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Jack Smith to Testify on Trump Prosecution; Polls on President Trump; Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-ME) is Interviewed about Blocking the Kennedy Center Demolition; Trump Administration Pushes for Real Food in Schools; A.I. Leaders meet with Trump; Children Fight to Stay in an Immigration Court. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired September 29, 2026 - 08:30   ET

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

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[08:30:40]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: In about a half hour, a showdown in the Senate. Republicans are eager to grill former Special Counsel Jack Smith, who is set to testify about the two criminal cases he brought against President Trump. One over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and the other involving classified documents found at Mar-a- Lago. Both cases were dismissed before trial.

One thing is clear, Smith is not backing down. In his prepared opening statement we have learned, Smith declares, quote, "I will not be silenced," and says he continues to stand by his decision to prosecute.

CNN's Evan Perez, live this morning on Capitol Hill.

What are you learning this morning?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Sara, we're expecting to hear quite a bit of fire certainly from Republicans who are very upset with some aspects of these investigations that were led by Jack Smith. The two investigations, one of them, of course, ending up with charges against the president of the United -- the former president of the United States at the time, over the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol and the Mar-a-Lago classified documents that were found that the -- that the president took with him to Mar-a- Lago after he left the presidency. Those two investigations, of course, ended up with charges against the president and ended up being dropped after he became -- won the election -- the last election.

And so, one of the things that we expect to hear from Republicans certainly is accusations that they were -- that the investigation into the president's conduct ended up actually being investigations of Republicans and what they were doing during that time in 2020. And so, you're going to hear, certainly from Chuck Grassley, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, accusations that phone records and other records of members of Congress was illegally looked at by Jack Smith's investigators during that time.

Smith, we expect, is going to push back on a lot of that because everything he says was done according to the Justice Department's rules. And I'll read you just a part of the testimony that we expect him to deliver when he arrives here. He says, "if asked whether to prosecute a former president on the same facts today, I would do so regardless of whether that president was a Republican or a Democrat." You can see there, he plans to stick by his guns on this issue.

Sara, one of the things that's remarkable about this, obviously, is that President Trump is still stuck in 2020. He wants to keep relitigating the issue that he won. He believes he won the election. He says he won the 2020 election. But there's also another part of this, is that we're not -- we're not done reliving 2016 because there's still an ongoing investigation by the current Justice Department down in the Southern District of Florida that is looking at not only the conduct of Jack Smith, but also the investigation, the Russia investigation, the Russian interference in the 2016 election that is still being looked at by those investigators in the Southern District of Florida. Of course, we'll see whether Smith addresses any of that, because he's limited on what he can say on some aspects of the classified documents investigation.

Sara.

SIDNER: This will get underway shortly, and we're looking at some live pictures inside of the hearing room, which I know you'll be paying close attention to.

Evan Perez, thank you so much for your reporting. Appreciate it.

John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, President Trump is promising a new steel plant in Iowa worth about $15 billion. So, the question is why so close to the election? Exactly where and to whom is this directed?

With us now, CNN chief data analyst Harry Enten.

OK.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN CHIEF DATA ANALYST: Yes.

BERMAN: Steel plant. Iowa. Let's figure out what group of voters the target might be here.

ENTEN: The target group of voters is white, non-college voters. They were the heartbeat of President Trump's three presidential campaigns. And right now, the heartland is ripping the heart out of Donald Trump's presidency.

Because just take a look at these numbers right here. OK, white non- college voters on Trump. He won those or he was leading against Kamala Harris among white non-college voters just before the 2024 election by 25 points.

[08:35:01]

But down he goes. He is now in the negative with white non-college voters. Look at this. He's down to minus two points. He's in the negative territory with a group of voters that fueled his three presidential bids and allowed him to win a second term in the White House back in 2024. We're talking a drop here with a key core group of Donald Trump's presidential campaigns of 27 points away from the president of the United States. No wonder he's so low.

BERMAN: This minus two points, how does this compare to other Republican presidents at this time?

ENTEN: OK, you see this minus two points. And keep in mind that Donald Trump was more reliant on white non-college voters than any previous Republican president. And now he's at the lowest of any Republican president at this point in his second term among white non-college voters. That minus two is lower than the previous record holder. That was George W. Bush, who was less reliant on white non-college voters at minus one, way lower than Dwight D. Eisenhower, or Ike as his fans would like to call him, or Ronald Reagan at plus 40 points. Plus 40, plus 31, minus one, minus two. Minus two taking the cake amongst a group of voters that Donald Trump has always been reliant on. And now even they have turned on him.

