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CNN, MS Now, POLITICO Sue Trump Admin. Over White House Access; White House Strips CNN Of TV Pool Assignment For Today; Sources: Trump Had Grown Increasingly Irate Over Political Losses; Obama: 30 To 35 Percent Of The Country Think A Media Ban Is OK; Democrats Privately Sounding Alarm On GOP Spending Onslaught; Today: Trump, Mamdani To Meet At NYC Mayor's Home Gracie Mansion. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired September 21, 2026 - 12:00   ET

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

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MANU RAJU, CNN ANCHOR, INSIDE POLITICS: Trump versus the Press. We've got new CNN reporting on why the president suddenly banned CNN, MS Now, and POLITICO from the White House.

I'm Manu Raju, in for Dana Bash. Let's go behind the headlines at Inside Politics.

We start with breaking news on the White House ban of several news outlets, including CNN. CNN, MS Now, and POLITICO are suing the Trump administration, claiming the ban is a direct violation of the First Amendment. We have brand new CNN reporting about -- from CNN's White House team about the moments leading up to President Trump's ban.

CNN's chief White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins joins us from New York. Kaitlan, you have new reporting about what President Trump's close personal aide Natalie Harp was showing him.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR & CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Manu, because this was a huge question, why the president did this now. He is not someone who is new to complaining about his coverage, coverage that he believes is negative. And so, it was really a question that we had, that we were being asked repeatedly over the weekend, ever since the president made this surprise announcement on Friday, which is why now, what had prompted this.

And what we are told, my colleague Kevin Liptak and I, is that Natalie Harp, who is one of the president's closest aides, as you know, she's often in the Oval Office or on Air Force One, traveling with the president and has worked with him for years now, was showing him graphics last week of negative POLITICO coverage, and the president was infuriated by that graphic that he was shown about POLITICO's coverage.

He also was upset about several TV clips that he had seen of his coverage of his administration and his presidency, and that is why he looped these three outlets together and announced that he was banning them from covering the White House on Friday, from accessing the White House grounds, having access to the Oval Office. And that is really what we are told is the only thing that our sources had heard is what prompted the president to take this action on Friday, something that I should note caught a lot of people inside the White House off guard.

Several senior aides were not aware that the president was going to do this. It wasn't some well thought out plan that they had been working on. It's certainly something he had talked about, but it caught a lot of people off guard. And several people have highlighted that the chief of staff, Susie Wiles, was not in the West Wing on Friday afternoon when the president suddenly announced that he was going to ban these three outlets from covering him.

RAJU: So, Kaitlan, the vice president says the White House is not banning outlets but revoking what he calls special access to the White House grounds. You were supposed to be traveling with the president today to New York as part of the White House travel pool, but actually the White House removed CNN from the pool.

COLLINS: Yeah. It's not really clear what the vice president meant there in regards to special access. I mean, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of outlets that have access to the White House grounds that have a hard pass, a badge that swipes them in through security, gets them access to the White House, and obviously access to the briefing room, to the workspace, to the president and his aides when they are briefing reporters or holding goggles.

And so, he was saying that this is not a ban of these outlets. They're just taking away their special access. It's general access. Everyone has it. Outlets from the left, from the right, from the mainstream in the middle. And the vice president disputed the term ban earlier when a reporter asked him, given his history of advocating for free speech, if he was comfortable with the president's move on Friday.

But I should note, Manu, the president himself referred to this as a free speech ban on Friday when he was asked, and reporters were asking him follow up questions about how exactly this was going to work and what it would look like. So, the president himself was saying that. And so yes, we saw this announcement on Friday. Today was the first day it was really put into action, beyond the fact that our team could not get access to the White House complex on Saturday.

Betsy Klein and the team was credentialed and had a pass but were not allowed access into the White House today at 9 a.m. CNN is the technically was supposed to be the pool today. We were supposed to travel with the president and our cameras and our photojournalists on Air Force One here in New York for his trip, where he's got several big meetings, including with Mayor Zohran Mamdani and with other world leaders this week ahead of that big state visit that he's got going on with the Chinese President Xi Jinping.

But right now, it's a question, Manu, of what that coverage is going to look like because CNN is not alone here. Fox News, ABC, CBS and NBC are joining with us in declining to basically take our spot in the pool and to give the president a camera for a main major outlet that is going to travel with him on the plane.

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And obviously, as you know, Manu, this is the president who appreciates having his announcements, his statements, his meetings, broadcast live on television, but there will not be a TV camera representing any of those outlets when the president boards Air Force One and makes his way here to New York today, which is incredibly significant. And it's hard to think of a moment in history since the pool existed in the way that it does in this modern form where this has happened.

