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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Rep. Rich McCormick (R-GA), Is Interviewed About New Polls, Debates Give Democrats Hope With 26 Days Until Midterms; Storm Could Threaten Major Refineries Along The Gulf Coast; Trump Says Anyone Who Does Not Call AI "Super Intelligence" Is "The Enemy"; Trump Will Award Elon Musk National Medal Of Science; President Donald Trump Expressed Frustration With Fox News; Male Shot By ICE Agent In New York City's Marble Hill. Aired 5-6p ET

Aired October 08, 2026 - 17:00   ET

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

KASIE HUNT, CNN HOST: -- at home for joining as well. Don't forget you can now stream The Arena live. You can catch up whenever you want to in the CNN app. Just go ahead scan the QR code below. You can also catch up by listening to The Arenas podcast.

You can follow the show on X and Instagram. We are at thearenacnn. But do not go anywhere, Jake Tapper is standing by for The Lead.

Hi Jake. Happy Thursday.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Happy Thursday to you, Kasie. We'll look for more tomorrow in "The Arena."

HUNT: See you tomorrow.

[17:00:24]

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: In so many states, it's debate night in America. The Lead starts right now.

Twenty-six days left in the midterm fight for 2026 in what could be major moments in three key races for U.S. Senate in Ohio, in Iowa and in Georgia. Ahead, what voters are already revealing about the candidates in two of those races. Plus, breaking news, Hurricane Isaias gaining strength and headed right for the Gulf Coast. The brand new update from the National Hurricane center is just coming in and we'll bring that to you. And oil companies in the Gulf are bracing for the impact of this storm.

Could that result in even higher gas prices for you no matter where you live?

Welcome to The Lead. I'm Jake Tapper. We start in our politics lead on a consequential day offering new polls and new debates and new clues as to how the midterm elections could shake out in just 26 days. While the Republican majority in Congress hangs on for dear life, thanks to President Trump's unpopular war and unpopular tariffs and the cost of living, a brand new CNN poll shows more signs of trouble for Republicans, namely Ohio and Iowa. Normally ruby red states.

Trump won both by double digits in 2024. Republicans currently hold both Senate seats in each state. But now in Ohio Senate race, Democratic former Senator Sherrod Brown holds a six point lead among likely voters over Jon Husted, who was appointed to fill the seat vacated by J.D. Vance. And in Iowa, where farmers are getting trounced by record high diesel prices, well, in Iowa, the poll finds no clear leader in that Senate race. Republican Congresswoman Ashley Hinson is at 45 percent to Democrat Josh Turek's 43 percent, well within the poll's 4.2 percentage point margin of error.

The polls also solidify the Trump problem. Likely voters in Ohio and Iowa mostly disapprove of the president's handling of the presidency and say his policies have increased the cost of living and say tariffs on foreign goods have largely been bad for their states. High gas prices, of course, are directly tied to President Trump's war in Iran. Yet despite the war's unpopularity, there have been recent reports that Trump is considering another major attack on Iran even before the midterms or possibly after.

Trump is responding. He posted on Truth Social today, quote, "We are having productive discussions with the Islamic Republic of Iran. I want to make it clear to everybody that we will not be attacking Iran at any time prior to the midterm elections to be held in the United States on November 3rd."

So should we mark our calendars for November 4th, the next day? Either way, all of this will surely feature heavily in tonight's Senate debates in three other key states. One in Michigan, where Democrats fear their candidate Dr. Abdul El-Sayed might be too left wing to win a general election in this battleground state that went for Trump two out of the last three presidential elections. Polls show Dr. El-Sayed just slightly ahead of Republican former Congressman Mike Rogers, but also within the margin of error.

In Maine, the debate there will be a test of the staying power for Republican Senator Susan Collins, usually a survivor. She is up against Troy Jackson, the Democrat whom former President Barack Obama endorsed today.

And then, of course, there's the Georgia Senate race, a debate tonight. Democrats feel good about incumbent Senator Jon Ossoff's chances against Republican Congressman Mike Collins, deemed perhaps too right wing or at least too problematic perhaps to win. Republicans so troubled that the Republicans have moved some T.V. advertising spending away from Georgia.

Joining us now to discuss it all, Republican Congressman Rich McCormick of Georgia. He is a U.S. Marine veteran and an emergency room physician who sits on the House Armed Services Committee.

Congressman, thanks for joining us. So you're up for reelection this year, as are all House members. You represent a relatively safe Republican district, but Americans across both parties are tying President Trump's policies and the war to the gas prices, the tariffs, to the affordability crisis. Are you worried at all that this is making your own race closer than normally it would be?

