Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Live Event/Special
Democrats Look To Expand Battleground Map as Midterms Near; Trump Enters Midterm Stretch As Most Unpopular He's Been; Early Voting Suggests Dem Gains In Ohio's Trump-Friendly Spots. Aired 9-10p ET
Aired October 11, 2026 - 21:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[21:00:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Tonight, live at the table: Scott Jennings, Van Jones, Lauren A. Wright, David Axelrod, and Alyssa Farah Griffin. This is a special edition of NewsNight "Midterm Countdown".
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST: Good evening. Welcome to hour two. I'm Abby Phillip in New York. This is a special Sunday night debate show edition, as we mark nearly three weeks until the midterm elections, and Democrats are feeling pretty good. Party leaders believe that they have a real chance to win seats that are deep in Trump's territory, as Republicans face their worst midterm environment in decades. Democrats think that they may be able to flip Texas, Alaska, and Iowa, and now they're adding Kansas to that list. Senate Democrats' top super PAC has invested $5 million in Kansas, a state that hasn't elected a Democrat to the Senate in nearly a century. And just a quick reminder that Trump won all four of the states by double digits in 2024.
But are Democrats spreading themselves too thin by expanding the map too quickly? The party is already strapped for cash, and some officials fear diverting resources from traditional battleground states could have a net negative impact.
Let's get right to CNN correspondent Arlette Saenz, who is in Biddeford, Maine. Arlette, you are in Maine, where there is a critical Senate race underway. Tell us what's happening there.
ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Abby, Senator Bernie Sanders just finished speaking to voters here, as he is trying to energize Democratic voters on behalf of Troy Jackson, the Democratic Senate candidate, in this contest. Now, Maine is one of those states that Democrats believe they could potentially flip in a little over three weeks. Democrats will need to flip four Republican-held seats and hold on to all of their own if they do want to win back the U.S. Senate for next year. And Senator Susan Collins, the Republican here, is really contending with a lot of anti-President Trump sentiment that many Republican candidates across the country are dealing with right now. Democrats believe that the enthusiasm and environment is on the side.
But beyond Maine, many of their offensive opportunities are in very deep red states, and that presents a real challenge for Democrats going forward. They're also, as you talked about, dealing with some of the spending disparity, as the GOP is outspending Democrats in the closing weeks of this campaign in many of these battleground states.
But right now, if you take a look at polling, if you take a look at other metrics relating to these races, this is truly a toss-up race across the Senate battleground map, as Democrats are trying to claw back their way to the majority next year.
PHILLIP: So, Arlette, the president is traveling to a lot of key battleground states this week. Tell us about that.
SAENZ: Yeah. President Trump has really been trying to shore up support among Republican voters. Tomorrow, he will be in Youngstown, Ohio, where he is set to campaign with Senator Jon Husted, who is in a very tough re-election battle against Democrat Sherrod Brown. On Tuesday, the president is actually flying all the way out west to Alaska, where he'll campaign with Senator Dan Sullivan. He is also in a very close contest with the Democratic candidate in that race, Mary Peltola, and then the president also has stops a little bit later in the week in Arizona and Montana. For President Trump's part, he has said that what he thinks is plaguing Republicans is a messaging problem. He believes that if he is out front and center, they can really juice up voter turnout from his reliable MAGA base.
But of course, President Trump is dealing with a lot of unpopularity, low approval numbers. There is a lot of frustration with the economy and the war in Iran, and those are all headwinds that Republican candidates are grappling with across the country at this moment.
PHILLIP: Arlette Saenz, thank you very much for that report.
And with voting already underway in parts of the country, we're getting our first look at who is actually showing up.
CNN's Tom Foreman joins us now with a look at what the numbers are telling us. Tom.
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Thanks, Abby. The numbers are telling us a lot, at least at the moment. Look at this. In Ohio, one of those strongholds for Republicans in many ways, this is where we are. At this point in the race in 2024, the Republicans had a 30 percentage point advantage in the counties that Trump won by more than 20 points.
[21:05:00]
That is not true now, as you can see, at this moment, compared to where they were then, in place after place where he is up by 20, where he is up by less than 20, by where Harris was up by less than 20, and where she is up by more than 20, Republicans are down, and the Democrats are just up, up, up across the board in those Ohio counties. That's true in other places too. Look at New Jersey over there, same sort of trend, Democrats coming on strong, Republicans not so much. Pennsylvania, Democrats coming on strong. This is 2026 to 2024, not so much for Republicans. Same in Maine. By and large, people call this the enthusiasm gap, and it does seem to show up in the numbers out there.
