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Trump, Vance Announce $25 Million Anti-Fraud Initiative; Trump Takes Campaign Blitz to North Carolina; Trump Touts Farm Aid After Russia Diesel Deal; Witkoff Heading to Russia After Talks With Zelenskyy in Norway; Ukraine's Zelenskyy Says Intelligence Sharing Works Now. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired October 20, 2026 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:00]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So that voluntary intoxication instruction doesn't matter. He wasn't drunk. He knew what he was doing.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): Fairbarn testified Friday that he drank 30 to 40 beers leading up to this incident. Prosecutors don't want the jury to buy it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the face of triumph. And ultimately, when you really look at the evidence, you're going to see that what we have here is a felony animal cruelty.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): The defense says it was a drunken night gone wrong and argues arresting officers did not look at the full picture.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is baffling to me that the detectives who are tasked with investigating crimes and putting people in handcuffs and locking them in jail don't know the law.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): Prosecutors say Peachy was missing several feathers and his vet testified he could have died.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KEILAR: Yeah, imagine the flamingo anxiety there, too, right?

A new hour of "CNN News Central" starts right now.

SANCHEZ: President Trump's Tar Heel appeal. Heading to North Carolina, the president is set to make the case for another Republican who's in a tight race. Election Day is two weeks away, and millions of Americans have already cast their ballots.

Plus, farm aids. The White House announcing an $8 billion plan to help America's farmers as soaring diesel fuel and fertilizer costs take a bigger bite out of their profits.

And trust issues. White House envoys holding talks with Ukraine about ending the war. But is the divide too far to bridge? The new questions about U.S. support in the war against Russia.

We're following these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here to "CNN News Central."

With just 14 days to the midterm elections, President Trump is raising the stakes in his anti-fraud efforts. At any moment, he's expected to announce a $25 million program that a White House official says will pay Americans who find fraud and report it.

The new initiative is happening as the president soon takes his campaign blitz to North Carolina, a key battleground state where Democrats are hoping to flip a Senate seat. That race has Republican Michael Whatley, a former chair of the party, in a tight race with his Democratic opponent, former Governor Roy Cooper. CNN's Kevin Liptak is live at the White House for us with more.

So, Kevin, what is the latest?

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yeah, and this trip to North Carolina is interesting. It does follow a pattern that we've seen the president carrying out going to states that he won in 2024 but where Republicans now are on the defensive. The interesting thing about North Carolina is that a lot of national Republicans have kind of written off this Senate race entirely.

The polls show Michael Whatley trailing the Governor Roy Cooper fairly significantly, and you've seen national Republican outlets pulling money from that race and investing it elsewhere, essentially kind of cutting bait because they don't think that Whatley will be able to regain ground.

But nonetheless, that's what you'll see the president doing today. And I think this is in part the president's attempt to sort of cut off any accusations that he's not doing his fair share to try and get Republicans off the finish line.

He's been on the campaign trail very intensively. He will be out every single day this week. And just now on Truth Social, he's also promoting his efforts at spending money in these races to try and get Republicans off the finish line.

He wrote that "Because of my belief in the Republican Party and all of our policies and principles, and especially after witnessing what is taking place in France and other locations throughout Europe, I am pleased to announce that having to do with the most important midterms in our country's history, I have spent or will be spending over $400 million by Election Day."

Now, presumably, he's talking there about the MAGA, Inc. super PAC that he has headlined fundraisers for. The president has said previously that he has total control over where that money is being spent. The other interesting thing in this Truth Social post is his reference to that unrest that we've seen in France.

You heard him again last night talking about that as well, suggesting that if Republicans are not successful in these midterm elections, that you could see something similar happening here in the United States.

So clearly, the president and his advisers see an opening there now two weeks before the midterm elections, trying to convince some of these Republicans to head out to the polls, Boris.

SANCHEZ: Kevin Liptak, live for us at the White House, thank you so much. Brianna?

KEILAR: All right, as President Trump prepares for tonight's rally in North Carolina, the state's retiring Republican Senator, Thom Tillis coming out with a blunt warning, telling Politico that Trump's advisers could cost Republicans the midterms. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. THOM TILLIS, (R-NC): He's going to be whoever he is. The only thing I can change are the people around him that may be able to tamp down some of those emotions, but also not come up with really, really, really [expletive] ideas that he implements.

[14:05:00]

JONATHAN MARTIN, POLITICO JOURNALIST: But isn't that a hell of a way to run a railroad? Yeah, hey, look.

(LAUGH)

TILLIS: It's exactly why we're headed to the, you know, to continue the analogy of a train wreck in November.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: We're joined now by Republican Congressman, Tim Moore of North Carolina. You were kind of chuckling there, I will note, but I wanted to ask you sort of about the state of affairs in North Carolina because we're looking at the early vote and so far, we're seeing 46 percent of registered Democrats casting their ballots, 20 percent of registered Republicans.

