Trump's Closing Midterm Strategy Under Scrutiny

0:01We're watching the early vote and nearly 30 million Americans already voted as candidates race to reach the millions more who are about to cast their ballot. I'm Dana Bash. Let's go behind the headlines and inside politics.

0:22Just eight days until the election, and we're tracking the races, candidates, and stories that could shift the balance of power right here in Washington and across the country. Here's what's on our midterm radar. Tonight, President Trump will campaign with Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith in Mississippi. It's a state. The president won by 23 percentage points just two years ago. Hasn't sent a Democrat to the Senate in nearly four decades. He'll also hit Texas, Ohio, Florida and Iowa this week. Four other states he won by double digits. Yesterday in Michigan, the president focused his closing pitch on the Democratic Senate candidate's Muslim faith.

0:59Here's just some of what he said and how Abdul Al-Sayed responded. I'm here to keep a jihadist Muslim Brotherhood member from becoming a United States Senator. Abdul Mohammed Al-Sayed is a jihadist. I don't even care that he remembers my whole name, because he can just go on and call me Senator after November. That'll be Senator Muhammad to you, bro. There's a new CNN analysis on one of the key midterm issues, gas prices. The average price of gas during President Trump's second term is more expensive than it was under President Biden. The gap is small, but marks a sharp reversal from before the war in Iran and will keep widening as long as prices stay high.

1:50In Alaska, Democrats are asking a judge to throw out a Trump administration lawsuit challenging a Senate loss before votes are counted. The Justice Department is seeking to preemptively block the certification if the incumbent Republican Dan S. Sullivan loses, alleging voters might confuse him with Dan J. Sullivan, who is also on the ballot. I spoke with the Attorney General Todd Blanche about this on State of the Union yesterday. The groundwork that we are laying is for Alaska, for the state of Alaska, if it becomes an issue after the election, we'll have the ability to determine whether there was confusion that violates the law in determining who the senators should be.

2:34That is not Donald J. Trump. That is not our president. I have your complaint right here. You said, to guard against a danger, it is vital that defendants not certify any election results that may be impacted by voter confusion. You're putting into the ether, into a complaint, into a lawsuit, the potential to not certify. Read the rest of the complaint. That's not where it ends. That's not where it ends. That is not the whole thing. What the rest of that paragraph says and the relief that we are seeking is not to not certify. It's to not certify if the law is broken. New comments from someone both parties fear could have a major impact on the Senate race in Texas, even though you may not know his name.

3:16Here's what Libertarian candidate Ted Brown said about spoiler concerns in an interview with NewsNation. Democrats are saying, hey, that I'm taking votes away from Tallarico, and Republicans say I'm taking votes away from Paxton. But in reality, I'm just promoting my candidacy and the Libertarian Party. I don't believe that votes for me are against, you know, they're for me and for an alternative, not to take down one of the major parties. A poll from the Cook Political Report shows Brown polling at 3 percent. And those three percentage points could very well decide the election in Texas. I'm joined by a terrific group of reporters on this fantastic Monday.

3:59Hi, everyone. Nice to see you. Let's start by playing a little bit of what President Obama said on the campaign trail. He was all over this weekend. And then how President Trump responded. After 10 years of chaos and cruelty and corruption and incompetence, you get to say enough is enough. What's up with the gold?

4:30I mean, he's got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a cheesecake factory. You know, I saw Barack Hussein Obama was in Michigan and the place was empty. Obama got the Nobel Prize about two weeks after he got into office and he had no idea why he got it. Jonah? Well, I don't, I think, get David Axelrod on here sometime and ask him. I don't think the Obama people thought they should have gotten the Nobel Prize and they were upset about it. But that doesn't mean Donald Trump should either. And I just think it's a very weird closing message in terms to tackle back and forth between calling Norway an S-hole country because it didn't give them a Nobel Prize.

5:18and talking about how certain male Republican candidates attract the president's gaze. And Nicki Minaj now. Wait. And Nicki Minaj. Yeah, fair, fair. Gaze, G-A-Z-E. Yes. Well played. Oh, boy. Just wanted to make sure that we have that on the record. Yes, yes, yes. Well, we can debate what I meant. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's just, it's all very, very strange. And one last thing about him saying that Norway now can't send immigrants here. I've been arguing for 10 years that Trump basically betrays any faction that supports him wholeheartedly, whether it's on nationalist grounds, free market grounds, socialist grounds.

