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Evangelical Faith Leaders Tell GOP to Refocus on Key Voting Bloc; White House Officials Question if Trump Will Keep Press Secretary; Pharma Bro Martin Shkreli Back on Federal Authorities Radar; New Research Suggests GLP-1 Drugs May Slow Aging; Data Center Rage Escalates From Protests to Criminal Cases. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired October 13, 2026 - 14:30   ET

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

[14:30:00]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: With the midterms just three weeks away, some conservatives are sounding alarms about turnout for a critical group of voters. White evangelical Christians were key to President Trump's election victories. Now, some of the movement's leaders say that evangelicals are being neglected, despite tight races that will determine control of Congress.

CNN's Lauren Fox is here with more. So, Lauren, evangelicals are a key voting bloc, especially for Republicans. Are they going to show up at the polls, though, if President Trump isn't on the ballot himself?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's a big question, right? And as one pastor put it to me, look, evangelical voters have to fill up their cars with gas, too. They're feeling the pinch, both at the gas station and at the grocery store.

And there's this sense right now that there isn't this nationalized effort from the Republican Party to try to appeal to these voters and make sure that they actually show up and vote on Election Day. And just to give you a snapshot of these voters' habits. You know, this makes up only about 13 percent of the overall population, but evangelical Christian voters, white evangelicals, tend to vote at such a high rate that sometimes it's about 20 percent of the electorate. So that's one in five voters.

And you can imagine, for Republicans, that's a really important base because about 80 percent of them in the last three presidential elections supported Donald Trump. So that gives you a sense right now of just how critical they are to the Republican establishment. And if they want to win in these races, if they want to hold the House, if they want to hold the Senate, there's more work to do.

And, you know, sometimes these pastors are taking it upon themselves to talk about the election from the pulpit. I talked to a couple of pastors in Texas who are openly going out and encouraging their parishioners to look closely at what James Talarico, who is the Democratic Senate candidate and a seminary student, has said about the Bible, arguing that he's not actually reflecting Christian values in the way that white evangelical voters might interpret them. So I do think that that is such an interesting dynamic that's playing out, is these pastors are saying, we don't feel like the party's doing enough, so we're going to take it upon ourselves and take action to make sure our parishioners are showing up on election day so that they know what's at stake.

SANCHEZ: An interesting dynamic. Lauren Fox, thank you so much for that. With us now to discuss, CNN political commentator and former Trump White House communications director, Alyssa Farah Griffin.

Alyssa, thanks for being with us. I wonder what your reaction is to this reporting, whether you think that Republicans are taking evangelicals for granted.

ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN: Listen, I think it's very interesting. This is obviously a very core part of the electorate that got Donald Trump elected. I think back to 2016, when he added Mike Pence to the ticket, he was instrumental in getting the evangelical voting bloc to be comfortable with Donald Trump, and they have never broken with him since then.

They've been with him for the last decade. But I think it's very interesting because a couple of factors. There isn't a highly motivating issue for evangelical voters that's front and center this election.

This election is really economic-focused, gas prices, pocketbook issues. Even in the 2022 midterms, we had the issue of abortion front and center, something that's animating and motivating to evangelicals to get out and vote around. Presidential elections are always animating for them because they're thinking about Supreme Court appointments, judicial appointments that could really matter to the faith community.

[14:35:00]

So midterms, in general, they're less animated, but I think particularly this cycle, when the focus is purely really focused on the economic issues, I could see that making them more disengaged. Another thing that I actually think is very interesting in this, too, if you think of the 2024 election, especially with younger evangelicals, Turning Point USA was so instrumental in the ground game turnout operation.

And there's been a lot of questions as to whether they still have the same muscle since Charlie Kirk's tragic passing that they had had in 2024. The organization just doesn't seem to have as strong a footing and play in as many races as it had been.

SANCHEZ: There's also another dynamic, which is in certain races, Democrats that are more outwardly religious are leaning into their faith. James Talarico is a great example in Texas. Do you think that that may make inroads with this group of evangelicals?

GRIFFIN: I think it will matter race by race, and Texas is the most interesting and important one. James Talarico reminds me of, he speaks and sounds like a lot of my conservative family. When you hear him talk about his faith, when you hear him talk about his lived experience, it sounds like our pastors that we grew up with.

