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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Cornell Students Hold Public Hearing Amid Fraternity Rape Probe; Cornell Gang Rape Allegations Puts Focus On Campus Sexual Assault; Stabbed Pilot Hailed As A Hero After Flydubai Attack. Aired 5-6p ET

Aired October 01, 2026 - 17:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[17:00:07]

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Thanks very much for my panel. Really appreciate all of you being here.

Thanks to you at home for watching as well. Don't forget, you can now stream The Arena live. You can catch up whenever you want. It's all on the CNN app. You can scan that QR code on your screen.

You can also catch up by listening to The Arenas podcast. You can follow us on X and Instagram. We are @thearenacnn. Don't go anywhere. The Lead anchored today by Pamela Brown starts right now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN Breaking News.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to The Lead. I'm Pamela Brown, in for Jake Tapper, who is on assignment. And we start with the breaking news and the Law and Justice League.

A public hearing happening right now in Ithaca, New York, home to Cornell University students, faculty, and the community. All invited. And many are voicing their outrage over the university's handling of the alleged 2024 Chi Phi fraternity gang rape of a former student identified as Jane Doe. And this comes as we learn several new details about this case.

A warning much of this new reporting is disturbing. RJ Tapper confirms Snapchat messages allegedly exchanged between fraternity members also include a photo of the accuser in a room at the frat house. The Snapchat messages also include graphic messages. And in one, one person asked, quote, "Shop still open?"

A source close to the investigation told CNN a more thorough criminal investigation might have recovered other photos or videos before they disappeared from Snapchat. And there are also new documents from Cornell University's private 2024 Title IX investigation. The New York Times obtained these documents, and sources are confirming some of the contents to CNN, such as a text that Jane Doe allegedly sent to one of the fraternity members, concluding that she was assaulted. And in October 2024, she wrote, "Let's be clear that 90 percent of what happened that night was not consensual. I was given more key than I can remember," she said, using slang for ketamine.

She continued, "And I know that I told you I felt uncomfortable and I didn't know anyone in the room." And according to the Times, the documents show that four days later Jane Doe went to an emergency room in Ithaca and requested a rape kit. CNN's Jason Carroll has more on these new findings and the host of new questions they now raise.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voiceover): Cornell University under increased scrutiny following a report that a crucial part of the school's internal Investigation omitted Jane Doe's statement. "I can say with 100 percent confidence I was raped." That allegation not included in what the university handed over to the district attorney.

SAM BELLIVEAU, GRADUATE STUDENT AT CORNELL UNIVERSITY: The common sentiment is that there's like a moral failing.

LESLIE BAKER, STUDENT AT CORNELL UNIVERSITY: People are just like really frustrated that it's taking a whole lawsuit for these people to be held accountable and that for the survivor to get the justice that she deserves.

CARROLL (voiceover): Students reacting to a New York Times report which revealed the school gathered more than 1,000 pages of materials from an internal investigation in 2024, which included a transcript of campus police interviews with Jane Doe, interviews with Chi Phi fraternity members accused of sexually assaulting her, along with emails and text messages.

The Times report says Jane Doe spoke for hours to a Cornell police investigator as well as an investigator for the school's Title 9 office. According to the Times, the transcript of their conversation stretches about 120 pages.

The DA telling CNN Wednesday, "We never received it and still don't have it. It was not part of what Cornell provided to us. We got the six-page statement and nothing more except the Snapchat video."

The Snapchat was allegedly sent from Chi Phi members asking others to join in on the alleged assault. Cornell's investigation also revealed Jane Doe documented her injuries. Two weeks after the 2024 incident, she went to an emergency room for a pelvic exam. She also went to the school's health clinic for treatment of a urinary tract infection, telling a doctor she had contracted the infection in a traumatic way.

The material reviewed by the time showing Jane Doe went to police after she saw online comments about what happened to her that night at the Chi Phi house, saying members were gang-banging. Jane Doe, saying, "That's kind of when I came to the realization that I had been gang raped, gang assaulted, whatever you want to call it. That's what happened."

Cornell's investigation revealed Jane Doe planned to go back to the Chi Phi house the following week after the alleged assault for a Halloween party. Her attorney telling CNN it was all part of processing what had happened. "She was still in the denial stage. She could not accept what had happened to her."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CARROLL: And Pamela, right now I'm outside a building here on campus where a student assembly is taking place. And during this assembly, students here will have the opportunity to make public statements. They're expected to make public statements about the case. But I can tell you just from talking to so many students here on campus, they're expressing a great deal of frustration. Frustration directed at campus.

