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Inflation Fuels Affordability Concerns as Midterms Near; Ukraine Says U.S. Undermining Its Defense; OpenAI Ex-Engineer Arrested for Bugging Conference Room; Social Security Benefits Get Biggest Boost Since 2023; Greenland Refuses Trump's Claim That Massive Drilling to Begin. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired October 14, 2026 - 13:30   ET

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

[13:30:00]

MATT EGAN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: -- since the president started his second term. But Brianna, just one last point for you. You mentioned inheriting inflation from President Biden. There's no doubt, inflation is not nearly as high as it was four years ago under Biden, right? It was nine percent. But it is also important to remember that inflation was coming down. And then when the president started his second term, inflation was at three percent. Now, it's at 3.7 percent. So inflation, Brianna, has gone in the wrong direction under President Trump. Back to you.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Yeah, at this point, he would love to have inherited that inflation rate that he was left with. Matt Egan, thank you so much.

Ukraine says the U.S. has stopped warning it about incoming strikes and is now slowing down vital Starlink services, undermining its ability to defend itself. We'll have that ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": As President Trump wraps up his midterm blitz to rally the Republican base, this Saturday night on "The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper," Senior Correspondent Donie O'Sullivan examines the cracks emerging in the MAGA movement. Some of the president's most loyal supporters have begun to question their allegiance on issues like the war in Iran, data centers, and the Epstein files.

[13:35:00]

KEILAR: Donie has traveled the country to find out exactly what is driving former Trump diehards to break with him and what it could mean for the GOP's future. Here's a preview.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Delcia (ph) and her mother, Ida (ph), live on a 1,200-acre farm a few miles outside of town. They turned down $26 million to sell their land.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They come through the door around May the 2nd, 2025. They said, we want to buy your land for $35,000 an acre.

O'SULLIVAN: Technically, on the contract, you don't know who's trying to buy your land.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Nope, it's a non-disclosure agreement.

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): But people here believe it's Mark Zuckerberg, it's Meta?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mom goes through the contracts, really, with fine-tooth comb. She says, I don't care what you do, but get out of this.

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Meta has never confirmed that they were pursuing a Kentucky data center.

O'SULLIVAN: Did they tell you what they wanted to do with the land?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, they did not tell us what they wanted to do with the land. They were just in a very big hurry to get it off of you as fast as possible.

O'SULLIVAN: Trump said, if you're against data centers, you're going to end up backward and poor.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And that sort of pisses you off when you're from Appalachia anyway, you've always been backward and poor. I've voted for Trump. I have every time he's run. I would go questioning it now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Donie O'Sullivan is with us now. Donie, what a conversation you had. Why is the president seemingly so out of touch with his base on this issue?

O'SULLIVAN (on camera): Yeah, you heard those two ladies, Ida (ph) and Delcia (ph), they both voted for Trump three times. And by all means, they are still very much conservatives and looking to probably vote Republican in the future. But on this issue specifically, we're seeing A.I. data centers becoming an issue, popping up all over the country.

And they're in a county, Ida (ph) and Delcia (ph), they're in Mason County in Kentucky, which Trump actually won by 44-point margin in 2024. And people there are really annoyed about this huge A.I. data center that a company is trying to build there. You know, I think in terms of why is he so disconnected on this, asking many of the MAGA folks that I've been speaking to over the past few months.

They point to that, you know, a lot of these tech billionaires are spending a lot of time at the White House now, in the Oval Office, of course. We remember the pictures from inauguration where the tech billionaire is standing right behind him back in January 2025. And other issues that we're hearing them break with Trump on include the Iran War. That's been a very big one, especially for young men, many of whom sort of voted for Trump in 2024, sort of under the guidance and inspiration of Charlie Kirk. So that seems to be, I think, an issue for the Republican Party going into the midterms and also into 2028, how they will capture the imagination of young male voters specifically.

But, Boris and Brianna, it is important to point out that in this show we have on Saturday night, I do go back to a couple of people that we've stayed in touch with over the years, Trump supporters, people who wanted Trump to be elected to drive down the price of gas to stop the wars. But they are still happy with how he is doing this term. So they are part of the sort of hardcore, loyal MAGA base. So that's still out there.

KEILAR: Yeah, they don't blame him for it. Donie, thank you so much. We'll be looking forward to that.

We're joined now by Mark McKinnon. He was an adviser to both former President George W. Bush and Senator John McCain. We're also joined by Rick Tyler, a former spokesman for Senator Ted Cruz's 2016 presidential campaign.

All right, Rick, you hear it there. Ida (ph) and Delcia (ph) are pissed off.

RICK TYLER, FORMER SPOKESMAN, TED CRUZ PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN: Yeah.

KEILAR: And this is the base that the president is banking on to show up for him for the midterms --

TYLER: Yeah.

KEILAR: -- for the party. But he's going out there trying to get them to show up. I mean, are they going to?