6:02It doesn't matter because he always spins around and changes his positions. He is now betraying a very small slice of racist immigration hawks who only want white people to come here. because he's now saying Norway can't send its Teutonic people here because they didn't give them a Nobel Prize. Let's listen to part of what you're discussing. I mean, that is part of it. I think the more sort of head-snapping part of that riff was what he said about people who come from African countries.

6:3898 % of the people that we have here now in Somalia don't work. They don't really have to work because they steal so much. Low IQ, and they live better than you do. Why do we always have to take people from shithouse countries? Why can't we take people from, like, well, Norway, Sweden? Why not Denmark? Just in case you don't get it. He's saying, why do we have to take people from shithouse countries? Yeah, yeah. And then the others are white countries. Yeah, yeah. He would prefer white people to black people. Listen, this was a debate and a discussion in his first term, right, when it was revealed that he said these derogatory racist remarks about African countries.

7:32They denied it. They sort of played it down. But now it's all out in the open. Donald Trump has revealed himself to be, you know, somebody who prefers white people to black people, to brown people. And it'll be up to the audience and his voters and Republicans to decide what they do with that. Right. Go ahead. I'm sorry. No, I mean, I think he thinks this works. Right. And in some ways it has worked. Right. There wasn't any sort of, you know, illusion about what Donald Trump thought of brown people versus white people. Except that, you know, part of the 2024 coalition was more people of color voting for Donald Trump than they had in the past.

8:15And part of this year's dynamic is a lot of Democrats are looking to see how big the turnout is in African-American communities all over the battleground. And Latino communities. And Latinos, for a lot of reasons, but on the black vote, in part because of the Supreme Court decisions striking down a big part of the voter rights legislation. I mean, to Nia's point, there is so much about this moment in the Trump administration that feels like Trump 1.0. And part of what he's doing here, I do think, is trying to incite that anger that fueled him the first time around. Because anger is actually what's helping Democrats right now.

8:53There is large frustration in the country, and that's what Democrats are tapping into for a change election. Voters are not happy with the status quo, and that is what might usher in this blue wave. And so I think what you see the president trying to do here is ramp that up on his side of the aisle. The thing that both Obama and Trump are doing right now is trying to fuel turnout on their side and suppress turnout on the other side. We had some great reporting and playbook this morning from my colleague Adam Wren about how Democrats are using the Epstein files. There are ads all over the airwaves in these competitive states pointing to the Epstein files, not to try to flip anybody to vote for Democrats, but to try to get Republicans to stay home.

9:35And frankly, Republican operators that we are talking to are terrified of this. They think it's a great strategy for Democrats because it is one of the things that has gotten some of Trump's most ardent supporters to break from him. Back in the war. Part of the problem also is just, you know, Trump loves to play this. He plays it for guests in the office. That's Harry Enten clip from CNN saying that Trump has 98 or 99 percent support from self-identified MAGA. The problem with that is self-identified MAGA is only a slice of actual Republican voters. But he thinks that's the only thing that matters.

10:08He actually said it again to Byron York in an interview recently. And so the reason they're in the mess that they're in is they thought that the blacks and Hispanics that voted for him in 2024 were all bought in on the full MAGA agenda when really what they were voting for was their nostalgia for the pre-COVID economy of his first term. And now Trump thinks it'll work for him to lean into the pure MAGA message, which is racist and all sorts of other things, for boosting turnout. But that's actually going to repel Hispanic and black voters and a lot of other people, too. Let's turn to Michigan.

10:42And you were on the panel with Haley Stevens yesterday when we, who, of course, lost the Democratic primary to Abdul El-Sayed. And the question has been, why aren't they campaigning together? I want to play a little bit of that conversation. You haven't campaigned alongside him. Why? Well, look, my specialty is house races. You're still fully behind Abdul El-Sayed? Look, I'm on the Democratic ticket. You know, I can't say that I agree with everything that's gone on. You know, I wish that first debate had been more about, you know, that rubber stamp for Trump because we got a lot of chaos in Michigan.

