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Gov. Moore: Trump's ICE Deployments Part Of "Larger Plan"; Exclusive: Trader Net Nearly $1M With Remarkably Accurate Iran Bets; How To Stay Hopeful Amid Turbulent Times. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired March 24, 2026 - 12:30   ET

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

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[12:30:00]

GOV. WES MOORE (D), MARYLAND: -- untrained and who are unqualified and who are unaccountable. We're seeing how we have TSA agents who are not being paid but still continue to go to work and somehow the President feels that we need to put ICE there to reinforce their work. You know, there's a much larger plan that is happening.

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: What is the plan? What do you mean?

MOORE: Well, you know, I think it's impossible to not look at this as all happening at the same time we're pushing for this SAVE America Act, which is essentially a voter suppression law. That we're watching the Voting Rights Act under attack. That we're watching the President moving and trying to do redistricting in states that he says should do mid-decade redistricting.

This is a much larger plan about how do you hold on to power and using military and law enforcement personnel to try to do so.

BASH: Are you thinking about November?

MOORE: Oh, absolutely. I think the President is thinking about November.

BASH: With ICE?

MOORE: Oh, yes. I think that -- I think these are all tools of how the President is trying to think about a much larger plan, which is if you cannot hold on to power through democratic elections, then adjust democratic elections.

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BASH: And my panel is back. Aaron, I'm guessing you've heard that from other Democrats, but he said it more, I think, aggressively and publicly than I've heard other Democrats.

AARON BLAKE, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Yes, I was thinking back to last summer, I think it was, when there was a brief moment where we had Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, California Governor Gavin Newsom, come out and talk about the idea that Trump might try to cancel the 2026 midterm elections. And then it kind of faded away.

I think the fact that Trump is now pushing so hard for the SAVE America Act, which Democrats view as an effort to suppress votes, to make it hard for people to vote, to involve the federal government more in this process, given that voting is generally something that's handled by the states.

I think they're just, you know, they're -- in the past, they would have been content to kind of sit back and not come out there and look like they're conspiracy theorists about what might happen. I think Democrats are less concerned about that kind of thing, especially after what happened on January 6th, 2021.

BASH: And Elissa Slotkin, the senator from Michigan, this was her line of questioning for --

SEUNG MIN KIM, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: (INAUDIBLE).

BASH: Yes, for now Secretary Markwayne Mullin just last week about whether he will commit to not sending ICE agents to polling places in November.

KIM: Right. I mean, you know, you were talking about last summer, and I was thinking the last week when she raised that question, because that is a concern of Democrats, how President Trump and this administration is going to marshal their big power that they have, particularly through DHS, particularly through ICE, because, as we mentioned earlier in the show, they have this massive amounts of funding through other avenues than the annual appropriations process.

So that is something that they're trying to get on the record and trying to raise concern about. Now the administration, we should say, say they are deploying ICE to the airport because TSA workers are calling out sick.

BASH: Right.

KIM: A lot of people have quit. They are really staffed -- they are really understaffed at airports. And they're just trying to put ICE, you know, as Homan said, effectively be a force multiplier while these congested lines are going on. But the President hasn't been shy in deploying sort of this law enforcement personnel into places that they usually don't go.

We know about the National Guard in cities.

BASH: Yes.

KIM: He has mentioned potentially putting National Guard in airports. So this is a concern that Democrats are certainly raising.

BASH: And it goes to the President's unfounded claim, which we've heard him say over and over again, that people who are illegal in the United States vote. And even the most conservative think tanks who have looked at this and done studies on it show that it is minuscule.

TAMARA KEITH, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, NPR: Yes. And this has been a -- an obsession of the President going back to when he first won and he thought he should have won the popular vote. But on the issue of ICE showing up at polling places, this is a bipartisan concern of election officials at the state level.

And there actually was a call that my colleague, Miles Parks, reported on late last month where a Homeland Security official was on the phone with all of these state election officials and said, "Any suggestion that ICE is going to be present at polling places is simply disinformation. There will be no ICE presence at polling locations."

BASH: All right, everybody, thank you so much.

Stand by, because up next, we have some new reporting on remarkably accurate bets. Impeccable timing. Has someone made nearly $1 million betting on strikes against Iran? You've got exclusive new CNN reporting.

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[12:39:16]

BASH: It calls itself the world's largest prediction market. Polymarket takes bets on anything from who will win the NCAA tournament to what will top the Netflix movie charts. And increasingly popular are trades like this, a U.S. and Iran ceasefire by June 30th.

Incredible exclusive reporting this morning by CNN's Marshall Cohen about a better with a remarkably high success rate highlights the rising concerns about the possibility of insider trading. His report, one trader made nearly $1 million on Polymarket with remarkably accurate Iran bets. You can see it there. And please be sure to read it on CNN.com.

But luckily, we have Marshall here to tell us more. Walk us through the evidence.