If you look at all the states that have early voting underway right now, some of them that have had a lot of it, like Colorado, Ohio, places like that, some that have had not so much, Georgia, or say Oregon over there. Across the board, this trend seems to be showing up. A lot of enthusiasm from the Democrats to get out there, not so much from Republicans. Do we know why? Not really. We do know who is voting, and we can say with some certainty that this is probably the way they're going when they actually go in the booth to cast their ballot or come in early with mail-in voting.
But out of these three million people voting out here, if these trends continue, that is a solid advantage for the Democrats heading into the final part of the vote, but that's a big if out there. Many things can change between now and the finale here. Abby.
PHILLIP: All right. Tom Foreman, thank you very much.
As we count down to Election Day, a growing number of Americans say that they're worried about corruption. Nearly 90 percent believe the corruption is rampant in government, a number that's risen significantly in the last two years. This week, we learned that the U.S. ambassador to Greece, Kimberly Guilfoyle, reportedly begged a major Trump donor to pay off her credit card bill in exchange for access to top administration officials. Guilfoyle's attorney disputed the story, but a source is telling CNN, Trump is now considering firing her after these revelations.
This is just the latest scandal to rock the White House that's been raising concerns about who is profiting while Trump is in office. We've talked about the meme coins, the crypto company Trump's family co-owns, the timing of massive tech stock purchases, Trump's plans to hold the G20 summit at his Doral resort, and federal deals in which his family reportedly stands to gain, just to name a few.
Before we open it up to the table, as always, we invite you at home to submit your questions to the panel. Go to cnn.com/EngagePolitics and weigh in there. We're going to get to some of your comments as we go throughout the show.
It is not helpful to Republicans, to say the least, that you've got a really disadvantageous economic environment, and then on top of that, people think that you're grifting them. And -- I mean, it goes from all those things that we talked about. Another story that there were suspicious trades on these prediction market platforms right before the press secretary was named minutes before. People are definitely getting rich off of things happening in this administration, and Americans are noticing.
LAUREN A. WRIGHT, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY POLITICAL SCIENTIST: And you didn't mention the Trump watches that are --
PHILLIP: Right.
WRIGHT: -- constantly advertised no matter where. But the thing is, I've looked at the polling on this, and for Republicans, they are -- they see this as the same thing Hunter Biden did during the Biden administration. Corruption, as it's perceived, has become such a partisan issue, and Americans really believe both parties do it, and how bad you think it is depends on who you vote for. And so, when you look at the top list of concerns, perhaps this should be much higher, I find a lot of this stuff abhorrent, but it's just not there. It needs to move the needle among independents, which I do think it will, but they don't always turn out in the midterms.
So, I think what we're looking at is you're going to get a lot of really educated partisans that are super ideological, driving up turnout, and this might factor into a presidential election, but I don't know how it would. Now, Kimberly Guilfoyle needs to go. I mean, why she -- that would be the easiest decision, I think. Maybe other people have insight into why she is still around. I don't know.
DAVID AXELROD, FORMER SENIOR ADVISOR TO PRESIDENT OBAMA, & CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: What do you say? Nobody should capitalize on their office except me? I mean, it's a bad message.
VAN JONES, FORMER OBAMA ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL, & CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I see it differently than you do in that. At least the people I'm talking to, it's the double barrel nature of it. It's the cost to me and the corruption. It's like cost and corruption.
WRIGHT: Well, that was inflation during the Biden era, to be fair.
JONES: Well, I mean, I just want to finish my point, though, which is that I think that when people are looking in their own refrigerator and there is less food in there than it should be, when they're going to fill up their tank and they can't fill it out that much, and then they hear these stories about people just getting ungodly rich, I do think it drives up the determination to vote for Democrats. I do think it is a stench in the nostrils of God for a lot of independents because it just looks really bad, and I do think that it just needs to be said.
[21:10:00]
It's qualitatively different for Hunter Biden to do some goofy thing with like a painting and somebody to get $2 billion, which is what the Trump family has gotten.
ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN, FORMER W.H. COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR, TRUMP ADMIN, & CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, and I also think -- I mean, listen, I agree. Kimberly Guilfoyle seems like the most obvious she should go. This is just like kind of beyond the pale here. But I hear something different because I do think we're so polarized that people are like, "Oh, if I'm a Republican, Hunter Biden is worse. If I'm a Democrat, the Trumps are.