RAJU: Yeah, no question about it. Kaitlan Collins from New York, thank you so much. And my excellent panel is here, including the aforementioned Betsy Klein of CNN, who was turned away from the White House over the weekend, a plaintiff in this lawsuit as well, Betsy. So, talk to me, we know what happened on Saturday. You reported vividly about how your White House were denied access into the White House ground, but we're all learning about Trump's mindset going into this. What are you hearing about what led up to this and where it goes from here?

BETSY KLEIN, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Well, I think this just follows a pattern of the president turning to a familiar tactic when things aren't going the way he wants them to go and that is to attack the press. We are 43 days away from a midterm election. The president's approval rating stands at about 36 percent, according to CNN's poll of polls.

We are seeing this increasing number of Republican lawmakers oppose his war in Iran, which has led to spiking gas prices just in the last couple of days. I think the national average right now is $4.47 a gallon. We are seeing the Fed -- Federal Reserve raise interest rates. His $5,000 check to Americans is likely dead on arrival. There are a number of things, and the president now is choosing to focus on this.

RAJU: How much of this, Sabrina, has to do with the fact that Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff, was not there at the time that perhaps could have urged him to take a different course here?

SABRINA RODRIGUEZ, POLITICS REPORTER, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: I mean, I think for a lot of folks that cover the White House closely and have followed this administration closely. It is notable who that she was not in the room for this, but to Betsy's point, I mean, it just speaks to this moment for Trump. We have seen him since he came back for this second term really push institutions to try and bend to his will. We've seen the pressure campaigns that he has launched against different institutions, whether it's the Federal Reserve, the Justice Department, the courts.

When it comes to the media and it comes to these outlets in particular, that is not something that he has been able to successfully do. He cannot change the headlines and will them to exist since unless he changes his policies and his actions.

RAJU: Susie Wiles is not there, but Natalie Harp was there. That's --

RODRIGUEZ: Yes, and that -- RAJU: --and she was the one who was showing them some of these --

RODRIGUEZ: And she has obviously increasingly become a flashpoint in Democratic politics and in the media covering her presence or lack of presence in things.

RAJU: How much of this is also a distraction from the problems the president clearly has? His numbers aren't good. The Iran war is not going well. The environment is terrible for his party right now. Gas prices are so high, and that's part of what our colleagues write this morning that Trump has grown increasingly irate. They say about these losses.

MARIANNA SOTOMAYOR, CAPITOL HILL CORRESPONDENT, PUCK: Yeah. I think the perplexing part is sure. If you want to distract from all of those negative headlines, there's other ways to do it than going after the press, as you noted, Betsy. Like this is his one of many hits that he has constantly relied on when things are not going well. But I mean, I'm sure you've heard Manu from some Republicans already privately wondering why he took up this case, why he is escalating it when all they want and all they've been wanting is for him to just like stay focused, talk about the economy.

RAJU: The economy?

SOTOMAYOR: Yeah.

(CROSSTALK)

SOTOMAYOR: Anything.

RAJU: I mean, it's not good news, though.

SOTOMAYOR: No.

RAJU: That's the issue, right?

KLEIN: Right. This is also a very big week for foreign policy, and right now there is not going to be a pool camera traveling with the president and that is very notable. Now, interestingly, we do have one new data point, which is that my credential to cover event with the first lady on the sidelines of the United Nations tomorrow has been approved. So that's sort of an interesting space to watch.

RAJU: Yeah, interesting. We'll see how that plays out. And we're watching Trump's reaction to all this, and you know, he puts up on social media this morning the kind of attack against the media that he's been doing his entire political career. But he also said this, which we thought was notable. He said, is the threat to our national security must be stopped now.

He's referring to what he says is fake news, but the national security thing he's been now citing on the White House, building the White House ball room, the arch, this triumphal arch that he wants to build by the Arlington cemetery, it's national security. He's citing this as a reason now too. RODRIGUEZ: It's interesting to see that this is now the tagline for the president. I think the question is really how convincing is this to the American public as they hear these attacks. I think, you know, attacks get old over a certain amount of time, and I think there's a lot of questions around how effective that is going to be when people are questioning why are you doing this in the first place.

RAJU: Yeah. Betsy, since you cover all these improvements around what improvements in the eye of the beholder, I suppose around Washington D.C. What do you make of this national security argument he was making?

KLEIN: Specifically with the arch, I think it's very notable that this is a messaging tactic he has used when there have been legal challenges to his construction projects. As you said, we saw that with the ballroom when that first started to have some legal challenges. He started talking about it as a quote, ballroom/military complex. Now he is saying the same of his triumphal arch. He says it's going to store very high-grade ammunitions.

