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Trump Team's Strategy for Congress; Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) is Interviewed about the Midterms; Five Arrested Near Military Base in U.K.; SpaceX Starship Reaches Orbit; Powerful Nor'easter Lashed East Coast. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired September 28, 2026 - 09:00   ET

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

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[09:00:35]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: New this morning, quite the quote coming from around the White House, it's going to be, quote, "f-ing rough." Those are the words from a Trump adviser as the president's team is trying to shift its midterm strategy in a big way, and the mood sours among the GOP about its hopes for keeping control of Congress come November.

Parts of the northeast still being hit by a powerful nor'easter this morning after a weekend of it, after days of rain and flooding and those huge winds. At least one person is dead after the storm. We're going to get the forecast on when this weather will finally move out.

John and Sara are out today. I'm Kate Bolduan, with Danny Freeman. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

DANNY FREEMAN, CNN ANCHOR: This morning we have new CNN reporting inside President Trump's playbook, as Republicans face growing headwinds in their fight to keep control of Congress in the midterms. The president's advisers are bracing for impact, with one of them telling CNN, quote, "it's obviously going to be f-ing rough," and saying the best case scenario now is holding the Senate while losing the House.

The president is telling voters to pretend like he's on the ballot. And now he's out with another taxpayer-funded ad warning of what he calls a final battle against communists and the deep state.

Here's how it ends.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And we will liberate America from these villains once and for all.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FREEMAN: Now, that ad played during at least two NFL games on Sunday, and it's the third taxpayer funded ad featuring the president in the span of a week.

CNN's Alayna Treene is live for us this morning at the White House.

Alayna, you have new reporting, we understand, around the final sprint strategy from there. What are you learning?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHIE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, look, Danny, from my conversations with people here at the White House, members of the president's political operation and Republicans on the outside as well, these midterm elections that are just a couple weeks away now, this is something that they've been planning for since the start of the president's second term. However, as we move closer to the actual election date, the mood among the top advisers to the president and other Republicans across the country is really souring as they recognize that this is going to be a hard-fought battle, you know, in the president's words from that ad.

And part of that is because of the national environment. That is a word that keeps coming up in the conversations I'm having with the president's advisers. Specifically, of course, the president's approval ratings, really low right now and dragging down Republicans across the board in the country. But then also, of course, the Iran War and gas prices. That is consistently what people say is going to be one of the things that is likely to really negatively impact Republicans in November.

And you mentioned that quote from a Trump adviser when they told me that this is going to be f-ing rough. That is largely what I hear in my conversations behind the scenes with people close to the president. Despite all that, they still believe that one of the ways to try and juice turnout a little more, or I should say boost Republican's chances, is by having the president focus specifically on getting his core supporters to the polls on November 3rd. That's why you keep hearing the president say, pretend I'm on the ballot.

And he is going -- he has an aggressive couple weeks of campaign travel we're told. Almost every day he's going to be getting out on the road to try and really bring that message home to his core supporters. You're also going to see people like the vice president, other cabinet members also fanning out across the country to help.

I do, Danny, want to talk about - -a little bit about this ad, though, because this is the third such ad we've seen, you know, them put out using taxpayer-funded dollars showing the president in a way that, again, really focuses on that image of putting his name on the ballot.

But there's also a lot of questions around whether or not this is ethical or if this violates rules of potential propaganda being used by this White House. I want you to listen to what we heard from Republican Senator John Kennedy talking about this yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN KENNEDY (R-LA): I don't think any public official, including President Trump or Kristi Noem or John Kennedy, should spend public money on private ads for themselves. (END VIDEO CLIP)

TREENE: Now, Danny, the White House argues that these are public service announcements.

