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Trump Met With National Security Team About Iran; Trump-Backed Candidates Advance To Runoff After Ousting Cassidy; Ukraine Launches Drone Strikes In Russia Overnight; "Disaster: The Chernobyl Meltdown" Premieres Tonight; The Great Texas Taco Debate of 2026; Teenage Future In New Book "Young World." Bumble Turns To Artificial Intelligence To Help Millions Find Love. Aired 6-7p ET

Aired May 17, 2026 - 18:00   ET

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

[18:00:00]

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Thought she had died. Take a listen to her testimony.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ABBY ZWERNER, FORMER TEACHER AND PLAINTIFF: I thought I had died. I thought I was either on my way to heaven or in heaven. But then it all got black. And so, I then thought I wasn't going there, and then I -- my next memory is, I see two co-workers around me and I process that I'm hurt and they're putting pressure on where I'm hurt.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: This will be a case of first impression in the Commonwealth of Virginia. They have never had a prosecution like this before. Now, the defense in the civil case was that teachers kept coming to Ebony Parker, the vice principal, but they never said that they actually saw a gun. And she was busy that day. She had a lot to do. There was no concrete evidence that the child was armed.

The case starts on Monday. You can watch it live on CNN All Access. There's a camera in the courtroom. And if you want to watch the testimony for yourself, go to CNN All Access. Jury selection Monday morning. The opening statements may begin Monday afternoon -- Omar.

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Jean Casarez, appreciate the reporting.

And a new hour of CNN NEWSROOM starts right now.

All right, everyone, if you've been here, welcome back. If you're just getting here, welcome into the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Omar Jimenez in New York. Jessica Dean has the night off.

We've got new reporting for you tonight as a source tells CNN, President Donald Trump met with top members of his National Security team last night to discuss the path forward on the Iran war. And the meeting just comes a day before Trump issued a renewed warning to Iran, writing this on social media earlier today, quote, "For Iran, the clock is ticking and they better get moving fast or there won't be anything left of them. Time is of the essence."

I want to bring in White House correspondent Alayna Treene and "New York Times" White House and national security correspondent David Sanger. He's also a CNN political and national security analyst.

Alayna, I want to start with you, though, and your new reporting. What more are you learning about this meeting here?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Look, so President Donald Trump, we're told, met yesterday at his Virginia golf club with some of his top officials who have been really helping him plot the path forward on Iran. That includes the vice president, J.D. Vance, the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, the CIA director, John Ratcliffe, as well as the president's special envoy, Steve Witkoff. All of them attended this meeting yesterday, we're told.

We also expect to see the president gather with his National Security team early this week as well. But this all comes, as we're being told, you know, Trump has long been frustrated with where things are right now. He's been impatient, really, with the Iranians, who he feels like the divisions in their leadership have led them to be unable to come to a significant compromise when it comes to negotiations on ending this conflict.

He's also, of course, frustrated by the continued closure of the Strait of Hormuz. And I was told that this week, really, he has been closer to wanting to order major combat operations on Iran than he has been really throughout this entire ceasefire. Of course, he still does want there to be diplomacy. He wants diplomacy to prevail and to make some sort of deal with the Iranians. But he's losing patience with this.

And that's why you're seeing some of the comments from him about, you know, the clock is ticking, trying to indicate that perhaps the Iranians are running out of time. One thing that was really interesting as well is that I knew that the president was, you know, contemplating this decision before he had left for China. However, Trump administration officials told me essentially that they wanted to see how these talks in Beijing with President Xi, who, of course, is, you know, a close partnership -- China with Iran. China is the biggest consumer of Iranian oil, to see how those conversations went before making any formal decision on how to proceed.

But the president is now back in Washington. Not much has really changed about the Iran war despite that China trip. And so now he has a big decision to make. We know that the military and the Pentagon have put together a number of different options for potential strikes. We're told some of them include targeted strikes on energy and infrastructure. But really, we'll have to see how the president decides to proceed -- Omar.

JIMENEZ: Alayna Treene, appreciate the reporting.

I want to bring in David.

Just for your reaction to this latest development here. DAVID SANGER, CNN POLITICAL AND NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well,

Alayna's reporting I think is terrific. They're clearly debating whether or not they want to resume military action. When we were coming back on Air Force One on Friday from China, I was in the pool and you saw the president get questioned on this.

