'Effing Rough' 

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1:03Effing rough. That's how one Trump advisor is describing the midterms to CNN. And we've got brand new reporting. I'm Dana Bash. Let's go behind the headlines and inside politics.

1:2236 days until the election and we are tracking the races, candidates and stories that could shift the balance of power here in Washington and all across the country. Here's what's on our midterm radar. President Trump hit back over the weekend at Florida Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar, a vulnerable Republican who made a campaign ad speaking straight to camera, standing in front of the White House, criticizing his deportation policy. The president shared at least 14 posts from other Truth Social users criticizing her, including one calling her a backstabber and another that she wants amnesty.

2:02The Cook Political Report rates Salazar's district as lean Republican. Retiring North Carolina Senator Tom Tillis admits his seat may be a lost cause for Republicans. Polls show former Democratic Governor Roy Cooper with consistent leads over former Republican National Committee Chair Michael Watley. In an interview with Jake Tapper on State of the Union, Tillis said the party may need to focus on other more winnable races. To me, it's a data-driven decision. If we have a path to victory, then we double down on it. If we don't, we move where we have the opportunity. Look, this is about keeping a majority in the U.S.

2:41Senate. This has to be about the higher purpose of keeping a majority in the Senate, not any one candidate. So does the data show that North Carolina should not be a top priority? Look, if you've got an aggregate of polls that have you in the high single digits or double digits, it's approaching a point where it's going to be difficult to make it up absent a mistake by the candidates. Turning to the fight for the House, Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries is brushing off numbers in a new CNN poll, which show his party is increasingly likely to recapture the House, but only a quarter of voters approve of their leadership.

3:20He told Manu Raju that's a problem to worry about after the election. Well, we're not running a popularity contest. We're working hard to run Republicans out of power because they've done so much damage to the American people, and the American people clearly deserve better. But do you think the public is not sold yet on Democrats leading Congress? Well, I think that we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. Right now, we have to accomplish the mission, and the mission is to make sure that we take back control of the House. And Senator Chuck Grassley told a crowd of Iowa Republicans that he has a very personal reason for wanting a Republican to win the state's governor's race.

4:01At 93 years of age, I don't know how many more groups of Republicans like this I'm going to have a chance to talk to. But one of the reasons I'm worried about who's going to be elected governor, I don't plan on dying in office. But if I did, I don't want a Democrat governor choosing my successor. Grassley has served for 46 years in the U.S. Senate. He hasn't said if he's going to run again in 2028, he would be 95 years old. I'm joined by a terrific group of reporters. Jeff Zeleny, there's so many things to unpack in that Grassley moment. It would be funny, except that he's 93 years old and he's actually got a lot of seriousness in that quote.

4:47For sure. He's also acknowledging the fact that the Iowa Democrat in the governor's race is doing much better than the Republican. and Rob Sand is the state auditor, the only statewide elected Democrat left in Iowa. I mean, it was a blue state, a purple state. But Senator Grassley, this is the most recent time he's weighed in, but just a week ago he was weighing in on diesel exports. He said President Trump needs to do something to bring down the cost of diesel. But Iowa is at the center of this midterm election race because of the governor's race, because of the Senate race, the first time since 1968 that there's been an open seat in both of those because Joni Ernst, of course, is not running for re-election, three competitive House races.

5:26It's why at 2 o 'clock this afternoon, President Trump is announcing a new steel plant to be likely placed in Iowa. He's trying to see if he can sort of shore up some Republican questions and issues there. But Chuck Grassley has seen a lot of midterm elections, and he knows this one could be a problem for Republicans. Yeah, and I think the fact that the president is in the last ditch effort trying to announce some moves that could bring jobs to Iowa is really telling. And let's sort of open the aperture a little bit. Iowa is a great example, but there is just an overall feeling of concern, to put it mildly.

6:03And we do have some terrific new reporting from Kristen Holmes and Elena Treen, our White House team, saying that they're hearing from sources things like the following. It's obviously going to be effing rough. Asked if there was, that's according to one Trump advisor. Asked if there was anything Republicans could do to change the tide. Another operative replied, go back in time and never start the war with Iran, Shelby. be. Yeah, I mean, I'm also hearing from Trump officials inside the White House, outside the White House, people close to Trump, some of his most staunchest supporters who are privately acknowledging that this could be really rough for Republicans.

