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Inside Politics

Trump's Pitch For Paxton: Believe In The Man, Not His Suit; GOP Pleads With Trump For MAGA Inc. Resources In Texas; Gloria Steinem, Defining Voice For Women's Equality, Dies At 92; Mamdani Announces Partial Ban On AI In NYC Classrooms; Trump Administration Pushes To Advance AI In Classrooms. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired September 03, 2026 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:30:00]

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: -- that he might have as he is looking at Ken Paxton, that he isn't maybe as handsome as he would like him to be. And so, yes, I mean, it's almost a sort of a nervous tick that he has, where he just can't help himself in talking about -- you almost are in his body looking, you know, as he is looking at Ken Paxton on TV. And --

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: Like in slow motion going through his brain.

HENDERSON: Yes, and just getting what is in his internal dialogue. Listen, this is going to be a close race. You know, you have in some ways a perfect storm in Texas, finally for Democrats. We'll see if it works. You know, it's an open seat. They've got a pretty good candidate in Talarico.

The economy is where it is. Trump isn't as popular as you would need him to be, even in a state like Texas. And Ken Paxton is a terrible candidate. Aside from the way he looks, aside from -- or the way that Trump thinks he looks, I should say.

MATTINGLY: Trump thinks he looks, yes, there we go.

HENDERSON: The -- aside from all of that, the way he dresses, whatever it is, he just is sort of a wooden, almost lazy campaigner. And I think that is going to hurt him. You can see it in the polls already.

MATTINGLY: Yes.

HENDERSON: And so, listen, I think Trump is going to have to do what he did in South Carolina, which is say, think about me on the ballot. You're voting for me.

MATTINGLY: I think one of the most fascinating things is watching Republicans the last couple of days like just go on to TV and beg the President to start spending. Here's a super cut of sorts.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SEN. JOHN KENNEDY (R), LOUISIANA: We in the Senate don't have the money budgeted for Texas. I'm hoping that the President's going to spend $100 or $200 million in Texas. But he hasn't committed to it.

SEN. JOHN THUNE (R), MAJORITY LEADER: We're going to need the President and his team to be --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

THUNE: -- engaged there and to be putting resources into that race.

REP. TROY NEHLS (R), TEXAS: I think the President, it would be incumbent upon him to spend some money to try to help Ken Paxton.

LARA TRUMP, FORMER RNC CO-CHAIR: The President is going to be all in on this. He will definitely be out campaigning, and you will for sure see that money spent. I think they just want it to go to its highest and best use and use it at the appropriate time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Aaron Blake, remember the good old days where you would have like candidates signaling implicitly to Super PACs that they needed money?

AARON BLAKE, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: Yes.

MATTINGLY: I like the kind of let's just say it out loud because we're in desperate straits. You got this piece. We teased it in the A-Block, but literally the headline of it is, "The GOP's game of chicken over Ken Paxton in Texas is getting testy." The money, the dynamics, obviously their opponent and his ability to raise money, how does this all kind of thread together?

BLAKE: Well, it's interesting. It's not just a matter of the money that they're waiting to be spent and sending these kind of desperate signals that they need this money now. It's also that this is kind of laying bare the tensions that never really healed from this primary.

You know, people are going to recall that Ken Paxton defeated an incumbent senator, John Cornyn, who has very good relationships with his colleagues in the Republican side of the Senate. And there are very sore feelings about that. There are also sore feelings about the fact that they replaced, not just an incumbent senator, but they replaced him with a candidate with all kinds of issues in his past, his personal life.

You know, he was impeached by the Republicans in Texas. And so basically there's -- this controversy over the lack of money is bringing all of this to light all at the same time and leading some people to be like, OK, well, this is the situation we find ourselves in now. Look what you did by giving us this guy on the ballot. And it's just gotten pretty ugly.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's what I would say. I would agree with that. This is all about you're the reason we're in this situation. Now you have to fix it. Because they want to spend their money elsewhere. They didn't think that if Cornyn was on the ballot that they would have to spend their money in Texas.

They think that it would have been a much easier win for Cornyn. And I will tell you, Republicans know they're going to have to spend money there across the board, whether it's Trump, whether it's SLF. It's -- people know they're going to have to spend the money there. But they do believe they wouldn't have had to put this kind of capital into a race --

BLAKE: Yes.