[12:40:04]

MARSHALL COHEN, CNN REPORTER: Yes, it is pretty remarkable. Some very well-timed bets over several years. As you mentioned, this is all on Polymarket, which is one of the most popular prediction markets in the world.

And we got this exclusive data from a group called Bubblemaps. They track blockchain transactions that are sort of the underpinnings of all the trades on Polymarket. And they found that this one trader going back to 2024 just was right over and over and over again.

2024, they correctly predicted just within hours of Israeli airstrikes on Iranian soil. Last year, when the U.S. bombed the nuclear facilities in the summer of last year, they had a correct prediction again. And just a few weeks ago, days and hours before the surprise attack by the U.S. and Israel that started the current conflict in Iran, they were there on Polymarket placing some very prescient bets.

In all, Dana, they netted $967,000, which is why a lot of the experts I spoke to said that there were some clear potential signs of insider activity. The experts look at the win rate for bettors. And if you're a really shrewd bettor, you know what you're doing, high-frequency trader, you can really average about 52, 53 percent win rate.

This trader was over 80 percent for all their Iran bets. And if you look at their big bets, over $10,000, their win rate was 93 percent, setting off a ton of alarm bells. We reached out to Polymarket for comment. They did not respond. Now, to be clear, these are anonymous accounts. We don't know who this is.

There could be a reasonable, honest explanation. There's just no way to know right now.

BASH: Well, on that note, there is a bipartisan effort to try to regulate this better. Other big prediction markets like Kalshi, they are launching new guardrails. But can this be regulated at this point?

COHEN: Well, there's a million questions on that from both sides of the aisle, too. Let me just set the table a little bit so everyone understands what we're talking about. You just mentioned Kalshi, that is U.S.-operated and U.S.-approved. It's here in the U.S. Americans can use it legally.

And CNN also has a partnership with Kalshi, and we use Kalshi data to cover major political and cultural events. Then all these bets on Polymarket about Iran, that's all happening overseas on the international site. Polymarket does have a U.S.-based site, but it's really not up and running yet.

So everything we've been talking about is happening overseas, out of the reach of U.S. federal regulations, which is exactly why, Dana, a lot of those lawmakers are saying we need to crack down. It's mostly coming from Democrats who have been clamoring about potential insider trading by folks in the Trump administration, even though there's no evidence of that right now.

But you're also seeing some Republicans, including lawmakers from Utah, that have been raising concerns about the gambling element of all this as they see it. And there are now seven bills floating around Capitol Hill with more expected.

BLAKE: I mean, I think we're seeing an issue that is increasingly ripe for some kind of regulation. I think how you get to that point is the really big question right here because, you know, this is an issue where it's kind of the Wild West right now. You know, Polymarket, these prediction markets, sports gambling on your telephone right now is very much a wide-open process right now.

And people get used to those things. And the tendency, especially with this administration, is to deregulate these things. So, you know, it's going to be very difficult to do it over the next few years here. But I think once you start to see if one of these things becomes a major scandal, that becomes a flash point where it spurs these lawmakers to act. And I think we're starting to see the seeds of some of these lawmakers who might lead that kind of an effort moving forward.

KEITH: Let me just say that Congress has proven again and again and again to be really ill-equipped to deal with anything new. Like, I'm still waiting for regulation of social media and A.I. and all of these other things where there was a bubbling up of frustration and concern. And then, well, guess what? Nothing happens.

And this has just been a pattern from Congress, just really just being unable to get their arms around some of the biggest new technologies causing challenges in American society.

COHEN: There's the age gap, too. A lot of the people --

KEITH: Yes.

COHEN: -- using these platforms are super young. Most of our lawmakers are super old.

KEITH: Wasn't going to say it, but --

BASH: Let the young'uns say it.

KEITH: Yes.

BASH: Thank you for your terrific reporting. Again, go read it on CNN.com as well.

Coming up, does life seem off the rails? My next guest has tips for navigating chaos.

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[12:49:16]

BASH: These days, the world is in overdrive. Nonstop news, viral outrage, deepening divisions, unease feels inevitable. That's why I'm excited to speak with someone who has a gift for untangling life's mess, world-renowned author Anne Lamott. She has a new book out with her husband, Neal Allen, titled "Good Writing: 36 Ways to Improve Your Sentences."

You can improve my sentences. Let's start right here. But before we get there, so just this week, war, deadly plane crash, division, and it's only Tuesday.

ANNE LAMOTT, NOVELIST & NONFICTION WRITER: I know. Well, it's just a mess. It's 2 minutes in one, though. It's a catastrophe. It's dire. I think the country and democracy are under a greater threat than they've ever been before. And yet, people have the power to throw off the desperation, the terror, and to show up for their neighbors, like in Minnesota.

[12:50:15]

In Minnesota, we've got a North Star now, which we didn't before. We're going to show up on it for the No Kings. I'll be in Vermont with my little signs, whatever I can manage in the hotel, with like lipstick and a piece of hotel paper.