6:44At the same time, there's a little bit of a, which I think is very typical of a let's not panic yet. If anybody can do something, it's Trump. But really, this is their only option, I think, at this point, because the Iran conflict is what it is. Gas prices are what they are. Things are not going to change substantially for the American people in the next 30 days. And so the administration strategy, and they really believe in this, is let's get the president out there as much as humanly possible and try to get those low propensity voters who really only show up for Trump and try to convince them to show up for other candidates.

7:20And let's dig more into the reporting from our colleagues on that very point. Another quote from their story. The system is built around what areas we need to goose turnout two to three points, one operative told CNN. He'll be playing hard in Florida, Texas, Michigan, and Ohio. He'll be on the road just about every day in October campaigning. We're leaving it all on the table. And just for example, Stephen, just look at this week. The president is going to Oklahoma, not exactly a purple state. He's going to Alabama, also not a purple state. and he's going to Ohio, which has a little bit more of a potential pickup for Democrats.

7:59He's already been to North Carolina and Texas. Yeah, North Carolina, for example, we listened to Tom Tillis there talking about maybe it's time to move on. The president was in North Carolina just about a week ago. That's not a great look for Republicans if they decide to pull the plug after he was there. You said he's going to Oklahoma. He's going to Alabama. Obama, obviously red states, they might argue that you might get some bleed over into Texas and to Florida, for example. But you kind of go to war, as you were saying, with the army you have right now. They must be looking at races, well, say it's a 6 % race, say the polls are off 2%, you know, Trump has pulled closer in elections before in September and October, and he can maybe juice 2%, maybe you can bring some of those races back into a competitive situation.

8:51But the fact we were talking about Iowa, for example, we're not talking about the president rushing off to Maine or Michigan right now or Georgia. I mean, he's sort of tiptoeing around Georgia. Georgia and North Carolina, the states he won two years ago in that big comeback. So the environment tells its own story right now. But, you know, you don't give up. It's almost triage right now. Another data point, Jeff Zeleny, is by way of Politico's playbook. and they talk to people known as Front Row Joes. These are voters, supporters of President Trump who loved him so much that they have been to countless Trump events and get there early enough to be close to the front.

9:36One is Tricia Hope, who's a Texas voter. She joined Front Row Joes in 2018. She lost faith in Trump after the Epstein issues came out and she was not happy about it. that was in July. But she said to Politico, it was like a dagger in my heart. It was like a light switch went on and it veil lifted. And I saw him for who he was. And I have not been able to unsee it since. Rick Frazier, who's an Ohio voter, he's been to over 100 Trump rallies. He said he promoted himself as a no war president. That didn't work out. I'm to the point of not going to the polls in November. It's that kind of voter, the Rick Frazier's of the world, that the Trump strategy is aimed at.

10:23There's no doubt about it. And the Front Row Joes, as you were saying, I mean, they are the people standing in line, often camping out for up to 48 hours before a Trump rally to sit in the very front. So some of them go from state to state to state, but it underscores just the intensity of which people supported this president. We should point out, I mean, the reality is most of his previous supporters do still support him on a lot of things. But the intensity, which those who don't, is a question. And the Epstein thing is also, I thought that was very interesting. The Iran war on one side and the Epstein files on the other side are two very specific examples of things that he campaigned on and has done the opposite of.

11:02So there is an intensity question. There's no doubt. But I was looking back at what he did in the midterms of 2018, his first midterm elections. He would often hold rallies, sometimes twice a night, flying places. There were places he couldn't fly, he couldn't go. They lost the House, but they did hold the Senate narrowly in 2018. The question is, what is different now? And how Americans view the economy is a 22 % point of difference now in a negative way from 2018. His job approval is about the same. 22%. So that is a huge challenge here for this president. It feels much more like the sixth year of a president's term in office.

