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Inside Politics

Hurricane Melissa Barreling Toward Bahamas After Slamming Cuba, Jamaica; Surge in Early In-Person Voting in the New York City Mayoral Race; V.P. Vance Calls Rubio His Best Friend in the Administration; Andrew Ross Sorkin's New Book Warns of Similarities Between Current U.S. Economy and the Economy Right Before 1929 Crash. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired October 29, 2025 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:30:00]

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT AND ANCHOR OF 'INSIDE POLITICS': -- Bahamas after slamming through Cuba. We are going to have much more on that, and we'll be checking in with our reporters on the ground as we hear more from them.

Up next, no means no. The Republican candidate for New York mayor is refusing to bow out of the race.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CURTIS SLIWA, (R) NEW YORK CITY MAYORAL CANDIDATE: You could be impaling me and say, I'll stop if you drop out and endorse Andrew Cuomo. And I would say, finish the job. Does that make it perfectly clear?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Stick around. Curtis Sliwa will be here with us live after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:35:00]

BASH: Live from New York, it is a mayoral election. The city is seeing a surge in early voting. As of last night, more than 297,000 people had voted during the first four days of early in-person voting. That far outpaces the 2021 election when only 55,000 people had voted by this point. This morning, former Democratic Governor, Andrew Cuomo went on conservative media with this appeal to Republicans.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDREW CUOMO, (I) NEW YORK CITY MAYORAL CANDIDATE: It's really getting Republicans to understand what President Trump said, that Sliwa is not ready for prime time. He is not viable. Don't throw your vote away. It's between me and Mamdani.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BASH: Joining me now is the Republican candidate himself, Curtis Sliwa. Thank you so much for being here. You just heard what Andrew Cuomo said, appealing to your Republican base, saying a vote for you is a vote for Mamdani. What's your response?

SLIWA: Desperate people do desperate things. Here is the disgraced governor, who's like a political zombie come back from the dead, who now can't get enough Democrats. He was decisively beaten in the Democratic primary by Zohran Mamdani who, when he first announced, nobody really even knew who he was because Andrew Cuomo did not run a campaign. He's not running a campaign again. He's been missing 10 days on the campaign trail.

And his whole campaign now is to convince people not to vote for Curtis Sliwa. That would suggest that you don't have a base to begin with and you'll take votes from wherever you can. And that's the beauty of democracy, Dana, is that we are going to let the people choose the next mayor, not the billionaires, not the insiders, not the influencers. I trust people. They should have a right to vote in the next mayor. We've got six days to go. I'm spending 20 hours of a 24- hour day on the campaign, crisscrossing New York City.

And I will be satisfied with the outcome on November 4th because I know the people would've chosen the next mayor. Cuomo is the choice of the billionaires who have wined, dined and pocket-lined him. He has no freedom of thought. He is a prisoner of the billionaires who put him back into the race when technically politically he was dead and buried.

BASH: Let me ask you about the people. I have an example. John King spent time with voters in all five boroughs. And I want to play part of a conversation that he had with Republican Kevin Marshall, who is Retired Corrections Officer in Staten Island. Listen. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEVIN MARSHALL, REPUBLICAN NYC VOTER: As a Republican, I don't think Curtis Sliwa has got a shot. So what does that leave -- where does that leave us?

JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: So, you are going to vote for Cuomo?

MARSHALL: I don't know. I am -- I'm just stuck. I'm stuck in the purgatory here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Make your case to Kevin Marshall.

SLIWA: Kevin, I have the Republican principles, law and order. It is Andrew Cuomo, who's the architect of No Cash Bail that has led us to the crime crisis we're in. His apprentice is Zohran Mamdani. Raise the age, which almost killed my oldest son, juveniles, who almost killed him in the streets. Because of Cuomo and Zohran Mamdani, they were released back into the streets because they went to family court, not criminal court. And Andrew Cuomo, 10 years ago, wants to close Rikers Island. He was the architect. Zohran Mamdani believes in that, to release inmates into the streets. So Kevin has a choice as a former correctional officer, he knows they have the toughest job because the inmates now run the prison here. With Curtis Sliwa in charge, it's going to be Rudy Giuliani 2.0, who was able to save this city and get us back on track because of his law and order initiatives. And that's who I am.