BERMAN: And what happened to him in the midterms?

ENTEN: And what happened to him? His party lost the United States House, and it also lost the United States Senate, in large part because a lot of voters who had previously been voting Republican decided to vote Democratic.

BERMAN: OK, we're talking about this voter group, white non-college voters here. How do they feel about the president on inflation?

ENTEN: Yes, OK. So, one of the reasons why, or I would argue the key reason why Donald Trump won a second term in the White House was because of the cost of living, inflation. They didn't like Joe Biden. They decided to give Donald Trump a second chance.

Take a look here, though. Oh my. Oh, my goodness gracious. Trump's net approval on inflation, white non-college voters. The retrospective approval back in 2024 in his first term was plus 24 points. Look at where it is now. I mean, my goodness gracious. This is deep into the Iowa sand, minus 39 points. What is that Johnny B.? That's a change of 63 points in the wrong direction on the key issue that Donald Trump -- got Donald Trump re-elected to a second term among the key group that got him re-elected.

BERMAN: This is the who, OK. So, who might be the target of the president's $15 billion steel plant? The where is Iowa. So, how are we seeing this all come together there?

ENTEN: Yes, how about take a look at the Kalshi prediction market. The chance that Rob Sand wins the Iowa governor's race. Look at this. Six months ago it was a 48 percent chance. Now it looks like Rob Sand is going to be the first Democratic governor in the great state of Iowa in 20 years. BERMAN: So, one of the big issues in Iowa, all over the Midwest, and

with a lot of white non-college voters is, of course, A.I. and the data center is being built.

ENTEN: Yes.

BERMAN: What if people have questions about how A.I. is affecting the midterms?

ENTEN: It's an interactive Q&A. Hadas Gold, Johnny B., look at this fine-looking gentleman right over here, tonight, 7 p.m., streaming live. And you can get it right here, cnn.com/officehours. Leave your questions ahead of time so that Johnny B., and Hadas and I, we can all answer them for you.

BERMAN: Just one fact check, it's tomorrow night.

ENTEN: Oh, it's tomorrow night. It's --

BERMAN: I hope -- I hope you have it on your calendar correctly.

ENTEN: Wait, it's tomorrow? Oh, my God. I'm just so excited for it. I'm so excited.

BERMAN: Fact check, today is Tuesday.

ENTEN: Today is Tuesday. It's Wednesday night. I'm just so excited. I just want to be with J.B. all day long.

BERMAN: We will see you tomorrow night for that. I hope Harry has it correct on his calendar.

Kate.

ENTEN: Ah, we'll find out.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes. It's all going to be great guys. It's all going to be great.

Let's turn to this. Overnight, that would be Monday into Tuesday, a bipartisan effort in the Senate failed. The push was to stop a president, including this one, from being able to demolish presidential memorials like the Kennedy Center. Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley and Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski, they led the effort. They tried to swiftly pass a bill through a process called unanimous consent. But any one senator can get in the way of that maneuver. And Republican senator Mike Lee did. He objected. So now they're rolling out legislation in both the House and Senate to try to pull this off, rolling it out just today.

Joining us right now is the Democrat leading the effort in the House, Democratic Congresswoman Chellie Pingree from Maine.

It's good to have you, Congresswoman. Thank you for being here.

So, the House is out. Not back until after the election. Do you think there is a chance enough Republicans would join you in this effort after the midterm, or are you setting this up as a fight for a possible Democratic majority to come in January?

REP. CHELLIE PINGREE (D-ME): Well, it would be great if we could do something, you know, right after November, or maybe we'll be called back. Who knows?

But I don't want to wait till next year when I'm in the majority. Obviously, when we're in the majority, we'll have a lot more power to push back on the president. But it would be great, at least symbolically, to pass something like this through the House, to show that there are Republicans and Democrats who are outraged when the president said, I won't let you do any repairs on this building unless my name is on it. I'm just going to have to tear it down. That scares people to death. And this is a living monument to John F. Kennedy.

So, the idea that the president has done so much damage with the Kennedy Center is really upsetting people.

[08:40:01]

But just this symbolic act to pass this bill called the Protecting Presidential Memorials Act would show that Republicans and Democrats are aligned.

And I want to tell you something. They're all out on the campaign trail right now. And you can hear them day after day changing their tune on so many things, like the war in Iran and the price of diesel and ICE's activities. The Kennedy Center, doing the right thing there, is a no brainer.