HOLMES: -- in Texas if it was Cornyn.

MATTINGLY (?): Yes.

HOLMES: So that is part of this, too. As you're saying, it's like there's an underlying anger that you put us in this position, now pony up.

MATTINGLY: Yes, the deeper layers of this are really important. I would say, Elon, only $800,000 in that filing last night, but $275,000 of it was for Paxton. He has major issues. Like, he's going to dump lots of money there, too, which could help. But I still like senators being like, please, please, SLF, we don't -- we're not going to spend here. Please help us.

All right, coming up, she challenged the status quo and led the charge to change it. We're remembering feminist icon Gloria Steinem and the mark she leaves behind.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:38:50]

MATTINGLY: The truth with set you free, but first, it will piss you off. Those are the words of Gloria Steinem, profound in a way, the feminist icon who spent a lifetime challenging convention and reshaping the role of women in American life. Steinem died yesterday at the age of 92.

I want to turn to Kim Villanueva, she's the President of the National Organization for Women, one of the groups that fought alongside Gloria Steinem for decades. I just, one, thank you for your time but, two, we were talking during the break, like, trying to figure out how to quantify a legacy like Gloria Steinem's. I think it's difficult. What comes to mind for you?

KIM VILLANUEVA, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR WOMEN: OK, well, I think Gloria really personified the women's movement. You know, she made sure that people knew that the personal was political, that the issues and the things that women faced were real and that they could be talked about. So I think for us, you know, waking up this morning to find out that she had passed, I felt like I had lost a sister.

MATTINGLY: Say more about that. Because I think, again, one of the difficulties with somebody who has such a profound and significant legacy is the personal impact that she could have on people is maybe hard to quantify for those --

VILLANUEVA: Absolutely.

MATTINGLY: -- who explain it.

VILLANUEVA: Right. I didn't know her personally, but I felt like I knew her.

MATTINGLY: Yes.

VILLANUEVA: You know, I was a journalist in college, and so she inspired me as a role model.

[12:40:02]

You know, she showed that as a writer and an activist that words matter and that you could actually make change by putting pen to paper and expressing your feelings and showing that your experiences were true. And she did that for millions of women through creating Ms. Magazine, which was really the first magazine written by, for, and about women. So she said it's OK for women to talk about what's happening to them, and then the next step is to make change.

MATTINGLY: I think the subject line of your statement this morning was our hero, my hero was --

VILLANUEVA: Yes.

MATTINGLY: -- one of the two.

VILLANUEVA: Yes.

MATTINGLY: Two words, very strong. But the statement itself was what struck me. You flagged this quote from Steinem, recalling an abortion she had at age 22 before Roe versus Wade. She said in part, "It was the first time I had taken responsibility for my own life. I wasn't going to let things happen to me. I was going to direct my life, and therefore it felt positive."

Why did that stick with you?

VILLANUEVA: I think because it showed that she was willing to take charge of her life, and she wanted other women to take charge of their lives as well. So that was why it was important. She encouraged others to take the steps. You know, the movement, feminism, is not about Gloria Steinem. It's not about one person. And Gloria showed that it's about everyone and that we all need to be encouraging others to join as well.

MATTINGLY: And just contextually, because I think this is important for people to understand, like, when she started off, when she really kind of started to make headway in who she became, where we are now was not even kind of an aspiration, I think, on some level. Is that fair? Like, the -- what she kind of entered into was a very different world than we're in now, in part because of the work she did.

VILLANUEVA: Right, right. I mean, she was a pioneering journalist. You know, she did exposes on Playboy. She wrote about abortion. She encouraged women to talk about what's happening to them in the workplace. And so I think people, especially women, feel more comfortable doing that today. But there's still so much that we still need to do.

MATTINGLY: Do you feel like there has been a regression in any way in the last couple of years?

VILLANUEVA: Yes, there has been a step back. But I think, as Gloria herself said, the movement is going to -- social movements take time to really be absorbed by society. So -- and feminism and the women's movement has only been around 30, 40 years, so we still have more time to adjust.

MATTINGLY: How do you think through, like, the work of what's next to continue her legacy and what she and others that were so essential to the movement built?

VILLANUEVA: Well, I think the best way to honor her legacy is to continue her legacy. So for now, you know, we're going to continue working on equal pay, violence against women, making sure that the Equal Rights Amendment is included in the Constitution. And I think Gloria would want us also to remember that we need to look forward to the next generation.