11:41President Bush's sixth year in office, obviously 06, was a bloodbath for Republicans. So we will see if it happens. One thing he's not doing is sort of giving Republicans permission to step away from him. So we'll see if there are enough places for him to go in the month of October. I'm not sure. Yeah, I mean, like we talked about at the beginning of the show, him reposting a lot of attacks on Maria Elvira Salazar. In Oklahoma and Alabama, if he would want to go to Texas and Florida, he could do that. Yeah, that's a good point. Don't go anywhere. Coming up, the president has a brand new campaign ad and it's funded by your tax dollars.

12:14And Pandemonium is back. The newest diplomats from China to giant pandas. They've landed in Atlanta. We're going to find out how they're settling into their new digs.

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13:31President Trump's latest midterm ad sounds apocalyptic. This is the final battle. We will liberate America from these villains once and for all. That ad is being paid for by you, the taxpayer, to the tune of at least$1 million so far. And if you had any doubt that it is a campaign, a political ad, well, it's nearly a carbon copy of a 2024 campaign video posted by the president on Truth Social. The major difference is, this one says, paid for by the U.S. government. That one ended with the Trump 2024 logo. Even some Republicans say it's not how public money should be spent. I don't think any public official, including President Trump or Kristi Noem or John Kennedy, should spend public money on private ads for themselves.

14:30Now, the White House sees it differently. But I think there ought to be a rule that you can't, well, there probably is a rule. You can't spend public money to promote yourself. Yeah, there probably is a rule. Stephen, you wrote a terrific column about all this this morning, and I'm going to read part of it. The Fuhrer is a classic example of the provocative behavior Trump uses to draw establishment forces into showdowns. At times, this seems like trolling for trolling's sake, but it feeds a narrative that he's under perpetual attack from a sinister deep state that only strongman leadership by Trump can save the nation.

15:14Yeah, that image you saw of the president in monochrome, square-jawed strongman, that is exactly the president he wants to be and sees himself as. And politically, it's also an image that I think some of those base voters he needs to get out in the midterms do respond to. But obviously this breaks or appears to infringe or challenge plenty of laws, as the senator was saying there. But it's classic Trump. He wants to incite this firestorm over this. The media is talking about it. The Democrats are getting angry. He's creating a foil for himself that positions him as the outsider, the slayer of the deep state.

15:57That is one of the political narratives that's really helped him. And if we're talking about this, a lot of people aren't talking about high gas prices, why the Iran war isn't ending, you know, why he's in trouble in Iowa. Yeah, well, we have 24 hours, so we're talking about it all. But I totally agree with you that trolling for trolling sakes and other really important points that you bring up in your piece are kind of behind this. But it's also more fundamental. He thinks that this is OK. He believes, and we have seen this with example after example after example, that as president of the United States, the federal government is his to do things like this.

16:40Yeah, that's exactly right. And you've seen it this entire past two years, right? Starting with Doge on the first day of his second administration. I can't emphasize enough how in the four years that President Trump was not president, he and his team were not just sort of sitting around, hanging out, doing nothing. They were sort of studying and figuring out exactly what they wanted to do and how they wanted to do it with the acknowledgement that some of this does break the political norms. And so you've seen that in pretty much every aspect of this presidency so far. And this ad in particular is really interesting because it goes back to the main thesis of this administration when it comes to the midterms, which is we have to put Trump front and center because those core base voters will come out and hopefully vote for other people.

17:32Yeah. Thomas Massey, who is not exactly a fan of President Trump, despite being in the same party, Massey lost his primary largely because Donald Trump supported his opponent. Massey said, don't worry, using taxpayer dollars to run ominous campaign ads of the president has been done before, and it's completely legal in banana republics. And that puts a fine point on it here. I mean, the president wants to make this election about him. We've heard him say it over and over and over, pretend I'm on the ballot. So he's putting himself front and center. And he wants to run that old race again, that he is saving the nation from this.

18:10But the reality is many voters are looking for someone to save them from him and his policies. So the question here over the final month, there's an extraordinarily huge advantage of spending from Republicans. The other question for this is MAGA Inc. has the money to pay for these ads. I mean, by a mile, but they're not. But the reality is how much is he going to sort of fire up the other side and independents who are just sort of done with him? We don't know. But it's that balance of him being out there everywhere also works against him. Yeah. All right. Everybody stand by. Up next, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez toured New York State this weekend.

