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CNN This Morning
New Trump Meme Coin Contest; Botched Execution in Tennessee; Texas Democrat Files Police Report over A.I. Ads. Aired 6:30-7a ET
Aired October 02, 2026 - 06:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[06:30:00]
AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: There's new questions about whether it's even a good idea.
Later on CNN, new developments in the investigation of that alleged rape at Cornell University. There's actually going to be a news conference set for 9:30 a.m. Eastern. And CNN's NEWS CENTRAL will have it covered for you.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CORNISH: All right, it's been dubbed the most exclusive dinner in the world. If you wanted in, you needed to invest in the president's meme coin. Yesterday, the company behind the president's cryptocurrency venture announced that he would attend a VIP reception at his private golf club in Washington, D.C., in late November.
[06:35:03]
So, the invitation is for the top 185 holders of the Trump crypto coin. Now, if this sounds familiar, that's because there was a similar contest in April of last year, and a similar dinner in May for the biggest buyers.
So, the business has, of course, been good for the president. He's made more than a billion from his crypto portfolio. But buying in hasn't paid off for, you know, the investors. The Trump coin, when it launched, was being sold for around $70. And today its value has fallen to just $2. According to a July article in "The New York Times," "nearly a million investors lost a total of $3.8 billion on Trump Crypto Coin."
The group chat is back.
Discuss.
NOEL KING, CO-HOST AND EDITORIAL DIRECTOR, "TODAY, EXPLAINED" PODCAST: Who are those million people? Who are they?
CORNISH: Not the kind of people who'd be at the dinner, honestly.
KING: Yes, they're not going to the dinner.
CORNISH: Like, I feel --
LUKE THOMAS, HOST, "MORNING KOMBAT": Suckers.
KING: Yes.
CORNISH: Oh, OK. That's a way of putting it.
THOMAS: Sorry. He's fleecing his own audience.
CORNISH: But who is benefiting from these dinners, right? Like he's having the dinners because there's a market for the dinner. So, who sits in the chairs?
KING: Yes, yes, people will pay -- 100 people. How many people were going to the dinner?
CORNISH: One hundred and eighty-five, I think. Yes.
KING: A hundred and eighty-five people who need something from President Trump, presumably, and thinks sitting face-to-face with him is going to get them something.
No, I was looking into this, this morning. Government corruption is one of those -- you know, it's one of those terms that you're like, ah, never mind (ph). But 90 percent of Americans, there's new polling from Gallup, 89 percent of Americans say that government corruption is a problem in the United States. This is -- this is like, you guys, this is a very high number even actually (ph).
CORNISH: It is.
KING: And it's because of this nonsense.
CORNISH: I don't know about that. There's a lot of Republicans who think fundamentally Democrats are corrupt in a big way. Like that word corruption encompasses a lot of things.
KING: It's true, but this is so loud.
CORNISH: Yes.
KING: It's so loud.
THOMAS: There's different forms of corruption. But in terms of self- dealing or using the office to monetize itself, this is unprecedented in American history.
CORNISH: Luke, settle down.
THOMAS: That's just a fact.
CORNISH: It says right on the website, no attendees will be granted a private meet and greet with the president. And that, quote, "no gifts will be accepted." The gift is your presence.
THOMAS: The gift is the fact that they're going to get all the money off the trading fees and other ways in which they just sort of get people to put in, what was it, $148 million or billion?
CORNISH: By they, you mean Trump.
THOMAS: Right, this is the gift. It's the gift to himself. It's a self-enrichment.
I just want to point out something. There's no guest list for any of this stuff, right?
CORNISH: Right.
THOMAS: So, previous instances, there was, I think, Inca Digital, which was one of these places that sort of assesses who's on these, half of the people that ended up being in this list -- or not the list, but being able to go, used exchanges that aren't even allowed in the United States. Who are these people? Like, we don't even know who the president is rubbing elbows with.
And I understand we live in a world in Washington where there's a lot of elbow rubbing with some, you know, a cast of interesting characters. But this is totally below board. This is utterly without insight -- or with oversight, excuse me. And it just seems to me like we have a problem in Washington with money in politics generally. This is that on steroids.