TYLER: Well, that's the $100,000 question. Look, airing a complaint about Trump's policies doesn't necessarily mean they're going to vote against the Republican Party. But there are a lot of headwinds. This is historically an off-year election. The average loss for the party in power is somewhere around 20 seats since 1932, I believe.

So he's got that to start. But then, you know, there's this campaign sign that I've noticed on almost every intersection in every major city and small town in America. And it has two numbers on it. One begins with a four. One begins with a six. And it's in neon, usually, and it's called gas prices.

(LAUGH)

TYLER: And that is what is driving people, mostly, is their economic situation and the thing that Trump has promised.

[13:40:00]

And so all these other things, like, have compounded that problem. The affordability issue is the main issue. But compounding the problem are things like the Iran War, the Epstein files, the war in Ukraine. They're making it very difficult, and Trump is doing essentially what he needs to do and what is the correct thing to do, is to motivate his base.

His base is the hardest voter to get, hardest voter to show up. But even if they all show up in this extraordinary year, I just don't think it's going to be enough to overcome, certainly not in the House, maybe in the Senate.

SANCHEZ: So that question about what happens in the Senate, Trump and Vance, Mark, have hit Texas very hard in the final weeks of the midterms. Republican-aligned groups there have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into that Senate race, and there are some signs that it could be working.

There's a new Marist College poll of likely voters finding that James Talarico's image is now underwater. 49 percent view him unfavorably. Is that reason for concern among Democrats?

MARK MCKINNON, FORMER ADVISER TO GEORGE W. BUSH AND JOHN MCCAIN: Well, I mean, the race is always going to be tough, but the fact that Republicans are having to defend a Texas Senate seat is, I mean, it's so antithetical to what we know about Texas.

I mean, there hasn't been a Texas Democrat in the Senate for more than 30 years. Ann Richards was the last Democrat elected statewide. I was there. Rick worked for Ted Cruz, and he knows the state very well. Cruz only won by 2.5 points, but it's interesting that there's a lot of parallels between the Cruz and Beto race and this race. Cruz only won that race 2.5 points, and I believe -- correct me if I'm wrong, Rick -- but Beto only was ahead in one poll that whole race.

This has flipped the script here, where Talarico's been ahead in almost every poll. Maybe Paxton's been ahead in one like Beto was, but Talarico's an exceptional candidate. Paxton is a terribly flawed candidate.

And just to put this in context, they've spent $150 million that they shouldn't have had to spend a cent. When I was doing the media for George W. Bush in the 2000 presidential race, we didn't spend that much money in the entire country. So listen, it may be having a little bit of an impact, but the fact that they're having to defend Texas tells you everything.

SANCHEZ: The Talarico camp, Rick, would probably say that they would live with those numbers in part because Paxton's are so much worse. He has an unfavorability rating of 56 percent. This is obviously the latest poll to suggest that Paxton has some issues around him, a lot of baggage and controversies. I wonder if you think he has done enough to shed that image.

TYLER: Look, I think that the unfavorability ratings have sort of a modern interpretation now. Everybody hates politicians right now. So years ago, an unfavorability rating of 49, you would really panic. But, like, as you say, it's all in perspective, because Paxton's are worse. And as long as his are worse, then Talarico's going to be in pretty good shape.

And as Mark pointed out, yes, Talarico has been consistently ahead. I don't know what's going to change that. I don't know that Trump's deal with our enemy, Vladimir Putin, to purchase diesel fuel is going to drive down prices. It won't. The Iranians are now actively attacking, through proxies, Saudi Arabia. That's not going to help gas prices, either.

(LAUGH)

TYLER: Like, none of these things are going to stabilize in the next three weeks. The die is cast, the deal is done. It's in. All you can do is get out as many people as you can, which is what the president is doing. He's trying to get out as many Republicans base that he can. But if you look at who's excited to vote and who's not excited to vote, it's clear that the Democrats have a huge advantage and being excited to go out and vote, because they feel like they can win the House -- I think they most certainly will -- and they could win the Senate.

And that's what's remained to be seen. And similar to Texas, as Mark pointed out, the president went to Alaska. Like, Alaska would be the last place on a Republican list to send the president of the United States, who is your greatest asset in the campaign, to go and turn out a vote, because Alaska should be a done deal. It's not.

And Iowa's in not that great a shape. Ohio's not in great a shape. Michigan's in terrible shape. There's a lot of problems for the Republicans. So it's going to be a bad night for the Republicans. It just is. How bad, we don't know. The misreading will be that the Democrats think they have some sort of mandate.

And I don't think that's true. I don't think people are saying, we don't like Trump's policies. We don't like how he's dealt with the war, with affordability, and all the rest of the gas prices and all the rest of it, and that's why we're Democrat. That's not what it is. It is just a rejection of the status quo. And that's all it is. And that's what the Democrats ought to read into it. They won't. They'll overreach.

[13:45:00]

KEILAR: OK. All right. But, Mark, when you look at this race in Texas that we're watching, how different is it to you than the Beto O'Rourke-Ted Cruz matchup?

