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The Lead with Jake Tapper
Justice Dept. Issues Subpoenas For Nevada Voter Data; U.S. Targets Multiple Iranian Tankers Near Kharg Island; Trump Threatens To Ban Bombardier Jets From Selling In The U.S.; Rep. Suhas Subramanyam (D-VA), Is Interviewed About A.I. Companies Pledged Millions To Political Groups Ahead Of Election; Latino Voters Could Shape Colorado's 8th District; Trump On 9/11 Aftermath: Two Firemen "Literally Lifted Me Up". Aired 5-6p ET
Aired September 08, 2026 - 17:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KASIE HUNT, CNN HOST: All right, thanks so much to my panel. Really appreciate all of you being here. Thanks to all of you at home for watching as well. But don't go anywhere, Jake Tapper is standing by for "The Lead."
Hi, Jake. Let's not --
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Hey, Kasie.
HUNT: -- talk about Michigan and talk about week one for the Eagles.
TAPPER: I have -- I have no problem talking about Michigan.
HUNT: OK.
TAPPER: The clock -- there was a second left on the clock. I don't know what anybody's -- anyway, thank you, Kasie. We'll look for more tomorrow in "The Arena."
HUNT: Have a great show.
[17:00:33]
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Will the U.S. Supreme Court let Trump dictate who gets to vote and how and where? The Lead starts right now. Fifty- six days out from the midterm elections, what will the courts decide? Trump wants to dictate the voting process, but it's not just voting by mail at issue. The pending cases that could sway races come November.
And the dramatic new video captured moments after that Amazon cargo plane craft tragedy, a person on board running from the fiery scene. What investigators are saying today about the crash?
And President Trump has a new spin on his claims about 9/11. Spin is a nice word for it. And two big, strong guys who apparently whisked him away from trouble. Welcome to The Lead. I'm Jake Tapper. We start in our Law and Justice Lead where we're watching for the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on two of President Donald Trump's efforts to reshape how Americans vote. First, there's Trump's battle against allowing Americans to vote by mail, which the president himself has done twice this year. But who's counting?
On Sunday, the Trump administration filed a second emergency appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court asking for permission to allow the U.S. Postal Service plan for mail ballots to take effect immediately. Now, the U.S. Postal Service rule would require state and local election officials to upload lists of their mail voters, M-A-I-L voters, to a portal. A recent whistleblower report says the postal service will not deliver ballots for states if there are any discrepancies between the voter information in the USPS system and what is picked up by agency scanners on ballot envelopes. Theoretically, that could delay large numbers of mail in ballots and create complete chaos.
And to underscore just how last minute and complex this issue is, technically, the midterms are already underway. I mean, North Carolina started mailing out ballots to voters last week. Alabama will start tomorrow, followed by five more states on Sunday. Now, the degree to which this is actually a national security crisis needing the president's intervention is contradicted by the facts, illegal veiling -- illegal voting is incredibly rare. To underscore that, on Sunday, the FBI director posted on social media that the FBI had tracked down five people in three states who voted illegally in two elections, 2022 and 2024.
That's right, five people out of 270 million ballots cast in 2022 and 2024. Five.
Either way, answers in this case could come as soon as tomorrow and as soon as today, we could get answers on another consequential voting case. The other extraordinary step that the president's been pushing, trying to lessen his party's potential losses this November, the unusual mid-decade redistricting wars that he kicked off.
Missouri officials are now urging the U.S. Supreme Court to reinstate the newly drawn congressional map that includes an additional seat for Republican members of Congress. This is the latest emergency case to reach the high court tied to President Trump's nationwide redistricting fight mid-decade. Missouri asked the Supreme Court to resolve this case by next Monday, relying in part on a federal law that dictates the timing for mailing overseas and military ballots. Then, of course, there's the Trump administration investigating alleged voter fraud in nine states, including battleground state Nevada. The Justice Department issued several subpoenas to Nevada's secretary of state seeking voter information.
It's not clear exactly what information the Department of Justice wants from those subpoenas, but this follows a ton of baseless allegations of mass voter fraud that the president has been making for, frankly, decades.
Joining us now to discuss Nevada's Democratic Secretary of State, Cisco Aguilar.
Mr. Secretary, you oversee Nevada elections. You say your office has gotten seven voter related Justice Department subpoenas from the FBI over just the last three months. What is the Justice Department alleging? What information are they seeking from your office?
[17:05:08]
FRANCISCO AGUILAR (D), NEVADA SECRETARY OF STATE: Well, unfortunately, I can't speak to the details of the subpoenas, but I can tell you there are seven of them and it's related to voter information. We want to make sure that we're not disclosing more information to the DOJ than we have to. You know, we've been in this battle with DOJ about private voter information. They originally sued us. We won that case, so have 22 other states.