Police, directed at administrators, who they feel as though have been basically absent in terms of addressing this issue publicly in front of students. Pamela.

[17:05:26]

BROWN: And on that note, Jason, do we know if the university president will be there?

CARROLL: No, the university president not expected to be here. And in fact, I mean, I think that's one of the criticisms many of the students have here on campus. They're still waiting for the university president and others from the administration to come forward and publicly address many of the deep concerns that students have here on campus, pamela.

BROWN: All right, Jason Carroll, thank you so much. Well, my next guest says that she was drugged and sexually assaulted at a University of Texas at Austin fraternity party back in 2014. After learning state law made prosecution extremely difficult, she turned to advocacy, running 29 marathons before turning 30, and at one point dropping to her hands and knees, crawling 13 miles to raise awareness for sexual assault survivors.

Her efforts pushed Texas lawmakers to pass the Summer Willis Act, which says consent is absent when someone knows or should know that another person is incapacitated or impaired. Sexual assault survivor and advocate Summer Willis joins us now.

Summer, thank you so much for coming on. You have spoken publicly about the systemic failures you have faced as the Cornell investigation unfolds so publicly and with details that echo your own experience. I just first want to ask how you're doing.

SUMMER WILLIS, ACTIVIST AND SEXUAL ASSAULT ABUSE SURVIVOR: It's been a really tough week in the survivor community, not just because what happened to Jane Doe is horrific, but also because these stories happen again and again all over the country, and nothing's really changed regarding the laws. And so, it's going to keep on happening again unless we all come together. So, it's been heavy.

BROWN: Yes. And in Texas, you actually helped change the law there with your advocacy. But in New York, the Tompkins County District Attorney says the voluntary intoxication exclusion constrained his office from bringing criminal charges because he says Jane Doe voluntarily consumed the alcohol and drugs.

Now, she says she was pressured, but you've spent years trying to close that same loophole in New York. Why do you think change has been so much harder there? And with this Cornell investigation back in the spotlight, are you hearing any new willingness from lawmakers to act?

WILLIS: Yes. I honestly do not understand why it's so hard to pass a bill that says intoxication does not equal consent. I think our society on a whole agrees with the morality that what happened to Jane Doe is a rape, but our laws haven't caught up. New York is one of 23 states that has this intoxication loophole.

So I'm really hoping that Governor Hochul can be a champion and put this bill addressing this that we've been trying to pass for the last decade on her state of the state priorities so that finally, if you know a young college woman or anyone is voluntarily intoxicated, she still has an opportunity, or he has an opportunity at justice.

BROWN: Cornell is also facing questions about how it handled this alleged incident. What concerns do you have about the university's response and what it should have done differently?

WILLIS: I mean, I think it raises serious questions that they knew about this, and it wasn't until national media started covering this story that they decided to do anything about it. So, we really need to start holding universities more accountable.

BROWN: And some of the men we know from the reporting, they were expelled or suspended. There were varying levels of punishments from the university. Why wasn't that enough, in your view?

BROWN: Because of the definition of consent. Because if we don't update our consent laws, a very similar thing happened to me 12 years ago. But because one person handed me a drink I voluntarily took, and another person raped me, it didn't count. Because unless we close these loopholes, your rape has to have very specific -- your rape has to have a very specific story, if you will, or framework.

[17:10:27]

And so, in New York, it's only if it's super physically aggressive, if you were basically drugged. And there's one more instance, but it's so hard. I think only 1 percent of perpetrators actually face any real criminal consequences.

BROWN: All right, Summer Willis, thank you for coming on. We appreciate it.

WILLIS: Thank you so much for having me.

BROWN: And given the gravity and nature of the story, we want to remind folks trying to navigate a similar crisis. There are people who can help at the RAINN Network, short for Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network. Reach them anytime at rainn.org with two N's or call 1-800-656-HOPE.

All right. In our worldly brand new video shows moments inside that terrifying flight as a co-pilot attacked the captain and then tried to hijack the plane. Up next, hear from a mother who was on that flight.

