Trump Gives Xi Democracy Tour 

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0:45Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of$45 for three months,$90 for six months, or$180 for a 12-month plan required. $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. New customer offer for initial plan term only. Greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. See terms. This is CNN Breaking News. Welcome to Inside Politics. The breaking news. You are looking right now live at Chinese leader Xi Jinping with President Trump, the First Lady Melania Trump. They are currently at the National Archives where they are getting a tour from the archivist and currently looking, it looks like, at the Constitution of the United States.

1:22They are stationed in the rotunda where the foundational documents of American democracy reside permanently. the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, obviously foundational to this country, also in contrast with the Chinese leader and the Chinese Communist Party. We'll see kind of where this goes throughout the course of the afternoon. Obviously, this has been a multi-stop visit. We're going to listen to the president right now. The years goes 6 ,000 years. So there's a little difference between 6 ,000 and 250, but we're very proud of our 250. Because when Trump...

1:57Oh, everything. We had a great meeting. We had a really great meeting. Great for everybody. Great for the farmers. Great for everybody. President Trump, did you discuss the war with Iran? This is the right. Should we see the first two amendments changes to the politicians of the politicians? We just heard the president answer a couple of questions, one comparing the length, the duration of our two nations, but also answering a quick question about what has been discussed. They've talked about everything. We've been waiting to hear specifics about what was discussed in the bilateral meetings in the course of the one-on-one meetings between the president and Xi Jinping.

2:36I want to bring in my panel now because I think, Megan, that's kind of the question that I've had throughout the course of the last couple of days, which is we always talk in very Washington-speak in moments like this. What are the deliverables, right? This is the two most important leaders of the two most powerful militaries and economies in the entire world. The future of this relationship will dictate and define the entire world. That's not being hyperbolic. What are you hearing about what has been discussed, what has been worked through, and what outcomes may exist? You're totally right about deliverables.

3:10Everyone's clamoring to know, okay, are there more Boeings, more soybeans, investments? These are the kinds of things we usually see out of these big bilateral meetings. But in my conversations with folks both leading up to the trip and during it, so much of this is really about the U.S.-China relationship and keeping that relationship stable. I was talking with a White House official before the visit, and I asked what would success look like. And the answer really was, we want to show that these two world leaders can work together, that they're not launching into another trade war, that there's economic stability.

3:45and that some of the other conversations will happen down the line. We heard the leaders say that they're going to meet again twice more this year. So they're going to meet at APEC in China and then again at the G20 in Miami. So that provides them time to have more of these conversations. But this trip really is more about the optics, and we haven't got a ton of those deliverables. You know, Adam, to that point, it was interesting listening to Jameson Greer, the U.S. trade representative, obviously is an essential component of the lead negotiating team. Scott Bass and the Treasury Secretary running point on things, saying that they are in a managed relationship right now, getting at the point of stability, which, by the way, is not nothing, if you think back to the first six months of the second term of the administration.

4:27But it is also leaving a lot of things unsaid, undone, unresolved, at a pretty critical moment economically for both countries, and I think from a national security perspective as well. Yeah, you know, we're in a really interesting situation, in part because the president has a tendency to like to move fast, to say he's going to, we're working towards a deal, we're going to get something done really quickly, and to sort of try to change narratives quickly. And this isn't a relationship that's going to thaw quickly, right? This is something that's moved from sort of cold to lukewarm over time. The first Trump administration was really adversarial with China, and then you move into the second administration, and you immediately had the tariffs and the sort of retaliatory tariffs.

5:09And that sort of thawed out over time, And I think that what they're trying to get back to at this point is, like you said, right, that sort of managed relationship to where they can begin to have a little bit more agreement on the particulars, right? I know they came into this. There was all of the talk about AI and artificial intelligence and how they might come to an agreement on that. But you have the United States, which brought CEOs to the meeting, invites CEOs to a state dinner, and you don't have that same thing on the Chinese side, right? Yeah, exactly. It's showing a sort of that they may be in two different positions in terms of where they are in the supposed negotiations.

5:45I want to circle back on the AI piece in a second. But, Sarah Farris, it's striking when, you know, your day-to-day walking the halls of Congress, there is genuine unease with lawmakers about kind of the broader macro relationship, but also some very specific issues that they have in districts or in their states as it relates to China. And it's also coming when we had reporting from our colleagues Katie Bowles, Zach Cohen, Kylie Atwood and Hailey Britsky. The headline is intelligence from Chinese groups aiding in Iran's increasingly effective targeting of U.S. sites. Quote, satellite imagery and intelligence support provided by Chinese groups has helped Iran threaten ships in the Strait of Hormuz and launch precision strikes on U.S.