[09:05:01]

In one statement on a different ad, but very similar to the one you aired earlier that was playing yesterday in these NFL games, they argued that the ad is "educational and unapologetically patriotic, and we should be proud of our country." I should note, though, that the ad you just showed, the one that's been airing, the most recent one, yesterday, it appears almost identical to the majority of a video that the president posted on Truth Social back in January of 2024, of course, when he was on the campaign trail for election. So, a lot of questions and concerns about this new strategy that the White House is deploying as we know that they're really gearing up hard for the midterms in just a couple of weeks.

FREEMAN: All right, Alayna Treene, thank you so much for that reporting. Appreciate it.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Let's talk more about this. Joining me right now is Congressman Adam Smith of Washington state. He's the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee.

It's good to see you again, Congressman.

This new reporting into CNN on advisers around the president, that they're just -- their mood is souring with some acknowledgment about the midterms. That they now are thinking, if they're around the president, they're thinking their best case scenario is what they describe as what Democrats saw in 2022, which is Republicans would hold the Senate and lose the House. What is your expectation at this point?

REP. ADAM SMITH (D-WA): It's always hard to know. I mean, first of all, there's so many polls out there that we look at that, you know, we don't know the accuracy of them. But I think one thing is very clear, that the president is profoundly unpopular across the country. And beyond that, his policies are profoundly unpopular. What he's done on tariffs and immigration, the war in Iran, how costs have gone up. And then just the way he governs. The ballroom, the arch, the Kennedy Center, seem to be focused on only himself and not on the country, not on even addressing those issues has made the president very, very unpopular.

And we've seen it for a very long time now, Republicans in Congress have not separated themselves from him, you know, on issue after issue after issue. Whatever he says, they do. And now they are tied to an incredibly unpopular president with incredibly unpopular policies five weeks from the election.

So, yes, I think Democrats are well positioned. Republicans will spend a lot of money and they will attack, attack, attack, attack. You won't see many ads defending Republican policies. You will see them attacking the individual candidates. You will see them attacking the Democratic Party. I don't think it will be enough. I think we are headed towards a big Democratic election.

BOLDUAN: Speaking of the midterms, I had Barak Ravid of "Axios" was just on talking about new reporting and a conversation he had with President Trump about negotiations with Iran. Trump saying that he -- they could, they kind of the collective sides, could go back to negotiations this week, but also that essentially that Barak's reporting is, is that he doesn't think anything is going to happen until after the midterms. Trump has kind of alluded to that, saying that he thinks Iran is -- wants to wait until after the midterms and then they're going to cave. But do you think that that is the case, that this is, at this point, a waiting game until after November 3rd for any negotiations to really occur around ending this war?

SMITH: Well, it seems like it's been a waiting game for seven months. I don't know that the midterm elections are any sort of definitive point in the whole thing. Trump stumbled into this war stupidly thinking that in three or four weeks he could bomb Iran into submission. And he didn't know how to get out of it when that didn't work. He didn't know how to get out of it three or four weeks after the war started. He doesn't know how to get out of it now. I don't see that changing at the end of the midterms.

Now, the way out of it is to accept that this was a horrible mistake and negotiate the best possible settlement you can get, which Iran sort of put on the table yesterday, a couple days ago now. But Trump continues to just drift. You know, bombs randomly. He claims that we've won. He claims that Iran, you know, is ready for -- to give us everything we want in an endless cycle that just perpetuates a war that has been devastating for the United States of America, for the region and for the world.

BOLDUAN: Can I ask you about maybe something that came or could come from the president's meeting with Xi Jinping last week. The U.S. ambassador to China, David Peru, said something yesterday, raising eyebrows, that the president of the United States would consider selling weapons to China. It was part of a discussion about Taiwan and the weapons package to them. Let me play what David Perdue said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID PERDUE, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO CHINA: President Trump continues to say, hey, we sell arms to other people around the world. He actually asked President Xi, would he like to buy some at one point? But our support for that has not changed. We don't support independence and we don't support coercion.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: So, a U.S. official later, Congressman, told "The Wall Street Journal," the Trump administration has no plans to sell weapons to China.

[09:10:05]

But when asked, the White House and the State Department asked if the proposal was made, they declined to comment. What do you think of this?