Again, we don't know what this fishing expedition is, but we know it's an act of desperation to control the midterm elections because '26 is critical to the '28th election.
TAPPER: So you have said these subpoenas are overwhelming states ahead of the midterms. Obviously, you're, you're. This is the busy time of year. It's after Labor Day. You're getting ready for the midterm elections.
Practically, what is the actual impact it's having on Nevada's elections having to deal with all these subpoenas?
AGUILAR: Well, it's a staff capacity issue. Our staff should be focused on educating voters about the upcoming election, getting that engagement ready to go, making sure we're delivering mail ballots to our military members serving overseas, which go out next week. We should really be focused on the administration of the election. But I think this administration is desperate and they're trying to impact and put their thumb on the scale to ensure we're taking our eye off the ball and not managing our elections like we should or that Nevada voters deserve to have.
But that's wrong. We are just working harder to make sure we're doing our job double well and making sure that Nevada voters have an experience that they can know and have confidence in the overall election process and that their ballots get counted.
TAPPER: You have a Republican governor, has he -- has he been helpful at all to you?
AGUILAR: We were actually in Fallon, Nevada yesterday for Labor Day and we had a quick conversation. I gave him a quick update on where we are with the subpoenas and the most recent letter that I received from the DOJ, one telling me that I am personally under investigation by the DOJ for our elections processes, which I kind of wear as a badge of honor. Again, it's about intimidation. If you look at the over the year and all the occurrences that came from DOJ, starting with the request for private voter information, you know, the threat of DHS and the secretary going on T.V. saying he was going to put us in prison if we didn't comply with our wishes, we pushed back on that. You saw the video that Nevada met with DHS. We asked them to show their work. They couldn't show their work. So we know we're not working with people who truly care about the future of our elections. All they want to do is disrupt, to create a sense of chaos so they then have a challenge and an opportunity to contest the elections when they perform poorly.
TAPPER: If these seven Justice Department subpoenas had come after the midterm elections, would you still take issue with them?
AGUILAR: Absolutely. I think everything they're trying to do is not within the law. We know that we're following the law in Nevada. We know what we're doing is what we're required to do.
Again, we're in a situation where they don't believe in the rule of law. And that's showing as we go through these court cases, we continue to win. We continue to show that we're doing what's right and we're continuing to deliver for the American people to ensure they continue to have access to the ballot box.
TAPPER: You reported a decrease of more than 50,000 active registered voters during August 2026 compared to July 2026. And you've said this is largely due to voter list maintenance, which often happens ahead of an election. Do you have concerns about those numbers being more significant than usual?
AGUILAR: I don't. Because what we're doing is we're doing what we're required to do by state and federal law. This is what we're required to do as elections officials to make sure we have some of the best voter vote -- voter rolls in the country. As you know, Nevada is a very transient state, so we have more of a duty and obligation to do what we need to do within the law. Nevada has completely replaced its inflection system since 2020.
We have a brand new voter registration, election management system. We have a new, you know, process for voters to vote in person, which are called ballot marking devices. The fact that we've invested in our elections, and it's not me just saying that Nevada has some of the best elections, MIT recently ranked Nevada's elections second in the country for everything that we've done. And so we're going to continue to do what we're responsible to do to make sure our elections are safe, secure and accessible.
Accessibility doesn't have to come at the cost of safety and security. We can do what's in the best interest of the state and the best interest of the country.
TAPPER: Nevada's Democratic Secretary of State, Francisco Aguilar, thank you so much, sir. Appreciate it.
Let's go to our national lead now because we're standing by for new details into Sunday's tragic crash of an Amazon cargo plane in Miami. It killed five people, injuring five others. The NTSB is going to host a news conference in just a few hours.
There were no mayday calls before the plane overshot the Runway, careening through a chain link fence and concrete barriers and then hitting a van on airport grounds and an SUV, which was just outside airport grounds. Today we learned that the five people killed were all inside that van, which was owned by an airline cleaning contractor. The victims ranged in age from 47 to 75. The company says it's heartbroken and that the employees who lost their lives were like family.
[17:10:18]
The two pilots are among the five others injured and they've since been released from the hospital. Three others are still being treated, too, in critical condition. New video also reveals a stunning moment right after the crash. It appears to show a crew member jumping from the plane, then quickly getting away from the crash site.
Let's get right to CNN Aviation Correspondent Pete Muntean. He's at Miami International where this press conference is going to take place in a few hours.