And then later, President Trump's fight to keep his name on the Kennedy Center and the dramatic change in donations when the president's name was first put on the building. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:15:30]

BROWN: All right. Turning to our world lead, we are now hearing from one of the 174 people on that terrifying flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv, Israel. About two hours into the flight operated by Flydubai yesterday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says a radicalized pilot attacked the captain, stabbing him in the cockpit while trying to take control of the plane.

I want to bring in Lital Shahar. She was on that flight along with her four daughters.

Wow. First of all, how are you doing?

LITAL SHAHAR, PASSENGER ON FLYDUBAI FLIGHT: Exhausted. It's been very tough timing, and only today, me and my daughter started realizing what we've been through and everything that was happening and, like, connecting the dots. So, yes, it's tough, but we are okay.

BROWN: I'm so glad you're okay, but I'm sure it's going to take a while to process what you went through. When did you first realize something was terribly wrong?

SHAHAR: Immediately, when the lady started screaming that the pilot is stabbed and that she sees lots of blood. You know where Israel is. Unfortunately, we are alert to the situations, and we are so used to it. Immediately, all of us understood it's a terror attack on our plane.

BROWN: And what did you do? You're sitting there with your four daughters. And at that point, what did you do?

SHAHAR: I just started praying. First of all, I told them that we are in God's hands now. We need to pray. We need to believe.

We have to stay strong and calm ourselves in any way. You know, we were sitting in a row, so I didn't know where to put my hands. Who should I hold this bare hand first? Who needs a hug?

It was crazy moments. Really horrifying situation. I don't wish anyone to go through something like that.

BROWN: Oh, I don't either. I mean, it's any plane passenger's worst nightmare, right? And then this is happening, and the plane suddenly dropped. What was that like? Describe that feeling. SHAHAR: Oh, my God. You see the end. You just -- you just see your life.

I mean, I was shocked. I said, no, it's too early. It's not my time. It's not our time. And definitely nothing that way.

We just -- we felt that the end is coming.

BROWN: I've heard that from other passengers. They thought for sure they were going to die.

SHAHAR: Yes. Yes. When I'm saying the end, sorry if I was not clear. I prefer not to use those words because I'm so traumatized. But when I said we saw the end, we -- I meant we saw the death. That's the end.

BROWN: Well, fortunately, you and everyone else are okay. The pilot is recovering. What did you say to your daughters? And by the way, this is a video on the screen of the pilot getting medical care.

What did you say to your daughters? Especially your youngest, just five, after you realized you all were safe?

SHAHAR: What did I tell her?

BROWN: What did you tell your daughters? Like the plane drops and then you all were able to land, and everything was okay. What did you say to them?

SHAHAR: I told her that there was a bad guy on the plane that wanted to do something bad, but luckily, God is with us and kept us all alive and saved us. And just hugging her and kissing her, all the four of them. I still. As you said, we're still processing it. I don't know what it will take.

I don't know if we'll need a therapy. I don't know what will be. Also, myself, I was on automat working. I just did the best to make sure that my daughters are safe and want to be in panic.

BROWN: Yes, you really go into mom mode and want to protect them, I imagine. Wow. Lital Shahar, thank you for coming on. And I hope you seek whatever help that you need, as well as your daughters. It's just horrible that you had to go through that, but I'm glad you're okay.

SHAHAR: Yes, thank you so much. Thanks. Have a nice day.

BROWN: You too. Well, nearly nine months since the deadly shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis at the hands of an ICE agent, we're hearing from Good's partner for the first time what she is saying about her family's brand new effort to get justice.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRENT GANGER, RENEE GOOD'S BROTHER: We filed these two lawsuits today to put officials on notice that we have not forgotten.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: In our law and Justice League, the family of Renee Good, an American woman shot and killed by an ICE agent earlier this year, is now suing the U.S. Government and several top Trump officials. It's also the first time Renee Good's partner, Becca, has spoken out publicly since her killing.

[17:25:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BECCA GOOD, RENEE GOOD'S PARTNER: I don't hate the people who took Renee from us, but what I want them to understand. Every single day they get to look at their children and their wives and their sisters and know what they took from our family. They took a mother away from her children. They know that, and they will carry it forever.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: CNN's Whitney Wild was there for today's news conference in Minneapolis. So, tell us more about the two lawsuits and what Good's partner had to say, Whitney?