BOLDUAN: This is -- and this is not -- I'll say this on the front end of my question. This is not an either or, but if you have a -- someone in your district who says, look, I'm having a hard time putting food on the table, why do I need to care about the Kennedy Center and why are you spending time on that, what do you say to them?

PINGREE: You know, it's a good question. Remarkably, I don't hear that very often. People are actually so mad at the president about everything that he's doing that to them it isn't an either or. They are really upset about the price of diesel. That's a big issue in Maine with our farmers, fishermen, and the number of people who have to drive long distances to work. They're really upset about what it costs to fill up your grocery cart at the grocery store, the cost of housing, the cost of child care. They want the president to be focused on those issues.

So, in many ways, what outrages them is not that they're so attached to the Kennedy Center, but they hear about all of his plans, you know, taking over the Kennedy Center, diverting funds, building himself an arch, building himself a giant ballroom. And they're just shocked that that's where he's spending the taxpayer dollars, but also that they're not -- that he's not paying attention to them, and that the Republicans have been going along.

I think most people just can't believe this is the country we're living in right now, when normally Americans-ish, you know, concerns and issues like the cost of living and trying to put food on the table should be number one to any president. And this is what he wants to do, guild some horses and build some fountains.

BOLDUAN: You are on the Ag Committee. You mentioned Maine's farmers. Where are you on the idea of a diesel export ban? Because it's something that I know that especially Republicans up for re-election in Iowa, they've been pushing. There's a lot of pushback, though, just saying like, it will actually backfire if you would do this. But you're hearing it -- you're hearing it from farmers. Do you support an export -- a diesel export ban?

PINGREE: Look, if farmers and fishermen thought that it would bring down the cost for them, they would want me to be all in on that. And I've always wondered why we spend so much time exporting our fuels. I know there are complicated markets here, and it is very likely, from what we hear from everyone, that this wouldn't change the price domestically and it would upset the international markets. But look, as far as I'm concerned, if we could do something to help fishermen and farmers in the here and now, I'd be all for it.

But this is where the president has gotten us. It's like one band-aid after another. I mean, he talks about these big ideas and how he's going to fix things, but he doesn't. He needs to get the war in Iran over. And that's the number one thing I hear from people.

BOLDUAN: He definitely continues to say we're looking at it when it comes to the diesel export ban.

The Senate race in Maine. Congresswoman, is one of the most closely watched this midterm. I mean, I don't need to tell you that. You've obviously been watching it, been very closely involved in it as well. And the race is, by all measure, close. If Troy Jackson successfully unseats Republican Susan Collins, what will be the reason? Will it be President Trump or will it be something else?

PINGREE: I think it will be absolutely President Trump and going along with his policies. You know, people have gotten much more sophisticated in a way about how politics works. And one of the things they've come to understand is, who is in the majority makes a huge difference. And people in Maine are very angry about the pending cuts in Medicaid. They're worried about their hospitals closing. Many of them have already lost their health care because of the affordable tax credit acts. They're worried about the cost of food. They're worried about the war in Iran. And they're deeply concerned that having Republicans in the majority right now is just a rubber stamp for the president.

And I think that's what this election turns on. The president is, whether he says it or not, he's on the ballot. And people are saying, we can't live like this any longer, and we need to change.

BOLDUAN: Congresswoman Chellie Pingree, thanks for coming in. Appreciate your time this morning.

Sara. SIDNER: All right, thank you, Kate.

The Trump administration wants schools to serve more real food, including more meals that are cooked from scratch. But for many school districts, there's a huge obstacle. Their aging kitchens simply aren't built for it. Outdated equipment, cramped spaces, and limited federal funding could make the shift especially difficult.

CNN's Meg Tirrell visited one Connecticut school where the kitchen is pieced together from a converted closet, office and hallway.

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MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Imagine preparing lunch for 300 kids every day in here.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: When the doors opened, like, it was claustrophobia.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But we have a very old building. It was opened in the early '60s.

[08:45:02]

And so, it was sort of piecemeal with the cafeteria. They didn't serve hot lunch at the time that it was built.

TIRRELL: The Trump administration wants to encourage schools to do more cooking from scratch. The problem is spaces like this.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I have absolutely no idea how I would do it here.