SMITH: Yes, that's shocking to me. I can't imagine that we would sell weapons to China, a major competitor. We're not going to sell weapons to Russia either. I mean, look at some future point, if we get to some sort of better relationship with China, who knows? But that's years away. So, that is shocking to me, that that would have been suggested. And I cannot imagine the United States of America doing that. You know, I have an enormous amount of respect for David Perdue. I went to China last September, had very good meetings with him. I take him at his word.

But again, let's not forget that President Trump flits all over the place, in a completely illogical way. Who knows what popped into his head when he might have suggested that. Maybe he was just trying to claim the superiority of American weapons. Who knows? But, no, I do not think we're going to be selling weapons to China. I don't think even Trump would try something that ridiculous.

BOLDUAN: Yes, it was -- hence why raising some eyebrows when David Perdue -- because he's -- David Perdue even said -- he's in all of these discussions, and he is quite well respected.

SMITH: Yes.

BOLDUAN: So, it's good to see you, Congressman. Thank you so much for coming in.

SMITH: Yes.

BOLDUAN: Danny.

FREEMAN: A developing story we're following out of the U.K. now. British authorities have arrested five people on suspicion of terrorism after finding them with explosives near a military base used by U.S. long range bombers in the war with Iran.

CNN's Nic Robertson actually spoke with one of the locals who tipped authorities off leading to the arrest.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: One of the vans had some strange sign writing on it. And just because I had a little bit, if you live in Wellford, you will have had a little bit to do with undercover policing. And I looked at it and thought, that's not real. Just the way the number was written on the side of the van. And my initial reaction then was, maybe this is the police undercover, because they're trying to watch. And our driveway is such an obvious place to get right up to the fence of the base. So, I thought that's why the vans were there, because that would be a really good idea to block that access up to the fence of the base.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FREEMAN: Just remarkable reporting there.

Joining me now, CNN's senior national security analyst, Juliette Kayyem.

Juliette, let's start here. What's your read on how serious the threat of this attack or this plot might have been? Obviously, we're still learning details. But at least to President Trump, he's certainly celebrating the arrests.

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Yes. And the British are keeping quite quiet. Under their own law, they are -- they can not only detain people without naming them for 14 days, but we don't even know what the specific charges would be.

What we do know is that this is still being treated as a terrorism investigation. And so that would lead, you know, both the community, people in Britain, and, of course, us, to look at the target. The target is a U.K. air force base, but it really is also a United States base. It is where we launch our major missions, many of our major missions in the war in Iran from there, and has been targeted by protests, but has also been specifically addressed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a potential target because they view it as essentially where America is fighting the war from.

FREEMAN: Well, so to that point, the British defense minister himself was asked in several interviews if the incident was driven by a hostile foreign state. He said he did not want to speculate at this stage of the investigation. And I understand that there is the idea that you're saying that they might legally have to not be able to say certain details, but what might they be looking for in order to suggest that this could be a foreign hostile that was behind this?

KAYYEM: Right. Yes, so, you have -- you have a couple of theories that they're going to go with. So that -- and that's all they are right now. We're not going to speculate. But, of course, we, you know, we live in the real world. So, one is that this was an Iranian launched attack -- directed attack. I tend to think that's unlikely. The Iranians are unlikely to specifically target western interests because they're winning the narrative now. I mean the -- you know, Europe is very upset with us about the war. The gulf states are very upset with us about the war.

The other is that -- or another theory would be radicalized Brits. So, British nationals, as we've come to suspect that these men are, have become radicalized, not just by this war, but remember, we still have Hamas and the Gaza war and the -- and the controversy -- controversies around Israel, which have very much animated elements within the British population.

[09:15:04]

You would then have a third theory that they're going to look at is that this may be unrelated to either of those. I think that's less likely. But certainly as we keep learning from the British authorities about what this could be, they are clearly looking at different potential motivations.

