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Rep. Jeffries Meets Privately with Jared Kushner; Rogers Worried AIPAC Ad Spending Could Backfire; ICE Detains Father of Sailor Onboard USS Abraham Lincoln. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired August 24, 2026 - 06:00   ET

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

BRAD SMITH, CNN ANCHOR: The high school football team that had the title of America's longest losing streak is now a winner.

[06:00:09]

After 11 years and 101 straight losses, Columbia High School in Huntsville, Alabama, celebrated a win Saturday night. Final score: 41 to 14. And they hope to extend that newfound success and victory in a matchup this Friday.

That does it for CNN Headline Express. I'm Brad Smith. CNN THIS MORNING with Audie Cornish starts right now

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: Today in the group chat, we're talking about a secret face-to-face meeting. It was between Jared Kushner and Hakeem Jeffries. So, who should be more concerned: Democrats or Republicans?

Plus, the White House says today is economic D-Day for Iran, but haven't years of sanctions and isolation of Iran already failed?

And the father of a sale -- of a sailor serving in extended deployment aboard the USS Lincoln has been detained by ICE for deportation. We're going to talk about how voters are responding to that.

And Pete Buttigieg returns to the state that derailed his run for president six years ago. Does this mean he's running?

Good morning, everybody. I'm Audie Cornish, and here's where we begin: this secret sit-down to find common ground among two sides where, honestly, that's not so common.

So, sources tell CNN that president -- that the president's son-in- law, Jared Kushner, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries got together privately in recent weeks to, quote, "collaborate."

"The New York Times" first reported the meeting, writing, "Its timing underscored that those around Mr. Trump were well aware of the likelihood of a Democratic-led House and trying to foster as much of a working relationship as possible before any change."

So, is the White House preparing to lose the House and the Senate come November? We're bringing in folks who know into the group chat: my buddy Francesca Chambers, White House correspondent for "USA Today"; and Todd Ricketts, Republican strategist and former finance chairman at the Republican National Committee; and Yasmin Radjy, executive director of Swing Left.

OK, Swing Left, do you guys want him swinging middle? Do you want Hakeem Jeffries talking to Jared Kushner?

YASMIN RADJY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, SWING LEFT": We want to do whatever it takes to win a House majority. And I think that --

CORNISH: Whatever it takes to win.

RADJY: I think that, if Jared Kushner is reaching out, he knows we're going to be winning, not just by a little eek of a majority. We are going to be winning by a very serious majority.

And, you know, as an organizer, I believe there's no such -- there's no permanent allies, no permanent enemies, only permanent interests. And in a moment where there is such an extreme affordability crisis, obviously, none of us knows what was discussed in that room, but I hope Hakeem was laying out really clearly that an affordability agenda is something that, you know, any person who is paying attention, who is breathing air, should be ready to fight for. And --

CORNISH: Breathing air? Listen to these.

RADJY: You know. You know.

CORNISH: The bar is low.

RADJY: The bar is low.

CORNISH: OK. President Trump has been softening his stance, needless to say, on Jeffries in recent weeks. And by that, we mean going from retweeting images of him in a A.I.-imposed sombrero to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: I think he's a nice guy. I mean, I did. He was here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

TRUMP: We had a good meeting. It was a -- you know, look.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's harsh on you. He says -- I mean, he --

TRUMP: Well, he's harsh, because I'm harsh on him. You know, I'm sure he wouldn't be so harsh. I've said bad things about --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Could you do business with him, you think?

TRUMP: Yes, I think so.

(END VIDEO CLIP) CORNISH: I'm kind of curious what the business is. The legislative liaison to the -- to Congress apparently has left the White House. So, do they even have legislation that needs massaging? Like, what would they even collaborate on?

FRANCESCA CHAMBERS, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, "USA TODAY": Well, if Republicans lose the House and not even to mention the Senate, I think it's going to be pretty difficult to get legislation through.

CORNISH: But he's sitting on a box of legislation.

CHAMBERS: Bipartisan, bipartisan, bipartisan legislation.

CORNISH: Like, is there something?

CHAMBERS: Well, I mean, right now, he keeps pushing the SAVE America Act, right? I mean, that's what the White House's focus is. And by the way, given that Congress is out until September. The House comes back late August, Senate in September. I mean, at this point, with elections just around the corner, there's -- there's not a lot of hope for many pieces of legislation coming through.