BASH: Let me ask you another policy question. And one of the big ones that Mamdani is talking about is calling for fast and free buses. You say that will destroy the city's public transit system. Why?

SLIWA: Well, first off, I laugh because half the people don't pay the bus fair to begin with. One-third don't pay the subway fair. There's no enforcement. So if you are going to use the city's bus system and the city's subway system, you are going to pay. Now, there are all kinds of measures to help the poor and the indigent -- half fare, two- thirds fare. But you have to apply to those programs.

But if you are going to consistently be a fare beater, which is robbing the other taxpayers who have to subsidize the fare to the tune now of $1 billion a year in lost fare income, well then, you are going to get ticketed. And if you are a predicate violator, you're going to go to jail. You cannot allow people not to pay the fare. Zohran Mamdani, it's fantasy, which when reality hits, he's not going to be able to do it.

And by the way, it's the state that has to do that, not the mayor in the city of New York.

[12:40:00]

BASH: Well, the state has to approve it, right? The governor?

SLIWA: Yeah. And by the way, there's no money in the state coffers. They have to make up for a $30 billion budget gap. They have to balance their budget. Trump is already taking money out of the city for NYCHA, for food stamps, and for Medicaid.

BASH: So let me --

SLIWA: -- and he's promising to take even more money. Without that money, you got to cut taxes, corporate taxes. You got to cut property taxes, income taxes and you have to shrink the budget. These two, Andrew Cuomo and Zohran Mamdani are like two peas in a pod. They just want to spend, spend, spend, and there's no money to spend. And then they'll blame it on Donald Trump.

BASH: OK, speaking of Donald Trump, he hasn't endorsed you. Here's what he said when he was asked last week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you going to endorse anybody in New York?

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Well. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Cuomo or Sliwa?

TRUMP: Yeah, I guess I haven't made a decision, really.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Sounds like you're leaning towards somebody's.

TRUMP: It's not like -- well, I think it's not good to have a communist. OK? Would I rather have a Democrat than a communist? Barely. They're almost becoming the same thing.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What about a Republican, Curtis Sliwa?

TRUMP: Well, look, I mean, I don't know he's a Republican. Is he really a Republican? It's -- am I a big fan? This isn't exactly ideal where he wants to make Gracie Mansion a home for the cats.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: You are the Republican candidate for mayor of his hometown. He's the Republican president. I know you are both New Yorkers who may have a history, but did you try to get his endorsement?

SLIWA: No, I have not. Look, the president has bigger issues to deal with. Peace with Russia and the Ukraine, peace in Gaza, conflict has broken out again. We hope that he can clear the path for peace in the Middle East and Persian Gulf. And with all the visits he's making to Asia, dealing with the trade initiatives, especially with Red China, those are priorities.

Getting involved in the mayoral race is only strengthening Zohran Mamdani because he wants to be David versus the Goliath. Andrew Cuomo wants to pump chest with President Donald Trump. You're not going to win against the president. You got to get money from the federal government to help the poor and the indigent. And by the way, I have an individual line, an independent line first ever in electoral history, protect animals. No kill shelters and animal abusers go to jail.

Now, the president has made fun of the, the work that my wife and others have done in their life to rescue animals in distress. Mahatma Gandhi said, "A society that does not take care of its animals, does not take care of its people." Look, homeless people, emotionally disturbed, veterans we don't take care of --

BASH: Right.

SLIWA: We don't need a tough guy to be mayor. We need a compassionate, considerate, concerned person, and that's Curtis Sliwa. Look at me, compare me to my adversaries. I mean, Andrew Cuomo has a dystopian viewpoint of New York City. He's cold hearted, Cuomo, angry. Nobody votes for anger. They want to vote for people who are compassionate, caring, and concerned. That's not Andrew Cuomo.

BASH: Curtis Sliwa, I just want to say that President Trump is a very busy man, but he's gotten involved in things a lot less consequential than the mayor of New York City. But I take your point. I appreciate you being here. I know it's very, very busy for you right now. Thanks again.