FREEMAN: Last thing, Juliette, just, I wanted your take on this. What do you make of the reporting by outlets like the BBC, "The Guardian," "The Telegraph," that the operation really was not intelligence led at all, but rather really thanks to the vigilance of local residents, like you heard Nic Robertson speaking to one, them alerting authorities?

KAYYEM: Yes, I think there's a gap between what President Trump said, that these men had been followed, that this was a big counterterrorism mission, and ultimately how this unfolded, which is a farmer looks at these vans and says, this is awfully weird at 12, you know, at midnight in the middle of the night and who calls it in. So, that gap between sort of what -- whether there was a counterterrorism intelligence investigation going on and how it unfolded is going to have to be looked at. If President Trump is correct, the British authorities let these guys get awfully close to, not just their air force base, but our -- but a base that holds our major weaponry, a lot of our major, major aviation weaponry in the war in Iran.

So, that is -- that is something they have to look at. But again, it is always a good thing when a community is aware about its surroundings. And it is -- this air force base has been the subject of protests, threats and lots of other -- lots of other sort of, you know, attacks over the -- verbal attacks. And this neighbor did the right thing.

FREEMAN: No, she certainly did. Certainly not going to be the last word on this story.

Juliette Kayyem, thank you so much for your analysis, as always.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: All right, more on our breaking news. We just have heard that SpaceX and its space -- and its Starship has gone into orbit. It has gone orbital, which is now passing a threshold that had not before, reaching a milestone. That is a huge moment for SpaceX, the company, and the future of space exploration for all of us. Much more to come on this.

And Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates raising alarm over A.I. now. What he is saying about just how rogue it can go.

Plus, suspects tossing cash out a car window as they try to run from police. New video ahead.

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[09:21:41]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Minus nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FREEMAN: That was the moment right there. The most powerful rocket ever lifted off. And breaking just moments ago, SpaceX says its massive Starship has just gone orbital. Mission control was debating whether to send it into orbit, but then decided to, quote, "go for it."

CNN aerospace analyst Miles O'Brien is back with us.

Miles, there was some drama up there in the sky before it actually reached orbit. What can you tell us?

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN AEROSPACE ANALYST: Yes, a little bit of nail biting. There was a failure of one of the raptor engines designed to fly in the vacuum of space. And they wanted to understand why it failed. It's not that they needed that engine in order to maintain orbit, but without understanding if there was some sort of common problem that would affect the other engines, they wanted to go through and make a decision on this. They got happy with the idea that the other engines would be fine, which is all you need in order to maintain orbit. And most importantly, a safe reentry that is not going to clonk anybody on their head.

So, they're in orbit. This is a significant moment in the history of space. The history of the Starship program. The history of SpaceX.

What we're going to see here very shortly is the commercial part of this mission, which is the deployment of 26 Starlink satellites. Starship is built to maintain and augment that Starship internet space-based internet network. And it is delivering satellites that the Falcon Nine is unable to deliver because of its size. And so, we're going to see that shortly.

And the satellites come out, not unlike remember Pez, like a Pez dispenser, little candies coming out.

FREEMAN: Sure.

O'BRIEN: And that's what we're going to see here in just a -- it's like a Pez dispenser. We'll see that. But in theory, we're going to get about nine hours and 50 minutes of views of the earth as the Starship rotates around every 90 minutes or so six times. And then it will come down, if all goes well, in the -- off of South America.

So, a big moment, Danny. We were here for history.

FREEMAN: Yes, we certainly were. And again, a little bit of drama before it actually reached orbit.

Wait, Miles, can you fast forward to when this aircraft is going to come back down to earth? Is this one expected to be caught like we've talked about before, or will something look different when it comes back to our great planet? O'BRIEN: This one they're going to try to do a soft landing in the

Pacific Ocean off of South America. The next mission -- if everything goes well on this one, we're going to see attempts to recover things. This time they wanted to focus purely on getting to orbit. That was the key threshold. It appears they have succeeded now on that. So, we'll look forward to number 15 --

FREEMAN: We're watching the Pez dispenser, Miles, by the way, as you described before. I think one just popped out.