[18:05:07]

He said a couple of interesting things. First is he said he rejected their most recent offer starting from the first line. He didn't say what that was, but we suspect it probably was about the fact that they are insisting on retaining some political control of the Strait of Hormuz. The second thing he said was he would now accept a 20-year moratorium if the -- on all enrichment by the Iranians, meaning that for 20 years they couldn't produce nuclear material.

Previously he had said 20 years was not enough. This time he said that the Iranians had offered that and then gone back on the offer. But the third and most interesting thing, Omar, I thought that came out of our conversation was, I asked him whether or not he believed that resuming military action would actually get to a different political result. I mean, after all, they did 38 days of bombing and the Iranians did not give up their nuclear program.

They did not give up their missile program. They did not exceed any of the political demands, even on reopening the strait. So why would this be different? And he never answered that. He got angry about our coverage and so forth. But that's really the central question.

JIMENEZ: And David, you got ahead of me there. You're on the right page with me here. I just want to actually just play a quick clip from the trip where you pressed him on Iran as part of it.

SANGER: Sure.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We had a total military victory. We knocked out their entire navy. We knocked out their entire air force. We knocked out all of their anti-aircraft weaponry. We knocked out all of their radar. We knocked out all of their leaders, number one. And then we knocked out all of their leaders in the second division, and we knocked out numerous of their leaders in the third division. And they're very confused.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JIMENEZ: And obviously there was a part of that where he criticized you. And I just have to say, I, for one, fan of your reporting. I think you're a great reporter and followed you for a long time.

SANGER: Thank you.

JIMENEZ: But aside from that, you know, to the point of what he was talking about was kind of as you were laying out this idea of whether he has an appetite to resume military action based on what's happened to this point. And I wonder for you, how -- do you think his outlook on how to move forward in the war changed at all going into Beijing versus coming out of it?

SANGER: Great question. Well, first of all, on the answer he gave, everything he said was correct. They hit every one of those military objectives. It just didn't accomplish what he wanted to accomplish, which was to get the Iranians to change their minds. I'm not sure he heard anything, Omar, from Xi Jinping that made him think that the Chinese were going to step in and seriously pressure the Iranians to give up the nuclear program.

I'm sure they want to get the strait reopened. They want all that oil and gas that they need to flow through it, but they may be willing to pay for that. It's not clear and the Iranians.

JIMENEZ: And, you know, I guess on -- well, I was just going to say I had a guest on earlier that sort of was talking about the number one audience for how things are unfolding in Iran is China right now for many reasons. Obviously, they get majority of their oil from that region, but also just they're able to sort of see how the United States moves through political and military decision making on a region that has been obviously so critical to the global economy and beyond.

And I wonder for you, do you see any connections in terms of Taiwan, which obviously has been a little bit of a -- not a little bit, a tension point between the two countries for a long time and how things are unfolding in Iran?

SANGER: Well, interestingly, later in the conversation, the president held open the possibility he would decide on support for Taiwan depending on Chinese action. He didn't say Chinese action on what, but one might assume that he meant Chinese action on pressure on the Iranians, which would be the first time that we saw basically a swap going on here of Taiwan's commitments from the U.S. in return for China's help to the U.S.

In other words, how much the U.S. is willing to back away from Taiwan if it got some help in this war. He didn't say that explicitly, but that was certainly the impression of one possibility could be left here. That would be a big change because the U.S. has never really in the past said that Taiwan was dependent -- backing for Taiwan is dependent on anything the Chinese do.

[18:10:06]

JIMENEZ: It is a dynamic that will no doubt go nowhere in the coming weeks and months. I know you'll be on top of it. Many more conversations to come.

David Sanger, appreciate it as always.

SANGER: Great to be with you, Omar.

JIMENEZ: Of course. All right. Republican Senator Bill Cassidy's loss in a primary for his

seat in Louisiana does prove Trump has a strong hold on the Republican Party. I mean, the lawmaker is the first GOP senator to lose renomination in nearly a decade. And his loss comes five years after he voted to convict the president over the January 6th insurrection after that impeachment there.

Now, the next test of Trump's support is Tuesday. In Kentucky, voters will head to the polls where Trump critic senator -- Congressman Thomas Massie is up for reelection there.

I want to bring in CNN's Patrick Svitek, who joins us now.

So, Patrick, what do you believe were the biggest takeaways from last night's primary race in Louisiana?