And when you look at 2024, it was actually pretty evenly split, 34 to 33 at this point. Are you concerned about that?

REP. TIM MOORE, (R-NC): You know, if you look at midterms in North Carolina, historically Republicans wait and vote later, and so certainly the Democrats came out very strong in the first two days of early voting in our state, but if you look at the day since then, Republicans have been turning out in better numbers and a lot of Republicans.

I've been out campaigning door-to-door at the poll sites, all these great things, and I have a lot of folks who say, who tell me, a lot of Republicans, they say, I want to wait and vote on Election Day and my message to them is not, go ahead and get out and vote now, the lines aren't that bad, why wait then, get it done now. KEILAR: All right, but this is kind of apples to apples and Republicans are struggling a bit. Are you surprised?

MOORE: You know, it's anytime you're in a midterm election, the party in power always has a harder time, that's just the reality of it, but when I'm out talking to folks and talking about the issues, you know, I'm sensing a lot of support out there. But you know, folks are concerned about like high fuel prices, high food prices, you know, I point out the things that we've done to try to deal with it, but you have to recognize the problems there and you also have to recognize, frankly, Washington has not done enough to deal with it.

KEILAR: There are a lot of headwinds. And I know that you feel that within the state, Republicans are pretty strong, but when you're looking at the Senate race and Michael Whatley, who has consistently trailed Democrat Roy Cooper, former governor, in both polls and fundraising numbers, is that race essentially over?

MOORE: I wouldn't say it's -- no, I wouldn't say it's over at all, because I'm seeing some energy out there, I'm seeing more and more of that energy, but you know he is being outspent quite a bit, that obviously has an impact. And when it comes to polling, there's a big debate now about whether Republicans are under-polled or under- sampled.

KEILAR: But one poll has Whatley down 13 points, so that's not like, you don't think that's it.

MOORE: I don't, and you can look at, like we were showing Senator Tillis earlier, there were polls for him back when he ran six years ago, showing that he was down and he was down. Matter of fact, every poll up until Election Day showed he was behind, and he came out and he won, but I tell you, it's going to be a turnout issue, 100 percent.

KEILAR: Well, speaking of Tillis, you know, he decided to retire after Trump attacked him on social media, and I wonder if by pushing Tillis to the side, if you think that the president may have actually made this more difficult for Republicans, and could have actually affected that? We're sort of asking the same question on Texas as well as we are about North Carolina.

MOORE: I mean, there's certainly a debate to that. I know Michael Whatley well, in fact, I'm his congressman, and I also happen to be Senator Tillis' congressman, and so I know both of these men very well, and clearly someone who had been in the Senate for 12 years has stronger name ID and those types of things.

But you know, Senator Tillis decided that he didn't want to run again, and so Michael Whatley stepped in to do it, and Michael's talking about issues that matter to North Carolinians. He's talking about issues about affordability, about what we need to do to make sure the border is protected, that we need to deal with the crime problems that we have, and points out how Roy Cooper truly did release thousands of dangerous criminals back out onto the street, so he has a message that resonates.

But you know, when it's a spending issue, that's always a challenge.

KEILAR: So the vice president announced at a rally yesterday that there would be more than $850 million in additional disaster relief for areas affected by Hurricane Helene. I mean, these are areas who even this much later, they just really need the help.

MOORE: So --

KEILAR: We see that, but it's about a month ago, you had the president joking that he would withhold aid unless Whatley won. This is being announced very close to the election. Is this a play for votes? Is that appropriate?

MOORE: Well, certainly I don't think it's a play for votes, and if it was, it wouldn't be appropriate. I represent some areas that were significantly impacted by Hurricane Helene. We've gotten a little over $2.6 billion in federal dollars already. That's in direct money, as well as ancillary money.

The state has stepped up in a big way. The additional $870 million that's coming in, that's going to be for transportation projects. Western North Carolina, some of the areas are back and back to normal, but there are a lot of areas that still have challenges.

A lot of businesses still need help. A lot of folks who don't have homes. The thing that's unique about Western North Carolina with the hurricane damage we had, you know, you think of hurricanes on the coast, the water comes up, it goes down.

In the mountains, it came through these valleys, and so you had landslides. So areas, land where buildings and homes existed, the land is no longer there. It's part of the river. So that's posed a lot of the challenge in terms of, it's not just a money thing, it's in terms of the logistics of what do you do, what does rebuilding look like, and that's why we've worked on it, you know, so hard.

[14:10:00]

KEILAR: You mentioned gas prices. Diesel prices have been a huge thing for farmers in North Carolina. The state ranks eighth nationally in the total market value of ag products sold. The White House is now offering this $8 billion aid package for farmers in the face of these high prices, which are of course driven by the war in Iran.