11:19You know, I don't want to debate, you know, who's the enemy of the United States. I'm looking to be on the team to support, you know, my next governor, Jocelyn Benson. And frankly, these great Democrats who are working their tails off, who are going to make Hakeem Jeffries the first black speaker of the House. You didn't mention Abdul Hussain in that last answer. Well, look, I would just say you had asked me if I'm still on the team. I'm on the team. He hasn't called her. Yeah, yeah. She said he hasn't called her. You know, there is clearly a lot of bad blood from what was a very close and contentious race.

11:54You know, I think the problem for Abdel El-Said going forward is whether or not that tension lingers among particularly African-American voters who were all in for Haley Stevens. And some female voters, too. I mean, the attacks got very, very personal. And so there you see Haley Stevens not really fully being on the team. But listen, it's up to Abdul El-Sayed to run this race, to win this race, and to get a winning coalition. It's not up to Haley Stevens. Did you see Mike Rogers' tweet afterwards? He put up that exchange and said, we have a Democrats for Mike sign waiting for you, Haley for Michigan.

12:31Yeah, I don't think Haley Stevens is going to be picking up one of those signs. No, of course not. But I'm not surprised that given how brutal that primary was, that she's not shouting from the rafters in support of El-Sayed. Yeah. Well, thank you all. Appreciate it. Good to talk to you. Don't go anywhere. Can Democrats flip a seat in Kentucky? One that President Trump won by more than 15 percentage points? Zach Dembo thinks he can do it and he'll be here next. And later, new CNN reporting on Kamala Harris. She's opening up to our Isaac Devere about her ambitions for 2028. You're going to want to hear this.

13:04Stay with us.

13:10Hey, I'm Anderson Cooper. On my podcast, All There Is, we explore grief and loss in all its complexities. My guest is Lil Jon. He's a rapper, DJ, and producer known for hits like Get Low and Turn Down For What. In February 2026, his 27-year-old son Nathan went missing near Nathan's home in Georgia. Three days later, his body was found in a pond nearby. Lil Jon has a memoir that just came out called I Only Shout So You Can Hear Me. It takes time to heal. And I kept myself busy that I didn't let myself mourn. I needed to laugh again. I needed to be silly and interact with people and feel other people's energy and make people happy too.

13:55We have to share so other people can see that they can get through it too. Talking grief, building community. That's what the podcast is all about. This is all there is. Listen and follow wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Dr. Sanjay Gupta, host of the Chasing Life podcast. You may have noticed gambling doesn't require a casino anymore. You can just open up your phone. It's designed to keep us coming back or maybe never even leaving in the first place. We're going to talk to Dr. Timothy Fong, co-director of UCLA's Gambling Studies program. You're going to learn what your brain is really chasing when you place a bet, and also importantly, how to keep the game from playing you.

14:36Gambling 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. Over the last 12 years, Republican Andy Barr has won Kentucky's 6th District by double digits, five out of six times. Well, now Barr is leaving the House. He's going to run for the Senate. And Democrats are hoping they can finally take this seat with Democrat Zach Dembo, a former federal prosecutor who left the Justice Department over corruption concerns.

15:18He's running against Dr. Ralph Alvarado, a former GOP Kentucky state senator who lost a bid for lieutenant governor back in 2019. Democrat Zach Dembeau joins me now. Thank you so much for being here. So the one time the Democrats didn't get blown out in your district was in the party's last blue wave. That was 2018 when the candidate came the closest. It was within three percentage points. Why do you think this is different from 2018? Why do you think you can win now in a Trump plus 15 district? Sure. Well, Dana, thanks for having me. And there are a lot of big differences between this cycle and 2018.

15:57First, as you noted, it's an open seat. Second, the candidate in 2018 didn't have the benefit of having the most popular Democratic governor in the country, Andy Beshear, working alongside her. And then the third thing is we just have so much more disastrous policy coming out of D.C. In 2018, gas was not over$4. Diesel was not over$6. We were not stuck in an endless foreign war. We were not in these senseless trade wars. Things are hurting folks in central Kentucky now in a way where they want a change. That's what our campaign represents. And for even those folks who voted for Trump in this district, they wanted costs to go down and an end to foreign wars.

16:39They feel betrayed and they've found a home in our campaign. You and 48 other Democratic candidates just wrote an open letter saying, anti-corruption legislation is your number one priority should you be elected to Congress. How are you going to do that? How do you get buy-in to rein in elected officials, including your fellow Democrats, if some of them are the very ones doing things you point to, like individual stock trading, like lobbying after they get out of office? Well, the most important buy-in is what I already have from my future constituents here in central Kentucky. Democrats, independents, and Republicans are fed up with things that should have gotten fixed a long time ago, like individual stock trading.