REP. RICH MCCORMICK (R-GA): I'm not worried about my race, not worried about any races in Georgia on the federal level of Congress. If you look at the polling, you guys -- I actually thought you guys did a really fair and balanced analysis of Iowa, Ohio and Michigan showing that Republicans under poll there by anywhere from 5 percent to 8 percent. So actually, if that happens, and that's happened both in midterms and presidential elections, we have really strong cases of flipping a seat in Michigan and holding in Ohio and Iowa.

[17:05:13]

Here in Georgia, I'm not worried about congressional seats. Of course I'm worried about the gubernatorial race and the Senate race. I think we'll handle business in the gubernatorial race. I think Rick's ahead by a couple of points. And I think with Collins, I think it's really unfortunate we're not investing this.

Once again, he needs just to run against Ossoff's record. I don't think it matches Georgia policies. It's unfortunate we're not investing in that race. I think it's a good one to invest in. I think we're just as close as Texas.

I think it's something worthwhile.

TAPPER: So some Republican strategists are warning that President Trump's actions and words show that he's already preparing for an excuse if Republicans don't do as well in the midterms as you would like them to do. Conservative Brittany Martinez, she's part of a group called Principles First. She told Newsweek, quote, "The president appears to be setting up a story in which a Republican win proves the system works and a Republican loss proves it was stolen. If the GOP loses both chambers, I expect him to blame the count rather than reckon with why voters turned against the party," unquote. What's your reaction to that?

MCCORMICK: Well, that's all theoretical, isn't it? And I think we'll see as time goes on. I don't think there's ever been a loss or when where people didn't posture themselves and put themselves in the most positive light. I don't care which party, I don't care which president. That's just what we do in politics.

Of course, you don't have a reason. You have to sit back and do true analysis. And I think the smart people will always take aback and see what was happening. Of course, the energy is going to be a big battle right now, but this is unavoidable. If you think about from the standpoint of how many presidents have talked about Iran cannot have nuclear weapons, the thousand people that died -- there were American in 40 different attacks through their proxies, whether it be through Hezbollah, Hamas, Houthis, from their weaponry, through their tactics, for what they've been doing strategically, not only the Middle East, but worldwide when they talk about this as the great Satan.

Israel's the little Satan, we're the great Satan. When they're developing a ballistic missile system that goes over 2,000 miles, even though they made an agreement with Obama, they wouldn't do that. Developing enough enriched uranium for 11 nuclear weapons, even though they said they wouldn't do that. Imagine how bad gas prices and everything else would be if they became a nuclear power and exert that power from madmen or theocrats.

TAPPER: Do you think the people who voted for President Trump in 2024 in Georgia, for example, expected that he was going to launch war against Iran that was going to result in higher gas prices, higher diesel prices and such? I'm not questioning whether or not --

MCCORMICK: No, of course not.

TAPPER: -- the Iranian leaders that it's better that they don't have a nuclear weapon. Of course that it's better that they don't. But do you think voters thought, OK, President Trump's going to take care of this and we might have to pay higher prices, but that's worth it. Because that's the position Republicans find themselves in and it's not -- I don't think what voters thought they were going to get.

MCCORMICK: Well, we never know what's going to happen, but sometimes unpredictable things happen. Ultimately, I do what's best for the nation, for our children, for the future generations. If you got rid of the Tehran regime, and I've always been very bullish on this, war is an ugly thing, but making peace with that nation, that regime, would be catastrophic to the future of not only the Middle East, but the entire world order.

Think about who they support, whether it be Russia, China, North Korea, what they said they're going to do to America. Rain down fire from heaven, from people who are deeply religious, deeply believe that we are the country to be destroyed, that Israel is supposed to be destroyed, that the Jews should be wiped out. Imagine those people with nuclear weapons. Hillary Clinton talked about this. Bill Clinton talked about this. George W. Bush talked about this.

Reagan talked about this. Obama talked about this. Biden talked about this. This is not a partisan issue. This is very bad people who do very bad things to us.

I understand it's not fun to fill up your gas tank, but this is a temporary blip. And I hope most people are looking at this more intellectually rather than emotionally, because it's really a battle for the future of America.

TAPPER: The average cost of diesel today in Georgia, $5.78 per gallon, which, of course, I don't need to tell you it hits your state's agricultural industry very hard. It hits people who are in the trucking industry. Wouldn't an escalation in Iran, which President Trump is talking about doing after the midterms, wouldn't that make your constituents economic situation even worse?

MCCORMICK: There's ways to manipulate markets. Quite frankly we got caught with our pants down. We did not prepare. We haven't done anything for the strategic preparedness for America to have this sort of war. I blame this on both parties but when you -- when you're canceling pipelines, when you're not building refineries, when you're not making the right agreements in the past it's come to now. And quite frankly if you don't deal with these guys, look, they're trying to mess with their elections right now. They should be at basically relative peace in the -- in the -- in the straits. But they're trying to attack multiple ships. They've had some success with nine ships they've actually attacked. They've been attacking other countries in that region including Saudi Arabia, which I think is a really bad idea.

