have been trying to chip away at this place. The Ukrainians are now urging people to leave this town as fast as possible, Brianna.

KEILAR: All right, Fred, thank you so much for the latest there. Boris?

SANCHEZ: There are new clashes erupting in Paris today as riot police try to contain France's biggest student-led demonstrations in decades. Brand-new video shows protesters being hit with what appears to be pepper spray as they chant behind blockades. Students are demanding more teachers, smaller classes, and better learning conditions.

Let's go live to Paris with CNN's Melissa Bell. So, Melissa, how are French authorities responding to these latest rounds of protests?

MELISSA BELL, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it wasn't as big this Thursday, Boris, as when we last spoke on Tuesday. There's 260,000 people around the country still. A large number of students, but also grown-ups, teachers, health care workers, came out in support of them, not just here in Paris, but around the country. This square, the Place de la Bastille, has only just been cleared by the police. Again, there was tear gas, and they had trouble clearing it.

The students absolutely determined still to continue to make their voice heard, despite what we heard from the prime minister last night. He took to French T.V., Boris, to announce that there would be measures announced by the end of the month to help them. That is simply not enough, and they feel they still have the momentum behind them.

We also saw, once again, on the streets of Paris today, in support of the students, those members of the far-left French party, LFE, like the mayor of Saint-Denis that we interviewed yesterday, defending not just their right to be behind the barricades or here on the street, but the rights of these students to protest.

It's been one of the big controversies since this now three-week protest has gone down (ph), with the government accusing the far left of stirring things up. Bally Bagayoko, that we interviewed yesterday, like others on the contrary, say that they're there to support the students, to defend them, and to make sure, or rather help make sure that no harm comes to them. Because, of course, a big part of this story has become whether or not the police response has been proportionate.

You know that hundreds have been wounded. They, for their part, continue to defend themselves. The LFE party says it will remain at the barricades and at these protests. There's another one next Tuesday to make sure they stay safe, Boris.

SANCHEZ: Melissa Bell, live for us in Paris, thank you.

So, the NFL has chosen a side. What it wants the Supreme Court to do about prediction markets. Stay with us.

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[13:54:49]

KEILAR: The NFL is drawing a line in the sand when it comes to prediction markets. For the first time, the league is taking a side, breaking from other leagues like the MLB and from the Trump administration, urging the Supreme Court to let states regulate sites like Kalshi and Polymarket.

[13:55:00]

Let's get more now from CNN Senior Reporter, Marshall Cohen. Marshall, how big of a deal is this? What could the impact be?

MARSHALL COHEN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Brianna, this is a really big deal. Let me give you three reasons why. Number, one on these prediction platforms, sports and football especially is the biggest driver of volume. Sports is the most popular thing. So when the NFL speaks, people listen. Number two this means that the NFL is breaking from the Trump administration, which has been all-in on prediction sites, and also they are taking a different tack from other leagues like the MLB and NHL that have partnerships with these prediction platforms.

So the legal arguments here, this is all about who gets to regulate these companies. Currently, they're regulated by the federal government like financial exchanges, but the states want to regulate them like casinos and apply their much more aggressive gambling rules and regulations. And now, the NFL is siding with the states. Let me read for you what they said in a filing early this morning. They want a quick ruling on this.

They said billions of dollars will be bet on the NFL through prediction markets each season and any delay from the court will result in Increasing consumer harm and risks to game integrity. They went on to say that despite the NFL's urging the Trump administration and operators like Kalshi have thus far failed to implement appropriate safeguards.

So they're saying the current regulations by the companies and the government is just not enough, so they want the Supreme Court to weigh in. The companies disagree, they say that they take market integrity very, very seriously, but they are in for a fight.

Look at this map, Brianna. 40 states across the country are now pushing the Supreme Court to regulate these companies like gambling, that's a lot of yellow on the map, it's almost every single state. We will see if the Supreme Court takes up this case and we, of course, will watch that very closely. And one more note, to be sure for full disclosure, CNN has a partnership with Kalshi. We use their data to cover major events, but they don't influence our coverage and we don't trade on prediction platforms.

KEILAR: We do not. All right, Marshall, thank you so much for that. Boris?

SANCHEZ: Now to some of the other headlines were watching this hour. The Food and Drug Administration says its ongoing safety review of the nation's main abortion pill will continue into the next year. Mifepristone was first approved by the FDA in 2000. The agency has repeatedly reaffirmed that the pill is safe and effective over the years, but since President Trump returned to office, anti-abortion groups have pushed the administration to revisit the pill, hoping to restrict its use.

The FDA says that a report on its findings is expected no later than March 2027, after which the agency will decide whether to impose new restrictions or make any other changes on the drug's use. And the New York Yankees season coming to an end with some drama, with the Yankees trailing the Tampa Bay Rays by two runs in the bottom of the sixth inning. Anthony Volpe hit this ball deep in a left field. You see the Rays outfielder trying to catch it, a Yankees fan reaches over the wall and the ball then goes into the stands. The play originally ruled a game tying two run homer, after a video review ruled fan interference, the home run overturned, becoming a double scoring just one run. The Yankees went on to lose 4-3 as the Rays complete the series sweep and move on to the ALCS. The fan who interfered with the play escorted out of Yankee Stadium by police.

And check this out, a NASA rover capturing a stunning sight, dawn on Mars. The Space Agency says it is the most detailed image yet of the wind-carved cliffs on Mars. The new picture from the Curiosity rover with its six wheels, it's been slowly climbing Mount Sharp, a Martian mountain that rises some three miles high. The image was taken by the rover's Mastcam about an hour after sunrise on the 4,982nd Martian day of its mission.

Plenty more news to come. A new hour of "CNN News Central" starts right now.

KEILAR: Sparks of lightning, look at these pictures seen from space as Hurricane Isaias is gaining strength. We're tracking the rapidly growing storm, bringing possible flood risks to parts of the Gulf Coast.

Plus, ousted Venezuelan President, Nicolas Maduro and his wife facing new federal charges in New York over the alleged torture of more than a dozen American citizens.

And nutrition labels for Artificial intelligence, the new tool that hopes to help Americans make informed decisions and avoid brain rot when using A.I. We're following these major developing stories and many more, all coming in right here to "CNN News Central."

Right now, preparations are ramping up as Hurricane Isaias --