Although there are a few things that could be an exception to that rule, such as those sanctions on Russia, as well as sanctions on Iran.

However, in the broader scheme of things about whether or not this is a signal that the -- you know, the White House thinks it's going to lose the House of Representatives. I thought it was interesting when asked about this yesterday, Mike Johnson said that Jared Kushner is a guy who always hedges his bets.

So, that seemed to signal that even the House speaker thinks that Jared Kushner, at least, if not the White House, that Jared Kushner is hedging his bets here.

CORNISH: Yes.

CHAMBERS: Because he tried to distance Kushner from the White House in his comments.

CORNISH: He also said Jared had interest in a lot of things going on, which is correct. Obviously, beyond being the president's son-in-law, he's executive board -- Gaza for Board of Peace. He's also the advisor for wars in Iran and Ukraine.

[06:05:08]

He, of course, runs a multibillion dollar in Saudi investments and recently endured some pretty serious backlash from the nation of Albania over a resort there, which led to what was called the Flamingo Protest.

Help me understand inserting him. I usually think of him as someone, because he's not elected. He's not appointed. We don't pay him.

TODD RICKETTS, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Right. CORNISH: He's someone Trump trusts to go --

RICKETTS: A hundred percent.

CORNISH: Go talk. Go talk over there.

RICKETTS: Yes. And I would say like, I'm sure that -- that Hakeem and Jared know each other pretty well. They're both New Yorkers. They're both -- you know, they've both been around for a long time. So, I don't think it's unusual for them to get together.

And actually, you know, we've talked about this before, is that the reason I created Freespoke was because I thought Republicans and Democrats weren't talking enough. Right? And so now there's --

CORNISH: Well, now they are. You're, like, "Yay."

RICKETTS: Yes. Yes, it's likely exactly. It's like --

CORNISH: Push it to the front page.

RICKETTS: Push it to the front page where people are getting together and talking about things.

But also, you know, one of the things I think that -- that -- that Jared and Hakeem are probably worried about is that, like, in the event that he does become the speaker, it's like, how do you keep the far left of the Democrat Party from wanting to impeach the president every other day?

CORNISH: OK.

RICKETTS: And so, we can get into a little bit of craziness there.

CORNISH: Godspeed.

Coming up on CNN THIS MORNING, the treasury secretary is promising an economic D-Day on Iran. We're going to have David Sanger here. He's going to explain if sanctions will work for this White House this time around, or if Trump is just running out of options.

But first, Democrats started distancing themselves from AIPAC, but now pro-Israel Republicans may be following suit. We're going to talk about whether AIPAC has become a liability in the general election, and the group chat is going to weigh in.

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[06:11:24]

CORNISH: OK, so Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers reportedly telling AIPAC, thanks, but no thanks, when it comes to help in the general election.

Now, according to a story first reported by Axios, allies of the Michigan Republican have asked the pro-Israel group not to advertise on his behalf. Quote, "The move by Rogers' team angered AIPAC officials, who had spent more than 30 million to try and defeat El- Sayed in the Democratic primary and prepared to spend millions more to help elect Rogers, according to people familiar with the conversations."

The group chat is back. Todd, how rare is it for a candidate to just say, Hey, maybe not. And I should say super -- super PACs and candidates are not allowed to collaborate outright.

RICKETTS: Right, right, right.

CORNISH: So, just the fact that someone was even like, how about we not?

RICKETTS: I think it happens all the time, actually.

CORNISH: Oh, really?

RICKETTS: I think you -- you run into this, because there's, like, groups that are, like, somewhat aligned, but not totally aligned. I think this is a fairly unique case in where they probably are very aligned.

But, you know, the country is going through a little bit of Israel fatigue at the moment, right? And so, you know, it's been so much in the news. And any time something's in the news for so long, people get a little tired of hearing of it. So, I don't think it's that crazy.

CORNISH: Do you think -- I like that you used the word "fatigue."

RICKETTS: Yes.

CORNISH: Fatigue, hearing about it?

RICKETTS: Just hearing about it.

CORNISH: Or is this the rumblings of what we hear from the Tucker Carlson wing of the "We are annoyed and upset about the Middle East party"?