[17:10:04]

These guys don't want peace. They've never approached this with anything other than vile disgusting rhetoric. They want to be violent. They want to apply their violence all over the world. They've done it to us well before this war started and they'll do it again with bigger weapons.

TAPPER: Republican Congressman Rich McCormick of Georgia, thank you so much. And thank you as always for your service, sir.

Still ahead, the reporting about two top Trump advisers. It reportedly has the president, quote, "pissed." But is he more mad about their actions or that it's public knowledge just weeks before the midterms. But first, getting stronger, a brand new forecast is coming in for Hurricane Isaias taking aim at the Gulf Coast. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Breaking news in our National Lead. A brand new forecast track just in on Hurricane Isaias and it is headed right for the Gulf Coast. Florida and Alabama have both declared states of emergency. Let's get right to CNN meteorologist Derek Van Dam.

And, Derek, you just got an update from the National Hurricane Center. What are they saying?

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes. Now that 5:00 p.m. update bringing this to a Category 2 hurricane with winds of 100 miles per hour. It's located about 400 miles south of the northern Gulf. We're starting to see some concerning trends on satellite imagery. Notable an eye starting to form and some deep thunderstorms right around the center as well.

[17:15:18]

This is a visible satellite over the course of the past six hours or so. And we're going to zoom right in and you can actually see the eye clearing out. You can see straight down to the ocean on our graphics there. So, we don't want to see that. But there's a lot of interesting things at play here.

National -- the hurricane hunters have been sampling the environment in and around this area. They have not found a pressure drop indicating what would be a strengthening hurricane. However, the winds have increased here since the previous updates, 100 miles per hour, now, category 2. It is likely going to peak overnight tonight in intensity and it will be a weakening phase as it approaches the northern Gulf of late tomorrow and into early Saturday. But there's a lot of wind shear and dry air trying to work into the western side of the storm and that is so important because how much it interferes with this system is still to be determined.

One thing's for sure, when we mix in wind shear, we get an expanding wind field. So the impacts will be felt far outside of the center of the storm. We're compass -- encompassing about 250 miles in diameter with tropical storm force winds, lesser of course for the hurricane force winds. And depending on exactly where this makes landfall, we will see storm surge and likely power outages as well. In fact, that will work its way inland as the storm races northward.

So let's time it out for you. If you are under mandatory evacuations, the time to leave is now through about tomorrow morning sunrise. That will be your last opportunity because the rain shield will be knocking on your doorstep and conditions deteriorate throughout the course of the day across the northern Gulf. And the potential here on the right front quadrant, we call that the dirty side of a hurricane. And there's a reason for that.

The winds I talked about just a moment ago, that is going to put a spin in the atmosphere. Any of these supercell thunderstorms that form perhaps some tornadoes across the western Florida panhandle and extending northward into the interior as well. There's a look at the rain, flash flooding and storm surge associated with this. Jake.

TAPPER: All right, Derek Van Dam, thanks so much.

Let's talk about the impact this storm could have on your wallet even for those who live far away from the Gulf Coast. Tom Kloza is the chief energy adviser at Gulf Oil.

Tom, oil companies are taking precautions. Both Shell and BP say they're evacuating non-essential workers from the offshore sites. What would happen if those platforms were damaged or even destroyed?

TOM KLOZA, CHIEF ENERGY ADVISOR, GULF OIL: I don't think they'll be damaged or destroyed based on the track of the storm. And let me just put it in perspective, there's about 1.3 million barrels a day of production that shut in the Gulf of Mexico now. That's the equivalent of maybe one supertanker. So we've been dealing with the loss of crude oil and other that make this look small. I think the worry, the biggest worry is for refining and the biggest worry doesn't come from wind damage or even from storm surge.

But will the utilities, will the power grid manage to stay stable? Because right now it could be a Category 2 storm but there is zero, zero tolerance for any refining losses in the U.S.

TAPPER: On top of this hurricane, obviously Saudi Arabia is reporting strikes. There have been attacks on tankers in the Strait of Hormuz. All of this combined, do you expect gas prices here in the U.S. to go up in the coming days and weeks?

KLOZA: You know, it's going to be mixed in the next week or so because you've got a bunch of states, North Carolina dropped their state tax from 41 cents to zero this morning, you've got a bunch of states acting like that. And you know, you're putting off the bill. So it's probably going to be not suspect that on Columbus Day we'll be paying the highest prices ever by far. And by Election Day there's going to be a $4 handle on gas and there's going to be a $6 handle on diesel.

TAPPER: Oil passing through the strait had rebounded before this week. How long do you expect that ripple effect to show up at gas stations?