CORNISH: Are Democrats also rubbing their hands together for if they get the gavel? Because I think crypto has poured so much money using their super PACs into races over the last couple of years.
THOMAS: Yes.
CORNISH: I feel like they fear regulation to come.
MICHAEL WARREN, POLITICS EDITOR, "THE DISPATCH": I think this is going to be a big focus of the Democratic Congress if they win control of the majority in the House and the Senate. Not just regulation of crypto, but investigation of the president himself. Because, I mean, this has all been out in the open.
CORNISH: Yes.
WARREN: And I think you're right that there is no precedent for this. I mean, we remember back in the '90s, there was a lot of controversy over, you know, Bill Clinton doing things with regard to fundraising that were seen as ethically dubious. But he wasn't enriching himself. The money was all sort of focused on his campaign or Democratic campaigns.
CORNISH: Yes.
WARREN: This is a level that's, again, unprecedented and it's out in the open.
CORNISH: Right. And as you said, may be ripe for inquiry just because of the lack of transparency. THOMAS: There was an article in the -- there was an article in "The
New York Times" today about how much Anthropic and OpenAI are putting into Democratic races. They are absolutely trying to make sure they can play both sides, depending on who takes power.
CORNISH: Oh, perfect for my next segment. Next on CNN, A.I.-generated ads popping up in political races, including one that so incensed the candidate they called the cops. So, what does the law even say about that?
Plus there's this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. RILEY MOORE (R-WV): People are coming now to the truth. And that truth being that Richard Nixon was absolutely cooed out of office and was framed.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: The Nixon maxers (ph) try to rewrite history. We're going to talk about the efforts to rehabilitate his image.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:43:34]
CORNISH: We're tracking the developing story out of Tennessee, where that death row inmate is still alive, even after receiving two shots of lethal injection drugs. And Christa Pike's attorneys say she's now in critical condition. We don't know anything else about her condition after this execution that failed. They say that their client actually endured a punishment, quote, "greater than any other person in the history of the American death penalty." They are now asking the governor to commute her sentence.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHEN FARRELL, CHRISTA PIKE'S ATTORNEY: We would ask for that commutation, given the fact that she is one of the only people to survive a full attempt at execution under lethal injection. But that -- that's really not something we can control.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: Joining me now is Elliot Williams, CNN legal analyst and former federal prosecutor.
Elliot, thanks for being here.
And I want to get to the capital punishment of it all. But first, this idea of commuting the sentence. Tennessee's governor says he's suspending executions for the rest of the year while they review what happened. It turns out that only covers one scheduled execution that was supposed to happen in December.
ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Right.
CORNISH: Here's what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. BILL LEE (R-TN): The people of Tennessee have determined that capital punishment is the appropriate sentence for the most heinous of crimes. The people of Tennessee expect that those sentences will be carried out in a manner that's not only legal and constitutional, but effective.
[06:45:08]
And that didn't happen. And I'm highly disappointed, along with Tennesseans, about what happened last night.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAMS: Right. And there's a few things happening there. It's not just that something tragic happened. It's also that this was ineffective and ineffective use of capital punishment. So, he's got --
CORNISH: He almost underlined verbally those words "legal," "effective," and saying that's not what this was.
WILLIAMS: Yes. Right. Exactly. So -- yes, so there's two different avenues here.
No, I mean, I think we have not seen the end of this legal story, number one. I think she files to challenge the -- under habeas. You know, you've heard the term from the Constitution, the conditions of her punishment. What she would certainly seek commutation of her sentence down to life in prison from here.
But I also think what this all exposes is the complexity -- the central complexity to the death penalty and the Eighth Amendment, which governs the death penalty. We have established, in the United States, that it is OK to execute people. The law is clear about that. Has been since --
CORNISH: State-sponsored. Yes.
WILLIAMS: State sponsored. But it has been since the founding of the country.