WHITNEY WILD, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CORRESPONDENT: Well, Pamela, these two lawsuits detail exactly the moments that led up to the shooting. And both of them allege that Renee Good never posed any real risk to those agents who were on the ground, including the agent who opened fire, a man named Jonathan Ross.

What the lawsuits also allege is that, through this interaction that the agents involved violated numerous DHS policies. They certainly violated Minnesota state law and the Constitution.

The first lawsuit is a Federal Tort Claims Act. That's being filed against the United States government. The second lawsuit is much broader, and it gives more context to the shooting with a timeline that actually goes all the way back to November of 2025. And the theory of that lawsuit is really that the Operation Metro surge was ill-conceived. It was reckless, and a death like Renee Good's death was the predictable outcome of such a reckless operation.

Pamela, as you said and as you just heard, this was the first time we heard from Becca Good. She gave a very emotional statement. She did not take any questions, but she spoke at length about what her life is like now. She has a 6-year-old son with Renee.

She says that they're going to have to go through Halloween, that little boy's favorite holiday, without his mother. That she got him ready for first grade without his mother, Renee. And she described how different their life is now, how much has been lost. Let's listen more to Becca Good.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) B. GOOD: She was the center of my universe. And living without her is

like trying to live without the sun. And you don't know how much light something gives you until it's gone. Think about how the kids are growing up without their mama.

Now I'll grow old without the love of my life. What happened to our family should not happen to any family. Regardless of who you are, who you voted for, or what you believe. Today we are taking a step to build the world Renee would have wanted.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WILD: Pamela the Trump administration is responding, saying that they intend to vigorously defend these baseless lawsuits. And then a White House spokeswoman also pointed to remarks that the President had made to CBS News in January in which he said, "I love all our people. I bet you that she, under normal circumstances, was a very solid, wonderful person, but, you know, her actions were pretty tough."

In that same interview, President Trump went on to defend ICE, saying that the job of those federal agents had become very difficult. Pamela, there continues to be an investigation here at the state level, so the search for accountability here in Minneapolis continues. Back to you.

BROWN: All right. Whitney Wild in Minneapolis, thank you.

A Florida congresswoman says she made a surprise visit to an immigration detention center. What she saw and what she says needs to change. Up next.

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[17:32:57]

BROWN: In our law and Justice Lead, the Supreme Court has agreed to take up another consequential immigration case. This one is over whether it's legal for the Trump administration to deny bond hearings to people who entered the U.S. illegally and hold them in detention centers, a policy that breaks from decades of practice and has led to a staggering increase of detained migrants from just under 38,000 at the end of the Biden administration to more than 65,000 this past summer.

Joining us now is Democrat from Florida, Congressman Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Good to see you, Congresswoman. So you just made a surprise visit to an ICE facility in Miramar, Florida, after a whistleblower report showed these horrible images of overcrowding and overflowing porta-potties. What did you see when you went there?

REP. DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ (D-FL), APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE: Well, Pamela, thanks for having me. I was just at the Miramar ICE check-in facility to do a surprise unannounced visit two months ago. When I was there two months ago, there were 70 men packed into a holding cell that they never leave. The lights are always on. They were wall to wall people, very tiny space, you know, 10 by 12 maybe, a toilet in the corner of the room and just gross overcrowding.

This is a facility that is not a detention center. It's only approved for 12 hours of holding until they transfer someone. But essential, detaining so many immigrants that they're even using places that were never designed to have a long term detention as those facilities. That picture you're showing right there is the Sally Port where they had hundreds of detainees shackled in leg irons, which I learned yesterday they are no longer there. And that just shows you the oversight has worked.

The whistleblower, coupled with the Democrats on the House Oversight Committee, unannounced visits like mine, they basically told me that they were able to pressure the D.C. ICE supervisors to help them get detainees out faster. But it's not because they're detaining fewer people. Instead, they're shipping people further away from their family members. So they aren't holding them as long.

[17:35:12]

And there was a court order that has said that they can't hold people there for more than 12 hours. Yet I know they still are. I asked someone and a couple of people in Spanish yesterday how long they had been there, and at least two of them said six days. And they acknowledged that they were holding some people there longer than 12 hours. So they're breaking the law.

BROWN: So you say they're breaking the law. You've been pressing Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and others about the conditions at a different, now closed facility in the Everglades known as Alligator Alcatraz, after there was this inspector general report released on September 11th that found detainees were kept in, "small metal enclosures." Are you going to push for an investigation on these facilities, into these facilities if Democrats win the House?