KLOZA: Well, you know -- you know, it's tough. When you wake up in the morning and crude is up $4 to $5, gasoline's up eight to 10 and diesel's up 24, you know, anything's possible. My sense is that we won't go dramatically higher on this storm or on what's happened in the Persian Gulf. Again, if you hear that Iran or one of their surrogates attacks things in the Persian Gulf like they did in the last 24 hours or if the Houthis go after refineries in the Red Sea, you know, all of the numbers come into play at that point. It's a mess.

There's no question about it.

TAPPER: Tom Kloza, thanks so much. Appreciate it.

[17:20:00]

Coming up, the direct impact of skyrocketing diesel prices. See how that's translating to higher prices for you well before this hurricane makes landfall. But first, the big day in court as President Trump tries to ban news media outlets from access to the White House.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: In our Law and Justice Lead, a federal judge is considering whether to grant a lengthier block on aspects of President Trump's press ban against CNN, MS NOW, and Politico. A decision is expected by next Tuesday, if not sooner. But for now, U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly temporarily preserved the news outlet's access to the White House. CNN's Evan Perez was in the courtroom for today's hearing.

Evan, how did Judge Kelly, a Trump appointee, we might remind people, react to the Trump administration's attempted defense of this ban?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, he was very skeptical of their defense. And he said it was an uphill climb for the Justice Department, in part because he's already ruled, Jake, in this temporary restraining order, that the news organizations were not provided a due process, which is the law, certainly the law in this circuit. And so he kept noting that he is bound by the precedent in this circuit that goes back to the Jim Acosta case and a couple of other cases which show that you cannot rescind media access without giving the news organization some effort or some ability to redress any concerns that you have. And so he kept going back to that, saying that, you know, essentially you have not really proven anything in everything you've said that this is not a violation of the due process right.

[17:25:42] TAPPER: So that's the due process issue. There's also, of course, a First Amendment freedom of the press issue. Did the judge have anything to say about that?

PEREZ: Yes, I mean, he was -- he kept probing the Justice Department on the question of the president's claim, for instance, of fake news. And he wanted to find, find out, you know, where is -- who's going to be the arbiter of that. He pointed out, for instance, an article that the Justice Department cited as one reason why media access was being rescinded from one of these news organizations. And he said, you know, vibes are bad, right? This is a reference into one of the articles.

And he said, well, who's to say, right? That seems like a very tenuous thing for someone to make that decision. And he also questioned, obviously, the Justice Department pointed out, well, it's OK for the president to say that it's fake news, especially if it's based on anonymous sources.

Now, mind you, Jake, you and I have covered this administration and others, and you have tons of briefings with that is organized by the --

TAPPER: Official briefing.

PEREZ: Official briefings with the White House and other administration, you know, parts of the administration in which they stipulate that you have to say senior administration official, anonymous sources. And so that's part of the business of doing journalism in Washington. And so that's the irony of the Justice Department saying that using anonymous sources really points to the fake news that the president is complaining about.

TAPPER: All right, Evan Perez, thanks so much.

President Trump said today anyone who uses the term artificial intelligence instead of super intelligence is an enemy. We'll see if a leader on his new super intelligence group task force agrees. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:31:28]

TAPPER: Now the latest in our recurring series, AI Friend or Foe? Using the term super intelligence instead of artificial intelligence is apparently a new loyalty test for President Trump. Today on Truth Social, he posted quote, the White House considers anyone that uses the term artificial intelligence as opposed to the highly accepted new and more accurate term superintelligence, the enemy.

Superintelligence is also the name of Trump's new AI task force. Let's bring in a leader of this group, Office of Personnel Management Director Scott Kupor. Scott, thanks so much for being here.

SCOTT KUPOR, VICE CHAIR, SUPER INTELLIGENCE FORCE: Thanks, Jake.

TAPPER: I mean, I use the term artificial intelligence. I don't mean anybody any offense by it --

KUPOR: No. Yes.

TAPPER: -- but, like, I'm an enemy?

KUPOR: I can't protect you, you know. But yes, SI is the new word.

TAPPER: Is the new term. But I mean, is Sam all going to have to change the name of his company?

KUPOR: I don't know. But you may have seen Elon did, right? So Elon changed the name of his company he's now calling X SI, I believe.

TAPPER: But there's not going to actually be any sort of punishment.

KUPOR: I don't know.

TAPPER: OK.

KUPOR: You got to ask the president that. That I'm not briefed on to talk to you about today.

TAPPER: So Trump is facing criticism for having the country's largest AI company sign that morally binding set of voluntary safety guardrails and I guess the question I have is, isn't that flexibility kind of dangerous considering the power we're talking about? I mean, shouldn't there be like a binding, legally binding list of rules of the road here?

KUPOR: Yes. I would say a couple of things that first of all, it's not just, you know, kind of they're responsible for their own stuff. So as part of that contract they signed, they agreed that they would have external third party auditors reviewing it. And as you probably know, obviously, you know, if you sit on a public company board in particular, outside auditors typically report to the board of directors.