And I think that's going to play extremely well for him, considering the alternative in Ken Paxton, somebody who's ethically challenged, somebody who's had alleged affairs and who was impeached by his own Republican colleagues during his time as attorney general. So I think uniquely in that race, leaning into the faith is going to help and boost James Talarico. I don't think it's going to massively swing evangelicals for him, but I do think the broader Christian community, especially Catholics, I would look at, like the Catholic vote in Texas, they also oppose a lot of the heavy-handed immigration enforcement that goes against a lot of Catholic practitioners' faiths.

And then you have somebody in James Talarico who is speaking their language, who's talking about faith, but taking another position on those matters. I think that could end up boosting him.

SANCHEZ: Oh, while we have you, Alyssa, not sure if you got a chance to watch it. Honestly, there wasn't much of it to watch. What did you think of Katie Zacharia's press briefing?

It was pretty short, and our reporting indicates that some inside the White House weren't thrilled about her performance.

GRIFFIN: I did catch it, and listen, it was a very, very rocky debut. I was in the White House for many a White House press briefing, and I think that was probably the toughest that I ever saw. I think that she -- listen, first days are hard.

That is not an easy job. I think there's this myth that if you're purely on talking points for the president, it's an easy job. It's not.

Karoline Leavitt had a lot of skill in that job. Sara Huckabee Sanders had a lot of skill in that job, whether you liked them or not. She's going to have to polish up quickly, or I think her days could be very short in the White House.

The president expects somebody who will command that room, who will have extreme confidence, and who will not get rattled, and you cannot get that rattled on day one and last in the job.

SANCHEZ: And lastly, are you surprised that she announced that the White House asked Kimberly Guilfoyle to resign? Typically, it's President Trump that is putting this news out there on social media. It came from the press secretary on her second day.

GRIFFIN: It was a little surprising because she didn't seem to show up with any other news to announce. So when I worked with Kayleigh McEnany and Sara Huckabee, they would often go in with the president beforehand and say, are there any announcements you want me to make? And they'd put it into what we call their topper, their opening statements.

That would be where you would probably announce either staff firings or staff hirings or whatever the news might be. It kind of landed oddly. It may be that she was briefed and prepared for it if asked and just kind of put it out there then.

But you don't want to have a rocky start and the only real news you make be that an ambassador who's very close to the president is being fired that day. You really want to have something more proactive and positive for the administration. That's the news you're driving.

SANCHEZ: Alyssa Farah Griffin, appreciate the perspective. Thanks for joining us.

GRIFFIN: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Still to come, could this be the secret to living longer? New research suggesting obesity fighting drugs may have a surprising effect on aging.

[14:40:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: So-called farmer bro, Martin Shkreli, is back on federal and state investigators' radar. Shkreli made headlines nationwide when he inflated the price of a life-saving drug, raising its cost by 4,000 percent overnight.

As a result, you may recall, Shkreli was ordered to pay more than $64 million for anti-competitive behavior, also banned from participating in the pharmaceutical industry, an order that Shkreli apparently has not followed. CNN's Kara Scannell has this new reporting. So, Kara, walk us through the allegations.

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Boris, authorities say that Shkreli, almost from the minute he left prison where he was serving time for securities fraud, that he started violating this court order which had banned him from participating in the pharmaceutical industry. The Federal Trade Commission and seven state attorneys generals have filed a motion asking a judge to hold Shkreli in contempt, require him to pay fines, and if he were to continue to make these trades, to potentially imprison him. So what authorities say is that within weeks of Shkreli leaving prison, he was on YouTube live streaming as he's trading pharmaceutical stocks, taking positions on bets in favor of some of these companies and also opining negatively about others and betting that the stock prices would fall.

They say that those trades violate that court order. And in one of the streams that was highlighted by the authorities, they say that Shkreli was boasting about one of the profits that he made. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARTIN SHKRELI, PHARMA BRO: They don't want you to know. They don't want you to say stupid.

[14:45:00]

I'll try to give you some advice. 20 years of experience. Made a lot of money in these binary events, man. Some people say I'm the goat at it.

But you didn't want to hear nothing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCANNELL: Now, Shkreli is live streaming almost every day, often for several hours a day. So the authorities have highlighted certain instances on these streams where he does talk about stocks, including engaging in stock competitions, showing that he owns numerous pharmaceutical company shares at one time. They even say that they think that these trades that they highlighted are just the tip of the iceberg because they say that Shkreli himself has acknowledged that he has accounts elsewhere that they're unable to see.