MCKINNON: Well, you know, every couple years, I get -- I spend a lot of time in Texas so people come in and say, oh, this is the year and it's based largely on a mythology that -- well, it's true that they see that there's a rising demographic of Hispanics. The mistake they make is just assuming that they're going to vote Democratic.

Hispanics in Texas are very conservative and they showed that in, particularly a couple years ago, when they voted along the border for Donald Trump. What's changed most dramatically since then is votes among Hispanics that has swung completely back to Democrats. So now that rising demographic tide is making a difference for Democrats, so I just think that, listen, I've seen bad candidates. I've seen corrupt candidates. I've never seen them combined into one candidate so bad as Ken Paxton.

(LAUGH)

MCKINNON: And by the way, let's just acknowledge here -- let's take Ken Paxton at his word in a leaked tape, assuming it was authentic, that he said that Donald Trump when he came to Texas and did his big convention to help him that Paxton's own numbers went down. So there's only one person that Paxton has to thank for being where he is because there's very few people in Texas and (inaudible) the Republican Party in support of John Cornyn would have walked into that Texas and, see, and this is what he does for thanks, he blames Donald Trump for his poll numbers.

SANCHEZ: Mark and Rick, thank you so much for the conversation.

Up next, an alleged spy caught working at OpenAI, everything we know about the Saudi national accused of bugging the A.I. giant.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:51:09]

KEILAR: A recording device wrapped in toilet paper tucked into a T.V. screen in an executive conference room and now an arrest over an alleged spying scheme at one of America's top tech companies. The Department of Justice announcing new details as a former OpenAI employee faces federal charges.

CNN's Hadas Gold is monitoring the case for us. So Hadas, what more are the DOJ and OpenAI saying about all of this?

HADAS GOLD, CNN A.I. CORRESPONDENT: So Brianna, this now former employee has been identified as 35-year-old Abdulrahman Alfozan. He is a Saudi national. He had been working at OpenAI for about a year as an engineer on the product team.

Now according to both OpenAI and the Department of Justice, this recording device was hidden in the back of a T.V. in a conference room in OpenAI's offices that was only used by executives and other leadership. The device as installed, they called it sophisticated.

They said it monitored audio, had advanced encryption and a mechanism for transferring data designed to evade monitoring. OpenAI says that they had evidence that Alfozan planned to install more of these devices around the offices. They found -- they said they found another one of these devices actually in his backpack that he had left unattended in the offices.

They say they found this device during a regular security sweep of OpenAI's offices, got in touch with the FBI and then they installed a hidden camera and that's where you see that image of Alfozan looking behind the T.V. OpenAI said in a statement that at this time, we have no indications of this individual inappropriately accessing or exfiltrating model weights, source code or customer data. Now, we have looked into Alfozan's background. He had also worked at Meta, he went to MIT, he went to Berkeley. But interestingly, he also is a partner in a Saudi- based venture capital firm called RAED. We've reached out to both RAED and the Saudi Embassy for comment. We have not heard anything back from them yet.

The Department of Justice is indicating that they're taking this very seriously. They say that this is an issue of national security but we still don't know whether this was an issue of sort of corporate espionage or something, you know, where you have a state-sponsored national security implication as well.

Alfozan is now in federal custody. He was arrested last week and he's going to have his first appearance before a judge in California next week, guys.

KEILAR: All right, we'll be looking for that. Hadas, thank you so much. Boris?

SANCHEZ: Now to some of the other headlines we're watching this hour. More than 70 million Americans are about to get a boost in their social security checks to help them keep up with inflation. The average retired worker, that's about $75 more a month, bringing their check to about $2,170.

The 3.6 percent rise for 2027 is the biggest cost-of-living increase since 2023. That amount is tied to new inflation data that came out this morning showing stronger inflation in the latest month.

Also, Greenland's government is pushing back after President Trump announced that a massive oil, gas and mineral exploration is getting ready to begin in the Arctic Territory. The country says many smaller explorations are underway, but it could take years for them to be operational. Trump has repeatedly threatened to take control of Greenland, which is part of Denmark. The U.S., Denmark and Greenland signed an agreement last month on minerals cooperation, though it did not include many specifics.

And video from the Greek Coast Guard shows rescuers saving a cruise ship passenger from the Ionian Sea on Friday, nearly 24 hours after she fell into the water. People Magazine reports the 44-year-old woman went overboard Friday during a Royal Caribbean Cruise. She was picked up by a cargo ship Saturday morning. People says the woman is from El Salvador. The incident is now under investigation.

A new hour of "CNN News Central" starts after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:59:44]

KEILAR: Everything is bigger in Texas, including Democratic dreams ahead of the midterm election. CNN hosts the candidate in the Senate race, James Talarico, at a town hall tonight.

And President Trump heads to Arizona and Montana to rally voters as the White House tells Americans to trust the process. But we're learning more about how the president's policies are driving inflation even higher.

And a new update on Pope Leo's --