Pete, crews retrieved the aircraft's black box. How could that help investigators?
PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, that press conference, Jake, was moved back by about three hours, meaning we'll likely get more meat tonight from National Transportation Safety Board investigators about what was on the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder. They were retrieved here late yesterday, then put on a 7:22 p.m. flight to Washington Reagan National Airport outside D.C. then taken to the NTSB's Recorder Laboratory in L'Enfant Plaza, where the analysis has been taking place today. We'll likely get the broad strokes, the bullet points from what was on the voice recorder and the data recorder. Did the pilots realize that, that they were coming in too high, that they were coming in too fast? Was there any attempt to abort the landing?
And what was the actual speed of the plane as it barreled off of the Runway here and across Northwest 67th Avenue and into a parking lot? So many big questions here. And National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy says urge a little bit of caution. Might need to wait and see what is in the actual data before reaching any big conclusions. Listen.
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JENNIFER HOMENDY, NTSB CHAIRWOMAN: We should have all that data hopefully to provide later today. But I would caution everybody to hang on until we have the actual data in hand before drawing any conclusions.
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MUNTEAN: The recovery operation has ended here, meaning that NTSB investigators can begin their work at pace. This is their first full day on the scene here, Jake. One sad superlative we've been able to pull out of this investigation, the five who were killed in that van that likely makes this the single worst airplane crash involving airport workers in the U.S. in the modern era.
TAPPER: Pete, let's talk about the new video because it does appear to show a crew member jumping from the plane, then quickly running from the crash site. Do we have any idea who that person is and where they were going other than away from the plane?
MUNTEAN: The Miami Dade Sheriff's office have identified the pilots, Jaime Felipe Silva Molina, 37 years old, and Joseph Carroll, 55 years old, who were on board that plane. They escaped the plane clearly to get away from the fact that it was on fire. The right wing and the right engine on fire. This airplane presumably carrying a lot of fuel. It is a huge hulk of a plane.
We're talking 156 foot wingspan. A 767 is not a small airplane. And the protocol is to get away from fire very quickly.
The other thing here, and there are a few telltales in this video, you can see that the thrust reversers, the sleeve on the side of the engine nacelles, those are not deployed, meaning it would make it harder for this airplane to slow down. And the spoilers that come up on the top of the wing, they're also not deployed, according to this video. So investigators are going to look at that. Also the physical evidence here and, and the bevy of other videos out there on social media to try and begin to piece together this wreckage and information to figure out exactly what went wrong here.
TAPPER: All right, Pete Muntean in Miami, thank you so much.
Breaking news in our World Lead, U.S. officials are confirming new U.S. strikes on Iran's Kharg Island, targeting Iranian oil tankers. New details just coming in. We'll bring them to you. Plus, President Trump's new threat to our neighbor Canada that could hurt him at home in deep red states. Stay with us.
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[17:18:02]
TAPPER: Some breaking news in our World Lead, the U.S. military, we are told, targeted multiple Iranian tankers near Kharg Island earlier today. That's a key piece of land in the Persian Gulf. CNN National Security Analyst Alex Plitsas joins us now.
Alex, so a U.S. official tells us that this is in response to attempted missile attacks on a U.S. navy warship by the Iranians. What are you hearing?
ALEX PLITSAS, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: So that is what I'm hearing as well. And this is the second such attempted attack, one over the weekend and then one that was undisclosed as of yesterday. And there's some concerns that the Iranians may be getting some outside technical assistance from a state actor such as either China or Russia, and that these missiles, these new missiles, as they're calling it, could be using electro optical seekers, in which case they would still need to have general direction of the ships. But that's an advancement that they hadn't previously seen. This is now strike number two in the last couple days. And so the U.S. I think, was sending a clear message back to the Iranians that they're not going to get away with it.
TAPPER: Kharg Island has been a consistent flashpoint. At one point, President Trump weighed even putting U.S. troops on the ground there. Remind us why Kharg Island is so important.
PLITSAS: Exactly. So it is incredibly important. If we look at the imagery that's now up on screen, you'll see Kharg Island is all the way up at the top of the Arabian Gulf there, the Persian Gulf, as though -- as you'll see, and that's the loading station for about 90 percent of the oil from Iran that comes out of there. So the idea was behind seizing it. If, you know, U.S. forces were to seize the terminals there themselves, the Iranians would want to blow up their ability to actually get oil out and the U.S. would then kind of negotiate over its release.