6:23military bases in the Middle East, part of a dramatic improvement of Iranian targeting capabilities over the past several months. What are you hearing from lawmakers as they watch this play out? Yeah, I think it's easy for Republicans to watch Trump in his typical stance towards China, which is he wants to be tough. He wants to say, we're going to beat you at this and that. We're going to slap these sanctions on you. That's what we've heard from him from a lot of this year. And seeing him shoulder to shoulder with the Chinese leadership here, I mean, that's a very stark contrast. To be honest, it's not exactly what Republicans are eager to see right now.

6:56And, of course, you have to play that role. You have to play the diplomatic state dinner role when you have those kinds of relationships that you're trying to foster. But it's just very hard to straddle both worlds when right now the president and his party are really, really struggling politically. Their voters are very angry about what they're seeing. They've been watching the president engage in overseas efforts for a lot of this year. And the Republicans have continued to say, we want you home. We want you focused. We want you doing what you need to do at home. And yet you continue to see these big foreign engagements that, you know, right now, 39 days out or so, not exactly what the Republican Party is eager to see.

7:36You don't care. One of the there was an interesting we heard from the president earlier today alluding to the fact that farmers will be happy with some kind of outcome, which, again, to make his point, like we're trying to read tea leaves here to get some sense of deliverables. And soybean purchases in particular are often one of the deliverables anytime Trump and Xi meet. China never actually fulfills the commitments of the agreements, both first term and second term. But that's a huge issue, particularly if you go to a state like Iowa. We're going to talk about it in more detail a little bit later.

8:10But for midterms, farmers in particular, you mentioned diesel prices, you mentioned straight-of-form movies writ large. But also China in purchasing is a big deal. That's right. And I think there's even, to your point, Sarah, like even a bigger issue here, because the Republican Party is spending millions of dollars of ads, which I know we'll talk about, on trying to paint Democrats as socialists or as communists. I just looked at some of the ad data out of Texas, probably the most important Senate race that Republicans have on the board. Ken Paxton is spending almost$10 million on specific ads tying James Tallarico to communist China, talking about exactly the issues that you're talking about, the Chinese buying land, Chinese beef imports, the issues of agriculture that you're talking about.

8:55So Republicans are in this bizarre situation where they're trying to tie every Democrat out there to sort of the idea of communism. And this is they're socialist. They're bad for America. They don't believe in America. And yet the president is having a very warm welcome for the leader of the largest communist country in the world. And so I think it's a little head scratching for Republicans to your point. Why are we having this sort of split screen between what we're trying to do from a political standpoint six weeks out from a midterm and what the president is spending his time on right now? Well, because the focus should be on rebranding artificial intelligence, which we were going to get to.

9:29But we actually have breaking news right now. By the way, you are watching a video from moments ago. The two leaders and their wives have left the National Archives. We'll keep you updated as we know more about that. The breaking news from the Supreme Court. The Trump administration will now be allowed to use a DHS citizenship database to review voter rolls in their search for non-citizen voters. The ruling reverses a lower court decision, which had said the administration's effort likely broke the law. While this is an unsigned opinion, meaning we don't know who exactly was in the majority here, we do know the three liberal justices dissented.

10:01Gabe Cohen has been covering every single step of this story and joins me now. Gabe, talk about what the administration is actually planning to do now that they have the screen light. Yeah, so, Phil, the short answer is we don't know exactly what they're planning to do ahead of the midterms, and we are still going through this ruling, but I will tell you off the bat, The question at play here that the Supreme Court needed to answer was whether or not the administration broke the law when it beefed up this save citizenship verification system over the past 18 months, bringing in various records, federal records from other agencies, social security data, including data on U.S.

10:38born citizens, whether or not they had broken the law to create this system that states could then run their voter registration list through in this hunt for noncitizens who might be registered. Remember, this has been a massive initiative of this administration as the president has continued to claim without significant evidence that there is this widespread crisis of not just election fraud, but of noncitizens voting. And we know that about two dozen Republican led states have actually run their voter list through this system until the courts paused it to figure out whether or not this was even legal.

11:11And we also know that the Department of Justice has sued to require to order 30 other states to hand over those lists so that the federal government could audit them. I do want to read you a bit of that unsigned majority opinion, which said that under the federal law, under federal law, I should say, the federal government has an obligation to respond to requests from state and local election officials seeking to verify the citizenship of voters. The lower court order, the Supreme Court said, had prevented the federal government from using the program that it believes it is that it is best suited for the task of being able to identify these noncitizens who may be registered to vote.