SCHULTZ: When Democrats win the House, and I expect we will win the House because of things like this. The fact that costs are exploding out of control, the momentum is with us in Florida. We're going to pick up seats that no one expected us to. We just had our first month of more voter registration by Democrats than Republicans, first time in 68 months.

And that's because people are fed up and tired of Republicans caring more about the wealthy and the fortunate and not about working folks and people who are just in the country trying to make a better way of life for them and their families. Pamela, the conditions I saw yesterday were disgusting, even though there were fewer people there, which resulted from the oversight, and there was sludge and dirt.

I asked them to remove the detainees from the holding cell so I could get a closer look. There was a broken faucet spewing water out of the top. I mean, dirty blankets on the floor. Clearly, no one's mopping. They don't get to change their clothes on a regular basis, all because this is not a detention facility, and so they don't have to follow the detention standards. And so it's like a vicious cycle. They don't -- if they're not a detention facility, they don't have to follow the detention standards, but they're still detaining people and holding them there for days. So this is an illegal facility being used unlawfully, treating people like you would, people you're torturing, and we have to bring it to a stop.

BROWN: I want to talk more about the midterms here because you decided to run in Florida's 20th district after the rare mid-decade redistricting. This 20th district is a deep blue seat represented by black lawmakers for decades. Congressional Black Caucus Chair Congresswoman Yvette Clarke told "Politico" in August, it was a "painful situation" to "have a beloved colleague who made a decision basically to run in a district where historically there's been CBC representation." And she said, I know that the community has been really disrupted by it. What do you say to that?

SCHULTZ: Well, I'm very grateful and thankful that I won the Democratic primary. It was a five way Democratic primary. I got 45 percent of the vote. I won the majority of the vote in the majority of black precincts all across District 20. And there's a reason for that. It's because I know the people in District 20 and they know me. I'm a Broward girl. I've represented Broward my whole adult life.

I didn't airdrop myself into this district. I've represented nine of the 14 cities. And what happened is that Republicans here in Florida, led by DeSantis and Trump, rigged our congressional map, came into Broward, blew up our congressional districts into smithereens because we're the bluest county in the state. And they wanted to diminish Broward County's political power. I was not going to allow them to do that.

BROWN: Well, Democrats have done similar moves elsewhere, by the way.

SCHULTZ: I was not going to steal --. Absolutely not.

BROWN: It was initiated by Republicans this term. But --

SCHULTZ: Exactly.

BROWN: But then Democrats followed suit.

SCHULTZ: Pamela, when we take over the majority, we will pass legislation to prohibit gerrymandering. That -- what Republicans did violates our state constitution. The voters put constitutional amendments called fair districts that prohibit the kind of political and anti-incumbent gerrymandering that they did here. They were -- they cynically blew up our districts so that they could artificially try to win elections that they know they would lose otherwise, like they're going to lose anyway because they have made life too expensive with housing, health care, groceries, gas and utilities.

That's what I heard all across Congressional District 20 when I knocked on doors and made phone calls. I just hung up with some voters who are supporting my reelection because they know I fight for them. They know I've gone to bat for them for decades and I'm going to continue to show up and fight for them always. [17:40:02]

BROWN: All right, Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz from Florida. Thank you so much. Appreciate you coming on.

SCHULTZ: Thanks, Pamela.

BROWN: All right. Right now, President Trump is back in Texas and we're standing by for him to speak in Denton, Texas, just north of Dallas. Today, we're also getting a new transcript of his recent interview with Time Magazine. What he said about his initial timeline for the war in Iran lasting four to six weeks. But now in month number seven, guess who he's blaming. Our panel will weigh in, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:45:00]

BROWN: All right. In our Politics Lead, President Trump just hit the stage in Texas. But in a new interview with Time Magazine, part of his message on the Iran war's original end date might be getting lost. Time asked, do you think the American people misunderstood that? I feel like most people heard you say four to six weeks. Trump said, no, I think the press vetted to them. Well, it was the other way around, obviously.

President Trump told our Jake Tapper in a phone interview on March 2nd, "I don't want to see it go on too long. I always thought it would be four weeks. And we're a little ahead of schedule." Trump said the same thing on camera later that day and in many more times in the coming weeks.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And we have, right from the beginning, we projected four to five weeks.