O'BRIEN: There they go. That one's probably strawberry.

FREEMAN: Yes.

O'BRIEN: I don't think (INAUDIBLE) --

FREEMAN: Yes, different flavors of satellites.

O'BRIEN: But you can see why they call it the Pez dispenser, right?

[09:25:01]

FREEMAN: Yes.

O'BRIEN: Yes.

FREEMAN: That's remarkable. I'm sorry, I interrupted you. Finish your thought, Miles, please.

O'BRIEN: But off they go. That -- this is -- this -- well, I mean, if you think about SpaceX, this business, it's not so much about launching anymore. It's about the satellites. And the Starlink system is a wildly profitable enterprise. Much more profitable than launch itself. And Starship is built to deliver a lot of Starlinks and make that space-based internet system more robust. And so that's a key part of the business plan for SpaceX.

Of course, NASA is watching this very closely because they want to modify this particular ship, not this one, but the ship will be designed as a lander to put astronauts on the surface of the moon. So, there's a lot riding on this mission so far. And so far they're checking all the boxes.

FREEMAN: Just incredible. And here comes another one of those satellites coming right out of that starship as we speak.

Again, we watched the takeoff earlier for science, and now they're getting down to business as this orbit continues.

Miles O'Brien, thank you so much for breaking it all down for us. Appreciate you.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: That massive storm that slammed the East Coast this weekend with big winds and rain, it's not over yet. The impacts are still being felt this morning. There's some new video in from just south of Boston showing some seawalls being really put to the test there. In Atlantic City, water levels surged to their highest point since Superstorm Sandy 14 years ago. The storm also killed one person, injured four others from winds bringing down trees.

Meteorologist Melissa Nord has the very latest, joining us now.

Melissa, what are you watching right now? What's it looking like today?

MELISSA NORD, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Well, Kate, the peak of the storm is behind us. But it's this lingering aftermath that we are still dealing with. Here's more of those large waves crashing over the seawall there in Marshfield, Massachusetts, over the weekend. We had some peak wind gusts that did top hurricane strength. Surf City, New Jersey, right there, 74 mile per hour wind gusts that happened late Saturday. And also a lot of rain. This was about a month's worth of rain that fell over about a two day period. But because it didn't fall all in one afternoon, we didn't see as much flash flooding as we could have if it fell all at one short time.

But it's the longevity of this storm that I think that a lot of folks will remember. It's still lingering. The center of the low is right now south of Long Island. And you can see that huge swath of moisture lifting rain up through Rhode Island, Connecticut, Boston, still getting in on rainfall. But because the wind speeds have come down significantly, we're not looking at the same airport delays that we saw yesterday. So, that is the good news. It's a new workweek. Folks can get out to travel without as many headaches in the sky there.

Wind gusts right now 20 miles per hour in Boston. So, as the system itself, the nor'easter weakens, the top wind gusts have come down. There is some nuisance coastal flooding as well, but not nearly as high as it was over the weekend. Just this lingering rain that won't quite leave the area.

Here are those coastal flood advisory still in effect. Some of those will last through the afternoon. Others last through the overnight. And even though things may be drying out and some sunshine peeking back through in the mid-Atlantic, the rip current risk is still there for the day today.

Watch the rain lifting northward. Boston has to go through the evening commute today. And then finally it's just Maine left with some rain lingering tomorrow.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Thank you so much, Melissa. This thing needs to get out. Just move on out. This thing has taken long enough.

All right, ahead for us, new reporting on some disturbing A.I. security incidents. Multiple A.I. companies now investigating tens of thousands of security breaches, painting a much more complicated picture than what we've really known about so far. And Taylor Swift's record setting night at the VMAs. She becomes the

most awarded artist in VMA history. Details on that and the other big winners, ahead.

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