11:53The dissent that came from those three liberal justices, it said the harm caused by burdening or disenfranchising even a few lawful voters outweighs the non-existent harm that the government experiences when it is prevented from taking an action that it likely lacks the authority to take. And that, Phil, I mean, that hits on a question that we have been talking about and facing again and again as the administration over the past 18 months has and the president in particular has tried to take more federal control over election administration. But he's gotten blocked again and again by courts because the Constitution gives the vast majority of that authority to the states with some limited authority given to Congress, but none given to the president.

12:38But this is a big win. And the big question is, how could it be used for the midterms? And we don't exactly have an answer to that because there are laws in place that say you can't have systematic purges of voters within 90 days of an election. But we have also heard officials in this administration essentially say that what we're talking about here is not exactly systematic because while those results are produced by this system, it's identifying these individuals who, if they're noncitizens, maybe they're not even protected by those laws, but also that the states would then have to verify, are they a noncitizen?

13:13Then they are the ones removing them. So there are all kinds of questions about could people be removed? And those are answers we don't necessarily know at this point. Yeah, and we should know contextually for this, as you laid out and have done amazing reporting on in terms of the scale, the architecture that's been built by this administration to attempt to go after this issue is the number of times, including from the president, where specific numbers related to non-citizen voters or non-citizens on voter rolls have been utilized to justify these actions and then subsequently have no basis or proof up to this point.

13:49As you've reported on, can I ask you, Gabe, because a lot of folks that are leading or key players in the administration in their pursuit of kind of that architecture I mentioned that you've reported so well on, before this administration, we're talking about doing just this or talking about using this tool. Is this tool actually effective at identifying non-citizens on voter rolls or non-citizen voters? Well, the administration would argue that it has been very helpful, especially as they have combined all of these records. When we have spoken with the Department of Homeland Security, they have said, you know, these tools are of tremendous use and that they are able to far more easily identify non-citizens and that they're making a lot of progress.

14:31Remember, they're also ramping up their own criminal investigations using agents from DHS who used to work on other types of cases who are now really focused on voter fraud cases. But in terms of what the data has shown at this point, there are a couple subsets I would point to. One is the Republican-led states that have actually run their voter list through the SAVE system. I believe it was just under two dozen. And DHS a couple months ago put out some findings saying they had found about 20-plus thousand, I think it was 24 ,000 across the states, of non-citizens who were registered to vote. But I've spoken with Republican officials in those states who have said, you know, that's sort of a starting point and they need to investigate these numbers.

15:15And and what we have seen in states like Louisiana and in Texas is as the state has gone through and actually invested those cases, it is dramatically fewer. We're talking about maybe a few dozen cases in some cases where where they were actually noncitizens who were registered to vote. And by the way, there could be a variety of circumstances that lead to a noncitizen being registered. For example, what we saw in New Jersey, where the state and an issue at the state DMV had caused more than 6 ,000 noncitizens to end up on voter lists and about 400 of them ended up voting. So it's a big question and it's an issue that the administration wants to address.

15:50But the data that DHS has put forward on that side has not exactly proven to be accurate at this point or it hasn't been substantiated at this point. And I'll also tell you there was another batch of data where they said they took public voter lists from a handful of other states, California, Pennsylvania, Nevada, and New Jersey. They ran them through another system at DHS that also does these types of checks. And they said they had found more than 200 ,000 noncitizens who are registered to vote. But officials in those states said, we have no idea where you're getting this. Your math does not seem accurate.

16:25And since then, just a couple of days ago, we saw the state of Nevada, after meeting with DHS about it, after they presented these findings, which, by the way, it turned out what was 16 ,000 noncitizens registered in Nevada as they met. They said, well, we've only confirmed 185 of them. And just a couple of days ago, the state of Nevada said, well, we checked those 185 people and they're actually citizens. So big questions. And I know I've laid a lot out there. But the point is, there are a lot of questions about how accurate this data is. and now the big question is how is this tool potentially going to be used with just 40 days to go before the midterms yeah you've laid a lot out there but what you laid out is almost entirely stuff you've broken and helped explain to people and i think understanding the full scale of what's happening here is essential in the midst of it with for an administration that has lost a lot on these issues with the supreme court this is a win without any question about it gabe appreciate your reporting as always adam i think kind of to that point like trying to step back a little bit And looking at the scale across the administration, using agencies that oftentimes have not been involved in this type of stuff beforehand, what's the endgame here?