And people are showing up. People are protecting their neighbors. People are blowing my mind with their goodness and their courage. So, you know, every day I wake up and I'm afraid to turn on CNN, but I do. And I --

BASH: But I know you do, because I get texts.

LAMOTT: Yes.

BASH: It was cute doing it.

LAMOTT: I know, I text you mid-show, but just to torment you. But anyway, I mean, it is -- it's hard to hold these two different ideas at once. It's --

BASH: Yes.

LAMOTT: -- a terrifying and very cruel and brutal time in our country. And it's this profound expression of courage and generosity, you know, people giving to one another, people raising money for the people who are being most crushed right now.

BASH: Well, so obviously, you have a very specific political point of view, but -- and this is inside politics, but for a moment, take politics out and just --

LAMOTT: OK.

BASH: -- talk about kind of that feeling that people have.

LAMOTT: Of hopelessness.

BASH: Yes. So how do you find hope?

LAMOTT: Well, one thing I know to do, I know if you want to have loving, positive feelings, you do a bunch of loving, positive things for people. It can be anonymous. Sometimes I need for them to know that I've done it so I can use it against them down the road.

But if you don't have hope, if you give somebody hope, then there's hope in your tide pool, you know, because you brought it so that you could take a bag of -- I take bags of food over to the pantry in the county seat a lot. I trust God, you know, I'm a Sunday school teacher.

BASH: Yes.

LAMOTT: I don't know if that's OK to say it here.

BASH: Yes, of course. Yes.

LAMOTT: I get outside a lot. You know, probably what God's first words to Moses were in the Hebrew Bible. He says, take off your shoes, you know, feel the earth beneath your feet, feel the breath, feel the air, feel the wind, you know, feel the wind on -- feel your skin, feel and breathe it in -- BASH: As the kids say, go touch grass.

LAMOTT: Go touch grass. And right now it's a spring. It's a new life. You know, there's always going to be death, but it's birth, death, and then new life. And in California, the daffodils are everywhere. And we have these crazy Eleanor Roosevelt irises blooming.

And I just feel hope if I get outside of like this pinball brain of my head trying to figure out -- figure out, by the way, is a very bad slogan for right now. And so I don't think you can underestimate the greatness of breath, you know, from everything to breathe.

BASH: Taking a deep breath.

LAMOTT: Yes. And to get outside and to breathe fresh air, it's like spritzing yourself with a plant mister. You know, you come back to life and you look around.

BASH: I want to ask about your new book.

LAMOTT: Oh, thank you.

BASH: You wrote with your husband --

LAMOTT: My current husband.

BASH: Who you call your current husband, which is amazing. "Good Writing: 36 Ways to Improve Your Sentences." I have to say, I have a 14-year-old son, he is a good writer, except when he has this. And I can't get one -- more than one word out of him in a text, if it's not just a thumbs up or a thumbs down. So how do you translate that to really making sure people still know the art of writing?

LAMOTT: Well, you know, I wrote every single thing I know about writing and bird by bird hundreds of years ago and 30 years ago. And this book that Neal and I wrote is really about improving sentences and paragraph and passages. And it could apply to what you're writing on your phone.

It could be making the email to your boss a little bit stronger and a little bit more lucid or coherent or interesting to your boss. But it's, you know, it's about writing memoirs. It's about writing screenplays or writing anything that is on your heart to write a little bit better.

And so, my grandson, it's the same way. Like I get -- he lives with us. I get these texts and there are letters. And I don't even know what the new letter might be. And I have to Google it. But he can't be bothered to write out the whole word OK. It's going to be like the K.

But, yes, I mean, the book is for everybody writing anything. And I just feel like I do have a tiny slant to my thinking, which is, you know, I'm an aging hippie left wing activist. But when Trump got elected fairly, I thought, what can I do? What can I do?

Everything I love about life, the Constitution, democracy and the environment and the climate and the poor and the middle class, we're going to be threatened and almost destroyed. And it's a -- after about a couple of days, I went, oh, wait, I could write. So I started writing --

BASH: Yes, you can.

LAMOTT: -- my pieces.

[12:55:17]

And Neal and I went on our second date. Neil handed me these 30. Well, he had 34 rules because he'd been a journalist. And I started passing them out to all my bird by bird workshops. I added two, I'll tell you.

I wrote -- write the hard stuff, write about the pain, write about the fear, write about hopelessness, write about your childhood, write the hard stuff. My second rule was take out the boring stuff.

BASH: Well, there's never any boring stuff from you --

LAMOTT: Well, you're sweet but you're --

BASH: Thank you for --

LAMOTT: Yes.

BASH: Thank you for coming on. We're out of time. It's so great to see you. Really appreciate you coming on.

LAMOTT: Thank you, Dana.

BASH: And be sure to get her book because everybody needs to know how to write.

Thank you for joining Inside Politics. CNN News Central starts after a quick break.

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