RADJY: No, I just think --

CORNISH: Who are very vocal.

RICKETTS: I think it just draws attention to that we still have this this active issue going on in the Middle East.

And any time you have the military out there in an election time frame, even if everybody agrees that it's the right thing to do, people have, like, a little bit of a hang-up and get a little tired of it. And they don't like seeing our soldiers in harm's way sort of thing.

CORNISH: Yes. AIPAC spent a lot of money to try and defeat El-Sayed. It did not work. And now, they are back to try and spend that money to defeat him in the general. And it brought to mind something, a letter from Bernie Sanders that I

saw a few weeks back, where he was saying to the Democrats, no more outside money. How about we just ban it in primaries?

I see you laughing already. But his -- he mentioned Michigan and Rogers by name. He said, "It's absurd that they" -- in that case, AIPAC -- "spends tens of millions of dollars to try to determine who the Democratic nominee is. And then, if they fail, they proceed to support the Republican candidate in the general election."

Can Democrats afford to say no to super PACs?

RADJY: I mean, listen, first of all, you mentioned that this is something that typically happen. On the Democratic side, we typically don't have candidates calling super PACs. It might be more common on the Republican side, but it's a blatant breach of campaign finance.

But I think what we're seeing is, I mean, Republicans have always had the money. And we've always had the people. And we've always organized ourselves in ways to make the most of what we've got.

And I think what Republicans are realizing as they manipulate the Supreme Court to give their money advantage even more of an advantage.

CORNISH: Are you referring to Citizens United? There was a lot to unpack in that sentence.

RADJY: No, a more recent one. There was a recent NRSC case that just gave Republicans money advantage, even a more bloated amount of power.

And so, on our side, what we're doing is doing the work of organizing.

And I think what Republicans are realizing, it's not just this Mike Rogers illegal phone call to a -- to a super PAC, but also the NRSC put out a memo basically saying that the data center issue is a huge liability.

CORNISH: We will come back to that. I want to say that the Rogers campaign spokesman [SIC] Deryn Sousa, said -- and I just want to quote -- "The Rogers campaign has been explicit with us that they" -- I'm sorry, this is -- quotes an AIPAC spokesperson, saying that "the Rogers campaign has explicit with us that they welcome support from AIPAC and our members."

[06:15:04]

I think the big question hovering over all of this is AIPAC has become a litmus test on the left for Democrats. Do you take money from AIPAC?

CHAMBERS: Right.

CORNISH: Do you not? You're going to upset some voters if you do.

Is this now happening to Republicans, as Thomas Massie of Kentucky sort of implied that it might? CHAMBERS: No, that is interesting, because it has typically become a

Democratic issue. Because the Democratic Party s base has shown in the last couple of years that it's very divided over the issue of support for -- for Israel, particularly in polling.

But I did want to touch on something you were saying about -- about the -- about Bernie Sanders. I mean, he explicitly said in the general election, though, that candidates should be able to continue taking the money.

Because he said, while he doesn't personally think that's something that they should be doing, the way that the law is, that the rules are right now is that you put candidates at a disadvantage, Democratic candidates, if they aren't taking that money in a general election.

So, his argument was in the primary, everybody should stay out of the primary. It should be head-to-head.

CORNISH: Well, I think his point --

CHAMBERS: But in the general, yes.

CORNISH: -- was in the primary --

CHAMBERS: Yes.

CORNISH: -- it's you -- you want people who actually care about the topic, the candidate, or that electorate in the primary to be pouring that money in. You don't want just randos pouring money in, right?

And then in the general, flipping that money to someone like -- I think it's --

CHAMBERS: Well, special interest groups. Yes. Special interest groups.

CORNISH: But that's what I mean. The implication is that, if you don't care about those voters, why are you meddling in that primary?

RICKETTS: I want to go back to Republicans outspending Democrats, because I feel like it's the opposite. I can't like, name a race where -- where --

RADJY: Well, on the hard side, we've always we've always had a money advantage because of grassroots.

CORNISH: But address what he's saying. Like, in this --

RICKETTS: So, you admit you have a money advantage?

RADJY: On the grassroots side, on the hard side. But then, Republicans come in and spend millions of dollars of outside money on the super PACs.