17:33You know, I think what we're seeing is this push from the administration that has historically been trying to sort of rein in voting, right? There's this idea that has coursed through the last several Trump administrations, so 2016 and also 2024, that there is a widespread voter fraud that is happening. And as he just laid out, when they found evidence, it's like, oh, there are a hundred and some odd cases, the state goes back and looks at it again and says, well, there's no evidence that these people are non-citizens, these are actually citizen voters. And so the idea that there is a widespread voter fraud, we have sort of seen that there's no evidence for such a claim, but the administration is marshalling as many resources as it can in order to sort of paint this picture of a reality that does not necessarily exist.

18:22I think that the second order part of that is when you look at the dissents from the liberal justices, they sort of echo what we've heard from civil rights groups about this case in particular and the other efforts to sort of stem voter fraud, as the administration calls it. And that's to say that what this is actually going to do is burden people who are citizens, who may have already had a difficult time getting out to vote, and it's going to just keep them away from the poll. And in a democracy where we are built around people showing up and having their voices heard, by removing that from people who are citizens, who are trying to exercise their right, it is a violation of their civil rights protection.

18:59Yeah, it's the complicated balance given the kind of intensity of the pursuit, which is driven, of course, by the person who sits in the Oval Office. It's also important to note that there is a distinction between non-citizens on voter rolls versus non-citizens that vote. Non-citizens are not allowed to vote. It is illegal. That should be stopped and prosecuted any time it happens. The numbers that have been presented in terms of scale simply don't have a basis that we know of. Although, if they exist, I'd love to report on them. All right, coming up. Republicans are so worried about the midterms, they're trying something unheard of.

19:31Staying in Washington to work. I'm sorry, Sarah Farris. We have new reporting next.

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20:37Gambling addiction, gambling disorder is the hidden addiction. You can't smell it, you can't taste it, you can't see it, you can't have a urine drug test. Who are we talking about here, Professor? Who's the most likely demographic to be affected by this? Literally any single human on earth. Listen to Chasing Life, streaming now, wherever you get your podcasts.

21:02That music obviously signifies we're close to the election, like 39 days close. And we're tracking the races, candidates, stories that could shift the balance of power here in Washington and across the entire country. Here's what's on our midterm radar. The Cook Political Report is shifting its ratings on 15 House races toward the Democrats. That includes multiple districts that President Trump won by double digits in 2024. Still, Cook said that thanks to gerrymandering, a massive blue wave is unlikely, and that Democrats could end up picking up just five seats. Five to 15 is the current range.

21:35Some vulnerable Republicans are quietly tiptoeing away from President Trump on Iran, but few are willing to actually vote against the war. Yesterday, the Senate rejected a measure that would have directed President Trump to end the war. Of the most vulnerable Senate Republicans, only Maine Senator Susan Collins voted with Democrats. Dan Sullivan, John Husted, Roger Marshall, Pete Ricketts and Darlene Graham all voted against ending the war. Their GOP colleague, retiring Senator Tom Tillis, warns that their party should be prepared to pay a price for the war in November. I think the American people are frustrated because they hear about the injuries, they've seen the peaceful transfer or the dignified transfer of fallen soldiers, but they're not seeing any end in sight.

22:20The only thing they're seeing is no end to the increase in energy prices and the economic uncertainty that that provides. And anytime you've got economic uncertainty going into October of an election cycle, generally speaking, it's not good. The main Senate Republican campaign super PAC is amping up its efforts in Texas and could end up spending$200 million to help Ken Paxton. That's according to Punchbowl News. That's in addition to tens of millions of dollars coming from President Trump's Super PAC and Elon Musk's Super PAC. Meanwhile, in an interview yesterday with the Texas Tribune, Democrat James Delarico challenged Paxton to a debate on Fox News.

22:59Let's go to Ken Paxton's safe space. Let's do let's do Brett Baier on Fox News. I'll go into the lion's den because I know what I believe. I am proud of my record and I'm not afraid of hard questions. And Ken Paxton is running from a fight. And that sounds like low-T behavior to me. I don't know if I'm doing that right. Paxton has not accepted any debate invitations thus far. Well, Alaska Senate candidate Mary Peltola is getting a lifeline from an unlikely source, Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski. Peltola has been on defense since New York Times story published Wednesday detailed allegations of staff mistreatment, outbursts, and offensive language when she was a member of the House.