We've also established that cruel and unusual punishment is not permissible under the death penalty. We have this bizarre scenario now where an individual who, the first time around could have been executed, probably can't be executed now because she's probably not competent to stand for execution. If in -- if any -- under any other circumstance, if someone had a heart attack or a stroke in prison while they were on death row, the state would not then revive them to execute them. And so, she's in that gray area where there's going to be a ton of lawsuits.
CORNISH: Yes. Could they just use a different method? I don't mean to sound macob --
WILLIAMS: They can. They --
CORNISH: But given how many states, 27, still have capital punishment on the books --
WILLIAMS: Yes.
CORNISH: I'm sure people are wondering.
WILLIAMS: And she absolutely -- and she has the right to do that and actually asked for a firing squad, I believe. The problem isn't the method though. The problem is the defendant's competence to stand execution. And if somebody is so infirm and by all accounts, if she's in critical condition, she's legally not in any condition to be executed.
And this is not the moral question of whether it's right to do so. I'm just saying what the law will allow.
I think the state of Tennessee, right now, as of today, based on what we're reading in the media, is going to have a very, very hard time making a legal case for executing this person.
CORNISH: Yes.
WILLIAMS: Yes.
CORNISH: And just the context for this. I remember back when I was at NPR, there was an analysis they did finding that more than 200 inmates who had been executed by lethal injection, basically in post mortem found that their injuries were like suffocation. And the question about lethal injection has always been a tricky one because medical personnel are not the people who do these actual injections.
WILLIAMS: Right. Y es.
CORNISH: It's very hard to get the chemicals. They don't have the chemical mix right. And yet states have still been trying to push it, even if the outcome looks cruel and unusual.
WILLIAMS: Right. And the tricky thing with lethal injection, at least as it's administered in Tennessee and a lot of other places, it's now compounding pharmacies that will put together chemicals from different places as opposed to one manufacturer that says, OK, this is the pentobarbital compound that we're using. So, you have these unregulated, smaller pharmacies who are just kind of --
CORNISH: Everyone's making it up.
WILLIAMS: Based on vibes.
CORNISH: Yes.
WILLIAMS: Sort of, I think this will kill somebody. And the legal centers are just trickier. So, a lot -- CORNISH: OK.
WILLIAMS: So, you can expect a challenge to that too. Yes.
CORNISH: I'm going to end with this.
WILLIAMS: Yes.
CORNISH: Colleen Slemmer's mother actually spoke. She, of course, was there after this failed execution. And she said this, "nobody apologized." She said, "here we are, 31 years, and you're laughing in my face again. And that's what I feel like they did." She says the state failed her family and she says, "I think the state owes me a big apology."
We're going to continue following this story through the rest of the day.
I want to turn to this because we are still talking about the campaigns, especially in places like Texas, where right now, if you're a voter in Texas, you have probably seen this attack ad from Texas Republican Ken Paxton. And here's where we begin. This is not James Talarico. It is an A.I.-generated version of the Texas Democrat. It was created by the Paxton campaign. And Talarico has been saying this about these ads.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAMES TALARICO (D), TEXAS SENATE CANDIDATE: Texans are sick of these A.I. ads trying to deceive voters, putting words in my mouth. These data centers that are popping up in our communities, soaking up all our water, driving up our utility prices, and Ken Paxton, the reason he's using A.I. is that he is bought by the A.I. industry.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: Another Texas Democrat, Vikki Goodwin, filed a police report against her Republican opponent, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick. Goodwin says two of Patrick's A.I.-generated videos of her violate a Texas law against misrepresenting an opponent's identity with the intent to injure a candidate or influence an election. Texas tried to draw the line around political deepfakes seven years ago, but is that law enough to cover what campaigns can create now?
Back to you very briefly.
WILLIAMS: Yes.
CORNISH: Because we've heard the president say the Justice Department is the way we are going to regulate A.I.
[06:50:02]
WILLIAMS: Right.
CORNISH: But the nitty gritty of the day to day of it looks like this. WILLIAMS: Right. The problem is that, in campaigns, virtually anything that's produced by A.I. is speech. And a lot of it is going to be protected under the First Amendment.