They pull up this quote from Shkreli where he says, "I have some other accounts that I'd show you, but like I know the feds are watching, so f*** that." That is an indication the authorities believe is that Shkreli is continuing to violate this court order. They also think that his sister and her partner may be helping him.

So they're asking the judge to require everyone to preserve their documents and evidence as they're trying to move forward in this. We have tried to reach out to Shkreli for comment. We have not heard anything back.

He has not been on his YouTube channel since yesterday -- Boris.

SANCHEZ: Kara Scannell, thank you so much.

Now to some of the other headlines we're watching this hour. The archbishop assigned to serve Catholics in the U.S. military is condemning the Pentagon's plan to live stream a firing squad execution. Timothy Broglio says that Catholic personnel assigned to the firing squad should ask to be excused. His statement came after he met with Pope Leo on Monday. The Pentagon announced last week that the execution of Fort Hood mass shooter Nidal Hasan would be live streamed.

The president says they are still looking into that.

Also body camera video shows first responders in Mississippi rushing to the scene of a house fire with a four-year-old boy still trapped inside. CNN affiliate WAPT reports a neighbor also rushed into action, digging through the smoldering debris with his bare hands, trying to find the boy, and he did.

After pulling the child out, deputies immediately started CPR and placed the child on oxygen. The boy is now in critical condition. So far, a cause of the fire has not yet been determined.

And NASA and SpaceX launching a Dragon spacecraft to the International Space Station this morning, carrying supplies and science experiments, including research on artificial retinas and human heart tissue. This marks SpaceX's 35th resupply mission for NASA.

Scientists are learning more about GLP-1 medications. New research suggests the blockbuster drugs may do more than help you lose weight or manage diabetes. CNN's Jacqueline Howard joins us now with more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JACQUELINE HOWARD, CNN HEALTH REPORTER: One of these studies shows that semaglutide medications may reduce the biological age of organs in your body. Now, this study hasn't been published yet in a peer- reviewed journal, but it is part of a larger collection of research that's getting a lot of attention. What researchers did, they looked at data on more than 10,000 people.

This was across five clinical trials. And they found that among those people taking semaglutide medications, the medications reduced the biological age of their hearts by up to four years. And when the researchers then looked at other organs, like the brain, kidney, pancreas, and lungs, they also found reductions of up to four years.

And this was compared with their peers. So overall, this suggests that maybe GLP-1 medications can help people live longer. And there has been separate research already showing an association between GLP-1s and a reduced risk of heart disease and kidney and liver disease too.

But researchers say they really want to dig deeper into this to determine, are these anti-aging effects from the medications themselves, or are they simply a result of losing weight and getting better control of your blood sugar levels? That's the next question that needs to be answered in this body of research. But for now, like I said, this association is getting a lot of attention.

Back to you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: Jacqueline Howard, thank you so much for that. We only aren't talking about GLP-1. CNN's Pamela Brown is diving into topics that many others face and may avoid, from perimenopause to egg freezing to breast reductions.

She's getting answers to the biggest questions in women's health from doctors and medical experts. You can catch "BODY LANGUAGE" by CNN now streaming with an all-access subscription.

Still to come, data centers are booming, and so is the backlash to them. Up next, a CNN investigation reveals the threats of violence that have now led to arrests.

[14:50:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: Backlash against data centers is intensifying as more and more of these controversial projects spring up in various communities across the country, fueled largely by the growth of artificial intelligence. In some cities and towns, angry residents are pushing back and sometimes in violent ways. CNN's Kyung Lah has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Shame on you.

KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Rage against data centers is boiling over.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No. No.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get your hands off me.

LAH (voice-over): Beyond community protests like this --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, save me!

[14:55:00]

LAH (voice-over): -- into criminal cases that law enforcement has labeled terrorism.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're being placed under arrest for making terroristic threats.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I did not make any terroristic threats.

LAH (voice-over): CNN obtained more than 100 police reports from across the country on data center backlash in the past year. They include more than a dozen bomb threats.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It says, bomb a data center.

LAH (voice-over): Calls for assassinations.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You need to be lined up blindfolded and f**king shot.