23:51Even though Murkowski is backing Peltola's opponent, incumbent Republican Dan Sullivan, she told CNN this, Quote, I think there are many parts of this story that I find inflammatory. Instead, Patola's grief over losing her husband while in Congress amounted to, quote, pressure that is hard for anybody to bear. My great panel of reporters is back with me now. And jumping off the YOLO life that is Tom Tillis as your retiring Republican senator, I want to start with Sarah Faris. You've got a great piece of non-YOLO caucus Republicans basically saying flat out, like, yo, we have a problem here. I want to start with some great reporting you had from inside the Senate GOP's campaign headquarters on Wednesday.

24:32Dozens of Republicans gathered for a strategy session. Senator John Husted of Ohio made an urgent plea to his colleagues. He told them to stay in town demanding they do something real and tangible on affordability. It's the buzzword everybody's been talking about for the entirety of this cycle. Like the sudden light bulb realization of like, oh, we need more stuff here. Explain it. Well, we have seen Republicans month after month tell us privately the economy is going to get better. Gas prices are going to go down. This is we have a way to mitigate a disaster that could come in November. And suddenly we're less than 40 days away.

25:06And Republicans are starting to realize they're looking at their polling. They're looking at their internals, which are not they're not a disaster yet, but they're not great. And they're really starting to tell Senate Republican leadership like we have not done enough. And as of just 36 hours ago, the Senate was on track to leave town. They were going to go and go out on the campaign trail just like the House and leave until after the elections. But folks like Senator Husted, folks like Susan Collins spoke up in this meeting with Senate Republican leadership as kind of their last chance to try to do something and try to change people's opinions.

25:39I mean, people don't like what Congress is doing, which is not much. People don't like what the Republican Party is doing, which is not much right now to address the economy. And they're saying we have to try something. and we actually saw Senate leadership accept that, which shows you, I mean, Senate Majority Leader John Thune is reading those same internal polls. And so this is the first sign that we've seen that that anxiety is real and it's trickling into the agenda. Yeah, just to contextualize for people who don't live in the weird world, myopic world, that is Capitol Hill, like staying and working with 39 days until a midterm election is like a big deal.

26:12I'm not sure what that says about society. Adam, there's one quote in Sarah's piece that obviously it was from John Kennedy because any great quote comes from John Kennedy at this point in our lives. But he says, quote, I've been chasing my friend Senator Thune like he stole Thanksgiving. Very Kennedy-esque there. To do more on cost of living because we haven't done a damn thing and it's biting us in the ass right now. You know, I think what we what we have really been seeing Republicans responding to is this sort of national cry. Affordability, of course, is the buzzword, but that's because people are actually feeling the squeeze.

26:45They feel it when they're going to the gas pumps. they feel it when they are going to pick up a carton of eggs, right? And Americans are relating that to the policies that are coming from the White House. I think what's interesting about this Republican retreat from the sort of president's policies as well as the sort of pushback that we're kind of seeing, that we're finally sort of seeing, is that they are hearing from constituents in their districts who are saying, what are you doing to help us as we have this war that's waging overseas, right? You said no more forever wars, now we have a forever war.

27:22We're seeing the ways that, we're hearing about the ways that AI is going to impact us negatively. And so what are we actually getting positively that's gonna help our bottom lines? And I think that there is a increasing sort of view of cynicism in America where it's like, they become cynical about our politics. the recent New York Times conversation with voters down in Texas, folks who had voted for the president, where they're saying, well, it doesn't seem that you all are actually doing anything that you said you were going to do. So I think it'll be interesting to see whether Congress staying, the Senate staying, and actually trying to do something with 30 days reads as a sort of cynical thing to those voters who they're saying they're trying to help with.

28:04You mean the inevitable resolution to support not high prices is not going to change? Megan, you have a fascinating piece where you kind of detail, which again, the White House operation, I think when it comes to Capitol Hill, is hard line and has been unyielding, which I think was part of the success with One Big Beautiful Bill Act, how they've been able to keep things together, but also they're professional. They understand how things work, and to the extent we've seen people break, which break is probably a little bit strong, they know about it. They're, if not sanctioning it, at least saying, all right, this is happening, But you also said Trump understands that it's a quote you have in the piece.

28:42Trump understands the whole gambit. He gets the concept. He gets the environment. A person familiar with the White House thinking says he gets these people are fighting alongside him more than people credit them for. He's the one piece of this that I'm like, I'm not sure that he's OK with people breaking. But inside the White House, it seems like maybe he is. Yeah. And I think you have to think about it. There's there's a fine line there. you know, the White House and the president are giving candidates a leash to stake out positions different from the president, so long as the way that they do that is not directly critical of the president, right?