But what I do keep hearing, just talking to average voters, is, well, I have less money. Will everything cost me more? He is focused on renovations. He is focused on ballrooms. He is focused on the Arc de Trump in his latest renovation. That creates this real detachment that I think in the Kennedy Center. His lack of focus and seeming like he wants to kind of have this grandiose lifestyle he is living, that seems to be sticking in people's minds. AXELROD: I think that corruption, yes, the false equivalents will be
made, and that is the partisan sort of sparring point, but there is a perception not just that Donald Trump and his family and his coterie are corrupt and benefiting, but that the system itself is corrupt, that there is a great concentration of wealth. I mean, it was sort of the portrait of it was all of the A.I. billionaires around the table. And so, there are -- and people start making the connections, Oh, there is a data center that's being put in my community without my consent. That's going to have deleterious effects for my community. And these guys are all around the table with Donald Trump, and he is standing up for them, and saying, well, you're foolish if you don't accept these data centers and so on, and I think there are a lot of different ways that this matters.
And in terms of his own personal corruption, I mean, there are so many examples. Four days before he got inaugurated, the brother of the despot who runs the UAE, bought a 49 percent stake in his Liberty crypto company, and a few months later we're selling chips, A.I. chips, highly classified A.I. chips to UAE that we weren't before because there was a fear that they would be shared with China. So, those kinds of things have tangible effects.
PHILLIP: Is it any wonder that in that environment, you've got a president who campaigns as a populist but governs as a corporatist, and Americans, not only are they noticing but they're actually feeling what that looks like. They are getting hit with tariffs. They are watching as if you have the president's phone number or if you have the phone number for Susie Wiles. You can get carveouts for you, but no carveouts for mom and pops. It seems like the president's problem isn't pointing the finger at the socialists, but actually how he is governing. That is what's causing these problems.
SCOTT JENNINGS, FORMER SPECIAL ASSISTANT, PRES. GEORGE W. BUSH, & CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I agree with the idea that corruption is a rising concern for voters. I've heard that from a number of pollsters and campaign strategists. So, I concur on that front.
But an angle of this that you've not touched on, but is I think affecting politics in a number of states, is the fraud. Minnesota is a good example, rampant fraud in state government, and the fact that the Democrat Senate candidate there, Peggy Flanagan, is the current lieutenant governor, is one of the key reasons she is underperforming in a very deep blue state. You mentioned earlier the battleground was only in red states. Right now, Minnesota is a tied race --
WRIGHT: I think that makes a surprise win.
JENNINGS: -- because of rampant fraud in the state government. We've had fraud all over California. We've had fraud in a lot of blue states. And so, when you ask people about --
PHILLIP: There is fraud in a lot of red states, and you have a president who has pardoned. He has pardoned -- but I'm just letting you -- I'm just -- let's be clear, this president has taken it upon himself to pardon fraudsters, nullifying the agreements that were created to right their wrongs for their victims by giving them pardons. There is fraud happening all over the country, I totally agree, but it is beyond belief to say that this president is targeting fraud when he is literally signing the pardon sheets for fraudsters.
JENNINGS: Well, first of all, the administration has indicted hundreds, if not thousands, of people for fraud all over the country, and for all the arguments --
PHILLIP: Well, every administration does that, Scott. I mean --
JENNINGS: Do they?
PHILLIP: Seriously.
JENNINGS: Well, we have two parties right now when it comes --
PHILLIP: Because even in Minnesota, the fraud that you're talking about in Minnesota was prosecuted by the previous Democratic administration. You know that, right?
JENNINGS: Well, the Republicans right now are very aggressively prosecuting and continuing to indict people on fraud. My point is this: this corruption story means different things to different people. To Democrats, it means something about Trump. To Republicans, it means that the Democratic Party, for instance, has encouraged mass illegal immigration, people coming into the country, taking advantage of taxpayers, being given welfare and a whole coterie of Democratic officials who continue to encourage and protect that system, to me, that's corruption.
[21:15:00]
And so, this story is not just about --
PHILLIP: So then, what explains why -- but what explains the rise in people's concerns about corruption in the last two years, i.e. under Donald Trump, in a timeframe than which his personal net worth has gone up by the tune of billions of dollars, which is unheard of? It just has literally never happened before.
GRIFFIN: Can we just agree that this is distinct, like, what is happening with the Trump administration? The level of personal enrichment of people around the president is distinct from what we've seen. I always called out the Bidens, Hunter Biden, but like this is completely different and on a much grander scale.
AXELROD: I mean --
PHILLIP: Can we agree on that?
AXELROD: Oh, we absolutely should --
PHILLIP: Scott, can we agree?
JENNINGS: Yeah. I don't disagree that people have had a higher net worth, but at the same time, some of these -- I mean, look, some of these -- AXELROD: How'd that happen?
(CROSSTALK)
AXELROD: People on a higher net worth.
JENNINGS: But some of these people are -- but some of these people had existing businesses before Trump ever entered politics.
AXELROD: Yeah. But that wasn't the case with -- yeah.
PHILLIP: Yeah. But that's not the case for the Trump sons.
JENNINGS: They didn't have existing businesses?
