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Mortgage Rates Rise for the Seventh Straight Week; High Cost of Living a Key Issue for Voters; Ossoff, Collins to Debate in Georgia as State Race Heats Up; More Evacuation Orders in Florida Ahead of Hurricane Isaias; Gulf Shores Mayor Askes Alabama Governor to Declare Mandatory Evacuation; USS Lincoln Returns to U.S. After Near-Record Deployment. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired October 08, 2026 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: ... becoming even further out of reach for so many.

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BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Right now homeownership is slipping out of reach for even more Americans with mortgage rates rising for a seventh straight week. Rates are now matching a high from nearly three years ago in November 2023. CNN's Samantha Delouya is here with the new numbers. Samantha, what would be homeowners face as they enter the market?

SAMANTHA DELOUYA, CNN BUSINESS WRITER: Yes, so mortgage rates just keep rising. This is unfortunate news for would-be homebuyers. We've now reached a level of 7.40 percent this week as of new data released today by Freddie Mac. This is a three-year high, as you mentioned, seven straight weeks week of rising rates.

[15:35:00]

Bad news for home buyers who are going to be facing significantly higher monthly mortgage payments than if they would have secured a house even just a few months ago, Boris.

SANCHEZ: And it's not just mortgage rates, right? Home prices and insurance is also on the rise.

DELOUYA: Exactly. We're right now facing one of the most unaffordable housing markets in a generation. So, yes, like you said, we're seeing rising home prices.

The average sales price or median sales price of a home reached a record high in August yet again for the 38th straight week month. Home prices and insurance rates and property taxes all have gone up. And so it is right now one of the most expensive times ever to buy a home.

And so it's bad luck if you're on the market for a home right now.

SANCHEZ: Samantha, thank you so much for that report -- Brianna. BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: The high cost of living is, of course, a key issue in this year's midterm election. That is certainly the case in Georgia, where the race for Senate is heating up. You have incumbent Democrat John Ossoff facing Republican challenger Mike Collins tonight in their first televised debate.

So let's talk about it now with Tia Mitchell, Washington bureau chief for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Tia, great to have you here.

TIA MITCHELL, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION: Thanks for having me.

KEILAR: What's the state of this race and what do John Ossoff and Mike Collins need to do at this debate?

MITCHELL: Yes, so the state of the race is if you look at all the indicators that we look at to determine who's strong, the money raised, the polling, John Ossoff, the incumbent, also the power of the incumbency. He just has a lot of wind behind him, right?

But Georgia is a swing state. We expect it to be close. And when you talk to Senator Ossoff, he says he's running as if he is behind.

He's not taking it for granted. Ossoff is a great debater. Six years ago, he debated David Perdue, then the incumbent.

They debated once. Perdue pulled out of the second planned debate. That's how bad it was for Perdue.

That's how strong Ossoff was in debate. What Mike Collins needs to do is match Ossoff's debate skills. And he has to be prepared for the attacks because we know Ossoff is going to raise the controversies.

He's going to try to paint him as a crook, as someone who aligns with white nationalists, as someone who's too tied to Donald Trump and his unfair policies. So really, the question going into this debate is, can Mike Collins get some good moments, explain himself in a way that allows Georgia voters who are possibly on the fence or persuadable to give him a look?

KEILAR: Senator Ossoff has made national headlines with some of the things that he has said about corruption messaging when it comes to President Trump. But what are the hyperlocal issues that are really resonating in this race?

MITCHELL: So in Georgia, like every other state, the economy, the cost of living is top of mind. Georgia also is a military state. We've got a lot of military installations.

So I think that's going to be something that voters want to hear about. And then because the demographics of Georgia, we're constantly changing, we're a growing state getting a lot of new people. I think that some of the immigration issues and how you balance immigration enforcement with welcoming people who are coming into our country looking to live out their American dreams. I think there are a lot of voters who want to hear that, too. And then finally, I'll say agriculture being the big industry in Georgia, the kind of criticism is that Ossoff is a product of the Atlanta elite. And so how can he speak to those voters in rural Georgia, those voters tied to the agriculture industry? I think that's a place that perhaps Collins, who owns a trucking business in kind of the exurbs kind of towards rural Georgia, Jackson, Georgia, I think he thinks he can be stronger in that area.

We'll see.

KEILAR: Yes, it's a debate to watch for sure. So there's also this close governor's race that's underway between Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms and Republican Rick Jackson. This morning, she got a big endorsement from former President Obama.