And so if an outside security auditor comes back to these companies and says, hey, we got a problem here, that board's going to have to actually respond and do something. So it's not. It is truly legally binding in that respect, which is all the traditional fiduciary duties and kind of duties that board owes.

The second thing I would just add is, look, as I know, we'll talk about, you know, the President put together this SI force that myself and three others.

TAPPER: Yes.

KUPOR: Jay Clayton, Emil Michael and Andrew Farts -- Ferguson the FTC are running. I think you should expect that. Look, it's -- we're not going to sit around and just say, great, like, we're wonderful. We're thrilled you guys signed this piece of paper and, you know, we should just be done and dusted. The whole purpose of this committee is to figure out, OK, what is the comprehensive set of policies that we think meet the dual goals that the President has, which is, look, the President thinks we should continue to win. I certainly believe this is an important fight and a battle that we should win.

But he's also said we need to figure out how to do it in a way that's responsible to the economic and natural sovereignty needs of the American people. So that's what we're going to obviously balance as part of this.

TAPPER: I understand we're at the beginning of this kind of --

KUPOR: Yes.

TAPPER: -- I don't know if regulation's even the word, but, for example, what we know about AI models that have gone rogue, we know because Anthropic or OpenAI or whatever have told us. Is there an obligation that they have to tell you or Jay Clayton or anyone else next time there is an incident?

KUPOR: Yes. So this is definitely one of the things that we are going to take up as part of this task force is we need to make sure we have an appropriate, let's call it a notification paradigm, for lack of a better word. So, we want to encourage the companies and you're seeing this more and more now, we want to encourage the companies to have a paradigm where they say, look, when we see something, report it to us.

And then, look, it's incumbent upon us as the government then to make sure, OK, we what do we do with that information? So is it a FAA issue? So we got to go talk to Department of Transportation, make sure they know what's happening. So, again, a lot of what we're going to try to do is talk to, obviously, the model companies, talk to all the agencies in the government, including the intelligence agencies, figure out what they need.

[17:35:02]

We're also going to go talk to, and this is where I'm going to spend my time is all the various other infrastructure companies, so financial services, you know, oil and gas companies, energy companies, anybody for whom some type of security related incident might obviously turn into a major issue. And we've got to figure out a notification system, we've got to figure out a communication system and ultimately action plans to make sure that the American people, you know, feel that they can -- they're safe and they can trust the technology.

TAPPER: I don't think the American people are prepared for the job losses that are probably going to happen in the next, I'm told, year or two. What is the Trump administration, what is Congress doing to prepare people? A, psychologically like this is coming and B, worker retraining, some sort of pad so people like, can get by. Like what needs to happen? What do you want to see happen?

KUPOR: Yes. So one thing I would just note is look, so far to date, if you -- if you rewind the clock about 18 months ago, people like Dario, for example, were actually talking about a coming job apocalypse. So far, actually, if you look at jobs, what all the data has shown is that actually we've increased jobs as a result of AI.

TAPPER: And I hope that that's --

KUPOR: And I hope that's true too. Right. And that's -- and that's, as you well know, look, when you look at most technological changes, that's what happens. But I agree with you, people are concerned about it. What you have seen and what you will see more from Department of Labor is there are a bunch of retraining programs that are happening and you will see kind of us address this very, very directly as part of the work that we're doing in our task force.

TAPPER: So the -- I talked to Bill Gates about this for an interview that's going to air Sunday on State of the Union. And there are two things that he's most worried about. One is bad actors, and there certainly is no shortage of them in this world. Learning how to make for instance, a dirty bomb or some sort of bioweapon using the knowledge of AI or SI whatever.

And then -- and that's also the threat of cyber attacks.

KUPOR: Yes.

TAPPER: Having these big brains figure out how to do things that humans cannot do. What is being done about that? And how do you reassure the public that we're going to be OK?

KUPOR: Yes. So I think there's a couple things again that you'll see us enact as part of this task force. One is there is a whole set of laws and regulations that deal with kind of what you're describing, the bad actor scenario. So there, you know, DOJ has all kinds of criminal statutes as do as does the FTC have civilians.

TAPPER: Are there enough? Are there enough rules?

KUPOR: I think there are. I think, look, every corporation has a very basic responsibility to make sure that when they put things out, they put things out that they deem safe and appropriate, you know, for consumer use. Now, look, if a bad actor comes along and takes technology again, you know, we have the ability, of course, to go after that bad actor through existing criminal laws.

On the other side, though, what's really important is, you know, as you mentioned before, is we've got to protect things on the cyber side as well. So, a lot of what you're going to see us do is make sure we have a lot more teeth, you know, behind all the activities of the companies themselves. We have notification schemes. We will have kind of, you know, contingency plans across all the different agencies.