PHILLIP: No. They didn't have existing businesses in crypto. They didn't have existing businesses in drones. They didn't have existing businesses in defense tech. These are not existing businesses. They're new businesses.
AXELROD: It could be that it turned out in the last two years that these Trump boys were business geniuses, and all of a sudden they started making hundreds of millions of dollars --
JENNINGS: That they never had before.
AXELROD: -- and they'd set up businesses that got unprecedented loans from the Pentagon, and they -- all -- that may -- it just may be happenstance. But I don't think that's what people think. But I also don't think -- I think this is a concerning issue that we have a crony capitalist in chief. I think that's a big problem. But I think people see the system itself as corrupt. They think and they feel and they're not wrong that the decisions that are being made in Washington are too often influenced by people who have connections, who have money, and who have an agenda that is not about them.
PHILLIP: So, just one last point on this: Trump thinks that this is all about whether he is going to be impeached, but I'm not sure --
JENNINGS: What made you think that?
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: I'm not sure that that's actually really his -- should be his biggest concern because Democrats, if they're smart, they wouldn't even touch that because they've got a whole lot of other stuff to look into that could really grind the last two years of this Trump term to a screeching halt if they wanted to.
JENNINGS: But that's what they wanted. They're shut down the government for massive amount of time.
PHILLIP: I'm talking about what they're calling oversight of this administration, cabinet office by cabinet office.
JONES: I mean, I don't know if the Democrats are going to actually try to impeach or not, but I agree with you, Abby. If you have the gavel in six months, every one of these people who got a sweetheart deal is going to be sitting in front of you answering questions. Every one of these people that got rich overnight, every one of these contracts, every single one of them, they're going to be pulled -- if the Democrats have the House, they are going to be sitting there with a bright light on their face answering questions. There are going to be subpoenas for all those emails, and we're going to find out exactly how much corruption is going on. You don't even have to abuse the president.
AXELROD: And that oversight is important, and that should be undertaken. But if they win, it's going to be because they said they were going -- that Democrats were going to address the economic concerns that people have, and one of the reasons that Donald Trump is in the problem he is in right now, is that's what he said he was going to do, and instead, he engaged in a campaign of retribution --
JENNINGS: Have we said that?
AXELROD: -- and personally a grand indictment (ph).
PHILLIP: Yeah. Exactly. I think those are two sides of the debate.
JENNINGS: I've not heard a single piece of legislation proposed to address the economy.
AXELROD: Well, the first thing they're going to do is repeal some of these Medicaid cuts, which are going to devastate rural hospitals and let's get over it.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: All right. Next for us, Republicans are stepping up their rhetoric against Abdul El-Sayed, calling him a terrorist, a jihadist, and a Bin Laden supporter. We'll discuss the ugliness that's unfolded in that race.
Plus, after saying that he has approved a public execution, the president is now backing down from that, in just the latest reversal in the last week. So, what's behind it?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:20:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: Tonight, the Michigan Senate race takes a dark turn. Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed's religion and race has become the focus of Republican Mike Rogers's campaign. Even President Trump chimed in.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: You know this guy. I call him Mohammed El-Fayad. Some people call him Abdul. I call him Mohammed. Somebody said why. I said I don't know. I feel like it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: At a campaign event with Rogers, Republican Senator John Kennedy took the attacks one step further.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY (R-LA): AIPAC wouldn't come here if Dr. El-Sayed didn't sleep in a Bin Laden jersey. I'm just telling you. I don't understand the deep antisemitism that I see in America now, but most of it's not coming from my party. It's coming from the Hamas wing of the Democratic Party. It is not all Democrats, but the Hamas wing is in control. I'm going to say it again: Republicans aren't perfect. But these folks are crazy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[21:25:00]
PHILLIP: Rogers has hinted at El-Sayed or his family having ties to terrorists throughout the campaign, but now the comments are becoming less ambiguous. Saturday, Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy posted a video of El-Sayed joking that Michigan, his alma mater, couldn't win a game without cheating, to which Portnoy wrote, This guy really is a terrorist. Rogers reposted that comment, writing that Portnoy is exactly right. El-Sayed responded to Rogers's attacks.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KRISTEN WELKER, NBC HOST: -- because he made roughly 10 references, seemingly trying to link you to terrorism. You've said you don't want to dignify those kinds of claims.
ABDUL EL-SAYED (D), MICHIGAN SENATE CANDIDATE: His only strategy is to point to me and my name and my faith, and to say that we're different, and that you should suspect people simply because they are different than you in how they pray. But there are so many more ways that we're the same.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: You were making an argument against his economic policies in the last hour --
WRIGHT: Yeah.