At least that was the concept being discussed or floated. And the president's tweeted multiple times, or at least his Truth Social post, that he would, you know, blow it up potentially in retaliation for things happening. He released an image of AI generated image of Kharg Island suggesting that it could be hit. And I think it was a warning to the Iranians following two attempted attacks on ships that we -- U.S. naval ships we just talked about. And then to back that up, he now hit the tankers around the island, I think, to further that message to the Iranians that if they keep this up Kharg Island is next.
But now we're hearing -- have just warned ships in the region around Kuwait and other places that they could be struck in response to this latest U.S. attack. So this could actually now see an escalatory pattern of violence coming shortly.
[17:20:11]
TAPPER: All right, Alex Plitsas, thank you so much.
Turning to our Money Lead, the U.S.-Canada trade war is escalating again. At 12:01 this morning, Canada imposed retaliatory 15 to 50 percent tariffs on roughly $20 billion worth of U.S. goods, including steel, milk, golf clubs and clothes. And now President Trump is threatening Canadian jet maker Bombardier posting, quote, "If they want our market, they must build here and stop treating America like a piggy bank," unquote. The Montreal based aerospace company is now pointing out its significant footprints in states across the United States.
Joining us now is Adam Hamilton. He's the Kansas Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate.
So, Adam, thank you for joining us. I don't need to tell you, Bombardier employs --
ADAM HAMILTON (D), KANSAS SENATE CANDIDATE: Jake.
TAPPER: -- more than 1,000 people in Wichita, Kansas. What would the economic fallout be if Trump were to put this ban into place?
HAMILTON: It's a disaster. It's one more way in which the president's policies, supported by Roger Marshall, my opponent in the race, are hurting Kansas. Thousand, 1,200, 1,500 Kansans working for Bombardier, their headquarters in the United States, in Wichita, and then every one of those has a whole series of other jobs that are dependent upon them. It's a disaster. Everyone is upset in Kansas about this.
TAPPER: You're running this November against Senator Marshall, as you pointed out. He and the other Kansas senator, Jerry Moran, both say that they've reached out to the White House about this potential ban. Senator Marshall wrote this morning about the White House, quote, "We agree on the mission, bring more good paying manufacturing jobs back to Wichita. America buys more than half of what Bombardier sells. If that's the market, more of those planes should be built here," unquote.
What's your take on this?
HAMILTON: Yes, well, first of all, so he's supporting what the president's saying and in essence threatening Canada that they need to move their operations here to build their airplanes. It's again, it's a no win for Kansas. This is not going to happen. And instead, what's going to happen is we could risk losing 1,200 jobs in Kansas or more.
What should have happened was immediately after the president made his announcement, Roger Marshall should have been on the phone like Jerry Moran was, our other senator. He was on the phone saying, hey, this is not good for Kansas. But instead, there's a tepid response from Roger Marshall. He should have been fighting for the people of Kansas not fighting for the president and his erratic way of imposing tariffs and threatening our best trading partners.
Four billion dollars worth of trade comes from Kansas into Canada every year. And this is at risk because of these decisions. And Roger Marshall needs to speak up and say this is not OK.
TAPPER: There was a New York Times story today about your opponent, Senator Marshall, saying that according to court records, Senator Marshall, who was an OBGYN, that according to records, he sued more than 700 patients of his over outstanding bills. Eighty-one of those patients were arrested for missing court dates. The New York Times reports that some of these were new mothers, most living in a rural area with high rates of impoverished and uninsured residents.
We asked Senator Marshall's office about this and they said, quote, "For decades, Dr. Marshall delivered over 5,000 babies in rural Kansas and treated every single patient who came through the doors, regardless of their ability to pay. Judges issue warrants when people repeatedly miss court dates, not doctors. Any other suggestion is a gross mischaracterization," unquote.
Obviously, Senator Marshall campaigns on his history as a rural OBGYN who accepted Medicaid dollars. What did you make of this report?
HAMILTON: Yes, so this is -- this was horrifying. So one of those women was an eight month pregnant woman who was -- who, you know, authorities came to arrest her in front of her children. She begged them, please don't put me in handcuffs in front of my kids. I mean, this is, you know, people being sued for $100. It may be judges that sign warrants, but doctors are the ones who insist on being paid and suing people if they're not.
And again, 700 people, these are low income folks. But what's interesting about this is Roger Marshall, in addition to the fact that he was charging them 18 percent interest, is the fact that he also supported rolling back the subsidies on people in the Affordable Care Act. So today, between that and taking away benefits for people on Medicaid, a trillion dollars worth of cuts over 10 years, we have a man who's suing people who can't afford to pay --
TAPPER: I think we lost our guest there. Thank you so much. And we will extend not only Adam Hamilton an invitation to come back and finish his thought, but an invitation to Senator Marshall as well.