18:55What the trip could say about her future plans. Next.

19:05Progressive's Accident Response can contact emergency services if you're in a major accident. The only thing worse than someone you love being in an accident is not being able to help them. So Progressive is here to help when you can't. So get peace of mind knowing your loved ones are protected with Progressive's Accident Response. Learn more at Progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Limited availability in California. Driver is responsible for emergency and towing charges not covered by the policy. coverage subject to policy terms and conditions. Her district covers parts of the Bronx and Queens, but these days, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is campaigning in New York, well beyond that, from Ithaca to Buffalo.

19:48And as CNN's Gloria Pazmina reports today, the state tour is offering clues to the Congresswoman's future. Will she run for Senate? Will she run for president or run for the House again in 2028? Gloria is with me now. Now, Gloria, good to see you. You spent some time on the road with her. That's right. We followed the congresswoman to Buffalo over the past week and watched her as she sort of launched her tour of upstate New York. Right now, Ocasio-Cortez is certainly not the first lawmaker from New York to travel around the state, but she has this giant political brand. And she has been clear about the fact that she expects to make some sort of decision after the midterms regarding what her next political steps might be.

20:35As you said, Dana, she's considering perhaps just running for she's certainly running for reelection, but she's also perhaps looking at a potential run for the U.S. Senate or even the White House. So for those who are closely watching this, the launch of this tour in upstate New York was being looked at as perhaps a potential sign that she is laying the groundwork for a future statewide run. Now, we caught up with the congresswoman, asked her point blank what her next plans are going to be. And I want you to take a listen to what she said. Congresswoman, it sounds like you're running for something.

21:14Are you running for president? I am running for reelection to be the congresswoman, to continue being the congressman for 14th congressional district here this year. And again, you know, I think one dynamic that we are seeing emerge and that I'm hearing from a lot of people is that there's a lot of outreach to persuadable voters, but there is worry about the Democratic base and enthusiasm. So first comes 2027, right, her likely reelection to the 14th congressional district here in New York, New York 14. But then comes 2028 and what she's going to do then appears to still be up in the air. She was in Buffalo to launch an organizing effort to make sure that more voters come out to vote ahead of the midterm elections.

22:11Yeah, and that's really an important point. She is in places very different from the Bronx, and yet she is visiting blue house districts. the Erie County area where she went, that is competitive. So Republicans are looking at her event saying, well, the Democratic Party is clearly moving towards the left. How much is it that, especially my question is what she actually talked about in the events versus what she told you, which is she's concerned that the base really does need to be energized and she's there to do it regardless of sort of the topic that she's talking about, if she's talking about some of the far left policies that she's so known to espouse.

22:56Exactly right. In fact, you mentioned Erie County, Dana. That's where Buffalo is located. But it's not just the city of Buffalo, which is a pretty solidly blue Democratic city that has in the past elected progressive candidates, including its most recent mayor, Mayor Sean Ryan, who Ocasio-Cortez met with during her visit. But also most recently, there was a very competitive three-way primary in which Adam Bojack, the DSA candidate, won. And he's on his way to win the general election. So this is being noticed not just by moderate Democrats, but also by Republicans who are pointing to both AOC's visit, the rise of the DSA here in New York City and in places like Buffalo, as evidence that the party is simply going too far left.

23:45Ocasio-Cortez focused on the key messaging we've been hearing from her and other DSA members recently, right? Affordable health care, universal child care, and a livable living wage. Those were her key points, and I think we're going to see much more of this in the near future, especially as she claims to be focusing on making sure that more voters come out ahead of the midterms. Gloria, thank you so much for that reporting. Appreciate it. Certainly powerful enough to create or cause a billion deaths. I'm going to say that again. Powerful enough to cause a billion deaths. That was what Bill Gates said in a warning about an existential risk associated with AI.

24:31But will that move Washington? More on that next.