PHILLIP: -- but that's not actually how Republicans are running this race, and I think it's very telling.
WRIGHT: Yeah. But I think there are legitimate questions about how he does put Israel and Iran on a similar footing, which is a very generous way to put it. No spending on defensive weapons for Israel, including the Iron Dome. He said nothing on October 7th, and implied it was political theater to do so. I think a lot of Americans are really uninformed about Islam in
general, and I separate that from what I think are really ignorant and stupid remarks from the president. And there are parts -- I would just like to finish this. There are parts of the most conservative interpretations of Sharia law that are very, very concerning --
JONES: What does that have to do with this race?
WRIGHT: -- not educating -- because Americans see Sharia law being implemented in other parts of the world and they wonder --
AXELROD: What does that have to do with El-Sayed?
WRIGHT: -- because I'm saying that's why they're asking questions about --
JONES: That's not why they're asking questions.
WRIGHT: No. You're not letting me finish here.
JONES: Carry on.
WRIGHT: There are countries in the world that don't educate women, Muslim majority countries. There are countries in the world that have corporal punishment for women and girls. They have death penalty for blasphemy; apostasy, homosexuality. Americans that don't know a lot see those things and they wonder if he thinks that's OK, and they have questions about him.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Why do they wonder that?
WRIGHT: Because they don't have information. And by the way --
JENNINGS: You've had plenty time to run down.
WRIGHT: I guess that when JFK was asked questions in 1960, peppered by evangelical ministers about whether he is more loyal to the Pope or whether it's --
(CROSSTALK)
WRIGHT: -- he didn't say it was wrong. He said, you know what?
PHILLIP: Well -- I mean -- but --
WRIGHT: You got to ask me any question I want --
PHILLIP: But it was actually --
WRIGHT: -- because I'm the first president to run for that.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: It is a stain on our country that there was a time when you couldn't be a Catholic and run for higher office in this country.
WRIGHT: But people --
PHILLIP: So, I actually think that --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: I think you bringing that up, Lauren -- hold on. I think you bringing that up is actually -- maybe it is apropos because it is sort of like, are we really doing this, where it's like, if you're a Muslim, you have to answer for all the bad Muslims. If you're a Muslim, then you have to ask whether you agree with Sharia law. I mean, is that what we're doing here?
JONES: Let me just say a few things. There are plenty of reasons to criticize Abdul on policy. You can criticize a policy. You don't criticize a people. That's what's happening here. I just want to be very clear. The Muslim community in this country is a blessing to this country. The Muslim community in this country has the lowest crime rate in this country. They have the lowest divorce rate. They have the highest educational attainment for women in this country, second only to Black people. They are a -- they have the highest -- among the highest business formation. This country would be radically worse without the Muslim community here, and people should be proud to stand with that community. Are there elements in that community that -- you had your turn.
WRIGHT: Yes. I just --
JONES: You had your turn. You had your turn. Are there people in that community who are terrible? Yes, and there are people in every community who are terrible. But what they're doing to Abdul is wrong. It's despicable, and it is not in keeping with what we're trying to be in this country.
Now, you mentioned things that are legitimate criticism and concern. That's not what we're talking about. What we're talking about is the president of the United States calling someone Mohammed, as if that's an insult, because he is trying -- he is not criticizing his policies. He is criticizing his people, and that's wrong. And we should -- and everybody should be clear about that.
AXELROD: It's not dumb. It's dangerous. I mean, he is acting like a human algorithm, seeking out those points of difference and --
[21:30:00]
WRIGHT: I would say it's dangerous to say Israel and Iran have both done wrong --
AXELROD: You basically --
WRIGHT: -- and I can't -- it's all the difference between them.
AXELROD: There is an old technique in politics where you say now some people are saying and then you repeat a whole bunch of things that are smeared.
(CROSSTALK)
AXELROD: He has never talked about -- -- you're not making a clinical judgment here. You're --
WRIGHT: Those are policies --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Lauren, hold on a second. Let's finish this.
WRIGHT: Yeah.
GRIFFIN: Well, there is a way to litigate this race. As somebody who would be more inclined to support Mike Rogers, there is a way that you can have very legitimate discussions about where El-Sayed may be outside of the mainstream, where he may align more with the DSA, where he may be, in my viewpoint, anti-Israel and some of his policies, wanting to cut funding to Iron Dome. Those are legitimate policy discussions, but trying to paint with this broad brush of scary Muslim American is beneath us as a country. It is the moment we live in, by the way, though this is how we do politics. It's ugly and it's mean. But I do think it's beneath us, and we should focus on the policies.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Maybe that's why John Kennedy stumbled when he tried to smear El-Sayed with being a Bin Laden supporter. There is a sort of -- there is a big difference between, again, critiquing what El-Sayed has said and basically calling him a terrorist. Don't you think?