[17:24:47]
Coming up next, we're going to go live to the world's largest data center hub. We're going to talk to a congressman who's trying to put limits on at least some of this big box construction. Stay with us.
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TAPPER: In our Tech Lead, AI companies are flooding this year's midterm elections with cash, pledging more than $265 million to Super PACs and political groups that then support people who support them. This is according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. This month, a new Democratic, that's Democratic, as in the party Democratic, Super PAC raised more than $10 million to try to support House candidates in swing districts who back safeguards against AI and limits on data center construction. The spending blitz comes as AI data centers have grown widely unpopular among Americans across the political spectrum. An NBC News poll found 69 percent of Americans oppose building the facilities in their communities.
[17:30:27]
And despite the growing bipartisan backlash, President Trump pushed back on Truth Social last week, saying communities that reject data centers are destined to become backward and poor, while those that want to be successful must let data reign.
Let's bring in Virginia Democratic Congressman Suhas Subramanyam. Congressman, you represent parts of Loudoun County, Virginia, which is home to what's known as Data Center Alley, the world's largest data center hub, hosting more than 200 data centers, roughly 70 percent of global internet traffic. So you're working on legislation aimed at curbing data centers. But before we get into your legislation, tell us what your constituents are telling you about the impacts that data centers are having on them.
REP. SUHAS SUBRAMANYAM (D-VA): Yes, my constituents are fed up. They're seeing their utility bills skyrocket because of you need to build the infrastructure for data centers. They're seeing an impact when it comes to noise. I'm at a school in our local community right now where you can hear the noise when the kids go to school every day, and they're talking about the impact on the environment.
There are so many negative impacts, and you can't call us NIMBYs. I mean, you know, the first 50, I think people weren't complaining, but now we're getting at hundreds right at this point, and it's having a real impact on people's lives at this point.
TAPPER: In just a few minutes, you're going to hold a news conference to talk about your national strategic data center plan, which, as I understand it, it's comprised of four bills to tackle the issue on multiple fronts. So tell us about that.
SUBRAMANYAM: Yes, we have to make sure that data centers pay for their own power. We'll start there. Right now, too many people are seeing their bills skyrocket because of the data centers and because of the power infrastructure. We're also seeing power lines go through communities.
We're having to choose here in Ashburn between putting it between on school property or in a residence area. And we also need to make sure that when data centers are talking about their impact, that we have real transparency and accountability there.
And finally, data centers are becoming an actual national security issue. You look at the Ukraine war in the Middle East. Data centers are the ones being targeted and bombed. And so I want to make sure that we're undergrounding some of these power lines, and the Department of Homeland Security is paying for that, and that we make sure that the communities around data centers are secured, too. And so we need to have a comprehensive solution. It needs to be at every level of government, too, not just Congress.
TAPPER: You're also on the House Oversight Committee. I want to ask you about this "Wall Street Journal" report that former Department of Homeland Security aide Corey Lewandowski, who worked under Kristi Noem in a variety of positions, that he acted as a shadow secretary, influencing major contracts as well as approaching senior officials from places like Qatar or the UAE, encouraging them to hire him on the side to assist them with issues that are under the purview of DHS.
Now, we should note Lewandowski calls the report politically driven, says the facts will speak for themselves. The Department of Homeland Security Inspector General is investigating Lewandowski. What is your reaction to this report as a member of the House Oversight Committee?
SUBRAMANYAM: Well, first, I don't trust any internal investigation in the Trump administration. This is also a pattern of the Trump administration of officials who are appointed, who are overstepping their bounds, who are corrupt, who are self-dealing. And so I want to make sure that there's a real investigation, and the Oversight Committee should do it. And if we're in the majority next year, Democrats, then we're going to make sure that he comes before our committee and answers the hard questions. TAPPER: Today on X, Oversight Democrats vowed to hold Lewandowski accountable. You're a member of the committee, but you guys are in the minority. How can you hold him accountable?
SUBRAMANYAM: That's a great question. In the end, we're not going to wait until next year. So we're going to launch our own investigations to the extent we can. We don't have subpoena power, but we can put pressure on the majority to do that. And we can also do our own investigations among Democrats, too. And part of that also means not just stopping at what has been reported, but looking deeper as well.
I serve on the Ethics Committee, too. And what we see sometimes is, you see one allegation, and you look deeper into it. You start to see five or six other things that happened as well. So I think that's true of this administration. Even the things that are being reported, I think, are just the surface of it. We need to go deeper.
TAPPER: Congressman Suhas Subramanyam, a Democrat of Virginia, thank you so much. Good to see you, as always.