Now, states have different ways they regulate it. When the ad runs, as you see in Texas, they have a 30-day rule that you can't put such ads out within 30 days of an election. Where, what state happens, and also, is there a disclaimer? Fifty different -- 50 different regulatory schemes (ph).
CORNISH: I know. But when the speech is coming right out of the person's mouth. Like, one of the reasons I didn't play for you this ad and its audio is because, at a glance, it looks like Talarico is saying these things. Visually, you just see the quote, but it actually sounds like it's coming out of his mouth. And I don't understand why that's OK.
WILLIAMS: It's -- it gets way more complicated because those are James Talarico's words.
CORNISH: I see.
WILLIAMS: Even if that's not the person.
CORNISH: So, that's why they have the quotes there, to show, we got this from somewhere.
WILLIAMS: Right. And absolutely, if this were fabricated quotes, or James Talarico saying ridiculous things that he'd never said, they have a much stronger legal case for getting that taken down.
WARREN: Yes. No, no, I agree, it's ugly and it's sort of shameful. But this is politics and politics has been shameful and ugly for a long time. I don't like this. And I wish that it weren't protected speech. But it seems like Elliot's absolutely right.
THOMAS: I feel like, just very quickly, we are keep -- we keep letting A.I. do things to us rather than creating policy to do things to A.I.
I'm with you. I think some kind of label, a disclaimer that this is A.I. is probably in keeping with speech concerns. And nevertheless, you can still use this kind of technology. But the general attitude we have is like, well, the apocalypse is coming. They're going to take all the jobs or they're going to affect negatively our politics. I guess that's just the way things are now.
CORNISH: Yes. Yes.
THOMAS: No, no, no, no, we need to bring this technology to heel.
CORNISH: To your point, the headline I was looking at earlier, the paper you have says --
THOMAS: Oh, "OpenAI Fires Three Researchers." Yes.
CORNISH: What could go wrong? KING: What could go wrong?
WILLIAMS: What could go wrong?
CORNISH: OK.
Over the past two years, the Justice Department has been busy with something else entirely, investigating just about anyone who ever investigated President Trump. And, according to "The Wall Street Journal," they are now going back more than half a century to determine whether prosecutors mistreated another Republican president, Richard Nixon. So, here's Riley Moore of West Virginia, a Republican congressman
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. RILEY MOORE (R-WV): Richard Nixon was absolutely cooed out of office and was framed. All of this was fake. And we now know more about the deep state and its power.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: You were -- you know this person.
WARREN: No, I --
CORNISH: Or have covered them.
WARREN: Yes, yes, he's a member of Congress. Look, I think the most important part of this "Wall Street Journal" story is a slide deck, a title, the slide deck, that was presented to the Justice Department by a former Nixon aide. This is "The Wall Street Journal," "Watergate as Lawfare."
This is, I think, very clearly an attempt to sort of launder an argument that, you know, just like Donald Trump, Richard Nixon was targeted by a deep state of some kind. Look, he was -- he was about to be impeached and removed from office for what I would argue looks quaint by today's standards, but it was -- the idea that he was sort of railroaded by an aggressive, you know, I don't know, deep state is ludicrous today. CORNISH: What do you think is behind the laundering? Because you and I have both talked to conservatives who are deeply focused on rewriting the American story around progressivism, specifically from the '60s on.
KING: Yes. And thank you for bringing that up.
You know, I first became aware of this about three years ago. The conservative activist and art critic Chris Rufo wrote this piece for, I think it was "The Manhattan" -- "City Journal." And it was essentially -- it was like Richard Nixon is viewed as a villain of American history. He's actually a hero. He was a counter-revolutionary trying to fight off these, you know, bad forces in the '60s, these forces of social unrest and, you know, things that were bringing -- that were tearing America apart. It's a really interesting essay. CORNISH: Yes.
KING: It really gives you, I think, a look into why you want to rehabilitate someone like Richard Nixon.
CORNISH: Yes.
KING: It wasn't just that he was like a messy guy. He was also a hero.
CORNISH: Right.
KING: Who was trying to like blockade America from like falling into (INAUDIBLE).