29:14So I think that's why - Or visible on social media. Yes. I think what you see is, you know, for instance, on the Iran issue, right, you've seen, you know, several Republican Senate candidates come out and say, you know, this war needs to end and yet not taking, you know, we saw Republicans not support that war powers vote, right? So that's where you see the split between, okay, you can message how you need to message for your voters, but don't criticize the president. So sort of trying to thread that needle there, there's a little bit of nuance. But I mean, the ultimate challenge here is the White House, even as it's giving candidates some leeway to message how they need to message, even as it's trying to pursue some sort of last minute policy options.

29:52We've heard the president talk this week about a diesel export ban, though there's lots of talk about whether or not that would actually help. You know, the White House really is trying here to do what it can to help these candidates. But the Republican operatives that I'm talking to are saying, you know, this is just too little, too late. This would have been great several months ago. But, you know, any of these efforts at this point aren't really going to help voters feel that in their pockets. At this point, it's going to be more symbolic and something that you can put in a campaign ad to say, you know, hey, I'm fighting for you.

30:20Yeah. Resolution opposed to high prices. I should be a legislative strategist. Carrie, which all brings me back to the shift in the House races that your team identified today, announced today. What I think is fascinating about it is, one, this has been like a really bad two weeks of like any Republican official who wants to talk on background, wants to tell reporters how everything is falling apart. And yet, you know, if you're picking up five seats, like this isn't 2018, this isn't 2008. What am I, can you contextualize for people like things are moving in Democrats' direction very clearly. Today, quick political report making that clear in these races, some of which were Trump plus 10 plus districts.

31:03That's right. But pick up five to 15? Well, and let's lay out five is sort of the minimum, right? And Democrats need three seats to win the House. So basically, what we have said is they are on track to win the majority. And on paper, could Republicans win a majority of the 22 toss-up races? On paper, sure. In reality, all but impossible. That range from five to 15 also could and may narrow and be upwardly revised in Democrats' favor. The main thing that we're watching, I'd call it the million dollar question, but it's the $450 million question, is whether Republican advertising can move the needle at all here.

31:37A lot of the races that we're looking at that are sort of in that lean category that could end up going Democrats' way are places where the Democrat and the Republican are essentially tied, but they're both tied at, say, 46 percent. That leaves a lot of undecided voters in very red districts. What Republicans are hoping is that they can barrage those kind of districts with millions of dollars of ads, painting the Democrats as out of touch, and they will get those undecided voters who are Republican-leaning, who probably voted for Trump, to come home. If those numbers don't move over the next couple of weeks, it will show that Republicans maybe have hit a ceiling with their message that money can't overcome.

32:11I'm going to do the same thing I did real quick during the commercial break, which is ask for your expert opinion on things to make me smarter. When will you know? When you're looking at numbers, when will you say, like, ah, this isn't working? Like, tens of millions of dollars is not moving the needle like it needs to. Is there, like, a moment in time where you say, like, all right, it's a little too late now? I'm not sure if there's a discrete moment in time because, again, every race is unique. Every candidate is a unique and beautiful snowflake. So candidate quality does matter. There isn't some magic number or magic place.

32:38But I do think we're going to be looking very closely at the Republicans in the toss-up category and in the lean Republican category to see if those are races where, you know, if the bottom is really falling out, if those are taking a step to the left. Republicans still remain hopeful that their voters are going to come home, but they're really running out of time. You know, you can also learn a lot. Quick Political Report does live streams. Amy Walter, legend. Dave Wasserman, legend. Carrie Dan, legend. If you're not watching CNN, you should check that out when it comes up. All right, coming up, three Iowa Republicans in the category of what Carrie was just talking about, breaking from President Trump on Iran.

33:11What are they hearing back home that's actually driving this shift? We'll get the scoop from Des Moines next.

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33:53Now to a state where Republicans' midterm anxiety is clearly showing. Iowa. President Trump, remember, won it by 13 points in 2024, but in just the last 10 days, three vulnerable Hawkeye state Republicans broke publicly with the President on the war in Iran. I want to bring in someone tapped into Iowa politics at the most granular level, Stephen Gruber-Miller of the Des Moines Register. Stephen, I really appreciate your time here. This is one of those things where it happened in rapid succession. And I should note, Chuck Grassley, not running currently, not up for re-election, but kind of led the way with his own tweet, which leads to a lot of people wondering, like, oh, what were they seeing?

34:27Was there something in their internals? I would just point people to diesel prices. What was your sense of what triggered how this happened this week? Yeah, I think you're right with diesel prices. You know, they hit a record high in Iowa earlier this week, and gas prices are near record highs as well. And I think all of that is driving these Republicans to feel like they need to be more vocal about this issue. So you saw Representative Zach Nunn and Marionette Miller-Meeks actually vote for the War Powers resolution. Representative Ashley Hinson, who's running for Senate, did not vote for that resolution.