Do you think that the president, in his second term, has done enough for farmers? Because we're hearing from a lot who don't feel that he has.

MOORE: You know, I think the farmers need a lot more assistance than they've gotten from anyone in Washington, frankly, on both sides of the aisle.

KEILAR: Can I ask you about that? Because it's the idea of assistance versus things sort of making their life a lot harder, right? So I think you talk to farmers and I think they sort of say like, just let me do my thing. All of these things are happening that are just making my life so much difficult.

I don't necessarily want a hand out. I just want to be able to earn what I deserve to earn.

MOORE: Right. I mean, they're paying more for fertilizer, right? They're paying more for pesticides, diesel fuel. Now here's the thing about diesel nobody wants to talk about. Normally the oil companies make about $0.35 to $0.40 a gallon. The last stats I showed, they're making $2.40 a gallon on diesel.

That's who's hurting the farmers right now and we need to deal with that.

KEILAR: You think it's entirely the oil companies?

MOORE: I think that's a big --

KEILAR: It's not the war in Iran?

MOORE: I think it's a big -- well, it's a big part of it. It's international commodity. Think about it. We get very little to no oil from the Middle East.

KEILAR: But the pesticides, I mean, you're talking about, you know, potash, tariffs, this kind of thing. This isn't just oil companies.

MOORE: It's a mixture of things, but what we need to do is --

KEILAR: But a lot of them you can trace directly to the president's policies.

MOORE: You can trace some of that, but here's the deal on that. You're going to go back to the tariffs. I don't know how much time we have, but on the tariff side of things, you had these countries who were cheating against the United States for so long and we had to take action.

I do think that at least the way we've dealt with on the commodity side right now, we're trying to get some normalization there. But when it goes to diesel, for example, it's not just farming. Diesel is under everything. The shipping, I mean, food prices. The high diesel prices make high transportation. It gets passed along.

I think we need to find ways to expand our energy production and distribution here long-term. Part of what we're dealing with are long- term issues. You know, the first new refinery that's been built in the United States is happening now and it's been 40 years.

40 years because of a lot of these policies that have just made us fight with one hand tied behind our back on energy policy. So we've got to address it from an even larger scale. But certainly, have the geopolitical events impacted? Of course they have.

The war between Ukraine and Russia has impacted. All those things have. But I think at the end of the day, we need to make sure the American consumer is not getting the bill stuck to them by price gouging and other things.

KEILAR: Yeah, tariffs have affected with the fertilizer, potash, pesticides, all of that. But a lot to talk about. We appreciate you coming into the studio to do it.

MOORE: Glad to be on with you.

KEILAR: Thank you so much. Still to come, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy gives an update on his meeting with Trump administration officials. The sit-down coming as tensions rise between the White House and Kyiv. See what Zelenskyy had to say about intel sharing with the U.S. and Ukraine's access to Starlink.

Plus, following his diesel deal with Russia, President Trump is rolling out billions in aid for farmers facing soaring fuel and fertilizer costs. We were just talking about them. We'll take a look at the political stakes there.

And then later, Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts may miss the rest of the season. Why? Because of blood clots found in his lungs. The team is facing questions about why he traveled and played. We'll have that and much more coming up on "CNN News Central."

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[14:18:19]

SANCHEZ: So U.S. Envoy, Steve Witkoff is soon going to head to Russia to meet with Vladimir Putin after holding face-to-face talks with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy today in Norway. That meeting wrapping up just a short time ago. Coming amid a widening rift between the U.S. and Ukraine.

KEILAR: Following the meeting, Zelenskyy stressed his country must be part of any multilateral talks about ending the war. He also says he's thankful the U.S. is now sharing intelligence on incoming Russian missile strikes after several days of deadly Russian attacks that hit Ukraine without warning.

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT: We are thankful that intelligence works. Now, I'm speaking about early warning, what is very important for our people, for children, adults, civilians. Because we can hear when ballistic is coming, so we are thankful to American side. Now it works.

It's great. Then, as I said, we also discussed with secretary, not only intelligence, we discussed Starlink and Patriot and he will come back. And I think that we will have good result.

KEILAR: All right, let's talk about these developments now with retired Air Force Colonel, Cedric Leighton. He's a CNN Military Analyst. That is so interesting, Cedric, to hear Zelenskyy now saying that. Intel sharing works now, it's great. And he's confident that the Starlink thing is going to be cleared up.

What are you making of this? COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: This is very interesting, Brianna, because, you know, the reports from the Ukrainian side have been up until this point that Starlink wasn't working at the right speeds, which basically we're talking 100 miles an hour for drone systems. If they go faster than that, then they can't get the data link.