We estimated it would take approximately four to six weeks to achieve our mission.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The U.S. will be gone or done with the war in two or three weeks?

TRUMP: I think with two or three weeks, yes.

Maybe two weeks, maybe a couple of days longer to do the job.

Yes, I did say it. I thought it would take four to six weeks.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: All right, well, here we are many months later.

KAREN FINNEY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: How many weeks later.

BROWN: And now he's taking to Truth Social. He's going on the defensive, and he's saying, I stated numerous times that it would take four to six weeks to get rid of the Iran nuclear threat, and I did it in one night. The rest of the time is just to make sure it stays that way. That's just simply not what he said. Brad, what do you make of this?

BRAD TODD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, if you've ever built a house or remodeled a house, you probably had your builder tell you, we'll be done in about two to four weeks. And Trump is, at his heart, he says in the Time Magazine article, I'm more a builder than a politician. And so I think it's instinctual for him to say this is about to be wrapped up and the timeline is going to always slip, just like it does with most builders.

And I think also Iran taking advantage of the Strait of Hormuz, while that's something American military planners have always expected they would do, I think that Trump's desire to undo that, be very cautious about how he's undoing it, has made it take a lot longer than it would. You could have undone that at the cost of a lot more lives, faster. And I think his patience with that has made it take a lot longer.

FINNEY: But, I mean, we have now heard reporting that even from the beginning, there were doubts about what Netanyahu presented to him, which maybe at the time that was part of what the four to six weeks may have been based on. But even from the get go, there were people who doubted the veracity of what they were being told. And so, but at this point, I don't think Americans care if he said four to six weeks in the beginning or 10 weeks in the beginning. It's where we are right now. It's the, you know, impact that it's having right now on gas prices, on diesel. It's the economic pain.

It's the -- and you know, it also contributes to something where he keeps saying it's been every two weeks, every, you know, two more weeks. Oh, we're near a deal. They want a deal. They want to deal so bad. I just don't think people believe him anymore. And if you look at sort of the AP poll that came out today and just people not just saying their dissatisfaction, but how much worse things are than what they thought it was going to be. He just really squandered any credibility that he had with people and that goodwill that he had from those who voted for him initially.

BROWN: The first time the interviews tried to ask him about the Iran war, he brought up our colleague Kaitlan Collins, who is a phenomenal reporter. You know, instead of addressing the question at hand, of course, the polls show that he is an unpopular president. The prices are rising. Do you think he is just trying to deflect and rewrite history on this?

TODD: Well, sure. Joe Biden assures for four years that everything on the economy was good and everything on the economy was trending bad for much of that time. So it's the nature of the presidency. You want to kind of coach up the public. I do think it's not necessarily helpful for the midterms to do it that way. I think it'd be better for Republicans in the midterms if he said, look, we're making progress. We inherited a mess. You elected us to fix the mess. We're working on it. It's not working as fast as we would, but you got to stick with us.

I think sort of starting with the public is, would be better because many elements, the economy are great, stock market's great, unemployment's low, the earnings are up. Like there are a lot of things in the economic figures that are good. Some other things are bad. So I think he needs to meet the public where they are. I mean, bad gas prices, always bad politics, right? Just period. Diesel prices are definitely causing us a problem in the Midwest, but I think there is room.

The Democratic Party's at an all-time low. People don't really want to go back to the Democrats, but the President has to make a case why that would be worse.

FINNEY: Although people are saying they're more enthusiastic to vote for Democrats than they are Republicans, and we're actually better than we were and still higher than the Republicans. I'm not saying that's good for anybody.

TODD: And nothing good in the third.

FINNEY: No. That's not.

BROWN: But do you think the Democrats, it's more about not liking Trump than Democrats offering up something that gives voters confidence that they can lower the prices?

FINNEY: You know what, though? I think it's both because, like, if you look at, like, our some of our candidates, I mean, they are so passionate about their states. I'm thinking of, and I can't remember her name, woman running for Senate in Arkansas had to sell her family farm, 150 years her family owned that farm. And she had to make the decision to sell it. She understands what farmers in Arkansas are going through.