And what this new NRSC Supreme Court decision means is that, all of a sudden, that hard-side advantage that has been -- hard-side, meaning the official campaign infrastructure -- that just got erased, because our Supreme -- Donald Trump's Supreme Court now says Republicans can spend as much money as they want, not just on super PACs.

CORNISH: The thing I'm wrestling with is lots of people are dealing with it's bipartisan, the ups and downs of who has money and who does not.

Ken Paxton right now not great. You know, that's why Elon Musk has to be like, well, maybe. So, to your point, yes, there's a difference between the small money donors, the online donor class, and the outside pockets.

RICKETTS: I think the Democrats have plenty of outside pockets.

CORNISH: Well, they're not spending. We've been doing a bunch of story about them sitting on the sidelines.

RICKETTS: There's a lot of C-4 money out there that -- that doesn't get reported to an individual, but there's lots of outside, right?

CORNISH: All right. The money people. Listen, we're going to come back to you guys with some FEC filings or something.

RICKETTS: Yes, yes. There's plenty of billionaires on both sides.

CORNISH: After -- but are they spending? And that is why we're going to talk about this next.

Mayor Pete looking toward 2028. Can he fix what derailed his last race for the White House?

But first, this person spent nine months at sea serving his country, and then this sailor in the Middle East now says his father is in ICE detention. So, is this what voters wanted when they asked for immigration reform?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:22:26]

CORNISH: So, we're asking now if this is the immigration reform Trump supporters voted for. Here's an example.

The father of a sailor aboard that USS Abraham Lincoln is now in ICE detention for possible deportation.

Sailor Joshua Aviles posted about his father being taken by ICE on social media. Now, he's been aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln for the past nine months. He wrote this: "This is heartbreaking for me. I don't know how I can mentally continue working 12 hours a day, knowing that my dad is somewhere, possibly treated like a criminal."

Group chat is back. I wanted to talk about it. because it's a collision of two stories over the last year. Obviously, the USS Lincoln being out there with people worried about the sort of mental health and conditions for the soldiers.

And then this weird insult to injury, where someone just says, oh, and by the way, while serving my country, this has happened. It feels like this is the kind of story that will punch through, because it's on the boat.

RICKETTS: No, I -- you know, I get that. I think that, you know, everybody in our country -- not everybody, but a lot of people in our country -- wanted to get some -- some semblance of stability with our immigration system and kind of get control of that.

My wife's an immigrant, so I've been through this. I've been through this process. And what I would say is, like --

CORNISH: How long did it take?

RICKETTS: It -- well, to become a citizen? Like, 6 or 7 years. But it's really -- you have to do your paperwork exactly right. It's -- it's not a process that allows for checking the wrong box. And so --

CORNISH: Yes. Have you had fears since this crackdown of, like, has everything checked? Should we be worried?

RICKETTS: No, no, no. She's a U.S. citizen now. But I would just say, like, when it comes to immigration, if you're -- if you're filing and you're filling out an application, just do it right, and be on time, and make sure you show up at your appointments.

CORNISH: One of the things I'm worried -- I'm wondering about is when is it enough? When have they reformed immigration? What can they call success?

And is it a problem when -- and I'm going to show this poll, Marquette Law School, in particular Latino voters now at 66 percent disapproval of how the White House is handling immigration.

CHAMBERS: I mean, when President Trump ran for office, going back to the 2016 campaign, I mean, he said that this was going to be --

CORNISH: That's why we're showing it.

CHAMBERS: Yes. I mean.

CORNISH: These are the people who were like, yes, we're into it. We agree. Democrats are off base saying that we care about immigration this much. And now, they are annoyed: 66 percent disapprove. Shift is what I'm asking.

CHAMBERS: Well, in terms of why President Trump is losing support not just from Latinos but from other Americans.

CORNISH: And men, yes.

[06:25:00]

CHAMBERS: -- there's == there's -- right, there's -- there's many factors here, right? I'm not saying that immigration isn't one of them. But the economy has been a major factor for -- for many Americans as the president lose -- slips in support. I mean, the Iran War has been a factor, which is related to the economy.

CORNISH: Yes.

CHAMBERS: I'm saying there's a -- there's a -- there's a whole bunch of different, you know, issues right now that are affecting the president's broader approval rating among Americans as we head into the midterm elections.