PATRICK SVITEK, CNN POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Looking back on this race, what's really struck me is, yes, it was a remarkable outcome given the history. You mentioned that 2017 was the last time a Republican senator lost a primary. But this was not entirely shocking if you look at the entire span of the past several years. Bill Cassidy made himself immediately vulnerable to a primary challenge when he cast that vote to convict Trump in his second impeachment, and he immediately became the underdog in his primary when Trump endorsed his primary challenger, Julia Letlow, in January of this year.

And if you'd watch those returns come in last night, he continued to perform like an underdog. He was in third place, I think, for most of the night. And even as of today, if you look back at the map, he's barely beating her in his own home parish of East Baton Rouge. And so, as you said, this obviously continues to show the dominance of Trump in the party. And it's a remarkable result.

But looking at the, you know, the past several years, it is just not entirely shocking, given what we know about Trump's sway in the party.

JIMENEZ: And it is interesting. This is sort of the latest iteration of this, you know, a big factor played out in Indiana, where some of the state Republicans who didn't want to move forward with the redistricting wars that we've seen going on met a similar result in their primaries. And it was a sweep really on that front.

But Congressman Massie, this is interesting, in Kentucky, he's been sort of the maybe if not the number one foil, a pretty major foil back and forth with the president. I just wonder, what will you be watching for this week in Kentucky and elsewhere?

SVITEK: Yes, I think what I'm watching for is how the Kentucky race and Massie's profile as a GOP maverick, if you want to call it, is certainly different than Cassidy's. You know, right now within the Republican Party having sided against Trump in impeachment is a widely unpopular position. On the other hand, Massie's -- the ways in which Massie has broken with the Republican Party have a little more broader appeal within the Republican Party when you think about the Epstein files, when you think about concerns about foreign entanglements, concerns about the deficit. Those are issues where he's broken with the party. But he's not the

only person who's broken with the party. And so I think that the Kentucky race is a little fundamentally different in that regard. Of course, you've already seen efforts by Trump to try to connect the outcome in Louisiana to what's going to happen in Kentucky. He had a Truth Social post last night where he talked about how Massie is even worse than Cassidy and so his supporters must turn out on Tuesday to defeat Massie. But I do think in terms of the political profiles of these two men within the Republican Party, there are some fundamental differences.

JIMENEZ: Yes, something to watch, especially in the run-up to the midterms in the coming months.

Patrick Svitek, really appreciate the reporting. Good to see you.

All right. Meanwhile, wildfires out west, record heat in the east and severe storms in the Central Plains. We've got a lot of weather we're monitoring. Still ahead, the multi-day events already ramping up across the country. Plus, Ukraine strikes Russia overnight with hundreds of drones making it the largest attack in over a year. We'll bring you the details.

And then later, a Texas sized debate for a Senate candidate whose food order is causing a little bit of a stir online. We'll explain it all coming up.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:18:58]

JIMENEZ: Nearly three million people in five states across the Central Plains are under a tornado watch. In addition to the threat of tornadoes, the severe storms could also bring the threat of hail larger than baseballs and winds up to 75 miles per hour.

Meteorologist Melissa Nord joins us now.

So, Melissa, you've been tracking the storms. What are you learning? What are you seeing?

MELISSA NORD, AMS METEOROLOGIST: And Omar, right now, we're seeing that peak daytime heating combining with the storm energy. And we're seeing storms firing off right now. Each one of these large red boxes represents a tornado watch currently in effect for just under three million people in the Central Plains, and a new severe thunderstorm watch there in Eastern Colorado as well.

But we now have our first confirmed tornado on the ground of the day. This one in Central Nebraska, just north of the I-80 corridor. Storm spotters have been watching this, and it's right in here near Saint Paul, where that tornado is on the ground right now, likely rain wrapped at this point, but it is a large tornado there. Also, this cluster of thunderstorms moving through Sioux Falls, South

Dakota, produce some wind gusts at weather stations upwards of 90 miles per hour. So damaging winds in that cluster of thunderstorms. And we are just getting going in terms of this multi-day severe weather event.

[18:20:05]

Through this evening, early tonight, we're expecting severe weather to move east as more forms fire off. Got a level three threat of severe weather there where the storms are ongoing at the moment. Currently, we have seen in that tornado warned storm baseball-sized hail. We could still see more large hail, damaging winds and several tornadoes possible through early tonight. You can see the forecast radar pushes those storms east into Iowa.