TIRRELL: This is Thomas Hooker Elementary School in Meriden, Connecticut. They've cobbled together a kitchen out of that closet, this hallway, and this office, which also doubles as their washing space. Out there, you've got their only prep space.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So, orange glaze comes, you know, in a shelf- stable container that she heated up. The chicken is a frozen popcorn chicken product. The burgers are a precooked burger patty that's reheated.

TIRRELL (voice over): The administration has promised to make childhood nutrition a central focus from HHS to USDA.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We traded real food for convenience.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And our kids were left to pay the price.

TIRRELL (voice over): Which is making $70 million in federal grants available for schools to upgrade equipment. But out of $20 million allocated so far, Connecticut has received about $209,000. The school district in Meriden alone spent more than that last year.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I spent $175,000 on equipment last year out of my own budget, and $150,000 on repairs and maintenance. TIRRELL: Wow.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

TIRRELL: So -- and the 209 is for the entire state, correct?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Correct.

TIRRELL (voice over): The administration is also finalizing a proposed new school nutrition rule based on updated dietary guidelines.

TIRRELL: What do you think you would need in order to be able to do that?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I would need an addition.

TIRRELL: Like a new physical structure?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. Yes. We would -- we would need definitely more space for food preparation for sure. Definitely more ovens, more refrigeration, more workspace.

TIRRELL (voice over): Around the country, 16 percent of school districts are already doing some scratch cooking. Littleton, Colorado, built this kitchen last year and makes about half of their lunches from scratch.

JESSICA GOULD, DIRECTOR OF NUTRITION AND WAREHOUSE, LITTLETON PUBLIC SCHOOLS: This full project of our production kitchen in Littleton cost a bit over $4 million. We feed roughly 7,000, a little bit more than that.

TIRRELL (voice over): But schools say they still need more resources.

GOULD: I budget around $100,000 for equipment every year. In a perfect world, I would be budgeting about $350,000.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Anything will help, but it won't get me there. It's just insufficient.

TIRRELL (voice over): Meg Tirrell, CNN, Meriden, Connecticut.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SIDNER: You can see they're dealing with a serious conundrum there.

All right, happening today, tech leaders headed to the White House for a high stakes meeting on the future of A.I. after all of their warnings.

And this is exactly what you should not do when a school bus stops in front of you. We'll show you what happened.

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[08:51:46] SIDNER: This morning, as a debate over safety guardrails for rapidly growing A.I. rages on, one top A.I. company is hitting the brakes on its own model. OpenAI says it has scrapped plans to release a cutting- edge new model next month over safety concerns. OpenAI's head of safety systems told CNN that the model, called GPT 6.1 Astra, quote, "didn't quite meet the bar for safety." This comes as President Trump hosts a high-stakes meeting with tech leaders at the White House today. OpenAI President Greg Brockman will be there, as well as Anthropic's CEO Dario Amodei, Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg and executives from Nvidia and Palantir. House Speaker Mike Johnson will also be in attendance.

Joining me now is Maria Curi, tech policy reporter for "Axios."

Let's just start with this meeting that's going to happen. You have President Trump meeting with some of the very tech executives who have been warning about the dangers of A.I. He's called that a hoax. Is this going to be an uncomfortable or at least a little bit awkward, this meeting between all of them?

MARIA CURI, TECH POLICY REPORTER, "AXIOS": You know, leading up to this meeting, the president already has been kind of laying the groundwork with some of the CEOs that the administration was perhaps the most adversarial with, namely Anthropic's CEO Dario Amodei. The president and Amodei had a dinner two nights ago. And so, they -- or last night, I should say. And so that groundwork has already been laid. They discussed A.I. safety, American's concerns over A.I. safety. You know, the president is rebranding A.I. superintelligence, so they discussed how to advance that.

And so, going into this meeting, you know, the industry and the Trump administration are quite aligned on how to handle the technology and really having the industry leading on the regulatory efforts. President Trump and his allies maintain that there -- that if there are safety concerns, the industry should regulate itself.

SIDNER: So, what is the point of this meeting? What are you expecting to come out of this meeting, if anything?

CURI: You know, I think that there is a lot of concern over artificial intelligence right now and a lot of eagerness from, you know, the American public and bipartisan members of Congress to do something about A.I. And I think what this meeting does is it gives an appearance of doing something. You have these big, flashy summits where you have the leaders of these tech companies meeting with the president. House Speaker Mike Johnson will be there. Others will be there as well. And it gives the appearance of the government taking action.