17:23I have already committed to sell all stock I have. My opponent has up to a million dollars in stock, has made no such commitment. I think the real answer is this is a time for change. And we have to do more than just change the makeup of the House. We have to change some of the underlying corruption that led for Central Kentuckians to feel abandoned by D.C. So that's why I came out in favor of term limits, in favor of ending Citizens United, getting dark money out of our politics and banning stock trading. It's common sense. It's nonpartisan. We should have done it a long time ago. Those 48 folks you're talking about, I know are going to be working alongside me, but most importantly, the folks here in central Kentucky believe in this mission.

18:05It is interesting that you say that that's your first piece of legislation, you and the 48 others, and not affordability, which is the number one issue right now. I'm not saying that corruption is not a big one, but affordability, I would imagine that you hear more about that than anything on the trail. So I hear about both. You're absolutely right. Right. Affordability is a huge concern, and that's why I'm the only candidate who's opposed these tariffs, why I'm the only one opposing these Medicaid cuts that are going to be disastrous for a rural health care system here. And I'm the only one who has opposed the Iran war from the beginning.

18:39But at the same time you're hearing about costs, you're having hardworking Central Kentuckians seeing folks in D.C. getting rich, as you pointed out, on both sides of the aisle. And so costs and corruption go very much hand in hand because we are paying the cost of corruption here in the Kentucky Sixth. You have made getting money out of politics a big part of your campaign as well. In your race, there are Democratic super PACs, including one funded by a billionaire, Reid Hoffman. They're spending nearly four million dollars, more than twice as much as your own campaign is spending. How can voters take your push to get money out of politics seriously when a lot of the ads that they're seeing are paid for by big money funders?

19:23Well, as you know, unfortunately, in the post-Citizens United world, not only do I have nothing to do with any of those entities, I'm legally not allowed to coordinate with them. But the way voters can know it, that I am going to clean this up, is I'm the only person saying none of these super PACs should exist at all, whether they're supporting a Democrat or a Republican. And you're right. There's been a lot of outside money. President Trump's super PAC has poured over two million in against our campaign. I don't think any of them should exist. You can go right on my Web site and see that. That's why they can have confidence that is the only veteran in this race, the only former prosecutor in the race.

19:59I'm standing up for the oath I swore to the Constitution, not to any donors and certainly not to any shady, dark money super PACs. They all should go. I don't care who they support. That's what I'm going to advocate for in Congress. Yeah, I know you said in your debate that you haven't spoken to Reid Hoffman. You just explained a part of the law as to why. Now you're speaking in public. Do you have a message for Reid Hoffman about the Super PAC ads running in your campaign? I don't know the guy. I've never talked to him. I've never asked for this donation. And so what I would say is, for anyone listening, super PACs and big money in politics is part of the problem.

20:40It's why we haven't been able to have action on so many important things like health care reform, like immigration reform, like things that people have wanted Congress to do for decades and we haven't been able to. And so what I'd say to anyone is, let's get rid of this. We need the money out of politics. As a former prosecutor, it offends me and my sense of values. And I know from talking to Central Kentuckians, it offends them as well. Zach Dembo, thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate it. And I should note that we invited... Thanks so much, Dana. Thank you. We invited Ralph Alvarado, the Republican in this race, on the program.

21:17We do hope that he joins us before Election Day. Coming up, CNN's John King is all over the map in Iowa, where high fuel prices and frustrated farmers could have a major impact on the control of Senate.

21:38CNN's John King has been all over the country for years talking to voters, and this week he's hitting five states in five days to hear from the people who will decide this election. His first stop is in Iowa. State President Trump won three times. This year, Republicans are dealing with many nail-biting races going on there in the beautiful Hawkeye State. What are you hearing from voters, John? Dana, we first came here when we started this project almost three and a half years ago. Back then, the big question was, could Donald Trump win the Republican nomination? Could he get back to the White House after January 6th?