She, of course, served in the Biden-Harris administration. Do you see any of those folks coming through the state campaigning for her? How much would that help?

MITCHELL: Yes, I think it could help with turnout, because one of the things I think the people who are pushing for a mayor Bottoms say if she can really do well with Democrats and ride Ossoff's coattails, which people think will be strong, perhaps that could help pull her across the finish line. That's why we do expect, you know, Kamala Harris is coming to campaign with John Ossoff in the closing days of the race. We expect Keisha Lance Bottoms to also share the stage with them.

Could Obama come? Possibly. He came six years ago, again, with Ossoff and Warnock to help push them across the finish line back in 2020. So, again, it's about turnout.

[15:40:00]

But for Keisha Lance Bottoms, I think what makes it a little bit more difficult for her is that she is being asked to explain her tenure as mayor, particularly during the COVID-19 epidemic -- pandemic, the rise in protests and crime that came in the summer of 2020. And there's concern that she's not really explaining herself well.

She's not explaining the tough situation she was in and how she handled it well, and that Rick Jackson, her opponent, who has a lot of money and is flooding the airwaves with TV ads, is really taking advantage of that.

KEILAR: Yes, we'll have to see how that works out. So interesting to follow what's happening in Georgia. Tia, thank you so much.

Live pictures now. Oh, and Tia, you're here for this, right? You need to chime in.

You were just saying how -- oh, this is the hurricane, but we're watching this as well. This is Gulf Shores, Alabama. We're tracking the hurricane set to slam the Gulf Coast.

Can we also, as we are watching this very important storm that so many people are preparing for, look to our other story on the other coast? Let's go to it. The USS Abraham Lincoln.

Oh, Tia, you've been very excited watching this coverage.

MITCHELL: I do. I mean, the sailors in their white, they're standing at attention. They're literally waving.

They're getting close enough that they can make phone calls. I just think it's going to be really sweet to see them reunited with their families after a long deployment.

KEILAR: Yes, it is a beautiful moment. We are awaiting there in Coronado, California. We will be right back.

It is getting very close, so don't go anywhere.

[15:45:00]

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SANCHEZ: Here's one more look at pictures from Coronado, California. These are live images of the USS Abraham Lincoln minutes away from docking at its home port. The sailors aboard have been gone from home for 11 months, a historically long deployment in the Middle East.

Soon, they'll be leaving their ship, and 122 of those sailors are actually new dads who are going to be meeting their kids for the very first time. We have more live coverage of the arrival, and we will bring you those images as they unfold.

Returning now to one of our top stories, Isaias continues to churn as a Category 1 hurricane over the Gulf, expected to rapidly intensify into a Category 2 later today. Right now, the eye of the storm is some 350 miles south of Louisiana.

It's forecasted to make landfall near the Florida-Alabama border late Friday or early Saturday. Three Florida counties have now issued mandatory evacuation orders near the coast.

We find CNN's Isabel Rosales live in Gulf Shores, Alabama, where the mayor there is asking visitors to leave town. And, Isabel, there was set to be this big shrimp festival, so there are tens of thousands of people there that went to an event that now got canceled, and they're effectively stranded waiting for this hurricane.

ISABEL ROSALES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, the population here in Gulf Shores, essentially, for this weekend, has exploded three times its size. Gulf Shores, usually 18,000 people here. Now you're looking at north of 50,000 people who are in town for this now-canceled event, and now in the midst of an incoming hurricane.

We're still 24 hours from the peak impacts in the Mobile Gulf Shores area from Hurricane Isaias, but you can see how choppy the Gulf is already. We're feeling the wind starting to pick up, but leadership here is taking action to protect property, to protect the beach, to protect the people from flying these double red flags, telling people it's illegal to be in the water right now for their safety, to shutting down public facilities as of noon today to provide sandbagging locations, helping out these folks.

I want to introduce you to the mayor, Robert Craft, the mayor of Gulf Shores. So much for speaking to us at CNN, really appreciate your time. Listen, you've already issued a voluntary evacuation request to non-residents, but you've also been pushing the governor's office, Governor Kay Ivey, to issue a mandatory evacuation order. How's that going?