[14:20:00]

And what Zelenskyy is now saying about Intel sharing is critically important. If it turns out to be correct, that Intel sharing is back on, we're talking really about the early warning piece of this, and that's really critical. This is one of the key elements of U.S. intelligence that is really above and beyond what other countries can do, and that's basically the early warning when it comes to incoming missiles.

And the fact that Ukraine was benefiting from that has saved countless lives. When it was turned off or not available, whatever the cause was, that caused deaths among the civilian population, caused a lot of damage to the Ukrainian infrastructure, especially the energy infrastructure. And that's something that really puts Ukraine on the back foot when it was actually making progress on the battlefield.

SANCHEZ: To that point about making progress, the timing of this is curious because you have the throttling or the alleged glitches with Starshield, and you have the threats of reduced intelligence sharing from the United States as Ukraine is inflicting real pain on Russia with attacks on energy infrastructure, attacks on data centers as well.

And as that's happening, you would think the White House would embrace that sort of progress because in the past, that's what has brought Putin to the table. Instead, you get a deal for diesel.

LEIGHTON: Yeah, exactly, Boris, and that's what's really strange about this because anytime you deal with the Russians, the only thing that works is when you actually put pressure on them. You know, back in the day when Ronald Reagan was negotiating with the Soviets, the one thing that he realized was that if you put pressure on them, they would actually come to the table and you would actually get meaningful agreements out of them. And that's the kind of thing that the Trump administration doesn't seem to realize.

And to your point about attacking the data centers as well as the energy infrastructure, that is critical. One thing we should notice is that when it comes to the data centers, that seems to have spurred a plea by Putin to Trump to get the Ukrainians to stop attacking them. And that's why that may be one of the reasons why some of this has happened.

But the key thing is this, attacking the data centers changes the way in which the Russians show their hand in war when it comes to their command and control efforts. But it's also very important from a disinformation standpoint because a lot of those data centers are places where that disinformation is actually processed and sent out not just to Ukraine or to Russia itself, but to Western Europe and really to the rest of the world.

KEILAR: So how are you seeing these talks after -- you have a U.S. official saying that Witkoff hopes to meet with Putin and present ideas developed in close consultation with Ukraine and European partners. You have that coming on the heels of, you know, a U.S. official and Marco Rubio talking about this, Putin-Xi-Trump potential meeting and that Trump's receptive to that. I mean, how are you seeing all of this?

LEIGHTON: Yeah, so the really important thing is that if the meeting of China -- of the Chinese, Russian and American leaders takes place without Ukraine, that really would smack of a, you know, kind of divide up the world, although the 19th century type situation.

KEILAR: If you're not at the table --

LEIGHTON: If you're on the table --

KEILAR: You're on the menu.

LEIGHTON: You're on the menu, exactly. And that's what Ukraine wants to avoid and Ukraine should avoid that. And what was also noteworthy about the Norwegian meeting is that the Finnish president and the Norwegian prime minister were present. And both of those gentlemen are very much supportive of Ukraine, but they also have, at least the Finnish president especially, has an in with President Trump, at least had an in with President Trump in terms of their relationship, their personal relationship.

So that becomes really important to watch as well. So perhaps they were able to convince Witkoff that it was time to do some other things with Putin. That would be the optimistic view of this. But the pessimistic view of this is that they go back and just rehash some of the old talking points that the Russians had provided. And of course, the Russians don't want to move unless they get that pressure that we talked about earlier.

And speaking of pressure, one other thing that I'd like to mention, the Ukrainians have actually made progress on the ground. There's a thing called Operation Vivaldi that the Ukrainians are pursuing. It's a four-stage operation that actually started in May and it's actually gained them about 100 square miles of territory in the eastern part of the country. So that shows that the Ukrainians are making progress.

The Russians, of course, were trying to get that fortress belt in the Donbas region. And that particular thing is, of course, a key target for the Russians, and if they don't get that, then all of their offensive operations basically grind to a halt as winter comes in.

SANCHEZ: We'll see what we hear from the U.S. side after this meeting with Zelenskyy and the meeting with Kremlin officials. That is still to come. Colonel Cedric Leighton, appreciate the expertise.

LEIGHTON: Thank you, Boris.

SANCHEZ: Still to come this afternoon, new developments in the Cornell rape case, how the school's president allegedly reacted after the accuser filed her report.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:29:30]

KEILAR: We've Breaking News into CNN. The woman known as Jane Doe who has alleged that she was drugged and raped at a Cornell University fraternity house has sent a message to the school's Faculty Senate. CNN's Jason Carroll is with us now on this story. Jason, what's in this letter?

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, first of all, let me tell you, as you know, the Cornell's Faculty Senate is considering, Brianna, this vote of no confidence. And so they're listening to people, a lot of people at the University, as you know, who have been very critical of Cornell's president Well, Jane Doe also critical of Cornell's president in this letter, apparently saying that he said something during a meeting that she really --