CORNISH: And it also reframes a story that boomers have told themselves, which is, the hippies were right. The Vietnam War was bad.
KING: Yes.
CORNISH: Integration was bad. There's a bunch of things from that period that --
KING: And that's actually fine.
CORNISH: Yes.
KING: Like revisionist history -- am I going to get in trouble for saying this, it's kind of interesting. It is interesting. I would read the book. I don't think the Justice Department, which aren't they having like staff shortages?
WILLIAMS: Yes, I think they have other things to do right now.
KING: I don't think this should be their job.
WILLIAMS: Right.
KING: That's my issue.
CORNISH: You think just a historian should do that maybe?
KING: Yes, yes, let a historian write a book.
CORNISH: But the force of law is another thing.
THOMAS: Well, I mean, first of all, Chris Rufo is the guy that had the cats and dogs Haitian eating article, which is utterly discrediting in every possible way. But this is Trump's big lie just with, you know, sort of reframed in a different way.
Listen, the entire idea here is to make the apex example of political corruption in modern American history, you know what, that was a sham.
WARREN: That's right.
THOMAS: And everything downstream from that is also a sham. CORNISH: Right.
THOMAS: Look at what they're doing to me. It is to discredit the entire lineage.
CORNISH: So, if you want to investigate your crypto dinner, it's like, well, it's just another in a long line of --
[06:55:02]
THOMAS: It's all -- every time they come after me, just like they did Nixon, it was a scam.
WILLIAMS: And I would -- and I would add, this makes total sense if you believe in the existence of a deep state, right? And I think -- and this isn't new to Donald Trump. The idea of a deep state has sort of pervaded corners of the right in America for quite some time, decades.
If you believe in that, then you'll believe that, yes, what is taking Donald Trump down is what took Richard Nixon down as well.
CORNISH: Yes.
WILLIAMS: But that requires a leap and also a twisting of actual realities.
CORNISH: Yes. It's just one of those stories that fascinates me --
WILLIAMS: Right.
CORNISH: Because America goes through these periods where we will attempt to rewrite a story where the first draft is something we don't feel comfortable with, right? And I don't still call it the war of northern aggression, but someone does. And I think this is the same thing. If Nixon's a hero, someone wants that. And there is a sort of cultural point to doing it.
WARREN: Yes. But it -- there's also an ideological fight going on within the Republican Party right now. And Donald Trump and Richard Nixon are very much aligned, very much against a kind of whatever you want to call it, a Reaganite approach to the -- to conservatism and more with the Republican Party.
CORNISH: Yes.
WARREN: Everyone forgets that Richard Nixon embraced wage controls and price controls. He was a big government kind of Republican.
KING: (INAUDIBLE).
WARREN: Absolutely. And Donald Trump, in many ways, sort of draws, not from -- not from the Reagan tradition, but from the Nixon tradition.
CORNISH: Yes.
WARREN: I think there's a lot of attempts to sort of unite those two as well.
CORNISH: OK, we're going to rewrite some aura (ph) later.
Let's talk about what's in your group chats.
Noel, I haven't seen you in a bit. What's going on?
KING: President Trump signed an executive order to kill all the mosquitoes in Washington, D.C. He's going to -- he's setting up a task force. He's taking them out. And in this city, which is a swamp, literally --
CORNISH: Like, he's going to gas us, or how is this going to work?
KING: I think there's -- I think there's --
CORNISH: No, no, I literally don't know how this works.
KING: I (INAUDIBLE) but I literally think they are like, they're creating a team, Audie. They're going to dispatch the team to get them where they breed --
WILLIAMS: OK.
KING: And introduce male mosquitoes that like can't breed. It's a whole thing.
CORNISH: Oh, amazing.
KING: It's --
CORNISH: Like, bioengineering.
KING: Bioengineering.
CORNISH: Like in "Jurassic Park."
WILLIAMS: But it's literally toxic masculinity in the mosquito community. And they're using it to --
CORNISH: Woke one was crazy, y'all.
Luke, what's in your group chat?