Also, more storms pushing south into Kansas, east of the dry line. And we're also expecting some late spring snow there in the front range of the Rockies as well. For tomorrow, though, the peak of our threat of severe weather when this particular cycle, a level four out of five risk of severe storms. You can see in that red bull's eye there from Wichita up to Topeka, Kansas. And we're expecting once again, it will be the afternoon when daytime heating really makes the atmosphere much more unstable, that those storms will initially start in Kansas.

More discrete in nature, supercell thunderstorms, and then congeal into more storm clusters. And once again, as those roll east, the threat of tornadoes and damaging winds becomes a bigger factor, the wind threat, than what we're expecting as those storms initially fire off. Through the overnight Monday, we'll see them moving east and then yet another round of storms is possible on Tuesday. Not to mention on the backside of this, dry winds, gusty winds fueling fire conditions there in southeastern Colorado and also the panhandle of Texas -- Omar.

JIMENEZ: Some scary conditions to watch for. Melissa Nord, appreciate you taking that -- taking us through all of that. Thank you.

All right. Still ahead, in the biggest attack in over a year, Ukraine launches hundreds of drone strikes on Russia. We'll bring the details.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:26:09]

JIMENEZ: Ukraine responds to Russia's attacks this week on Kyiv with a massive retaliatory strike last night on Moscow. Now it's Ukraine's largest and deadliest attack on Russia in over a year, and it showcases Kyiv's increasing ability to carry out longer range strikes.

Our Anna Cooban has more on the tit-for-tat drone attacks and the state of the five-year war.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) ANNA COOBAN, CNN BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS CORRESPONDENT: Ukraine's massive attack on Moscow last night involved over 500 drones fired towards the Russian capital. That's according to Russian state media agency TASS. And TASS says that this was the largest attack on Moscow in over a year. This comes a few days after over Wednesday and Thursday we saw a huge bombardment of Russian drones and missiles towards Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine.

At least 25 people died, according to Ukrainian authorities. This attack involved over 1500 drones and over 50 missiles. Now it paints a stark picture from where we were a little over a week ago, when there was a limited three-day ceasefire agreed between the two sides, an agreement to exchange prisoners, and comments from Putin that suggested that he believed the war was nearing its conclusion. But quite clearly, with huge attacks over the past few days, it seems that the war is very much raging on.

Now, zooming out, it's important to note that Ukraine had some recent successes, or at least Russia has been stalling in its territorial gains. Last month, for the first time since August 2024, Ukraine managed to liberate more territory than Russia was able to seize. However, it is still a deadly war that's raging on. Last year, according to the U.N., marked the deadliest year for Ukrainian civilians since 2022, which is the year the war started, and Russia still controls around a fifth of Ukrainian territory.

Anna Cooban, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JIMENEZ: Anna Cooban, really appreciate the reporting.

All right. 40 years after the world's worst nuclear disaster, the CNN Original Series, "Disaster: The Chernobyl Meltdown," uncovers the full story from the explosion and KGB cover-up to today's war in Ukraine. Here's a preview.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We woke up as normal and as usual we went to school.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Soviet schools were open on Saturday morning, so everybody who was present was exposed to radioactive contamination.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Before the accident, we never talked about safety measures. The power plant was perceived as the safest thing. No one would ever consider that something dangerous may happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JIMENEZ: Joining us now is CNN historian Tim Naftali.

Good to see you. You know, the Chernobyl disaster happened during the Cold War in 1986. It was a time when then Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was promising openness to the people of the Soviet Union. And I wonder, do you think what happened at Chernobyl was one of the catalysts for the fall of the Soviet Union, only five years later, in 1991?

TIM NAFTALI, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Well -- the answer is yes, it was a catalyst. It wasn't the only one. Gorbachev himself was a catalyst. Gorbachev came to power in 1985, a year before Chernobyl. And he promises Glasnost openness. And Chernobyl was the first test. And the Soviet Union failed initially. The Soviet response to a failure was to cover up. And so the Soviets, when people in -- when scientists in Sweden began to detect radioactive cloud over Sweden, the Soviet Union denied any responsibility.

[18:30:02]

The Soviets in and around Chernobyl were not evacuated as viewers of the documentary will see. And it's a heartbreaking story. For 36 hours, the Soviet system went into denial overdrive with terrible human costs there but fortunately cost to the system. It turned out the Soviet Union was held together by band-aids, and Chernobyl was the evidence that for all the proclamations of technological sophistication, Soviet Union was not an equal superpower.