MAYOR ROBERT CRAFT, GULF SHORES, ALABAMA: I think we're making progress. The head of the EMA, Emergency Management of the state of Alabama, understands where we are with a lot of people in town, a lot of tourists in town that are here and have never been here in a storm. They don't know how to react, and we need them to leave, because all they're going to do is get out and get in trouble and force us to get in help with our fire and police folks to come help and rescue them.

We did that before in Sallie, and it was, we need to get them to leave.

ROSALES: Yes, in Hurricane Sallie 2020, that's the last time this area really dealt with a hurricane like this. But since then, the community here has grown leaps and bounds.

CRAFT: Yes, very much so.

ROSALES: Newcomers who have never experienced a hurricane. Do you think people are taking this seriously?

CRAFT: I hope so. We're pounding into them and especially the understanding that if you want to leave, you need to leave, but you need to leave quickly because at 45 miles an hour, we have to close the bridge. Cars can't go over the bridge at 45 miles an hour, and that will happen.

And it'll happen probably sooner than people think. And so if you don't leave, you can't leave. And that gets to be a real dilemma for us because we've got to deal with it.

ROSALES: We'll be keeping an eye on that potential mandatory evacuation.

CRAFT: Well, mandatory changes the rules too, because mandatory forces the resorts to give them their money back.

ROSALES: Yes.

CRAFT: Right now, if they leave, they don't necessarily get it.

ROSALES: Which is why they may be hesitating.

CRAFT: They don't want to give up their money.

ROSALES: Yes. Mayor Kraft, thank you so much for your time, and we'll be talking to you more on CNN. Boris, back to you.

SANCHEZ: Isabel Rosales, thank you so much. Let's go back to the Pacific Coast and the arrival of the USS Abraham

Lincoln. We're just minutes away.

KEILAR: That's right, Pam. You were there on the phone with us, and we were getting very close. You have been spending the day there on the Lincoln speaking to sailors, and it is there in Coronado, family and friends awaiting them to leave their ship soon.

[15:50:00]

PAMELA BROWN, CNN CHIEF INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT AND ANCHOR (via phone): That's right. So right now, I am in the airplane hangar, and it is full of service members. It's so ready with anticipation to walk off this ship.

So let me just walk you through what we're going to see here.

The first person off was someone who's designated as the first kiss. So that person will be let off first, be able to kiss their loved one. And then after that, you've been talking about all the dads who've never met their kids, right?

The captain says 122 of them. They're going to be the next crew to get off of this ship so that they can meet their child for the first time. I've been speaking to some of these dads, and they're nervous.

They're excited. They say, you know, my baby has only known their mom. I hope that my baby will like me.

We've been doing FaceTime and showing pictures, but there's just a lot of excitement and emotion too, Brianna and Boris. As this ship was pulling into port, and you heard the families all cheering with excitement, and the sailors were there manning the rails, there was tears coming down their faces. And I talked to a couple of them, and they just said, this means so much, I wasn't sure this day was going to come. It was a hard deployment.

One of them telling me with so much emotion, she feels like she's reincarnated after this deployment. So many of them returning after their first deployment a changed person. And I've asked them, will you stay in the Navy? Do you think you're going to get out?

And the responses have been mixed. Some say they'll get out. Some say they want to stay in for the long haul.

It just depends. But right now, their focus is on reuniting with their loved ones, giving them that hug that they have been dreaming of for so many months.

KEILAR: There's so much rust on the ship, Pam. I don't mean to bring attention to it, but it's a testament to how long this aircraft carrier has been underway as we are taking in these lovely scenes of these sailors who've connected by phone with their family members to try to figure out where they are on the crowd below. It's been out there a long time. BROWN: It's been out there a long time. Just for our viewers to understand, naval ships like this, aircraft carriers, typically aren't pushed to the brink in the frontlines of combat in the way that you have seen with this one and the other ones in Operation Epic Fury. What they have been asked to do is beyond the norm for the Navy in terms of imposing a naval blockade, doing thousands upon thousands of light missions to drop bombs in Iran and to defend the ship.

And you have to think of this ship warded off more than 100 threats from the Iranians. It really has been just pushed as far as it can get pushed through as well, and they have endured so much, and they just so deserve this moment of love and support and appreciation.

SANCHEZ: A well-earned homecoming. As earlier, we heard the crowds there cheering on the ship as it made its way to port. Pamela Brown, thank you so much.

We'll be watching more of this homecoming in Coronado, California throughout the afternoon and evening. Stay with CNN. We're going to take a quick break.

We'll be right back.