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Now, I think there are also a lot of questions for observers and people involved in this project about the idea of storing ammunitions in this major high traffic circle in the middle of Washington.

RAJU: One other point, we heard Barack Obama over the weekend. He was asked about what was happening and this is his response.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, 44TH U.S. PRESIDENT: I'm trying to think what would have happened if I had said, you know what, Fox News, you're out of here. It's unimaginable. So, but the point I'm making here is, is that, if you have a certain cohort, let's call it 30 to 35 percent of the country right now, which thinks that's OK.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Now, as a point of reference, the Obama White House did try to ban Fox News from covering an event at the treasury department. The networks banded together, said no. Obama administration relented, but his point is that 30 to 35 percent of the country think these bans are OK.

SOTOMAYOR: Yeah. When he said it was unimaginable, I was remembering when there were so many conversations among the networks saying, OK, we need to stand up for Fox News, and hopefully one day, if anything were to get worse, Fox News and or others can also defend, you know, all these other networks. But there is a more amenable, I guess, base of voters who are negative against the press, obviously we've all in some form or fashion received that, whether it's from lawmakers or voters themselves.

I still don't know if that's a winning argument, or you know, suddenly maybe you're going to jit up a little bit more of Trump space, which Republicans want, but again, it's kind of a tired argument.

RAJU: Yeah. Trump likes a foil. We'll see if it works this time in this environment. All right, coming up. How Ken Paxton went from begging for money to outspending James Talarico eight to one inside the 11th hour avalanche of Republican ad spending that has Democrats sounding the alarm. Plus, can Susan Collins defy the odds one more time? I went to Maine to put that question to the voters, who'll decide.

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RAJU: SOS from congressional Democrats. They say we need more money fast. Two dozen Democratic sources tell CNN the party is increasingly worried. It does not have the cash to compete over the next six weeks. Republican super PACs have unleashed a tidal wave of spending into House and Senate battlegrounds that the Democrats are fearful that they simply cannot match. The head of Democrats' largest super PAC said this to her colleagues Sarah Ferris and Patrick Svitek, saying, quote, unless more resources come in in support for House Democrats, we will ultimately leave seats on the table.

My excellent reporters are back. So, Marianna, there is a lot of panic in Democratic circles right now.

SOTOMAYOR: There is, and it's coming at a time when Democrats are feeling so confident that they will flip the House and possibly the Senate. They are looking at their internal numbers, and at least what I'm hearing on the House side, every single Democrat and incumbent, including those who've gone from a, let's say a district Harris won by three points and now in a Trump plus 14-district. They are within the margin of error.

That's why those alarms are flaring because they want to signal to donors, you need to give us money now. And this is kind of uncharted territory in some ways for Democrats because Republicans for the last several cycles have actually been behind on the money game. But this new Supreme Court case has now empowered Republicans.

We're just seeing so much money being poured in just the last several weeks, and that is where Democrats are saying we have the candidates, we have the environment, we even have the message that is resonating. But if we can't break through or we get all of those negative attacks on our candidates, we're going to have to defend some people instead of potentially expanding the map.

RAJU: Yeah. Let's look at the map a little bit because these are the battlegrounds. You can see here that we have a number of states. Democrats to pick up four of those seats to hold Michigan, that to hold Georgia, that to hold New Hampshire in order to keep the Senate majority or to win the Senate majority. I should say, now look at the future spending. That it means from today until election day, every single state that we just talked about there, Democrats are being outspent other than Georgia. That is the only one on your map there, everything else.

Look at this. Ohio, 91 million bucks, 41 million bucks to 27 million bucks. GOP to Dems in Maine. We talk about Iowa, critical race, $39 million to $28 million. Every single state down the line, and then perhaps the most significant gap is what we're seeing between Paxton and Talarico in Texas. The Paxton allies versus the Talarico allies, 40 million bucks compared to just 5 million for the Democrats. If you're a Democrat, you're getting very nervous.

RODRIGUEZ: 100 percent. It's also, I mean, in talking to Democratic sources, there is still in spite of this money gap, there is still this feeling and this confidence of OK, we have the right message, we can win in November, we can flip the House, maybe we can make the Senate happen. But narrow majorities, we've seen very well under Speaker Mike Johnson, the struggle that he has had with his narrow Republican majority.

Democrats don't want to find themselves in a situation where yes, they successfully have flipped the House and now they are not able to get anything done. Because then, for the big one in 2028 that everyone's also already looking to, there's the question of, you're going to have to talk to voters and if you haven't delivered anything. You haven't accomplished anything. We stay in this cycle where people are frustrated and don't feel like their politicians are actually getting anything done for them.