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25:23Track your cha-chings from every channel, right in one spot. And turn real-time reporting into big-time opportunities. Take your business to a whole new level. Switch to Shopify. Start your free trial today. You know, you know, you know, thanks for having me, Michael. I may have been alarming in my recent interviews, but I want to assure you that if we can pressure lawmakers to create guardrails, we will be able to stop me. That was Saturday Night Live spoofing Anthropics CEO Dario Amadei. 24 hours later, the real Amadei was kind of see the resemblance there. He was at the White House for dinner with President Trump.

26:06We don't know what they discussed or what they ate, but perhaps this morning yesterday from Bill Gates was on the menu. AI is certainly powerful enough to drive events that cause a billion deaths. There's never been a weapon as powerful as the combination of people with ill intent using the latest AI tools. I mean, some stark warnings there. There are people who are leaders in the AI industry who totally disagree and thinks that this is doom and gloom, completely overwrought. But it's politically potent enough for the president, who is in the overwrought category, to agree to have this big summit tomorrow.

26:59Yeah, which is really interesting, given that he has been so staunchly against sort of any guardrails, right? He has a very one-track mind when it comes to this, which is America needs to be the best. We need to beat China. And so, therefore, we need to essentially let people do whatever they want to do when it comes to AI. But while we don't know a lot of information about how last night's dinner went, my colleague is reporting that the Anthropic CEO is going to be at the lunch tomorrow as well. So if that gives you any indication, it must have gone well enough. But one thing I find interesting is, you know, I don't think the president's opinion on this is 110 percent, right?

27:38Because I think oftentimes when he gets into the room with certain people, like the Anthropic CEO, he had dinner with him last night. He's going to see him tomorrow as well. His mind can be changed to a certain extent. So I wouldn't be shocked if at the end of the day, in the next few weeks and months, his position maybe shifts a tiny bit towards having some guardrails. I don't think that he's going to go all the way to, you know, where the Anthropic CEO wants to go. But I think oftentimes the last person to speak to Trump, sometimes that ends up being his position. Jeff, listen to what the House speaker said this morning.

28:17This meeting tomorrow has been a long time coming. In my view, I've talked to the president about it several times. He's the only one that has the gravitas to be able to pull them all together. The frontier labs are the ones that know the most about this. And so we've got to have them involved in the conversation about what those supposed guardrails look like. I'm going to resist the siren song that Bernie Sanders called to impose strict limits and moratoriums. I think that's the wrong approach. Well, it's not just Bernie Sanders. I mean, of course he is. Senator Sanders is calling for this, but it's actually, this is one of those rarer issues where the president's on the opposite side of public opinion on in terms of a populist sort of issue here.

28:57So I think you're right about his pivot. And clearly they want to show that a month before the midterm elections, they're on this, they're talking about this. But I think the bottom line is when we look at the stock listing there that was on the side of where Speaker Johnson was. NVIDIA was at the very top of that. The leader of NVIDIA is very much on the opposite side of this. And President Trump talks about him constantly, Jensen Hong, and he believes that it should be guns blazing full speed ahead. So he has a lot of different voices in his ears, but it's clear that voters are concerned about this.

29:30And NVIDIA is also invited to this lunch tomorrow, so it'll be really interesting to see. There's going to be very different opinions in that room. So in sort of the macro level, Stephen, it's is humanity going to be destroyed, which is kind of big. But in the short term, it's the politics of affordability because it plays into anxiety about jobs and about whether people are going to lose their jobs because of AI. Yeah. And it's all about costs as well. People are seeing their power bills go up. They're worried about the access to water from these data centers. I think it's interesting because Bill Glates is basically arguing that it would need some cataclysmic event to galvanize action to do something about this.

30:13You know, one example that springs to mind is 9-11, which led to, for example, things like extra airport security, which in retrospect seemed like a no-brainer, but no one thought of it at the time. But sometimes Washington actually gets stuck behind the politics of a big issue. You can tell out in the country that the attitudes to AI are changing. Sometimes that can drive an undertow of political momentum that the people in Washington who lead us are the last to actually understand. If you have a new Congress comes in that believes it was elected partly because of public concern about AI, that is going to change the politics of this, and already we know it's going to be an issue running into the 2028 election.