THOMAS: DoorDash took an "L" this past week. They were previously supporting a bill that would -- was put through by Comer in July that would not allow the D.C. city council to raise taxes basically without their approval in Congress, which everyone in D.C. was like, that's the most insane thing ever. I've lived in D.C. on and off since the 1980s. I'm very sensitive to home rule kinds of things.
DoorDash withdrew their support for this bill because there was a giant boycott in the city that was put forward by a series of different actors, including, you know, wannabe mayor Janeese Lewis George. And I have to say, fantastic work. D.C.
CORNISH: OK, Mike.
WARREN: Well --
CORNISH: First the mosquitos, now this.
WARREN: Well, if I've been incoherent -- more incoherent than normal, it's because I was up late watching the Atlanta Braves beat the Philadelphia Phillies.
CORNISH: Hey.
WARREN: Fantastic. I love seeing my fellow hometown Atlanta boys, Michael Harris II and Matt Olson hit home runs or three home runs in that game. They defeated the Phillies for the first time in a postseason series. I love it. Chris Sale just put a -- put him -- put him in the Hall of Fame already. I love him. And I think they're greats.
CORNISH: Do you get your kids involved in the whole baseball watching?
WARREN: Oh, my kids -- yes, my kids are obsessed.
CORNISH: Because I feel very like, I need to watch baseball or softball live.
WARREN: Oh, yes.
CORNISH: And at home on TV I'm like, oh, I need to smell things. I need the hot dogs. I need beers.
WARREN: My -- I'll take -- I'll take any baseball.
CORNISH: Oh, really?
WARREN: Like, I'll watch it on my phone on Peacock, which is what I did last night.
CORNISH: Oh, no, no, no. I'd rather listen to it. The play by plays are amazing.
WARREN: I know, I -- the radio is the best way to watch it.
CORNISH: Hey, radio.
WILLIAMS: And just so you know, they're going to lose to Milwaukee or the Dodgers, right? You've made peace with that. Like, I --
WARREN: Hey, that's for --
WILLIAMS: OK.
WARREN: That's for another time. That's for future Mike.
WILLIAMS: Just make -- making sure we know.
CORNISH: Well I know what to name this group chat. WILLIAMS: Womp. Womp.
OK.
CORNISH: It'll be batter up Fridays. Yes. Go on.
WILLIAMS: It's like, Elli downer is who I am today.
No, but, speak -- stay on sports a little bit. Mike Tomlin, historic storied coach for the Pittsburgh Steelers, 19 seasons, went to the Super Bowl twice.
CORNISH: I'm sorry, what am I looking at?
WILLIAMS: Listen, Audie, this dude spent 12 years racking up these wins but also making a Minecraft world. And he --
CORNISH: Why does it look -- it looked like back rooms for a minute there. I was like watching --
KING: You weren't in yet. You weren't in yet.
WILLIAMS: No, this is -- and anybody who's ever watched their kids play Minecraft knows this is genius.
WARREN: It is.
WILLIAMS: What he did here. And he -- just the intellectual and cognitive work. But no, but this was his hobby. And he said he needed some escape from the world. And all the work he did. And he just made a vast decade-long Minecraft.
CORNISH: A decade long.
WILLIAMS: Twelve years.
CORNISH: It's a Minecraft city. Do they have democracy there? Can I go there? Wait, I need to know more.
WILLIAMS: They don't -- they don't have A.I. campaign ads there.
(CROSS TALK)
[07:00:00]
CORNISH: It does look empty. It's giving inception. I -- should I be worried.
(CROSS TALK)
CORNISH: Wait, really?
WILLIAMS: OK. This is not -- Mike Tomlin's work is not getting the love from you four that I --
KING: People are specialists (ph). THOMAS: I've never played Minecraft special.
KING: He's special.
CORNISH: Don't bring me into it.
WARREN: My kids play it. I don't (ph).
WILLIAMS: OK. From them three. OK. Those two.
CORNISH: All right, you guys, thank you so much for bringing some lightness to what has been, honestly, a difficult and grim news week. I'm Audie Cornish. Be with us on Monday. And "CNN NEWS CENTRAL" is next.