[17:34:26]
Coming up next to a small town in Colorado, just outside Denver, how the actions of President Trump could impact a vulnerable House Republican there. He's trying to hold on to his seat in Congress. Stay with us.
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TAPPER: We're back with the election, music, in our Politics Lead. It's only 56 days until the midterm elections, and CNN's John King is revisiting Colorado's 8th congressional district in his great All Over the Map series.
This midterm battleground is happening in a 40 percent Latino district in Colorado, where both candidates are Latino. Republican incumbent Congressman Gabe Evans versus former progressive state representative Manny Rutinel, will test President Trump's 2024 game of Latino voters. Will those Latino voters stick with Republicans, or will this swing toward Democrats? Here's John King.
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JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Platteville, Colorado, population 3,000, a frontier outpost back when the railroad spread west, now a quiet ranching town with a giant say in the country's direction. Miko Rios took charge of the Silver Spur when his mother died last year. He is a registered Democrat and a 2024 Trump voter.
[17:40:06]
MIKO RIOS, COLORADO VOTER: But the charisma caught my attention. I felt like we were a little stagnant for a while, and I wanted some change.
KING: Secret recipe, just like the colonel.
RIOS: Exactly.
KING: OK, got it.
KING (voice-over): But margins are down and costs keep going up for everything, including flour for the homemade bread. Keep going up, despite Trump's 2024 promise they would come down quickly.
RIOS: I don't believe it has changed. The economy I feel like right now is hard for small businesses, and that's what our supplies, our insurance, our cost of living has gone up so much.
KING (voice-over): Platteville is in Colorado's 8th congressional district. Republican Gabe Evans is the first term incumbent, and the race is a toss up.
KING: Has Congress done anything in his first term to help you?
RIOS: Not that I can feel. Nothing comes to mind.
KING (voice-over): And yet registered Democrat Rios is undecided.
KING: Would you prefer a more moderate candidate, personally?
RIOS: I would.
KING (voice-over): Manny Rutinel is the Democratic candidate, a progressive who beat a moderate in the Democratic primary. Adams County is the blue southern end of Colorado 8, suburban neighborhoods within sight of the Denver skyline. Trump ran stronger among Latinos here in 2024, and that helped Congressman Evans.
Manny Tejada and his wife, Alexandra, are active in Hispanic community organizations. He is a Republican, but knows a lot of longtime Democrats who voted for Trump in 2024 because of inflation and because of Biden immigration policies.
MANNY TEJADA, COLORADO VOTER: When they opened the borders, that inflated, you know, like millions of migrants that you will see, you know, on the streets. So Hispanics have been here for decades. They saw that and they didn't like that.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, so the cost of the aluminum, I want to say three, four years, it's double or more.
KING (voice-over): Now costs are still going up, and Tejada says it is Trump's immigration policy and tone driving the conversation.
KING: You think it's going to swing back to the Democrats this time?
TEJADA: I think so. I think so.
KING: And the reasons why? People disappointed in Trump or disappointed in Evans? TEJADA: You know what, Trump -- mainly Trump. We're hardworking people, we're people of faith. So when you start attacking, you know, our community, then everybody, you know, comes together and says, hey, this is not right.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KING: It's a fascinating district, literally one of a handful of 50-50 districts across the country, a true bellwether battleground. We were there about the 100-day mark of the Trump presidency back in 2025. There is no question among the Latino voters and in the community, you feel a swing to the Democrats. It was wait and see at 100 days. Now the tone on ICE, the tone on immigration, the continued high costs are working against Trump. But Manny Rutinel, the Democrat, is not close to the deal. He's a newcomer to the race. He's in the state legislature. But this district was first a Democrat, 1,600 votes, then a Republican, 2,400 votes. Look for another close one.
TAPPER: Interesting. John, stick around.
We have some breaking news in our Law and Justice Lead now. The U.S. Supreme Court just weighed in on the state of Missouri's request to be able to use its new redistricted congressional map that theoretically would benefit Republicans in the midterm elections. Let's get straight to CNN's Tom Foreman. Tom, how did the U.S. Supreme Court decide? Are they allowing this new redistricting, more pro-Republican map to take effect?
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: No, they are not. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who handles emergency cases from that part of the Midwest, stepped up and with no comment, simply said, no, we're not going to allow this to go forward. There were no dissents from anyone else on the court. This had previously been supported by the Missouri State Supreme Court, which unanimously said this had been handled improperly.