And the goal will be to make sure that, you know, if it turns out that there's something there, the government is going to be as well, you know, educated and as well prepared for this as we can be for any possible scenario.

TAPPER: Office of Personnel Management Director Scott Kupor from the AI or Superintelligence Task Force, thank you so much for being here. We appreciate it. Please come back. We're good -- we've been covering this for a while. We're going to cover it.

KUPOR: Thank you, Jake.

TAPPER: Also today, President Trump handed out several of the nation's highest science and technology honors, including Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The National Medal of Science to Elon Musk of SpaceX for engineering achievements of extraordinary ambition and scale that have pushed the frontiers of space exploration, intelligent systems, communications and beyond.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Other honorees included Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Google's co-founder Sergey Brin. The White House says, quote, these recipients are helping ensure America keeps leading the world in innovation.

In an election cycle that could tip the balance of power in Congress. Two top Trump advisors were reportedly playing politics in the Balkans. The source says the President is pissed. Their language, not mine. But what exactly is he mad about? We're going to get into that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:43:10]

TAPPER: Our Politics Lead now, President Trump putting some space between himself and two of his top political advisors, former campaign co manager Chris LaCivita, rather. Sorry. And former deputy chief of staff James Blair.

This following a New York Times report that the two men had traveled to the Balkans last week for paid work on behalf of a pro-Russian government. This in the midst of the midterms. Trump floated terminating the pair if their outside work became a conflict.

One veteran Republican told President -- told CNN rather that Trump was pissed by the report coming this close to the midterms, calling the conduct tone deaf. My panel is here.

So Melik, there's less than a month ago until the midterms and they're, you know, two of Trump's top advisers. When this storm is coming for Republicans, I mean, we don't know how big it's going to be, but whatever.

MELIK ABDUL, GOP STRATEGIST: Let's get paid by Russia.

TAPPER: Are often the Balkans working for pro-Russian governments? What are Republicans that you talk to saying about this?

ABDUL: Well, I think you probably heard that, you know, they're repeating what we heard about what went on in the White House once Donald Trump found out about it. This stuff is kind of -- it had been bubbling over some time now and then when the story dropped. And from what I'm hearing, it may not end with just those two.

TAPPER: Or really.

ABDUL: As far as being in the White House, there may be other shoes to actually drop. But Donald Trump doesn't just need to distance himself. He needs to put the, what is that? The Gulf of Lake America.

TAPPER: Lake America is not the Gulf of America.

ABDUL: He needs to put the Gulf of America and the Lake of America between him and I think less of LaCivita. He would then, I think earlier in the year, Donald Trump said that he was taking a leave of absence like in April. But forget the leave of absence. Donald Trump needs to cut ties with both of them because this is on the backs of what we just saw with Donald Dunn Jr. --

TAPPER: With the oligarch claims wedding celebration.

ABDUL: -- like. Stop all of this.

[17:45:00]

What this is, this is a lot of greed and it's taking over the administration and Donald Trump should cut ties.

TAPPER: What do you think about this? I mean, I've heard Democrats say this feeds into the corruption narrative, but I don't know what you think.

CORBIN TRENT, FORMER COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR FOR REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ: I mean, it's so -- it's not really a narrative. I don't. It's just a corruption avalanche, I think is what you've got in this White House. If mister I don't think about the American people's economic problems says that you're being tone deaf, that's probably a bad sign. You know, if Donald Trump is saying, hey, guys, whoa, settle down, the midterms are coming --

TAPPER: Right.

TRENT: -- then you've gone probably too far for any reasonable person. I think, yes, this administration is its worst nightmare. They are the Republicans worst nightmare. There's no, you know, Democrats are like, what, 40 percent approval, if you that --

ABDUL: Right.

TRENT: But luckily, they're head and shoulders above Donald Trump, who is in the gutter and the Republican Party. So right now, what you see is a -- is a Democratic Party that has the wind in their sails of the -- of the hatred of Trump and the -- and the Republicans.

TAPPER: So meanwhile, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson is on his own campaign tour trying to save the House. He's appearing alongside some of his more vulnerable members. Listen to what he told Fox earlier today about his efforts to keep a Republican majority.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If you lose the House, whose fault is that?

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-KY) HOUSE SPEAKER: If we lose the House, it would be because the people were misled. Ronald Reagan used to say, you can trust the American people.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Doesn't fall on your shoulders.

JOHNSON: I don't know how it could be. I mean, I'm traveling nonstop.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: What do you think? Beyond that giant giggle.

TRENT: I did it. If we win, it's on me. You know, my dad used to say, what was really great about Peyton Manning is if they lost, he took the blame, and if they won, he gave away the credit. So it's interesting to see. And he said that's what the sign of a good leader was. Looks like Mike Johnson's going the other way. They lose. It's just people didn't get informed. They were too stupid. We didn't do enough, you know, they didn't read enough about all the great things we'd done. And I'll bet if they win, he'll take credit.