JENNINGS: Well -- I mean, there are some journalistic underpinnings to what's being said about El-Sayed. I will just simply read to you some headlines: El-Sayed campaign backed by over $100,000 from dozens of members of group with alleged terror ties. Abdul El-Sayed rakes in thousands from Muslim Brotherhood-linked donors. Abdul El-Sayed's father-in-law, a top donor to an El-Sayed super PAC, is among top leaders of Muslim Brotherhood organization linked to terror funding. Abdul El-Sayed's mom worked for global terrorist group accused of funding Bin Laden, according to a report.
And on top of that, when that radical Islamist rammed his truck into a synagogue in West Bloomfield, Michigan, he said, hurt people hurt people.
JONES: Yeah.
JENNINGS: I think there are legitimate questions about his world view, and when you put Iran and Israel on the same foot, we have an enemy and we have an ally in the Middle East.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Let me play -- El-Sayed was asked about that comment this weekend on Meet the Press. Listen to how he responded. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EL-SAYED: I've learned a lot in the conversations I've had, some conversations with folks who will be colleagues, somebody like Senator Elissa Slotkin, and I remember sitting down with her and her sharing how she felt when she heard that "hurt people hurt people" comment, and it was really important to me to hear to understand that I had been stepping on somebody's pain. That's not my goal here.
WELKER: And is it safe to say, based on what you're saying, you regret making those comments hurt people hurt people?
EL-SAYED: Yeah. I regret any time, if I step on somebody's grief, of course I regret that, and I really wish I'd have thought about how somebody would have felt hearing that and thought twice about making those comments.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WRIGHT: I mean --
PHILLIP: So, hold on. Let me -- OK. David was about to jump in. I just wanted to play that because it literally just came up. He was asked about it, and it was a misstep.
AXELROD: He was, and it's also true that when he addressed that horrific event at the synagogue, he also expressed his sympathy and empathy for the community and for families. He added the line that he talked about, and he acknowledges that it was inappropriate.
But Scott, you ran through a list of headlines. You didn't run through the list of fact-checks that basically debunked a bunch of it. And so, I've experienced this. When I went to work for Barack Obama, the first thing that happened when he --
GRIFFIN: You mean Barack Hussein Obama.
AXELROD: Yes. Well, that was -- the first thing that we saw was Fox News did a big expose that he was educated in a madrassas, implying that he was educated in a place where radical Islam was being taught. That turned out not to be true. But someone could sit on a show and read that headline to get the effect they wanted, and people would walk away and say, "Oh, he got educated.
WRIGHT: But I do think his references about f Khamenei, many people feel sad today.
GRIFFIN: I think his legitimate words deserve to be scrutinized because I think even what he said on Meet the Press today is basically saying not stepping on these people's grief, but you're not -- you're in -- you're still making an argument and basically not putting the responsibility where it should be in a terrorist attack. It's saying there are two sides of this.
AXELROD: He said in his comments on that day that there is absolutely no excuse for acts of terrorism. JENNINGS: But then he gave one. But then he gave one. But then he gave one. He immediately -- his instinct was then to give one. It's what Mamdani did on October 7th, a couple of lines about Israel in three paragraphs about how terrible the Jews are. The implication is, is that all of this terrorism, all of this violence, and all of this fear and intimidation can be rationalized if you look at through the lens of the oppressed and the oppressor, which is I think how El-Sayed sees the world, and it's antithetical to the American system. That's the Republican argument.
[21:35:00]
JONES: Look, I mean, here is the thing. There are legitimate criticisms of his policy that we can't get you tonight, because the president of the United States is making bigoted attacks against him based on his faith. What he said that, hurt people hurt people, that was terrible. Him saying that Israel shouldn't be able to purchase weapons, interceptors to knock down rockets, that's insane. Those are terrible policy ideas he has. But there are young Jews that have the same position. There are young blacks that have the same position. That's not because he is Muslim. It's because he has bad policy ideas. Let's talk about that.
But I'm going to tell you, if you're trying to stop Abdul, attacking him on his faith, is not the way to do it because you're going to have people rally because we don't want to see this stuff in our politics. He has some good ideas. He has some bad ideas. I think his ideas on foreign policy are terrible. I think the idea that Israel can't purchase -- a total armed embargo against Israel, well, you're going to disarm half the surviving Jews in the world in the toughest neighborhood? That's wrong, but that's not because of his faith, and we've got to be clear about that.
AXELROD: We can have a robust debate on that as well.
WRIGHT: I would like to.
AXELROD: But the bottom line, Abby, is that this is the strategy that they've chosen because they can't beat him on others.