However, when it comes to immigration, specifically, President Trump and the Trump administration have been clear, when he ran for president, every time he ran for president, that this immigration crackdown --

CORNISH: Yes.

CHAMBERS: -- was going to be something that were focused on.

CORNISH: But ever since the two people were killed by ICE agents in January, I have not seen Democrats running on this as an issue. I have not seen ads that say, Look at these sob stories of things that are happening to these migrants. This has gone too far.

How come that's not being talked about?

RADJY: In the swing state, those are exactly the message. I mean, we're -- so at Swing Left, we're going out. We're talking to voters across the political spectrum.

So, we're not getting Republican and independent doors just as much as were knocking Democratic doors.

And what we saw after Minneapolis was a really dramatic shift on how voters were talking about immigration. Previously, it was really only strong Republicans talking about border security. And that's --

CORNISH: Why the ads: this is our border security plan, or the ads, this is how bad these guys are doing it?

RADJY: No, I think what we're hearing from, including Republican independent voters, is there's now a divorce between how people feel about the border and how they feel about this ICE crackdown.

Even the toughest on border folks are like, well, what ICE is doing is against freedom. This is the immigrants in my community, the construction workers that I employ.

CORNISH: Yes. But that's interesting. You're seeing this split. Like before, they were one and the same. And now people can look at -- maybe they're seeing a ton of those videos online of the, like, masked ICE dudes doing stuff.

RADJY: Yes.

CORNISH: And they no longer look at that and think border security.

RICKETTS: Well, I think going back to that, you're talking about Minneapolis. I think, you know, earlier this year, we saw a lot of protests around ICE operations, right? These ICE agents are trying to pick people up, and there's tons of protesters there, blowing whistles and getting in their way.

And I think what happened is that, you know, people started to get tired of that. Going back to my word, "fatigue." They were like, can you guys just let these guys do their job? And so, what you've seen is --

CORNISH: Well, no, immigration --

RADJY: Dial back.

CORNISH: They were like, we're being quieter about our border enforcement.

RICKETTS: These protests have gone away. We no longer see these guys. Yes.

CORNISH: Immigration changed tactics. So that's important to what you're saying. If they've changed tactics, maybe that works going into the general. Because you don't have high-profile ICE dragnets going on, because the administration said, oh, let's dial it back.

RADJY: Yes, but we have very easy video reminders of the brutality of what ICE has done. And that, even for people who are -- who really believe in border security, what ICE is doing, as you said earlier, is extremely unpopular.

CORNISH: But you're saying it's not the issue it was at the height of the protests?

RICKETTS: It was, yes, 100 percent. I would just say like, if you look at the numbers, too, I think like the deportations this year and even last year, they were up a little bit.

But I think we deport between 3 and 400,000 people a year through -- you know, there was 1.6 million people self-deported last year. But, like, through the deportation process, through deportation orders, I think we deport 3 to 400,000 people a year. And think that --

CORNISH: And when do they call it a success? Like, when am I going to be --

RICKETTS: That number's been consistent going back to the Obama administration?

RADJY: So why isn't ICE's budget any smaller, if you're saying that this is a topic of the past?

RICKETTS: No, I'm not saying it's a topic of the past. I think it's normal operations. We've been doing it for years. You go back and look at the Obama numbers. RADJY: It's not normal operations. What ICE is doing right now has

nothing to do with what ICE has ever done before.

I mean, the amount -- we're standing -- we're here in D.C. What we're seeing is in my back alley, there was ICE agents just last weekend. The construction workers in my neighborhood haven't come -- don't come to work as regularly.

That's not business as usual.

And I think what all Americans really can agree on is we want border security, and we want a pathway to citizenship. The Republican Party doesn't actually want progress.

CORNISH: Well, we'll see if that's how Democrats are talking going into the fall.

RICKETTS: We'll see.

CORNISH: I hear what you're saying here, but I don't know if that's what we've been hearing about the campaigning. And that's important because we're going to figure out whether we're looking at another swing election, like 2006, not 2018 or anything like that.

Twenty years ago, Democrats swept the Republicans out of power. So, we want to know whether they can do it again.

And in the meantime, please stay with us on streaming today. Laura Coates is going to be anchoring the Tupac murder trial. CNN is going to take you inside the Sin City courtroom for every moment. Thirty years after Tupac Shakur's shooting death on the Vegas Strip.

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