But at the end of the day, I don't expect any type of regulation to come out of this, for any legislation to move on The Hill. Certainly not ahead of the midterms and probably not in the lame duck. Going into the meeting, House Speaker Mike Johnson has said that this is really about emphasizing how important innovation is, how important it is to keep advancing the technology in order to beat China in this A.I. race. SIDNER: It's that balance that they're really having to deal with,

which is trying to stay ahead of the curve, but also this issue of safety has been made quite clear by many of the tech leaders.

I do want to ask you about OpenAI and its decision to hold back its next generation model because of safety concerns.

[08:55:04]

Like what? What are the concerns?

CURI: So, this isn't -- so, the concerns are that these models could potentially behave or act in a way where the company itself and researchers within the company don't understand and can't contain and control the model. And so, in order for the model to be released, it has to go through some pre-deployment testing first and really show that it's safe.

This is not the first time that OpenAI has delayed the release of one of their models. This is Astra, its most advanced model. But it's interesting that today, as we're having these meetings in Washington, you also have OpenAI's developers day, their big annual conference over in San Francisco, where the company is still planning to announce the release of 20 plus new products. And so, in some ways the company is scaling back on the frontier of the technology. But in other ways, it's continuing to develop and release products in large numbers.

SIDNER: Maria Curi, thank you for breaking this all down for us. There's so much to get into here. And there is a lot of concern in the public about A.I. on many, many different subjects.

Do appreciate your time this morning.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: So, in Texas, there's video of an example of not how you want to roll out of a new ride to be. The amusement park here said a roller coaster made an unplanned stop, leaving riders dangling.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What? Oh my God. No way. Oh! Oh my God, we're stuck.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: He is handling that way better than I would be. This happened during the park's opening weekend. This is outside of Austin. The park said the riders were stuck for less than ten minutes in that position, then it returned to a horizontal position and they were able to climb down unharmed.

New video also has been released of a -- of this rescue. Body cam showing the moment a deputy raced into action to a marina in Florida after getting an emergency call that a 72-year-old man in a wheelchair had fallen into the water. The sergeant arrived, found the man clinging to a pipe, we're told. He jumped in the water, helped him stay afloat until rescuers arrived, and they were both able to be pulled out and to safety. Thank goodness.

John.

BERMAN: Yes.

All right, this morning, a CNN exclusive. CNN was inside an immigration court in Texas where dozens of migrant children made their case to stay in the United States and avoid deportation. The children are as young as two years old, and many of them, they're without an attorney.

I want to get right to CNN's Priscilla Alvarez for the latest on this.

Two years old, speaking for themselves, kind of?

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: John, this is something that is happening nationwide. But the court in Texas is an example of what that looks like. Yesterday, 25 children showing up to the Harlingen immigration court. Our colleague, Norma Galeana, as well as a sketch artist, went into the courtroom because there are no cameras that are allowed in there. You're seeing some of the sketches there.

Here's what happened. There was a 13-year-old who appeared, did not have an attorney, and was ordered deported. He burst into tears and said, quote, "I have no one. I have nothing," when talking about Honduras because his mother and his family are here.

An eight-year-old, also without an attorney. A nine-year-old rested her head on the table. She didn't have anything to say as the immigration judge was also talking to her. A three-year-old playing with a mic on the bench. His attorney did beam in remotely, but he was just playing and singing. He didn't understand the gravity of the hearing.

Now, in some of those sketches you may see an adult sitting next to them. That's a caseworker. That is someone who is there to supervise the children, there a teddy bear, a little bigger than the girl. They are not there to represent the children in these proceedings.

And the children we're talking about here, what we call unaccompanied migrant children, they crossed the U.S.-Mexico border alone, or their family members were detained by ICE in the United States, and so they are in custody.

Now, this, again, is a reality playing out nationwide and one that attorneys and advocates I spoke with say is the result of a contract lapsing in over the summer. Now, that contract was for 100 legal service providers. So, hundreds of attorneys representing children and providing them know your rights training in the shelters.

Since that lapse, the administration struck another contract. But that's one organization with a smaller staff. And we're talking about over 1,000 children who are held in these shelters. Now, when I asked the Department of Health and Human Services about

this, because they are the ones charged with the care of these children, a spokesperson told me that, quote, "under the Trump ministration, ORR," the acronym for the agency, "remains committed to ensuring that every unaccompanied alien child has legal representation in immigration court."

[09:00:01]

But the reality, when I'm talking to dozens of sources, is that that is not what they are seeing in courts across the country.