And Gorbachev had to admit it. He didn't admit it immediately. But by the end of 1986, Gorbachev is much more open about the nature of the Chernobyl disaster. And this leads to more and more openness on his part. What happens, though, in a system that is held together by fear and deceit, this openness led to people getting the sense that they could express themselves more, that dissent was possible.

So not only do you see Russians talking about the flaws in their system, slowly more, slowly, but slowly after Gorby -- after Chernobyl, but people in the republics, particularly Ukraine, begin to see the weaknesses at the center and realize that Moscow is going to deny terrible things that happened in their republics, even when they are the ones that are hurt. So this disaster, this environmental nuclear disaster would have profound consequences for the Soviet Union and by extension the entire world.

JIMENEZ: You know, at the time of the disaster, it was reported that there was an extensive cover-up by the Soviet government surrounding the severity of the situation in the early hours and days after the explosion. Why would that have been?

NAFTALI: Well, Omar, that was the way the system worked. The Soviets -- when in 1983, the Soviets shot down a civilian South Korean aircraft, KAL 007, the Soviets initially lied about what had happened. This was the nature of the Soviet system. It was -- the system was designed not to tell the truth about any failures. And there were many of them. So the system reacted normally.

Gorbachev, while promising Glasnost, had been in power only a year, a little over a year, and he hadn't had an opportunity to reshape the way in which bureaucrats, technicians, and officials acted in the face of a failure. So the system itself was hardwired to lie.

JIMENEZ: And, you know, one of the interesting threads, or I guess the interesting tales of this is obviously this happened decades ago, but I wonder, what do you see as the long-term geopolitical and historical effects of Chernobyl as we look back on the event nearly 40 years later?

NAFTALI: Well, Chernobyl did not create Ukrainian nationalism, but it was a catalyst for Ukrainians to begin to see themselves as being sacrificed by the central administration in the Kremlin. The very fact, and again, you'll see these images, and they're powerful, of kids playing in zones that are being affected by fallout the day after Chernobyl because the Soviet government had not told their parents to evacuate.

So Ukrainians saw it as a huge betrayal of them, but they weren't the only nationalities within the Soviet Union that saw this failure of the system as a reason to begin to begin to want more autonomy. And of course, those desires for autonomy would lead to the breakup of the USSR. In terms of Gorbachev's own leadership there, the nature of the man makes a difference. If Gorbachev had been Stalin-like, he might have responded to this failure by actually repressing the system more, by clamping down in the face of this failure the way that the Soviets did the -- their failure to predict the Nazi invasion in 1941.

But Gorbachev was not Stalin. Gorbachev really believed you could reform the Soviet system. And Chernobyl accelerated his attempts to reform the system. What he would learn, to his surprise, was that the system wasn't reformable. But Chernobyl certainly moved him in the direction of trying to change more faster. And on the side of -- on our side, in the United States, the initial reaction was, oh, there the Soviets are going again. They're lying.

But it's Gorbachev's reaction by the end of 1986 that shows the American government that, hey, this leader is different. He is not in the mold of Stalin.

JIMENEZ: Tim Naftali, really appreciate the perspective. Thank you for taking the time.

[18:35:01]

And for everyone else, be sure to tune in, "Disaster: The Chernobyl Meltdown" marathon premieres tonight at 9:00 Eastern only on CNN and streaming the next day on the CNN app.

And stay with CNN. We got a lot of news we're following over the course of this. For example, when we come back, to quote Aunt Voula from "My Big Fat Greek Wedding," what do you mean you don't eat no meat?" We dive into the Texas Talarico taco debate next. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you're about to find out.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:40:07]

JIMENEZ: The Texas Senate primary is making news this week for a whole bunch of reasons. Balance of power, questions over endorsements. For example, former President Barack Obama hitting the campaign trail with Democrat James Talarico. And yet people are talking about Talarico's taco order.

CNN's Tom Foreman explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: I hear the tacos here are OK.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It was a photo-op set for success. Former president Barack Obama with gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa and U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico at a popular Austin eatery. Then Talarico ordered.

JAMES TALARICO (D), TEXAS SENATE CANDIDATE: You have breakfast tacos?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Potato, egg and cheese?

TALARICO: That's right.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Two?

TALARICO: Yes, that's right. Two. I come here a lot.