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RAJU: Yeah. And look, the big question of this cycle is it -- is it the environment that wins out, or is it the structure that wins out for the GOP? They got the map advantage in the Senate. They have a map advantage in the House. All these gerrymandered districts, and they have the money. And if you talk about the environment specifically, let's look at the Trump's numbers here. This was an interesting point from the NBC poll from this weekend, showing how voters view their vote and whether they'll use it as a way to signal opposition to Trump.

Look at this, 43 percent here in now voters say that they will send that message to Trump. The reason why that may be concerning is that that is higher than we've seen in other midterm environments, including 2018 when the Dems one took back the House. 2010 that Republican Tea Party wave, 34 percent wanted to send a message to Obama back, and now it's nine points higher for Trump. That's a worrying sign for the president.

KLEIN: Yeah. I mean, President Trump has essentially handed Democrats a path to midterm victory on a silver platter between the economy, gas prices, this war with Iran, and yet Democrats have this sort of identity crisis and leadership vacuum, and they aren't able to capitalize on this moment. The other interesting thing in that NBC poll is that 55 percent of voters say that they believe President Trump's policies have hurt the economy.

I actually went back to our CNN polling from 2018 when the president was aggressively on the campaign trail. I mean, multiple stops every single week. Back then, the economy was actually a bright spot for him. It was like 50 percent approve -- at over 50 percent That is, I think, the biggest difference right now.

RAJU: Yeah. And remember, Trump just a few weeks ago said, vote like I'm on the ballot. I mean, with numbers like that, I don't know if you -- Republicans want them to vote like he's on the ballot, but they had talked about putting Trump on the campaign trail and stumping with these candidates. What are you hearing Sabrina from your sources about how they plan to dispatch Trump in these last two months.

RODRIGUEZ: I mean, we've seen Trump himself talked about it at the convention. He talked about, you know, I'm going to be on the campaign trail and he's promised that. And for a candidate like Ken Paxton, that is something that is welcomed. And in Texas, you know, someone like Paxton wants to see Trump. But I think for some folks, like we've been talking a lot about Congresswoman Salazar in South Florida.

There is this reticence, this desire to maybe see a little less of Trump and see a little more strong Republican messaging. So, we'll be seeing him traveling in these final weeks. There's no question about that. We hear that from his advisors. But the more that you see him in the last month, there are races where they don't want to--

RAJU: They don't want to be the issue. And before we go to break, Marianna, there was news about the crypto industry coming in Ohio. That's the critical race. Sherrod Brown trying to win back that seat for Democrats. There's plan to spend 30 million bucks against him after the Democrats blocked a crypto bill in the Senate earlier this year. They spent all this money in the last cycle to bury Sherrod Brown. Now they plan to do it again after this vote, and there's a lot more money coming in Ohio.

SOTOMAYOR: Yeah. This goes back to bad environment for Republicans, despite them having so much money for several weeks. I've been hearing that Republicans have been essentially begging all of these different crypto agencies to say, hey, we need help to defeat some of these very strong Democratic candidates, please pour in money. So now that you're seeing that come in, that kind of opens up Republicans to use their coffers and protect candidates in Kansas, for example, a state that we wouldn't have been talking about even earlier this year as potentially being on the map.

RAJU: Yeah. We'll see how they decide to move their money around the next couple of weeks, critical to those final spending decisions. All right. Next, two New Yorkers walk into a meeting. One is a Democratic socialist, and one he is the Republican president of the United States. Will the face-to-face love fest between President Trump and Mayor Mamdani? How will that take place? That's up next.

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RAJU: Because of the White House press ban, another presidential meeting you will not see him coming and going from. This is a sit down with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. They are meeting at Gracie Mansion ahead of the United Nations General Assembly today. This is the third time the two have met in person but is the first time that they are talking on Mamdani's home turf.

CNN's Gloria Pazmino is live outside Gracie Mansion. So, Gloria, what is the purpose of this meeting?

GLORIA PAZMINO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Manu, when you ask Mayor Mamdani about why he meets with President Trump. He has always said that he sees it as an opportunity to highlight the needs of New York City and of New Yorkers. He sees it as his one chance to advocate, despite the fact that these two politicians have two very different worldviews, right? They are completely opposed, and we have seen that they actually have quite nasty things to say about each other, but that hasn't been the case in previous meetings.

In fact, it's been surprising to see just how well the meetings have gone between Trump and Mamdani the last two times. They met the last time in February and the first time shortly after Mayor Mamdani's election in November, both of those meetings took place at the Oval Office in the White House.

What's different about today's meeting, and I think will, you know, provide for a different outcome, perhaps, is the fact that this is very much happening in Mamdani territory. President Trump is literally coming to the mayor's doorstep. He will be meeting with him inside Gracie Mansion.

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