WRIGHT: I was outlining policies --
PHILLIP: All right.
WRIGHT: -- in countries that he cannot --
PHILLIP: For us.
The president backs off his approval of the Pentagon's plans for public execution in just the latest reversal ahead of the midterms. We'll discuss that next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:40:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: The list of Donald Trump's mixed messages keeps growing, as he reverses course on a number of issues ahead of the midterms. Last week, he said he would pay for a series of taxpayer-funded T.V. ads after waves of bipartisan pushback, despite initially defending them as patriotic. The president also called for Republicans to vote by mail, even though he has repeatedly attacked it as corrupt and rife with fraud. And just one day after telling reporters that he absolutely approved of the plan to live stream the Fort Hood shooter's execution, this was his response when he was pressed again about it over the weekend.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: There are two thoughts: don't show it and show it, because you know, by showing it, maybe other people won't be doing what he did. So, I'll make a decision ultimately. I know what the military would like to do, but we'll make a decision.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PHILLIP: A lot of this is just stuff that, frankly, is superfluous, not helpful to his party, and it is provoking backlash. And so, I guess it's probably to Trump's credit that he is backing down on them. But what does it say that there was no sort of thinking about it in the first place that maybe it's not a great idea?
JENNINGS: On the live stream?
PHILLIP: On all of it --
JENNINGS: Yeah.
PHILLIP: -- yeah, the live stream, the $20 million in taxpayer-funded T.V. ads.
JENNINGS: Well, I mean, I think they ultimately landed in the right place on the T.V. ads, although I still think you can run PSAs. I don't know why they're not running them on Trump accounts and other things against legitimate --
PHILLIP: Well, you can certainly run PSAs, but these were not PSAs. And by the way, a judge just tonight halted these taxpayer-funded ads as well, just to say where we're going.
JENNINGS: But on the live stream thing, I think that the punishment certainly warranted for this terrorist, but I think they need to reconsider this, and I don't know if he was involved in making that decision that Hegseth announced in the first place. It doesn't sound like it. He needs to make the final call, and he needs to do the right thing. They shouldn't live stream this. You can mete out this punishment, which is totally warranted without turning us into them, and you have to understand the enemy here, and you have to understand who we are as Americans, and I think he needs to resist this and turn off the live stream and --
JONES: Can I add to that?
JENNINGS: Yeah. Go ahead.
JONES: Yeah. I mean, part of it, you mentioned something that's very important, which is understanding who our opponents are in this. In jihadi culture, being a martyr is the greatest thing possible. This video would be a massive recruiting tool. This is a very different -- this particular kind of extremism looks at death and life very differently than everybody else. And so, you don't want to take someone like this, turn him into a poster for recruitment. It would be his greatest desire. Also, having somebody in a wheelchair because the guy is in a wheelchair, having somebody in a wheelchair shot on television, is not something I think we want our kids looking at.
AXELROD: Listen, this is not who we -- this is -- there are only a few countries in the world who do these public executions, and we don't want to be associated with any of them. This is absolutely crazy. But here is my question: How does this happen? How does the Secretary of Defense --
PHILLIP: That was my question. How do we even get to this point where all these bad --
AXELROD: I mean, why didn't someone -- does no one -- does he not check in with anybody?
GRIFFIN: I mean, I think it's having incompetent leadership running the Department of Defense. Listen, military justice is different than civilian justice. I could -- I'm a little uncomfortable with the firing squad. I could get on board with it if victims of the Fort Hood shooter's family want to show up in person, but live streaming is barbaric. It is third world.
[21:45:00]
It is not in the American conscience. And the fact that Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense, I think thought this makes America look tough. It makes us look cool. It makes us look high testosterone to gun down a quadriplegic. It shows he is out of step with our own values, but also the military's because the president said the military --
AXELROD: So, we're in the middle --
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: Speaking of Donald Trump's responsibility as the Commander- in-Chief --
WRIGHT: Yeah.
PHILLIP: -- as the head of the executive branch, no other administration would a Cabinet secretary make an announcement like this without the principal being aware of it. And so, there is that on the firing squad. But $20 million in taxpayer dollars to fund literal campaign ads,
there is no one else to blame but Donald Trump for that. So, when are we going to assign responsibility for the bad decisions to the person who is actually making the bad decisions?
WRIGHT: I do think that the reason he is struggling in the polls, besides the prices, which I think is the top notch issue for Americans, and they disagree with the war in Iran, is these types of unforced errors. What's sometimes advantageous about Trump is that he is not ideological. He doesn't even have a stance on a lot of political issues people have thought about for decades, but he is very willing to change his mind at a moment's notice. And so, sometimes I think that looks really happenstance and embarrassing, as it does in a lot of these cases. And then sometimes it has other benefits, but that's what you're seeing.