TAPPER: And I have to say, we heard -- we quoted this conservative activist. I think her name's Brittany Martinez. Earlier in the show, she told Newsweek. Basically, Trump is setting up a scenario that if they keep the House. It's great. It's a win. And if they lose, it's because it was stolen and not because of policies. And I believe, I don't want to speak for her, but I believe she's saying, look, there are some serious policy issues that conservatives in the MAGA coalition take issue with, especially with the war in Iran.

What do you make of this leadership or lack thereof?

ABDUL: I think that Donald Trump -- I don't think that he will focus so much on the election being stolen. Donald Trump being Donald Trump. More than likely, Donald Trump will say that the reason that we lost is because I wasn't on the ballot. And that is something that we've seen kind of Donald Trump say before. These races have to be ran on at the local level because the national politics is not popular.

So you have to talk about what's happening in your state, whether that's a Florida, whether that's a Texas or Maine or South Carolina. If it's focused on the national politics, you know, we're not going to have a good night, but I think we still have a very good chance of keeping the Senate. It's going to be a smaller margin than the 2.6 between Beto O'Rourke and Ted Cruz, but I think we'll keep the Senate. And the House is looking a bit iffy.

TRENT: How local do you have to go before things look good, though? Like you say, if it's the national environment locally, like, you know, six bucks a gallon across Tennessee --

ABDUL: So what you have to do. We've just -- we just saw Byron Donalds down in Florida. He was talking about the black vote. He was talking about data centers. Those are some of the things that are important. Talking about lowering taxes. We saw a similar thing with Ken Paxton, the ad he actually just ran on Talarico, where he's talking about -- he's criticizing Talarico, but he's talking about the work that he's done as attorney general. I think that was around human trafficking or something.

TRENT: And then racing the guy that was raping the kid.

ABDUL: Well, that's not exactly what wasn't in his head.

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: On the subject of Talarico, he's been the Democratic candidate for Senate in Texas. He's been sick, so he's been off the campaign trail. President Trump noted his absence and posted on social media. TalaFREAKo has been missing for 12 days now. After looking for him throughout all of Texas and beyond, probably even weirder places than anyone would think possible. He put out a statement that he has the, quote, flu, 12 days is a long time to rid yourself of the so called flu bug. What's going on?

ABDUL: I mean, if people are sick, people are just sick. You know, we have to remember that when Donald, you know, two days after Donald Trump, I think, got out of Walter Reed, when he had COVID, he was back at the House, you know, White House with another rally. So he fights through it. I imagine this is part of his criticism. I don't think that TalaFREAKo and all of these type of things, these are things that appeal to MAGA. It doesn't appeal to independence. I doubt it appeals to even those recalcitrant Democrats who were uncomfortable with Paxton.

TRENT: Yes, I mean --

ABDUL: Yes.

TRENT: -- Trump's up against the same headwinds as Biden was in for. Right.

ABDUL: Yes. Yes.

TRENT: I mean, this is the problem.

ABDUL: Ignoring the same thing.

TRENT: And interestingly, both presidents that are now saying we didn't do a good enough job telling people how good a job we did Right.

[17:50:04]

That seems to be the go to.

TAPPER: It's always comms issue. It's always a comms issue.

TRENT: Yes. Yes.

ABDUL: Like that's the problem with Trump. He just simply walks over his message.

TRENT: Well, I mean --

ABDUL: Or attacking Tom Cotton and, you know, like something --

TAPPER: About (INAUDIBLE) time.

ADBUL: -- it doesn't help. Like it doesn't help.

TRENT: We're giving out his phone number. Did you get it?

TAPPER: It was there. Quickly. Axios is reporting that Trump and the White House are frustrated with Fox. And now Fox is covering Michigan Senate Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed because they've been giving Abdul El-Sayed interviews and, you know, and Abdul El-Sayed has been doing well in them and in the White House's view, allowing himself to portray himself as more moderate than he is.

Trump posted about Fox's Martha MacCallum interview with El-Sayed this week calling it a softball, saying Fox spends more time covering the Dumbocrats than the Republicans. And of course, Abdul El-Sayed campaign put this out about how the Trump people are trying to get Fox to stop booking him.

TRENT: Yes, I mean just putting somebody on Fox doesn't mean it's going to go well. You can go really, really badly. You know, Abdul could have gone there and fallen on his face and made, you know, made horrible gaffes. I mean, they tried to keep President Biden off of TV.

TAPPER: Let me just also say Martha MacCollum did not do a softball.

TRENT: It wasn't softball.

TAPPER: No, not at all.