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SANCHEZ: Turning now to a bizarre story out of Ohio. It's going to be tough to get through this one. A political blogger named DJ Burns is set to go on trial for allegedly texting a state senator an altered image of the film character Shrek.

Burns faces a charge of telecommunications harassment, which if convicted, could be punishable by up to six months in jail. The messages, allegedly sent on May 6th, contain political commentary along with Burns calling State Senator Jerry Cirino young Mussolini. Attached to those texts, a photo of a fully nude Shrek.

We're going to spare you from that. We're not going to show it. But a couple of days after these were sent, the senator emailed local police to file a complaint and asked that charges be filed.

State troopers then arrested Burns at the Ohio Statehouse on June 1st. He has pled not guilty, filing a motion to dismiss the charges back in July. He argues that the text messages are protected speech under the first and 14th amendments.

Let's get some legal perspective now from criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor Mark O'Mara. Mark, thank you so much for being with us. Probably not what you were expecting that we would be talking about when our team reached out to you.

Prosecutors, of course, need to prove that Burns was intending to harass the state senator under Ohio law. So how would they prove intent? MARK O'MARA, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, you know, it's going to be difficult because political speech is so protected. It's one of the last sort of bastions of protected speech in this country because you're allowed to harass those that we want to harass in the government. But that's really the issue.

You can offend somebody. You know, you could say something that offends me, but if I'm not harassed by it and harassed, it's much more personal, then the crime has not been proven. And when you are a politician, you put yourself in your views and your positions and your arguments out there for public review.

And for those pundits who want to say, I disagree with you and I think you're stupid and I think you're Mussolini or show a stupid picture of a cartoon, then I'm sorry, but I think politicians have put themselves out there. And really, this is not seemingly a harassment crime.

SANCHEZ: Help me understand that distinction between being offended and being harassed, especially in this circumstance where the complaint came from the official that this person is criticizing.

O'MARA: Correct. The official said, I feel harassed. And look, it is somewhat subjective, right, according to how you feel.

But the objective standard, which is what has to be applied in a criminal court, is would that event, that maneuver by somebody harass a reasonable person? And it's a reasonable politician. So I can offend you by saying something, I could offend your sensibilities or your political views or whatever, I can offend you.

But the harassment has got to be much more intentional. And that's what the prosecutor is going to have a tough time to do. Not that he didn't prove or intend to offend, but that's not a crime.

They got to prove that he intended to harass, that it was personal. I meant to give you emotional distress, right? Pure harassment.

And the defense is going to be, you're a politician, sit back and take it.

SANCHEZ: So obviously a very different circumstance, but it reminds me of friends of mine, women who get explicit pictures that they never ask for. Most of the men who send them never wind up seeing a courtroom. So what's the legal difference?

O'MARA: So, so that can be harassment if it's with the intent. So back up a little bit. If the intent is flirting or something like that, maybe it's not harassment.

As soon as a woman says no, and you continue to do it, then it might be harassment. So again, with a private person, like a woman, much better, much better protections, a politician, just much less.

SANCHEZ: Where do you even find an image like that of Shrek? I hope I never find out. Mark O'Mara, appreciate the expertise.

Thanks so much, Mark.

O'MARA: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: On to more serious and heartening news now, back to Coronado, California. Right now, sailors on board the USS Abraham Lincoln about to get some much deserved time with their family and friends.

They just completed a near record deployment, 321 days at sea in support of the war with Iran.

KEILAR: Yes. Pamela was just telling us that someone gets picked to be the first kiss. They get to go out there and then they're the one, they're the first.

And then it's the daddy-os who have 122 new babies that were born during this deployment. They're going to meet their kids for the first time. Thousands of people have been just waiting on shore to welcome them home.

They're about to step off any moment. We are just -- we're waiting. Is it now?

We keep asking, now, is it? No, not now. Now?

No. Peter, is it now? No, it's not now.

It's not yet now.

SANCHEZ: Undoubtedly, this comes as a relief to many of these sailors.

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We learned throughout the course of this deployment that there were a lot of hardships on board for that carrier group. There were supply issues. There were mental health issues on board.

No doubt, we will hear more and learn more of the stories of these sailors aboard as they return back home.

KEILAR: Yes, it's a happy day, but this has been a very tough time, and they have reintegration ahead of them as well. We'll keep watching this, but "THE ARENA" with Kasie Hunt starts right now.

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