35:02But then later this in the week, she called for the war to come to an end. There has been there's been Democratic enthusiasm about their candidates in particular, but also about the potential in the state really since the start of the cycle. I probably didn't totally buy into it until later than most. Democrats definitely excited about a recent Marist poll showing them ahead in races for Senate and governor. There was conservative talk show host Steve Deese who had a viral tweet saying GOP pollsters are warning Iowa House Republicans that our plus 15 districts are within the margin of error. Our plus 10 districts are underwater.

35:36I think the question I always have in these moments is narratives can kind of get carried away on some level. A 13-point swing from 24 would be enormous writ large. When you look at the numbers, are they tracking with how you're seeing things, how you're hearing about things on the ground, or do you think these races are tighter? Yeah, I think it's important to take any individual poll with a grain of salt, right? And Marist was kind of an outlier from what some of the other polls were showing. So I think it's a little too soon to see if that's a trend that's going to continue in Democrats' favor or if it's a one-off.

36:12And, you know, Steve Dace, the tweet that you're talking about, I'm not sure if he's seen that polling. I haven't seen it, but I think maybe it's more about the message of Republicans needing to run like they're behind or like they're in danger and needing to make sure that they're capable of, you know, really putting their feet to the ground here and not phoning it in in the final one. Yeah. And also waving the flag to money. Donors, this would be a good place to spend at this point in time because there's a lot of different races going on there. I do want to ask you about one in particular, the governor's race.

36:48Democratic candidate Rob Sand, huge polling lead among independents. What's driving that? Can you explain to people how powerful an independent vote is in Iowa? Yeah, I mean, there are more independents in Iowa than there are registered Democrats. And, you know, what Rob Sand has really tried to do with his campaign is campaign not as a traditional Democrat. He's trying to make the case to independents and even some Republicans that they can support him because he's not about the maybe more left things that most Democrats care about. He cares about good government is the pitch that he's making.

37:22And so he's also proposing a lot of changes to the way Iowa conducts its elections that would open up more participation for independents and just generally trying to stay away from those party labels. Do you see a scenario where there are split ticket voters? because it seems like you talk to people in both parties and they kind of grant you sand is in a very good place right now um but there are a lot the house races are very tight the senate race is very tight is there going to be ticket splitting here i think there will be some uh i think you know around the country we've seen ticket splitting kind of decline but i think iowa has shown some examples in recent years where there's maybe a little bit more happening here uh of ticket splitting than there is in some other states.

38:06And Rob Sand is a great example of that in his 2022 race for auditor. He definitely had some ticket splitting going on there. And I think that's part of why there's a lot of buzz around him and his ability to do that, which is somewhat proven. But yeah, I think a lot of these races are going to be tight. And I think the thing to keep in mind is that even the polls that are showing maybe good trends for Democrats, Democrats have been burned by some of those polls before. And so they'll they probably won't believe it until until election night. Yeah, it's a very go back and track Senate polls, House polls and all the districts are statewide that we're talking about right now over the course of the last couple of cycles.

38:49And you'll see exactly what you're talking about on the Senate race. I want to play two ads, one targeting Henson, another targeting Turk. Listen. In their world, power protects power. Ashley Hinson made sure of it. Her top donors appear in the Epstein files over 700 times. In Congress, Hinson voted against releasing the files. When given another chance, she skipped the votes. Turek voted to give taxpayer-funded welfare benefits to illegal immigrants. Said cracking down on illegals was... Fundamentally wrong and un-American. Now, for context, outside groups, their sole purpose is to drive up negatives.

39:31But I guess my question when I was watching him is Epstein immigration. To what extent are these issues that Iowa voters are focused on and your conversations? I think they tie into larger themes in the race. And so actually, I think you've chosen two good ads that sort of highlight some of these things. The Epstein connection, I think, is part of the argument that Democrats are making more broadly, not just in Iowa, but elsewhere as well, about corruption. this being an election about someone who they want to say is out for themselves and not for Iowans. So I think there's a connection there that ties in in that way.

40:05And I will say Ashley Hinson did vote with the majority of Congress for the Epstein Files Transparency Act last year. On immigration with Turek, you know, Turek has been running his race as a moderate, as somebody who is common sense. And so the Republican messaging around him with immigration and other issues is that he's actually an extreme liberal. And so they're trying to tie him to those elements of the party that are less appealing to your independent voters in Iowa, like we were talking about a minute ago. Steve Gruber-Miller, Des Moines Register. It just feels better in politics when Iowa is front and center, as it should be.