30:57Yeah, very well said. Thank you all. Don't go anywhere. What happens when you get a bunch of American voters together with Canadian voters to talk trade? CNN's John King went all over the map to find out.

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31:44President Trump's trade war with Canada does not appear to be ending anytime soon, adding to Americans' economic woes, including in states with must-win Senate and House seats, never mind governor's mansions. CNN's John King spoke to voters in the U.S. and Canada about the real-world fallout of the political back-and-forth between President Trump and Prime Minister Mark Carney. Is it fair to say, Toby, that, you know, President Trump set the policy aside for a second. He thinks sometimes this helps him politically. And it seems pretty clear that Mr. Ford and Mr. Carney at times think it helps them politically too.

32:22Sure. Yeah, I think I think Premier Ford really, really falls for what you called snark. You know, basically, we're just being chirped and we're used to being chirped up here. We play a lot of hockey. We chirp each other all the time. So we don't we don't care about that very much. But hey, let me say this. Prime Minister Carney's polling at 66 percent right now. He's very popular with Canadians. I think Trump is around 30 percent. But I want to go back to that Lake America thing again. That I mean, that to me was I thought it was pretty funny. I mean, people are going to call the lake whatever they want to call the lake.

32:56I couldn't believe that our media spent four days on that covering this Lake America thing. Meanwhile, at the same time, the EPA was reducing pollution restrictions for industry. They were reducing protections for gray wolves. All this other important stuff was going on. Well, we were talking about the name of a lake, which people can call whatever they want. It's Lake Ontario to us. But I think there's a lot more important things going on than the SNARK. I don't know how President Trump conducts himself in private meetings, but I do think that we're falling for the SNARK kind of hook, line and sinker.

33:33is here. So, John, the voters you spoke to, the American voters, are in key battleground states, Maine, Michigan, and Iowa, and they do a lot of important business, or they did, with Canada. All of them affected by trade, all of their economies already in the volatility of high prices, the volatility caused by the Iran war, and then the volatility caused when he escalated the trade war with Canada again. So in the Maine Senate race, people up there say this is hurting the Republican incumbent Susan Collins. She has said she disagrees with the president on this one. This is one where she has stepped out and said, I think he's wrong on this one, but it impacts the race.

34:05Michigan, Mike Rogers has had a more nuanced position, saying I don't like everything the president does, but there is a reason sometimes for tariffs. Shannon was the cattle rancher in Iowa there. She's gone through this early on in the Trump administration. She was happy with tariffs because he was protecting American beef. Now he's letting in foreign beef and escalating a trade war with Canada. So on the American side, yes, it is more economic uncertainty and volatility, which is not good for Republicans. On the Canadian side, it was interesting. President Trump has made everybody a trade expert, by the way.

34:31Everybody has to study these issues because of them. Daryl, the top left of that screen, is out in British Columbia. He's more conservative. He says he gets what Trump is doing. He doesn't like how he does it, but that the Canadians do protect their banks, that they do protect their telecom industries, and that it's not a fair relationship. So it was a feisty and interesting debate, but everybody on both sides of the border gets it. Another key economic sort of driver for a lot of these northern U.S. states is tourism, Canadian tourism into the U.S. Let's listen to your conversation about that.

35:02Let me ask the Canadians first. Would you travel to the United States under these circumstances? Some people have said that, you know, you should, the Canadians should personally boycott the United States to show their displeasure with Trump. Would you go that far? Yeah, I have no plans to travel to the U.S. 78 million Americans voted for Trump, which is a substantial amount. I have no desire to go into a country that's willing to do us harm like this. Peter? Well, no, I'm not going to go. No, no, I have no need to, and we are not treated very well here at the moment. So, no, I will not be going.

35:50I've been to the U.S. four times this year already. I don't think us will have any effect on these larger global issues. You know, it's cold in Canada in the winter and I want to go somewhere warm. That's flipped the question. Joseph, Shannon, Brenda, any hesitation about going to Canada? Well, for me, me and my wife, we always go to Niagara Falls. and we actually had canceled a, we canceled our, we normally stay at the Caesar Palace. We have canceled because of the trade war. So for me, you know, if things escalate, we're not spending our money there. My husband actually got his passport specifically so we can go to Canada this year.