The story, in simple order, is this. The President put out this appeal for states with strong Republican leadership to step up and redistrict. In Missouri, the redistricting plan they came up with would have likely changed the vote there from being six Republican- held congressional seats and two Democratic to seven Republican seats and one Democratic through this redistricting effort.
However, there were activists in the state who collected 300,000 signatures and said, we believe this should be put up to a vote of the people, that it shouldn't be just up to the legislature. The Secretary of State there waited until the last possible day to say, no, no, no, we won't allow that. We're going to go forward with our plan.
The appeal went to the state Supreme Court, which said this was a perfectly valid appeal and it should be put up to the people. And now the Supreme Court has weighed in the same. So that's one seat that the Republicans do not seem to be able to grab through this redistricting effort, even though, of course, it still had to be up to the voters. But it's a setback for the Trump administration, that's for sure. Jake? TAPPER: All right, Tom Foreman, thanks so much.
[17:44:43]
Coming up next, President Trump's wild new 9/11 related claims. What he claims to remember 25 years later about some sort of big, strong guys who he is now saying rescued him from rubble.
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TAPPER: Back in our Politics Lead earlier today, President Trump, in his way, remembered victims and honored 9/11 first responders on the South Lawn of the White House, and as the nation prepares to commemorate 25 years since those horrible terrorist attacks, the President made this claim.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This United States steel building was creaking, really creaking, and we thought it was going to fall down. We thought it was coming down on top of us, and two firemen, big strong guys, and I'm not the smallest guy in the world, they grabbed me under the arm and said, got to get out of here, and they literally lifted me up. This is not easy to do. I'm big. They lifted me up and they started running with me. I said, fellas, I can run myself.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: As CNN's fact checker Daniel Dale pointed out, Trump was nowhere near the World Trade Center when it was hit. Trump was in Trump Tower near One Liberty Plaza. One Liberty Plaza was formerly known as the U.S. Steel Building. Authorities deemed that building structurally sound in the days following the 9/11 attacks.
Our panel joins us now. John King, we should note that Daniel Dale also noted that in 2016, President Trump said that this alleged incident happened a couple days after 9/11. He claimed the creaky building was not so far from us. Trump's also repeatedly claimed he and his workers were at ground zero helping in the recovery aftermath of 9/11. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Well, I have over 100 men working here, and we have another 100 coming in a little while, so I'm just spurring them on a little bit. I just got out. I just came from, as you call it, ground zero. It's terrible.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: That's President Trump two days after 9/11. But we should note, people at ground zero have said they never saw President Trump or any Trump-organized crew on the side.
KING: He also back in the day said something about seeing Muslims celebrating back in those days.
TAPPER: American Muslims, yes.
KING: And no one could back up those claims as well. As you know, this is not breaking news. The President has a history of exaggerating and saying things and injecting himself into big major events when there's no evidence that he had any place in the big major events. The 25th anniversary of 9/11 in a very contentious midterm election year. If I were a political advisor, I'm not. I would say not smart, not helpful.
On a number of fronts, you hear Republicans questioning the President's focus and his words. Why is he saying things and why is he doing things that a smart Republican would tell you are counterproductive to an already very difficult midterm election year?
TAPPER: Mike Dubke, President Trump also said this during an interview on "Fox." It aired on Sunday. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: And I went down and I was building a building in New York and I had a lot of construction workers and I went down there very shortly thereafter the following day. You couldn't go down the same day, but like the following day, very, very quickly afterwards. And we worked long and hard, but it was just so terrible and so hopeless.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[17:50:15]
TAPPER: We also remember President Trump, I think on 9/11, called in to, I believe it was CNN, but it might have been a different channel, talking about how with the Twin Towers down now he had the tallest building in New York, which wasn't actually true, but also kind of not the point. What's your take on it all?
MIKE DUBKE, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: My take is you have a storyteller trying to connect with his audience today. He was at an event commemorating 25 years after the fact and talking and giving an award to first responders in the memory of the heroics of that day. So to John's point, he sometimes gets ahead of himself, away from himself, and that's, as I sit here today with you, Jake, is probably the best spin I can put on it.
TAPPER: Maria, what do you think?
MARIA CARDONA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It's Trump being Trump. He cannot help himself to, again, John's point, putting himself in the middle of everything, putting himself in the middle of this commemoration. Not the families, not the first responders. He mentioned them, but everything, all of the exaggeration, all of the lies were about him and how he had to be carried out there.