40:41I appreciate your time, my friend. Thank you so much. Glad to be here. Well, coming up, the newest part of President Trump's proposed Arch that has veterans and Gold Star families speaking out.

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41:31Veterans and Gold Star families are alarmed over the latest proposed addition to the Trump Arch in D.C., an open-air observation deck. It was only added to the design for the Arch after the Trump administration unveiled the plans to the public, according to two sources. CNN's Selen Srafati has been covering the story every step of the way. So then you talked to some military families. What are they saying about the observation deck on the arch? Well, Phil, there are so many military funerals that happen at Arlington every weekday between 24 and 27. So this is a thing that happens very regularly or during the day.

42:02And they're, as you know, very highly choreographed, very precise, down to every detail to honor in a beautiful way those who have given the ultimate sacrifice to our country. And military families that I spoke to, veterans and Gold Star families, really expressed weariness at adding this element of a tourism observation deck platform to the top of the president's proposed arch. 160 feet in the air, looking out over Arlington Cemetery. And they felt strange and odd about this dynamic of tourists being able to take pictures, look out over their funerals as they are grieving. I want to read you what a few people told me.

42:38They said, quote, why the hell would someone put an observation deck on top of this arch? What do you observe people's grief? The solemn private nature of that ceremony is gone. If people can stand on top of this 250 foot vanity project with a pair of binoculars and look at what's going on in Arlington. Another woman told me it's just the wrong place to put a vantage point because this is very much seeing people on the worst day of their life. I can't imagine if some observers were behind us doing a phone video of all of this. Now, the White House, of course, knows that this arch project writ large has been very controversial.

43:14And I asked them about the specific criticism coming from military families, feeling that their privacy was potentially at risk. And the White House spokesperson said, quote, that they believe it will only enhance the visitor experience at Arlington National Cemetery for veterans, the families of the fallen and Americans and like. But the White House notably did not answer my specific questions. Will there be any change in protocol to funerals? When and if the arch is built? Will there be any extra protocol on the top of the observation deck? For instance, a veteran said, what about if you put plaques saying you are now potentially observing a solemn ceremony?

43:51Maybe it could be an educational experience. We do know, according to documents that I viewed, that they've made temporary measures, There's temporary protocols in place saying they'll control lighting around the construction potentially when the arch is built. They'll also make accommodations during the funerals when construction is going on. But that does not speak to the broader question of when and if this arch is built, what permanent protocols will be in place to help those families that are, as this woman said, on the worst day of their lives. Questions that need to be answered for those families.

44:24Can I ask you, I believe there was a short-circuiting of one part of the review process, if I read reporting correctly, does that mean this is one step closer to actually coming to fruition? It is certainly inching along, and it's very clear that the Trump administration is doing everything they can to make sure that the final approvals are in place for this project, potentially this fall. They are really eyeing November on the schedule. There has been a long process called the Section 106 review. It's required by law to happen. Basically, all the consulting parties, historians, preservationists get in a room, and they basically give their advice on projects that influence historical properties.

44:59Every one of those consultants in the last meeting basically said, we're not ready to sign off on this project. Now we have the administration saying we're going to go forth and push ahead, basically leave that to the side, push ahead to the final approval, likely in November. Salon Serfati, great reporting as always. Thank you. And thank you for joining Inside Politics. Be sure to tune in Sunday to State of the Union. Jake's guests include Republican Senator Tom Tillis and Democratic Governor Andy Beshear. CNN News Central starts after a quick break.

45:54$90 for six months or$180 for a 12-month plan required. $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. New customer offer for initial plan term only. Greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. See terms. I'm Adi Cornish. I'm Ari Shapiro, and it's Engagement Party. It is Engagement Party. And we get to talk about what we're obsessed with, what we're engaged with, what we need to process with a friend. Her name is Amy O'Dell. She is a fashion writer, blogger. But the thing is, she's a journalist who's written about the sacred cows of fashion. And yes, I mean, Gwyneth Paltrow and Anna Wintour.

46:23She has done biographies of both. And she is also the sort of rare fashion writer who, at this point, kind of outside the system. And so the question that we're going to try to tackle is... Is fashion terrible now? Well, no, I mean, I would phrase it as how do you develop a personal style in the age of AI slop? You know, on social media, like, creators have to try a whole bunch of different things and see what catches, and then they make it over and over and over again. The same thing happens with clothing. So they're sort of seeding the market, seeding the internet with all of these different ideas.

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