LAH (voice-over): And violent threats on social media, "Unalive them. Luigis unite." Government agencies are warning of a broad range of threat actors and an increased threat environment targeting data centers. And police are cracking down investigating all sorts of comments on social media, even some that lack any imminent threat.

Police in El Paso, Texas, investigated this woman after she told a local official, "I hope you rot in hell and die" over a data center project.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's my First Amendment right. Just because I said, I hope? That's insane.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You just said a terroristic threat.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's not a terroristic threat.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It could be.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That is not a terroristic threat.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I said it's a borderline. You're kind of borderline.

LAH (voice-over): She didn't face charges.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Afternoon, sir.

LAH (voice-over): But this man, Harley DeLander did. This is him talking to police.

HARLEY DELANDER, DATA CENTER OPPONENT: These punks right here came by because I'm trying to organize a community protest against a representative who's trying to push in a data center.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The issue is some of the communication, the Facebook posts, some of the comments --

DELANDER: I never made a threat.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. Well, we disagree and our state's attorney disagrees.

LAH (voice-over): DeLander was angry about a data center possibly coming to this field near Dixon, Illinois.

DELANDER: Once the data center is built here, this land is gone. Concrete is -- it outlives people.

LAH (voice-over): DeLander called for a protest at the home of the man he believed supported the data center. Writing, "Someone put the fear of God in him and his family. Make him scared to close his eyes at night."

DELANDER: It was surprising when they told me that they were going to arrest me. I was kind of in disbelief.

LAH: You did post his home address.

DELANDER: Yes. Oh, yes.

LAH: Do you regret it?

DELANDER: I regret how strongly I worded it.

LAH (voice-over): DeLander was charged with multiple felonies, but he ended up pleading guilty to a petty charge. That's less than a misdemeanor. He is still stuck with this.

DELANDER: So this is a GPS ankle monitor. I still believe that I didn't do anything wrong. I don't think people should be arrested over strong words, strong language.

LAH (voice-over): And that's the dilemma for law enforcement. How far to take these cases.

While 13 shots were fired into the home of an Indianapolis council member, the majority of cases, CNN found, do not involve violence. Still, records show law enforcement is carefully monitoring the angry backlash, including the groups organizing the protests, like the one aboard this bus.

Amy Kremer's anti-AI group, Humans First, is on a nationwide tour. They call it a data center revolt, hosting protests in more than 30 cities.

AMY KREMER, CHAIR, HUMANS FIRST: Big tech by design is shoving this infrastructure down our throats. People feel like they are not being represented. Decisions are being made without input from the citizens in the community, and it's not right.

LAH (voice-over): Why would police care about Kremer? In 2020, she helped lead the Stop the Steal movement.

KREMER: We're not going to let them steal an election.

LAH (voice-over): Organizing the rally before the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Her target this time, data centers.

LAH: The United States Capitol Police --

LAH (voice-over): We showed Kremer this e-mail. U.S. Capitol Police Intelligence services sent an alert to other law enforcement about data center protests organized by her group.

LAH: So the Capitol Police --

KREMER: Wow. Wow, Wow.

LAH: -- are watching you. What do you think about that?

KREMER: I assume that they're watching me, everything I do. Watch me. I don't care. I'm not violating any laws. I didn't do anything wrong on January 6.

LAH (voice-over): Kremer calls herself a loyal Trumper. But on this issue, she objects.

LAH: He just posted "Let Data Reign."

KREMER: I disagree with the president on this. You know, when he says let data reign, I say let Americans reign. Big Tech is coming in and totally disrupting their lives and impacting their lives in ways they could have never imagined.

LAH (voice-over): With the clock ticking to the midterms, AI and data centers are scrambling politics.

LAH: Is this a Republican issue or a Democrat?

KREMER: I think it's an issue that affects all Americans. And so they all need to govern on it.

LAH: There are instances of people taking it too far because of this rage.

HARLEY DELANDER, DATA CENTER OPPONENT: Oh, yes. LAH: Do you excuse that violence?

DELANDER: I don't excuse violence at all. But at a certain point, when voting only gets you so far, you know, you got to start asking yourself what else is there?

LAH: A CNN poll recently found that nearly nine out of ten Americans are more concerned than excited about data centers. And with the midterms now less than a month away, politicians are certainly hearing it. In many cases, distancing themselves from previous support.

Kyung Lah, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

END