TRENT: Right. And besides the fact, you know, when I tune in, I see Islamists a lot. I mean, they really refer to Abdul in some pretty strange ways. They're not really what you would call pumping. They're not doing campaign events.

TAPPER: No. I guess the point is that he's handling himself better than Trump would like him to.

ABDUL: Yes. And Trump has a problem with it. But, you know, stop going to Fox if you have a problem with it. Or this is the same thing. Similar criticism that people had about his bromance. So you don't like El-Sayed, but you do have a bromance with Mandani.

TAPPER: Interesting. Thanks to both you. Appreciate it. Coming up next, issue number one, for many voters, the economy, cost of life. We're breaking down the supply chain. Just how long it takes to see those high diesel prices reflected at grocery stores and why promises to bring oil prices down are much easier said than done.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:56:05]

TAPPER: We're back in our Money Lead and a closer look at the impact of skyrocketing diesel fuel prices and the ripple effect on you the consumer. Here's CNN's Natasha Chen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are going to need reinforcements.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK.

NATASHA CHEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Angel and Jorge Diaz can tell the price of groceries around the country are about to go up.

Like potentially --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

CHEN: -- frozen chicken or frozen turkey.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

CHEN (voice-over): The brothers co-own JD and LA Trucking near the ports of Long beach and Los Angeles. They took over the family business when their father passed away. They've got 20 trucks hauling goods from the two largest and busiest ports in the U.S., a lot of it is perishable and needing refrigeration, which takes more diesel.

ANGEL DIAZ, CO-OWNER JD AND L.A. TRUCKING: Earlier this year it was $5.15. Today I checked it here locally it's at around $8.30.

CHEN (voice-over): Diaz took me along to fill up one of their trucks as the price of diesel hit a new record.

DIAZ: We're only at 18 gallons and we're already 150 bucks.

CHEN: I mean, it's not necessarily double what you're paying last year. Or is it?

DIAZ: It's close to. So if we would have topped off, we would have spent about sixteen hundred dollars.

CHEN: What?

DIAZ: Yes.

CHEN (voice-over): Sixteen hundred to fill up one truck. Each truck needs to fill up once or twice a week. And if their whole fleet runs at capacity, that's up to a quarter million dollars a month.

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: The typical trucker will save over $100 every time they fill up.

CHEN (voice-over): And President Trump's recent executive order aimed at lowering diesel prices likely isn't going to help them. The order temporarily lets a type of cheaper diesel called red dye diesel on highways instead of just off road. But each state makes its own rules about where red dye diesel can be used and how it's taxed. And California still has restrictions on it.

DIAZ: Unfortunately, it looks like we're in it for the long run. And that's the scary part.

CHEN (voice-over): There's still a crude oil supply problem, but more recently a diesel production bottleneck because major refineries in the Middle East and Russia have been damaged by wars involving Iran and Ukraine. Trucking companies have to decide how much of the increase to pass along to their clients, who then decide how much to pass along to their consumers, like Lydia Sanchez.

LYDIA SANCHEZ, SHOPPER: We're the ones who are going to pay, you know, if we want to eat, whatever we want to eat, we have to pay come out of our pocket.

CHEN (voice-over): Sanchez has already cut down how much beef she buys and Angelica Vasquez has taken on a second job.

ANGELICA VASQUEZ, SHOPPER: We just tried to survive and it's really hard, especially for the gas. I hope the president get more smart.

TRUMP: The gas will go down as soon as the war is over. It'll drop like a rock.

CHEN (voice-over): The Food Industry association says it takes 30 to 45 days for a spike in diesel prices to trickle down to prices in grocery stores. But Rolando Pozos is trying hard not to raise prices at all. He's the CEO of Amapola Market, a small chain of Mexican grocery stores in Southern California.

RONALDO POZOS, CEO, LA AMAPOLA DELL AND MARKET: We can see how our suppliers start adjusting prices and they put you that surcharge that we all love to see, the fuel surcharge. And it's definitely hard to swallow.

CHEN (voice-over): Both Amapola and JD and LA Trucking are family owned businesses who have served their communities for decades.

DIAZ: It's going to get to the point where is this even worth, is it worth operating?

CHEN: What would your dad say?

DIAZ: He would say that we've made it through worse and that we're going to make it through this one.

CHEN (voice-over): Natasha Chen, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN Breaking News.

TAPPER: Welcome to the lead on Jake Tapper. We start this hour with breaking news. In our National Lead, New York police confirmed that a person was shot during an encounter with federal immigration officers. This was just north of Manhattan in the southern tip of the Bronx.

Let's get right to CNN's chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst John Miller with the breaking details. John, what are you hearing from your law enforcement sources about this breaking news?

[18:00:00]

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Well, Jake, we know a little bit, and we'll go through that. There's a lot we don't know, and a lot of that is because the NYPD is trying to --