22:12At a time, many people in Washington were saying, I don't think so. Iowa gave Trump a resounding yes. And you mentioned he also carried this state three times. So how is this state in play? We've got the mini magic wall on the road with us. Look at 55, 56 percent, if you round that up, for Donald Trump in 2024. A Republican governor, two Republican senators, all four, we go to the House districts here, all four of the House districts in Iowa held by Republicans. And yet, and yet, the governor's race is in play. That Senate race to replace the retiring Joni Ernst is in play. And at least three of the four House seats Democrats believe are competitive as we head into the final days.

22:46How is that? Let's go back to the presidential race. I just want to show you something. We've never used this before. So this is the first time we've used this on television. How is it possible? Well, look at this map. Let me explain the code to you. When you see the purple counties, those are counties in Iowa where the price of gas since the start of the Iran war has gone up more than 70 percent. You see the more pinkish purple color. There the price of gas has gone up since the start of the Iran war 63 to 73 percent. If you're in the orange counties, your price of gas has gone up 54 to 63 percent.

23:14That is all of Iowa. 99 counties. Gas has gone up. Only one county where it's gone up only, quote unquote, 45 to 54 percent. That is the punishing issue for the president here. It's a tough environment anyway because it's the midterm standard. But the war the president's start and the president's tariffs. And in fact, they have a big water issue here as well. The cancer rate in Iowa is second in the country. All of these issues mounting up to have Republicans on their heels just two years after Trump won this state, as you know, in a cakewalk. I love this new part of the map that you can actually overlay the issues.

23:50Yeah. And come out. Look at this. Just look at the look at the full country. Right. So we're going to spend much of our time on this five days in five states. We're going to be in Michigan. We're going to be in Ohio. We're going to be in Iowa. Look at middle America. Whoops, it moved on me there. I got to bring it back there. You got to make this lock down a little bit. Let me use green. Look at middle America. So why are we talking about Nebraska? Why are we talking about Kansas? Why is Ohio? Why is Iowa in play? Why is Michigan in play two years after Trump won it? Look at the middle of the country.

24:15The purple is over 70 percent. The pink is over 60 percent. The orange is over 50 percent. The gas price increase. And remember, this is the price of gas since the Iran war started. A lot of these people in the Midwest use diesel. That has gone up even more. And so I'm in West Des Moines right now. It's another big factor. West Des Moines is the fastest growing metropolitan area in the Middle West. The suburbs in Donald Trump do not get along. Remember the 2018 midterms? These suburbs are fast growing. So voters here in the third district, that's Republican incumbent Zach Nunn. He's in trouble.

24:46That race has gone when we started even in this cycle, never mind 2024. That was a lean Republican that's gone toss-up that is now lean Democrat. Why is that? The Iran war, the price of gas, the Trump tariffs, Trump policies have put Trump states in peril. Yeah, and you definitely have seen it. As you mentioned, that was your first stop when you started this project three and a half years ago in Iowa, and you just really explained how and why it's so different. We'll see you tomorrow, John. Thank you. We'll be in Michigan. See you then. Up next on Inside Politics. Never let anybody else's, somebody else's limited ability to see your capacity to be a limitation on your ambition.

25:28Who exactly is Kamala Harris talking about? Well, CNN's Isaac Dovere chatted exclusively with the former vice president about her plans for 2028.

25:47The midterm election is in eight days. That means the 2028 presidential campaign starts in nine days. And the Democrats' last nominee says she's not going anywhere. CNN's Isaac DeVere hit the campaign trail with Kamala Harris, who's making stops from Nevada to New Hampshire, Mississippi to Wisconsin. And in an exclusive interview with Isaac, she responded to her Democratic critics who don't want her to run again. I'm sure there are many things that I should, you know, just sit at home and, you know eat bonbons and you know cook Doug's favorite foods and I can you know I can cook Doug's favorite foods and do this do you have a lean of which way you would decide for another presidential run I go back and forth yeah honestly go back and forth um because of what oh there's so many factors but I'm not going to talk about it right now Well, good idea.

26:43Fascinating, Isaac. Yeah, it was a looser Kamala Harris than maybe we've seen for a little while. I spent a little time with her on the trail in Mississippi on Thursday in rural Mississippi, far from the kinds of places that politicians ever go. In fact, one of the things that came up is that she is one of the, if not the highest-ranking public official who's ever been to the Mississippi Delta like that. Wow. And she then, she had a rally at a high school, the high school where Scott Cullum, the Democratic nominee, actually went to school in the gym where he played basketball. And we spoke backstage about what she's doing in 2026 and how she has decided to throw herself in.