I mean, he really, I think, probably didn't know what his position was on live streaming and execution until he saw the public reaction to it and realized he was on the wrong side.
AXELROD: I want to make a --
JENNINGS: Can I say one thing?
AXELROD: Yeah.
JENNINGS: My guess is there are significant parts of the president's faith coalition, which is a big part of his coalition --
AXELROD: Yeah.
JENNINGS: -- that are not only extremely uncomfortable with this, but have probably reached out to tell him that, and that has to mean something to him. He does listen to them, and they've been such a big part of his politics for the last two years.
AXELROD: Here is just this as a practitioner, OK, may sound like a prosaic point. You're in the last weeks of a campaign, nobody is sort of saying, "Hey, this isn't a good look when we're trying to win an election and if there nobody --
PHILLIP: Yeah.
AXELROD: -- who says, Pete, stick that in your pocket. We're not doing that. Or, I guess they did tell the president they didn't think that the ads were a good idea, but he did, and he wanted to do it --
PHILLIP: Yeah.
AXELROD: -- and he didn't want to pay for it.
PHILLIP: And look -- I mean, speaking of it, it seems to be no instinct to just kind of let sleeping dogs lie in this administration. They're ramping up immigration enforcement. They're doing the ads. They're doing all these different things. It's like they're throwing spaghetti at the wall when the answer could just be don't do any of that stuff. Just let these folks --
WRIGHT: And you'll still lose.
PHILLIP: -- just these -- let these folks run their campaigns and not have to worry about what's coming out of Washington.
All right. Coming up, our panel shares their bold midterm predictions. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:50:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PHILLIP: We are just 23 days until Election Day, and it's anyone's guess how this will all play out. So, of course, we asked our table for their bold predictions.
Lauren, you're up first.
WRIGHT: I have a few different ones. So, I think Republicans barely hang on to the Senate. I think Dems will net between one and three seats. I think Dems absolutely get the House, and they're probably right in that range. That's been the average since the 1930s, where they get somewhere between 15 and 25 seats net.
I also think there is some surprises coming. Minnesota Senate race, I think Republicans have a chance. I think in Ohio, Sherrod Brown is very popular and well known. I think he has a shot there. So -- and I also think California is going to be much tighter than we think, even though I do think that the Dem will win.
(CROSSTALK)
WRIGHT: We will not know for a long time because all those congressional districts.
AXELROD: I'm going to -- just on your point, I think it'll either be a three or four-seat win for the Democrats in the Senate, 52, 53, 52, or they will not take the Senate. It's not going to be a slim margin there. But I'm going to navigate around this mandate of yours to make a different point --
PHILLIP: OK.
AXELROD: -- which is, in the state of Georgia, there is a race that everyone should pay attention to, and it's not the race for Senator, which is basically over Jon Ossoff. It looks like he is headed for a big win there, and there will be a stampede down to Georgia as soon as this election is over to try and persuade this young Senator who has done so well here to run for president. But he needs his -- the Democratic candidate for governor, Keisha Lance Bottoms, the former mayor of Atlanta, to win because if he were to run for president and get elected, the next governor would get a -- would choose the replacement for two years -- PHILLIP: Yeah.
AXELROD: -- and the Democrats may not be able to afford that.
GRIFFIN: Good point. Very quickly, I kind of said this earlier in the show, I think that it's going to be a very good night for Democrats, the midterms are, but I do not think that Democrats should take that as an endorsement of their policy proposals. These midterms will be a referendum on the White House and the party that's in power, and it is a mistake to jump to impeachment and purely oversight. They need to put forward a proactive agenda.
PHILLIP: Van.
JONES: I'm going to triple down on what David Axelrod said. I think there will be a trifecta, a blue trifecta in Georgia. I think Ossoff is a runaway train.
[21:55:00]
I think Keisha Lance Bottoms's campaign is brilliant. I think she is going to win, and I think she is going to bring in a whole new wave. And I think Georgia will be blue, blue, blue, thanks to Keisha Lance Bottoms and Jon Ossoff.
PHILLIP: Scott.
JENNINGS: I think we're going to see a big return to split ticket voting. Iowa, Texas, Georgia, New Hampshire. I think you're going to see major disparities between gubernatorial and Senate races. Without predicting the outcomes of either, I think you're going to see a lot of people voting for one party for one and one party for the other.
PHILLIP: Governors' races are tough because people like to keep it local in those governors' races.
Before we go, of course, you can stream the show live or watch on demand anytime with an all-access subscription. Scan the Q.R. code that you see on your screen there, or go to cnn.com/watch to learn more.
Thanks for watching NewsNight. The news continues next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