[17:50:16]

Mary Peltola running in Arkan -- in Alaska talking about some of the issues that the fishing industry and what that does on their local economy. I mean, in each of these places, I think our candidates are making a strong case for lowering costs, but understanding and listening to what people are telling them. That being said, if we should win in November, I want -- my message to our Democrat -- my Democrats is you have an opportunity that people didn't just fall in love with you. You have an opportunity to show that you can make government work and don't squander it.

BROWN: I want to talk about something else that Trump said. He was talking about his Supreme Court justices that he put on the bench and he said he was unhappy with them after they struck, struck down his tariff policy this year. There was this exchange after he said he regretted nominating them. He said -- the interviewer said, you mentioned the word loyalty a moment ago. Is that what you want from your Supreme Court picks? And then Trump said, I do like loyalty, yes. Time said, do you like my narration, by the way? Is that what you want from your Supreme Court justices? And Trump said, no, I don't want loyalty. I want good decisions.

TODD: I think the three Supreme Court justices are the very best thing about the Trump either Trump administration. I think that voters who picked him in 2016 remember control of the Supreme Court was at stake. There was one seat open. There were four liberals and four conservatives. And there was a big part of why voters picked him. I can prove it. I was working hard on that justice campaign. So I think he's wrong about that. And I hope over time history will treat it as such.

FINNEY: Yes, you know, look, we -- we're all frustrated at times with the Supreme Court, but what you saw in that interview was he takes everything personal. It's about him. They voted against him. No, they didn't. They -- in theory, they're supposed to be voting for the Constitution.

BROWN: All right, many thanks. Appreciate it.

Up next, CNN has obtained internal documents raising the curtain on the troubled finances of the Kennedy Center. And things changed dramatically when Trump took center stage. We're going to tell you about that right after this quick break.

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[17:56:29]

BROWN: In our National Lead, President Trump, is refusing to take demolition of the Kennedy Center off the table. He told Time Magazine he is not committing to anything. The President, who appointed chairs to the arts institution himself, calls the landmark building in terrible shape and says only he can save it as employees are notified of a safety review. And he's gearing up for a court battle as canceled shows and slumping ticket sales fuel talk of a temporary renovation shutdown.

Joining us now is CNN Sunlen Serfaty. So you obtained, Sunlen, these internal Kennedy Center documents detailing its finances. What do they tell us about the state of the institution and what changed after Trump took over?

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Well, they tell us an awful lot, Pam. These are over 100 pages of internal presentations, financial records really showing the dire financial situation of the Kennedy Center over the last two years, years between 2024 and 2026. And really show these internal deliberations and presentations trying to address the financial situation that was growing worsening, lining up to President Trump's involvement. And that is what is significant here.

Specifically this, I want to show you this one slide from the documents. After the Kennedy Center Board added President Trump's name to the facade of this building back last year in December, they looked at the 42 percent plunge in gifts to this arts institution as well as 100 percent, over 100 percent drop in donation pledges compared to the previous three months. So that showed a real one to one drop in gifts and pledges of money to this institution that lined up to win. He put his name on the side of the building.

The documents certainly show writ large the financial problem pressures that all arts institution endured since the COVID era. But that shows that the situation worsened under President Trump in this slide. It shows in a presentation about the center in May 2025, the first bullet point there acknowledging point blank, "it was out of cash." That certainly significant.

And it showed also that the financial health of this building is deteriorating over time. Preliminary numbers show the deficit of over $16 million through the last fiscal year and projected to grow to 23 million in 2026. So Pam, we have spoken over the last year about the worsening financial picture, but these internal documents really lay it out. It's startling to see that over the course of this two year period, over the course of when President Trump has been involved, they've been very aware of the strike drains of this building.

BROWN: And quickly Trump and his allies argue that his involvement in the Kennedy Center's future is the best hope for raising money. What do these documents show about that claim?

SERFATY: Well, it's really startling here because it really broadly refutes that assertion or refutes the argument that this institution needs Trump and Trump himself, as someone that they have argued has the financial ability to raise money for this building, has the one to pull together the resources to save this building. That's something we saw, as you noted in that Time interview where he repeated only I can save it. But these documents really do show otherwise.

And notably, Pam, a spokesperson for the Kennedy Center, we went to them with these documents and everything that it outlines. They say that it continues to work through post pandemic shifts in audience behavior seen across the performing arts industry and ticket sales. Pam?

[18:00:11]

BROWN: All right, Sunlen Serfaty, great reporting. Thank you so much.