FOREMAN (voice-over): You heard it. Potato, egg, cheese, and no meat. In this state stacked with ranchers the Republican governor pounced. "Homey is not beating the vegetarian allegations," echoing past and persistent GOP claims that the popular young Democrat is vegan. Including by Senator Ted Cruz, who once posted, "This freak wants to ban barbecue." To be sure, people here have opinions about tacos.

MANDO RAYO, TACOS OF TEXAS PODCAST: They do. They do.

FOREMAN (voice-over): But Mando Rayo, host of "The Tacos of Texas" podcast, says his fans instantly pushed back on the idea that a meatless taco means anything.

RAYO: And they're like, what are you talking about? We eat this. We've been eating this since the '70s. You know, my mom and my grandma would make these all the time.

TALARICO: Politics shouldn't feel this way.

FOREMAN (voice-over): Some years ago, Talarico suggested Americans should eat less meat. But --

TALARICO: Because this is a very serious allegation to make in Texas, I deny all accusations of veganism.

FOREMAN (voice-over): His campaign even responded to the new dustup by posting a photo of him tearing into a turkey leg. But on Air Force One, President Trump roasted him anyway.

TRUMP: He was a vegan. Now, all of a sudden, he's not. Texas doesn't like vegans. FOREMAN (voice-over): Food is tricky for politicians. Trump was once

skewered himself for eating fried chicken with a fork and knife. Former New York mayor Bill de Blasio caught heat when he did the same with pizza. Former president Barack Obama drew scorn for reaching over the barrier at Chipotle. Former secretary of state John Kerry was mocked for ordering a Philadelphia cheesesteak with Swiss cheese.

And people are still giggling about how late president Gerald Ford tried to eat a tamale with the corn husk on 50 years ago.

OBAMA: All right, everybody, remember to vote.

FOREMAN (voice-over): But a taco with meat, a taco without? Is that really an issue?

RAYO: Why can't we have both?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOREMAN (on-camera): All of this may tell us less about Talarico's taste in tacos than it does Republican concerns about the unpopularity of Donald Trump. Sure, their party loves him, but so many people don't. There are concerns on their side that Democrats might finally be able to break some of the GOP's iron grip on Texas -- Omar.

JIMENEZ: Tom, I am just glad that there's not so much scrutiny on what I'm ordering every single day. Lots more to pay attention to in those political races, by the way, and we'll follow them as they come up.

All right. Coming up for us now, as they say, age is just a number, but should it be when running for president? Ahead, one argument to scrap the age limit of 35. We'll talk about it.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:48:13]

JIMENEZ: All right. Let me ask you a question, folks. What if a teenager could become president of the United States? A candidate can theoretically run the White House and be 100 years old. We've been close. But the Constitution explicitly limits how young they can be. The minimum, 35 years old.

Our next guest wants America to scrap that unfair age gate. His political thriller, "Young World," is "The New York Times" best- seller, about a 17-year-old who, against all odds, gets elected president of the United States.

Soman Chainani joins me now.

Soman, look, you've said letting younger Americans participate would supercharge them and wake them from their haze of doom. And I hear you on that. But I can also think there are a lot of parents looking at their teenagers and not even sure if they want them in charge of their household. Why do you think it's a good idea?

SOMAN CHAINANI, AUTHOR OF POLITICAL THRILLER "YOUNG WORLD": I think first we have to ask, you know, we have a lot of 80-year-olds in charge now, and they're not exactly crushing it. Right? I think for me, what's important is, I've been writing for young adults for a very long time, and I've spent so much time, you know, seeing them change over the last 10 years and kind of losing hope in not just their future, but the way the world looks and feeling disconnected from it.

And I think you can feel them wanting to engage. And maybe in 1787, you know, having a 35-year limit for running for presidency in the Constitution made sense given where the country was. But now, with life expectancy getting longer and young people wanting to participate but not being able to, they deserve the right to elevate one of their own.

JIMENEZ: You know, I was reading through what you wrote for Notice recently and I should just say, look, to be clear, lowering the presidential retirement -- age requirement is a long shot right now.

CHAINANI: Yes.

JIMENEZ: But you wrote, and I just want to quote you here, "The kids I've met in the past few years seem to have absorbed the truth about what is waiting for them outside.

[18:50:03]

Instead of being curious about the world, they increasingly fear and distrust it. They have no choice but to worry about what their future is going to look like, or if they're going to have a future at all.

Now, look, I'm not going to lead the pep talk with that. But how do you think that manifests itself in the futures that they will eventually lead?