TAPPER: Meanwhile, Rudy Giuliani, who was hailed as a hero of sorts after 9/11, he was Time Magazine Man of the Year for how he responded as the outgoing mayor. He has now said that he doesn't think the current mayor, Zohran Mamdani, should be at the commemoration. There are some, not all, not even necessarily most, but some 9/11 families feeling that way as well. Here was Mayor Mamdani's response.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAYOR ZOHRAN MAMDANI (D), NEW YORK: I'm proud to be the mayor of this city. I love this city. I love this country. And what I want this week to be a focus on is on the families whose loved ones were stolen from them 25 years ago in the horrific act of terror of September 11th, and a focus also on the first responders who gave everything they could to this city and to the people who came together to try and help their fellow New Yorkers.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: Now, we should note, I mean, some of the objections that people have to Mayor Mamdani there are not rooted in only anti-Muslim bigotry. I mean, he did campaign with Hasan Piker, who said that America deserved 9/11. There are actually associations that people don't like. But what's your take on this?
CARDONA: I think he should attend. He is the rightful elected mayor of New York. And unlike Trump, everything that he has said thus far about the commemoration has been about the families, has been about the first responders. Today he announced money or a study that talked about how the city had lied to first responders and the families about how it was so dangerous.
TAPPER: Yes, the air quality.
CARDONA: Yes, the air quality. And he commemorated the day as a day of remembrance. So everything that he has done thus far has been about the families. They even asked him about Rudy Giuliani's comment about him. And he could have gone political because Rudy Giuliani has absolutely no credibility to talk about what's best for anyone in this country, given what he has done since then. But he refused to do that. He said, you know what? I'm not going to say anything about that. My focus is on the families.
TAPPER: What do you think?
DUBKE: I think one of the best memories, if you can even put it that way, of the aftermath of 9/11 25 years ago was the country coming together and people putting away their differences. And so to the current mayor of New York commemorating 25 years ago this horrific act of terror and stating such as he did, I think is a fine act for him to be there on that day.
I can understand some people may be a little uneasy because of other things that he has said in the years in between. But I think the current mayor should be there. And commemorating the heroics of the aftermath of that day.
TAPPER: What do you make of it all?
KING: I agree with your point that anyone who associates with people who espouse hate or espouse conspiracy theories, if you're in elected office, guess what? You're going to be asked about that the entire time you're in elected office and you ran for office, you have to answer the question.
TAPPER: Yes.
KING: Whether you're the mayor of New York, Senate candidate in Michigan and so on and so forth. I think if there is any slice of Islamophobia here, I would remind people covering the White House in those days. You remember what George W. Bush said after which I thought was a very presidential thing to say is that the terrorists had corrupted had, you know, bastardized a great faith and a faith of peace. And he wished that people would focus on the terrorists, not Islam.
TAPPER: And Mike, earlier I just want to ask you about the piece that John did about Colorado's 8th congressional district, Republican incumbent Congressman Gabe Evans versus former progressive state representative Manny Rutinel, both Latino. The district is 40 percent Latino. How worried are Republicans about losing the considerable gains that they made with Republicans, especially, I mean, with Latinos, especially Latino men in 2024?
[17:55:17]
DUBKE: Yes. Look, I think that Republicans need to be worried about it in the sense that that is part of the coalition that elected both the President in '24 and secured both houses of Congress for the Republicans. But I think what's very interesting, and this is the point I really want to make about the Latino vote, I do think that there are inroads Republicans can make not pandering to the Latino vote.
And I think sometimes Democrats, and this is where I'm waiting for you to jump in, sometimes Democrats can take to pandering to minority groups in a way that Republicans can take advantage of. I think in terms of being socially conservative with some of the male Latino voters, that they should continue to go after that cohort.
CARDONA: But right now, we are in a very critical moment where we've seen Donald Trump's numbers crater with the general public, but with Latino voters, they are doing that and more. And in fact, it is such a swing that Latino voters are looking at Trump and they're saying, we gave you a chance on the economy and on immigration, you betrayed us. And they are now looking at Democrats as the ones who can deliver on these. And so we're going to have to demonstrate that we can do that. But right now, we're in a very good position with Latinos.
TAPPER: Thanks to all. Appreciate it. Muchos gracias.
CARDONA: De nada, Jake.
TAPPER: A big programming announcement, CNN is hosting a debate in the race for California governor. Dana Bash and I are going to moderate that. Look for this to happen. It's going to be on Wednesday, September 30th, Wednesday, September 30th, at 6:00 p.m. Pacific, 9:00 p.m. Eastern. We're going to carry it live on CNN and CNN International and CNN Espanol and the streaming CNN app.
This is a busy day for politics, also an Election Day for an open Senate seat in New Hampshire. And then in Texas, that first ever Republican midterm convention kicks off tomorrow. You know what I'm talking about? Well, we're going to talk about it all next.
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