36:36Okay. And look at cattle. Look at cattle. Oh, so it's for work. Okay. And purchase and import cattle. Will that cost you more money now? Probably. Brenda? So just back on tourism from Canada, Maine is very dependent on Canadian tourism, and it's been an absolutely terrible year. Our tourism dollars are down more than half. So there's been a big, big impact here. As for me, we spend a lot of our time enjoying the northern cities, whether it's Montreal or Quebec. So, yeah, we'll be there. Tourism down more than half in Maine. In Maine and Vermont, you hear that complaint a lot. In Michigan, Minnesota, for example, as you move across the prairie states, again, in places where, as you note at the top, there are a lot of key races there.

37:27Is this the biggest economic impact? No. In some of those border communities, maybe. But it's another piece of the president doing something that has hurt his party. He might think he's right in the long term, but it's hurt his party. The most interesting part there was there was some tension between the Americans and the Canadians. Way back at the beginning of the year when Trump first started this and I traveled, everybody was like, everybody on the Canadian side was like, this is about Trump, not about you. We love Americans. We don't like him. There is beginning to be a little bit of a hmm.

37:53Yeah, when he noted how many millions of people voted for Donald Trump. That was very telling. You pick it up. Thank you. Keep it coming. It's really very educational. I'll go to Canada any time. All right. Thank you so much. Up next, bear with us as we get an update on China's newest ambassadors to the U.S., Pingping and Fu Shuang. We're live at the zoo in Atlanta after a short break.

38:26Right now, two new ambassadors are settling into America, giant pandas Pingping and Fuxuang. They arrived yesterday after a long 8 ,000-mile trip from China. They are the newest diplomats in a long tradition between Beijing and Washington. The two will call Zhu Atlanta home for the next 10 years. CNN's Ivan Rodriguez is there in Atlanta. How are they adjusting and will we get to see them anytime soon, Ivan? Dana, the giant pandas Pingping and Fushuong are settling into their new home. As you mentioned, it was a long journey, a 15-hour flight from China here to Atlanta, 15 hours in total. and visitors are going to have to wait a little bit until they can officially meet these giant pandas because they're currently going through a routine quarantine which zoo officials say will take about one month.

39:20Now zookeepers want to ensure that this transition for both Pingping and Fuxuan goes smoothly because eventually they're going to want them to grow a family but they're going to have to get to know each other first. So we even have a little bit of a dating scenario going on here. Maybe love is blind? Who knows? They're going to meet each other for the first time here in a little bit inside of Zoo Atlanta. But look, I mean, there's a lot of excitement here outside. We've gotten the chance to speak with many people saying that they were sad when the pandas left back in 2024. They're excited to see them again shortly, hopefully soon.

39:51There's still not even a set date zoo officials have put on to when they'll be on display for the public. But take a listen here to what the president of Zoo Atlanta had to say in terms of how these pandas are adjusting. They're doing great. really meeting all our expectations. I would say Ping Ping's probably the rock star. He has already settled in like he's been here for weeks. She's taking a little more time to get adjusted, but it's as we would have expected.

40:20China also arranged for several veterinarians and breeders to make that trip from China here to Zoo Atlanta to ensure that transition goes smoothly as well. The team at Zoo Atlanta and the Chinese team have held, quote, many online and offline meetings to carry out in-depth exchanges on upgrading and the transformation plan for this new venue that zoo atlanta built for these pandas yeah and that was sort of part of the interesting um thing about this visit for 10 years is it's not just about hosting the pandas it's it's about deeper attempts at an exchange a diplomatic exchange absolutely and when we think about to when this all began we have to go back to 1972 after president nixon's first official visit to china that's when the chinese government sent those first two pandas to the u.s now the name pingping one of the the giant pandas that was actually the name of a panda that was sent to the soviet union back in the 1950s so there's some history there as well.

41:26You get the assignment of the day, Ivan. Thank you so much for coming on and telling us all about those adorable pandas. Thank you for joining Inside Politics today. CNN News Central starts right now.

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