27:19This feeling that she says she has, that she knows that she can help, she can draw attention, she wants to help. But also about what the future holds and where that goes. And what about her answer to people who are saying, you had your chance, don't do it? Well, what I know behind the scenes, what she's been saying is it's convenient that a lot of those people, especially the ones who are maybe thinking about running for president themselves, are saying that because it gets in the way of them if she does run. She didn't really get into that specifically, but what she did say to me, and it was interesting, we had a moment, we did the interview, and then we turned off the recorder and was saying, thanks for the interview and getting up to go.

27:58And she said, I actually want to say something else. She told me to turn the recorder back on. And what she said is a lot of people are running just to look in the mirror. We need people who are going to look at the American people and what they want. But she also said, and I will say that one of the things she said to me also was that she doesn't want to run to go up against other Democrats, beat other Democrats. She said, I'm only going to run to do the job. So that's the way that she's thinking. Let's listen to a little of what she's saying on the trail. It doesn't have to be this way. It doesn't have to be this way.

28:34We deserve better. We have power and the power is with the people and the people are done and ready to say we deserve more and it doesn't have to be this way. Nia? Yeah, you know, listen, I did a story six or seven months ago about Kamala Harris, where I talked to a lot of black women who love Kamala Harris, respect Kamala Harris, wish that she were president. And these are people who don't want her to run. Right. And it's not because they don't think she would be a good president. It's because they she obviously lost her 107 day run. they don't think America would elect at this point in America's history that she would be the most competitive person to run in 2028.

29:27Because she's a black woman? Because she's a black woman, because of sort of the racism that has kind of been unleashed and stirred up. And so that is, I think, part of the feeling that a lot of people who would be part of her base, right, that's the conversations that I've had with a lot of black folks. It's like, you know, they want to sort of it's almost like, you know, when Biden ran, part of that was let's go with the safe white guy. And I think a lot of Democratic base voters feel that way going forward. The look in the mirror quote really struck me because I actually, from what I heard from voters, they're frustrated that Democrats have not looked in the mirror enough and have not been clear eyed enough with the mistakes of the past that have led them to this point.

30:11that Kamala Harris is saying it doesn't have to be this way, but a lot of people are pointing the finger at her and at Democrats at large in the National Party for the reason that it is this way and want to see a little bit of that accountability and reconciliation. I just thought that look in the mirror thing was just casting shade at Gavin Newsom. Well, that too. And probably Josh Shapiro. Because he's got such important hair.

30:37But look, I certainly grant you there's racism and sexism out there, in America Today. You also talk to a lot of people that say it's not her race or her gender that is the issue. It's that just a lot of people don't necessarily like Kamala Harris that much. And some of it comes from the fact that she grew up in progressive democratic politics in California and never learned how to basically dribble left about going after, being able to sort of distinguish herself from the progressive wing of the party, which is why she flamed out on the primaries in the first place. And there are a lot of people who think maybe it makes more sense to find someone who has some experience carving out a more moderate middle of the road thing, sort of like, you know, Hamilton in Kansas, because that's what the Democratic Party needs to be.

31:28By the way, that Kamala Harris should stay in California. He did not want her anywhere near his race. Yeah. Yeah. Like this, that question about Hamilton and other people have said stay away, I put to her and she said, I'm not naive. That's what they need to do to win their races. That's what they should do. But, you know, one of the things that really struck me was when I was in Mississippi, one of the people I ran into at that event that you showed a clip of and at the rally was a guy named Patrick Gaspard, who people may remember was Barack Obama's first political director in the White House, DNC executive director.

31:59He's also, in more recent times, become an informal advisor to Zoran Mamdani, very much connected to that part of what's going on Democratic politics and he was one of the voices in the kitchen cabinet around Colom who said bring Kamala Harris to Mississippi even though other advisers for Colom were saying no don't nationalize this race and she's a loser keep her away. I spoke to Gaspard afterwards and he said to me very much in the way that Harris is thinking about it although a little bit more colorfully he said look when people were saying when Muhammad Ali was going to come back in to try to get the heavyweight crown back and they were saying don't don't come back in it wasn't because they were worried he was going to get knocked down.