And one of my favorite quotes that she said was, I'm not passing the torch, I'm lighting the torch to someone else. And so, the more we can do to help the next generation make the better place, the better.

MATTINGLY: Last thing, and then I'll let you go, and I don't mean to put you on the spot, so feel free to tell me to buzz off. As a journalist, I know the bylines of other journalists that I deeply respect, love, want to consume their work. I also know their best stories are the stories that, like, stick out to me.

VILLANUEVA: Yes.

MATTINGLY: Do you remember anything specific that she wrote that really had a profound impact on you?

VILLANUEVA: Gosh, well, I think I would devour Ms. Magazine --

MATTINGLY: Yes.

VILLANUEVA: -- every time I got it. So I don't think there's one specific thing that she wrote. I think just the fact that I felt that her words mattered to me and to women across the country and the world.

MATTINGLY: Yes, and the degree to which, I mean --

VILLANUEVA: Yes.

MATTINGLY: -- it's like a journalist's dream to be able to connect like she did.

VILLANUEVA: Yes.

MATTINGLY: But it's seemingly everybody.

Kim Villanueva, I really appreciate you coming in and talking about this. Thank you.

Well, coming up, the next front in parental politics is at AI. Mayor Mamdani bans it in some New York classrooms, but his plan is getting mixed grades from both sides of the debate. We'll explain next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:47:52]

MATTINGLY: The AI backlash is coming for the classroom. The first big city mayor to tackle it head-on, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR ZOHRAN MAMDANI (D), NEW YORK: Just because technology is everywhere doesn't mean that it belongs everywhere. After all, each day when our children come to school, we teach them to ask questions, to challenge assumptions, to interrogate the premise, to ask, why? When it comes to AI in our schools, we hold an obligation to do the same.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Mamdani's answer to those questions is to ban Generative AI for New York students all the way through 8th grade. CNN Clare Duffy is honestly the person I go to on any question I have related to AI. What's in this partial AI ban, and is this something, like, based on what you've seen, how you cover this space that you think could expand beyond New York City?

CLARE DUFFY, CNN TECH REPORTER: Yes, Phil, well, this is going to be a one-year moratorium on Generative AI in the classroom for 2-K through 8th graders. High school students will get some limited access through a select set of AI tools, and they will also receive an AI critical thinking course that will teach them about the benefits but also the downsides and the risks of this technology. So they're not just learning how to use it, they're really learning about the foundations.

Companion chatbots, which, as you know, Phil, have raised a number of safety concerns, those will be banned for all grades. And importantly, there will be carve-outs here for students with disabilities or who are English learners. There are also screen time limits involved in this policy by grade. So, for example, a 30-minute cap on individual screen time for third through 5th graders, that goes up as kids get older.

And, look, I do think that this could be a model. New York is the nation's largest public school district, and this comes at a time when other communities, certainly a lot of parents, are asking tough questions about where tech brings value into the classroom and where it might also detract from student learning. And I think that is the line that New York City is trying to walk here, giving older kids access to this technology so they learn how to use it, but protecting critical thinking, human relationships for younger students.

MATTINGLY: Clare, the obvious counter to this, which you can hear from Valley folks, but also, I think, from people who are trying to think through where this is going, given how fast it's moving, is, like, look, you got to teach kids to use this early if they want to stay competitive in an AI-centric economy that's only going to grow every day from here on out. What's your sense of where, like, parents and school administrators are on that?

[12:50:17]

DUFFY: Yes, it is a really good question. You know, you do hear this concern, and certainly Silicon Valley talks a lot about if we don't train kids to use this technology early, when they get into the workforce, workers are needed -- need to have these skills, and they're going to potentially be behind. This, of course, coming as Silicon Valley and AI companies have rolled out a number of learning and education tools. They are training teachers how to use this technology as they are trying to get it into students' hands.

So there is a business motive there as well. And I think what you're seeing from New York City and from parents across the country is people are questioning that narrative. Zohran Mamdani talked about this during the press conference announcing this policy yesterday. Take a listen to that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAMDANI: The tech industry wants us to believe that AI in early education is not only inevitable, but that it is necessary. We do not see it that way. I have yet to see a study showing that AI is beneficial for students in elementary and middle school, with the exception, of course, of research sponsored by the very corporations that stand to profit.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DUFFY: And I also think it's worth mentioning, Phil, that this isn't a policy that is set in stone. They specifically laid this out as a one- year moratorium, and they are introducing a new evaluation function, a group that will include parents and educators and even students who will look at the impact that this policy has over the next year and then make recommendations for how to go forward.