CHAINANI: I mean, I think one of the things I had to do when I wrote "Young World" was to come up with what would a youth platform look like if all young people banded together and created a third party. In the book, it's called the Revolting Youth Party. And I thought, OK, if you take away ideology, left, right, Republican, Democrat, what could the youth all align on? And I was thinking of four kind of major tenets.

One, they want a planet that's still going to be here when they're old, right? And at least be livable and inhabitable. Two, I think they want an economic future that isn't totally crushed by debt. Third, they want to be able to go to school without fear of being shot at. Right? And the fourth being they don't want to surrender their humanity to A.I. Those are four common principles that they can unite on, you know, completely independent of ideology.

And so I felt like that was a reasonable platform to say, young people, if they all came together and created a party around those four principles, I think they could ultimately have a lot of political power. So to me, just starting with a simple set of ideas that they all agree on is probably the beginning stage.

JIMENEZ: And you know, what I think is interesting here is, look, you're maybe best known for "The School for Good and Evil" series book. The universe sort of that's expanded from that. But I bring that up to sort of say your career to this point has been largely, I mean, in fantasy and sort of creating these worlds. And this one is sort of the closest to what the real world is. And you did a lot of research and had fact checkers, even, as I understand, a member of the Obama White House, looking at your ideas for this book.

Why was that such a high priority? You're not so much building a world, but it seemed like you were trying to get this world right.

CHAINANI: I think what was really important to me is to give young people, rather than continually telling them to disassociate and escape into fantasy, which has become kind of our, you know, default mode of operation for them, to actually give them hope to transform this world by their own power and not wait until they're older. This idea of like, wait until you're older, until you're in power, you know, until you're 35 has been the message for so long that young people can't actually participate.

And I thought if I could make a book that felt so real, right? Heavily researched, heavily authentic, and make it seem like what would young people do if they actually led the government. Because then if you can imagine it, then you can actually take steps towards doing it. And maybe they won't be president, right? The whole point of fiction is maximalist fun and maximalist version to engage young people.

But you could have young people running for school board, town council, state legislature, just kind of giving them the impetus to, you know, participate in their democracy rather than just, you know, what they're doing now, which is disconnecting and feeling like the world doesn't represent them.

JIMENEZ: And it is interesting, I mean, to your point, whether it's not president how the avenues of power that social media has opened up to sort of eliminate that wall that may have kept some of these young folks from rooms that they were told, you know, you have to wait until you're older to be in. A fascinating dynamic to watch, whether it's in your book or in real life.

Soman, I really appreciate you taking the time. Thanks for being here.

CHAINANI: Thanks for having me.

JIMENEZ: Of course.

All right, everyone, coming up, speaking artificial intelligence as we've been talking about, A.I., a big issue for young folks, but everyone, reaching into every aspect of our lives, including dating. Why Bumble is saying bye to swiping left or right. We'll talk about it.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

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[18:58:23]

JIMENEZ: All right. If you don't even trust your friends to help you find a date, will you trust A.I. to do it? That is the big question at the center of a new update from the dating app Bumble. The company is actually moving away from its swipe feature and implementing artificial intelligence to help people find matches. And it's all in an effort to bring back Gen Z, a generation that's largely rejected dating apps.

CNN's Clare Duffy is here to explain.

CLARE DUFFY, CNN TECH CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Omar. This is coming against the backdrop of some real dating app fatigue. I think among everybody but especially among Gen Z, they are tired of swiping. They are turning away from dating apps. And so Bumble, like the other big platforms, is trying to shake things up by adding A.I. And this is important for Bumble's business.

The company saw its revenues down 14 percent year on year in the most recent quarter. So Bumble is piloting this new A.I. dating assistant called B, that in the beginning will just have onboarding conversations with users trying to get a better sense of their dating preferences, their communication style, beyond what a user might put in their profile. And Bumble will use that extra data to make sure that there are better matches showing up in people's feeds.

But eventually, potentially, as soon as later this year, that A.I. dating assistant could replace the swipe feature, setting up users with matches directly and eventually even suggesting or planning dates.

Whitney Wolfe heard, the CEO of Bumble. She described the vision this way in a recent interview. She said there is a world where your dating concierge could go and date for you with other dating concierges, and then you don't have to talk to 600 people.

And, Omar, I think that could sound nice to people who are in the swiping trenches right now, but I do have a couple of questions, namely, how do you make sure that A.I. doesn't make it easier for people to catfish other people?