SLIWA: My pleasure. Anytime, Dana.

BASH: Up next, we all have a best friend at work. So who is J.D. Vance's White House bestie? The answer coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:48:11]

BASH: Vice President J.D. Vance is giving Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, a new label while downplaying any 2028 tension. In an interview with The New York Post's "Pod Force One," Vance weighed in on President Trump's idea of joining forces with Rubio on a presidential ticket.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

J.D. VANCE, (R) VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: He mentioned it probably six months or so ago, and I mentioned to the secretary in jest. But, it feels so premature --

MIRANDA DEVINE, HOST OF "POD FORCE ONE" PODCAST: Yeah.

VANCE: -- because we're still so early.

DEVINE: The president doesn't mention who will be running for president and who vice president. Now, everyone assumes it would be you, but Marco Rubio is 13 years older. He has run for president before. Would there be any tension there?

VANCE: First of all, no, there's not going to be any tension.

DEVINE: No.

VANCE: Marco is my best friend in the administration.

DEVINE: Is he?

VANCE: He and I work a lot together.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: And my panel is back now. Luckily, we all have best friends at work and we don't have to worry about running against each other for president.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: We don't. I mean, look, the old adage is what, keep your friends close and your rivals closer perhaps, or enemies or something. Look, I mean, he said in the administration. So that's not a huge pool of people there, I think.

(LAUGH)

BASH: Wow. ZELENY: But in the space of that, I think that J.D. Vance is also kind of laying down a marker here, offering an embrace to Marco Rubio.

BASH: Don't do it, Marco.

ZELENY: And perhaps keeping him on board. It's hard to imagine the idea of Rubio stepping away and then running against Vance. But we have no idea what the political --

(CROSSTALK)

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: It's not hard for me to imagine at all. I mean, I think 2028 is going to be lit. I think it's going to be a crowded field on the Republican side. And I think Vance and Rubio will both run. Rubio and Trump have a kind of bromance going on, not Rubio and Vance. I think Trump has taken a real shining to Rubio.

[12:50:00]

He has a certain charisma, I think that Trump likes. Vance can come across as a little bit thirsty, like he's trying a little bit too hard to be MAGA. So I think the race is on.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT AND ANCHOR: I reject the cynicism.

(LAUGH)

MATTINGLY: I am pro friendship.

BASH: OK, that's good.

MATTINGLY: I'm very happy that two dudes --

BASH: That's so nice.

MATTINGLY: -- can become best friends over a period of time in close quarters where they're sharing phone calls and meetings, Signal chats.

(LAUGH)

MATTINGLY: I am supportive of this. There's a loneliness crisis in this country, and I am supportive of friendship. Cynics.

(LAUGH)

BASH: I am just picturing you with your bros braiding each other's hair somewhere in a corner. So --

MATTINGLY: I mean, I don't let anybody touch my hair, but yeah. Single chats.

(LAUGH)

BASH: Up next, 1929 deja vu. The man who wrote the book on "Too Big to Fail" is warning that today's economy bears some scary similarities to the start of the Great Depression, Andrew Ross Sorkin is coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BASH: Let me set the scene for you. New never-before-seen technology promises to transform the economy. Businessmen, president welcomes a parade of larger-than-life CEOs to the White House and stocks hit record after record with more and more Americans pouring their money into equities. I'm not talking about today, I'm talking about 1929. It is the subject of a new book by journalist, Andrew Ross Sorkin, who describes the optimism, the excess, and the bad decisions that ushered America from the roaring '20s into the Great Depression.

I talked with Andrew about 1929 and the lessons it can teach us today.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BASH: I'm so excited that you're here, so much to ask you about. Let's just start with something that you write in the introduction. You said if the characters, issues and policy choices from that time appear to echo our present moment a little too clearly, that's because they do. What do you think are the most striking similarities between 2025 and 1929?

ANDREW ROSS SORKIN, COLUMNIST & EDITOR, THE NEW YORK TIMES AND AUTHOR OF "1929": Oh goodness. Well, I think actually the way you began this segment is really the parallel and similarity. The euphoria that we're living with today around A.I., for example, the remarkable sense of democratizing finance, this idea that people are now getting into crypto and private equity and venture capital, and access to things that historically ordinary investors and Americans didn't have access to.