32:33It's because they wanted to get the crown themselves. Fascinating. Thank you so much. Really, really interesting. Great conversation to all of you. Up next, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro has some choice words for Vice President J.D. Vance. Talk about 2028. We'll show part of my interview with this swing state Democrat. Stay with us.

33:02Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro is working not just for a re-election win, but a resounding win next week, trying to boost his numbers even in the reddest parts of Pennsylvania. That's where his bus tour for the final stretch started in Crawford County, where President Trump won by more than 30 percentage points just two years ago. I caught up with the Democratic governor there for State of the Union. Part of what we discussed was his change in position on data centers. I'm going to ask you about data centers because I have never seen an issue spread like wildfire as fast in my covering politics as this issue has.

33:40You welcomed data centers. You said they were a great economic opportunity. Then you tightened the rules after you heard from humanity. Yeah. Just candidly, did you change your position because of political backlash? No, I changed my position or I haven't changed, but, you know, I addressed the needs of the community after listening to them. And let me let me be really clear. These projects employ thousands of people. And so the comments I made initially, I stand by. But then I took the time to travel across the Commonwealth. And in the beginning, some folks would grab me and say, hey, Gov, I want to talk to you about my concerns about data centers.

34:21And I listened. And then I showed up in community after community, including a small borough just outside Scranton called Archbold, where you saw more and more developers who were trying to run roughshod over these communities and take advantage of them and were not adhering to both the local zoning nor the requirements of bringing more power. And so they were depleting power from the grid or would deplete power from the grid and drive up prices. And so I actually, after I left the meeting in Archibald with some of the activists, I went over to see with my own eyes where this rogue developer wanted to put the data center.

35:02And it was on the left field line of a kid's baseball field. And I just thought about me as a father of four standing on countless sidelines watching my kids play. No developer should take that away from a community. So I came back to Harrisburg after listening all across Pennsylvania, wrote the strictest guardrails in the nation, made clear that unless a developer could get the support of the local community, we would never even consider their application for a data center. And if they got the support of a local community, because we should allow local communities to be able to say what they want in their backyards.

35:38If they got the support, then we would have very strict standards on needing to generate new power, ideally clean energy, pay for that energy, protect our air and our water, and have a local benefits agreement that supports the community where they want to construct this. I also talked to Governor Shapiro about the controversial ad Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is running in Ohio. We are less than 20 miles from Ohio. We're so far up north and west here in Pennsylvania. The Republican candidate for Governor Vivek Ramaswamy is under fire for putting the estranged mother of his Democratic opponent in a TV ad, despite claims that she had and some issues went through the courts about childhood sexual abuse.

36:25President Trump and Vice President Vance have defended it. The vice president even admonished Republicans for calling Ramaswamy out on it. You're shaking your head. You know, I've prosecuted dozens of people for sexual abuse. And the cases where they are familial, We have a parent, a step parent abusing their own child are maybe the ones that upset me the most, the ones that would keep me up at night as we were going through those cases. Those are so unbelievably painful. the idea that a guy who wants to run for governor would weaponize that that the vice president of the United States who does this phony preacher nonsense about morality every day would double down and say not only is it an acceptable ad keep running it and admonish Republicans like Mike DeWine who actually had the courage to speak out and call it out I think it just speaks to how you know profoundly and pathetically weak of a human being J.D.

37:40Vance is and it speaks to the the character frankly lack thereof of Ramaswamy to attack a victim like that to attack a victim and take the side of the the perpetrator the enabler of that abuse it's disgusting and you know what I'm hearing more and more from Republicans along with Democrats independents is they're just tired of this. They're tired of the politics that Trump and Vance practice. And remember, Ramaswamy, he really is just a product of that Trump-Vance politics of the lowest common denominator. I think you're going to see Americans of all stripes, Democrat and Republican, come out in states all across our country and reject that.

38:25Thank you for joining Inside Politics. And as you're on the go, starting today, You can watch Inside Politics in more locations. CNN is streaming in the U.S. and now also in Canada and the U.K. You can watch live anytime. Just visit CNN.com slash all access for more. CNN News Central starts after the break.

38:52I'm Adi Cornish. I'm Ari Shapiro. And it's 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. She 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.

39:30You 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 and then they can see what sells and then they can just make them really fast. Follow Engagement Party. Wherever you get your podcasts.