MATTINGLY: Clare Duffy, always grateful for your expertise in reporting. Thank you, my friend.

All right, panel of parents who, to a person, have it all figured out. I speak for myself and all of you in saying that. I think, Nia, the question that I've had through this is, like, no one knows the answer right now.

BLAKE: Yes.

MATTINGLY: Everything's moving so damn fast, and this is not a reported statement. It is just a personal, like, I'm a dad, and, like, good Lord, I don't know what the answer is right now.

HENDERSON: Yes, I mean, listen, I am the parent of a six-year-old who has said to me, you should just ask Claude, right, if there is some sort of question --

MATTINGLY: That's a nice thought back right there.

HENDERSON: Yes, yes. So that's where we are. Listen, I think Mamdani is feeling where a lot of people are right now. That is to say that it's going very, very fast, and let's put a pause on it and figure out what's going on. Colleges are having the same conversation. MIT is saying, listen, AI is going to make the way we teach these classes obsolete, so they've got to redo the way they are instructing these students.

And so I think, you know, Mamdani is there, the public is here as well. I mean, that's why you see --

MATTINGLY: Yes.

HENDERSON: -- some of this rage against data centers, because there's this sense that these giant corporations are shoving AI down people's throats very fast with a profit in motive without really knowing where this is going and where it should be going.

MATTINGLY: That's I think such, like, this is not happening -- that announcement is not happening in a vacuum. It's happening in, like, we are the only country in the world where everyone hates AI, or at least a significant majority of the population hates AI.

You poll any other country in the world, and it's inverted from where we are. There's a reason for that. I'm not entirely sure what that reason is. I think there's a lot of things flowing into it, but how does that impact things right now?

BLAKE: I think the parallel to the data centers is a very good one. A populist point of view on this is what Mamdani is doing right now, which is a very skeptical position. The American people are very much against these AI data centers being built in their communities, but both of these issues are very complex.

And as Clare said, this is kind of the opening offer in this whole process of trying to figure out where the lines are and where we need to be, because we do need data centers in certain places. We do need AI, our kids to be train in AI in ways that we need to figure out how the best way to do that is. But we're having to make these decisions about these things very quickly before we have all the information, and that's creating a very difficult situation.

HOLMES: But I will say this, the U.S. parents, everyone was behind when it came to social media. There were so many risks of social media, and there was nobody trying to limit it at the -- right at the beginning. I think that this is a good way to test out what is working and what is not working so that we're not in that same situation in which Meta is paying out $18 billion because it was influencing kids, and people were having a really hard time figuring that out. So just the idea that this has come up, and now so quickly they're trying to look for solutions, I think is a positive.

HENDERSON: Yes.

MATTINGLY: Yes, and it's actually a really good point. The Valley guys were like, why does everybody hate us right now? It's because everybody felt really far behind and kind of bamboozled and now terrified of what happened the --

HOLMES: Right.

MATTINGLY: -- 15 years prior. Just real quick, the administration has a very kind of pro-industry, pro-build this out because of the geopolitical race that's taking place. Where are the young kids? Do they talk about this much?

HOLMES: The only thing we've heard President Trump talk about himself is the idea that data centers are good.

MATTINGLY: Yes.

[12:55:04]

HOLMES: And that -- and it seems as though he actually walked to that back a few days after he was saying every data center is amazing. He started saying, well, I understand that some people in some places don't think a data center is right. It's only right if it's good for your community. Clearly understanding the polling there.

He's been shown the polling on data centers. He understands that it's an issue. And one of the most interesting things was during a rally recently, he got protesters for data centers. And that was the first time he had seen that. You know, he's used to getting the Iran war protesters.

BLAKE (?): Yes.

HOLMES: He actually got data center protesters. And these are people who support President Trump, but are anti-data center. And I think that was an interesting moment for him, too. But they're clearly not done addressing this. They're still working through how they're going to handle it as well.

MATTINGLY: Yes. A lot of questions for all of us.

Thank you guys very much. Great panel throughout.

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

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