[12:55:00]

At the same time, that guardrails are coming down. At the same time that tariffs are being put in place, something that happened in 1930 and the result was trade that dropped by 60 percent. And on top of that, a conversation about the role of the Federal Reserve and its own independence and political pushback and all of those issues -- all of those issues were taking place in 1929 and are happening all over again today.

BASH: So, one of the other lines that is really striking is the following, "Lengthy, uninterrupted booms like the one in the 1920s produce a collective delusion. Optimism becomes a drug or a religion, or some combination of both. People lose their ability to calculate risk and distinguish between good ideas and bad ones." That term "collective delusion," is that your version of Alan Greenspan's irrational exuberance?

ROSS SORKIN: I think that's a little bit of where I'd go with that. And I think to some degree in terms of where we are today, the A.I. bubble and just the A.I. boom, there is a delusion to it. There's just hundreds of billions of dollars that are being spent somewhat indiscriminately. That's not to say we shouldn't be excited about this technology. Back in 1929, they were excited about the future of radio and it was a technology that is with us today.

The internet, we were excited about in the 1990s and it changed our life. But there was a boom/bust cycle that happened in 2000. And so, I think we just need to be cognizant that these things can and often do happen. They don't have to be as bad as what happened in 1929, which is really the first domino that led to the Great Depression. There were a number of dominoes after that terrible policy choices. So it's not to say we have to have that happen again, but I think this sort of everything goes up always, that might be a collective delusion.

BASH: So let me bottom line it as so many have done for you, at least tried, and I've heard you say the following. You've said, it's not a question of if there is a crash, it's just when and how bad. Where do you feel -- where do you sort of sit or stand on that line right now?

ROSS SORKIN: I think that we are looking at a world that's maybe like 1999 with the internet and the excitement around that, and the fact that there was a crash. Remember, we -- as I said, we don't have to have a crash that's as deep as 1929. The good news actually is there are things like the SEC hopefully and capital requirements and bank acts and all sorts of legislation that we didn't have back then. Back then, insider trading was legal. You could manipulate the market. So those things are hopefully off the table.

But that doesn't mean that we are spending money correctly and investing it appropriately. And I think in this moment, it is possible, not to say it is going to happen tomorrow. It might happen in a year or two from now. But that there will be some form of a crash. But I will say this, historically, it's the optimists who have won over the skeptics and Cassandras. So here I am telling us that there's going to be a crash of some sort, and that's possible. But if you can look out long enough, the truth is actually that things do get better.

BASH: Before I let you go, I have to ask about the Fed, which of course plays a major role in the story. You say in 1929, the Fed knew that the stock market was rife with speculation, didn't do enough to reign it in --

ROSS SORKIN: Right.

BASH: -- because the Fed was afraid that policymakers would retaliate. Now, where we are is that President Trump is very much overtly trying to influence the Fed, really more than any president since Nixon. How much does that worry -- or should that worry you when regular people who are investors?

ROSS SORKIN: So I think almost singularly, beyond the leverage issue, meaning how much loans are being taken, which really is the match that starts the fire of every crisis. I think you got to worry about the Fed in this context because when you look at what happens when a Federal reserve is politicized, and whether that's the president pushing them, or even members of the Fed thinking about what the political class is going to do to them, that's when things run into trouble. And in 1929, one of the reasons that the Fed sat on its hands is because it was such a new institution. People called it an experiment. It was born in 1913. They were so scared, not that they were just going to get called up in front of Congress, but that the experiment would be eliminated because they would have been at fault for ending what seemed like a boom time. And so, anytime politics gets involved with these things, especially when you need to make politically unpopular choices, as frankly Ben Bernanke did in 2008 after the financial crisis, effectively bailing out banks and as politically unpopular as that was, economically, practically, effectively, it was the right thing to do.

BASH: Yeah. Well, you certainly know about that, your other bestselling book, "Too Big to Fail," talks a lot about that. This one is "1929." Andrew, I'm so grateful that you came on.

ROSS SORKIN: Thank you so much for having me.

BASH: Congratulations --