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Israel Votes for the First Time Since October 7 Attacks Three Years Ago; Trump Hits Back Obama Ahead of the Final Campaign Week Before the Midterms. Aired 3-3:45a ET

Aired October 27, 2026 - 03:00   ET

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

[03:00:00]

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LYNDA KINKADE, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: Hello and welcome. I'm Lynda Kinkade coming to you live from Atlanta, ahead here on "CNN Newsroom."

Israelis are voting in their first election since the Hamas attack three years ago. Benjamin Netanyahu's political future is on the line.

The humanitarian ceasefire is now in effect for the Russian-controlled town of Oleshky. Why some residents are skeptical that it will hold.

And President Trump hits back at former President Barack Obama as he begins the final leg of his red state mid-term blitz.

UNKNOWN (voice-over): Live from Atlanta, this is "CNN Newsroom" with Lynda Kinkade.

KINKADE: And we begin in Israel where voting is underway in the country's first election since the October 7 Hamas attack three years ago. The election is widely considered a referendum on the leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu.

Former military chief Gadi Eisenkot is the leader of the new centrist party Yishar. He has emerged as the primary challenger to the Israeli Prime Minister and his right-wing Likud party. Our Jeremy Diamond brought us this report earlier from Israel on the biggest issues on the ballot.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: The majority of Israeli voters have said in recent polling that October 7 will be a key factor in how they vote as they head to the polls. Those elections will be the first opportunity for Israeli voters to hold this government accountable for the security failures that led up to October 7 or to decide that they are satisfied with the way in which this Israeli government has responded to that terrible attack and the retaliation that the Israeli military has carried out on multiple fronts across the Middle East. But indeed many Israelis see these elections tomorrow as the most

consequential in decades now, not only because this is a referendum on the leadership of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his right-wing government, but also because in many ways this will determine what kind of country, what kind of nation Israel chooses to be. Because on the ballot box you have a number of issues here.

Yes, of course on the national security front a number of unfinished wars with Iran in Lebanon, in Gaza. But also on the domestic political front there are key questions that need to be addressed in terms of the country's religious or secular makeup, whether the ultra-Orthodox Jews in this country will continue to receive some kind of exemption from military service or whether that exemption, which was actually struck down by the Supreme Court, will be enforced by the Israeli government.

The chief rival to Benjamin Netanyahu in these elections is indeed the former Israeli military chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot. And as the Israeli Prime Minister has already been coming out with a number of scare tactics in the days ahead of these elections, posting, for example, an image of a nuclear bomb falling on Israel, Gadi Eisenkot has not only sought to reassure Israelis that he is more than capable of handling Israel's security needs, but he has also warned voters not to fall for these scare tactics.

And he has urged his supporters to continue to try and convince people and to continue to fight right up until the ballot box closes at 10 p.m. local time tomorrow night. That is when we expect to get the first exit polls out of these elections and to get the first sense of whether or not there is a clear winner here or whether we are in for several more weeks of horse trading to determine who will become the next prime minister, who can form the next government in this parliamentary system, or whether perhaps Israel will be headed for another repeat election.

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KINKADE: Thanks to Jeremy Diamond there.

Joining us now from Jerusalem is Yaakov Katz, co-founder of the Middle East America Dialogue and senior columnist at "Jerusalem Post." Good to have you with us.

YAAKOV KATZ, CO-FOUNDER, MIDDLE EAST AMERICA DIALOGUE, AND SENIOR COLUMNIST, "THE JERUSALEM POST": Thank you, Lynda.

KINKADE: So this election, of course, is widely seen as a test of Netanyahu's leadership, his security record, and of course his ability to remain in office. What is the single biggest question Israeli voters are trying to answer?

KATZ: Well, I think there's a lot more than just one, but essentially what we're looking at is not only, as Jeremy said, a vision of where does Israel go and what's its future? Is it a continued war, continued standoff with the world, and continued division internally? Or do we want to try to chart a new path forward? But there's also the question of reckoning with the past. October 7th, the Hamas attack three years ago.

[03:05:04]

There's yet to be a commission of inquiry, there's yet to be accountability by this government or by the sitting Prime Minister. And that's also a big issue that's hovering over these elections, as much as Netanyahu wanted to try to move away from that and talk about anything else, like Iran or sanctions against Israel or banking problems or you name it. That is a big issue that Israelis are taking with them to the polls this morning.

There's also, of course, the inequity in Israeli society, the question of who serves in the burden. It doesn't make sense for a lot of Israelis anymore that they serve, or their children serve, or husbands. And why do ultra-Orthodox Jews not serve?

So there's a lot of issues, some internal, some external. But it's really, I think, at the core, a question of what type of country do we want to see moving forward?

KINKADE: Certainly that is the key question. Former military chief Gadi Eisenkot has emerged as a major challenger. What does he offer voters that Netanyahu does not?

KATZ: Well, Lynda, to some extent he's the exact opposite of Netanyahu, right? Netanyahu is a known statesman on the world stage, known for giving these speeches at the U.N., known for having relations in the White House, known for, it's just a known commodity. Eisenkot is not known. His English isn't that great.

He was the guy who spent 40 years in infantry units in the IDF, declining to become the chief of staff of the military. He's not a diplomat, he's not a poll politician.

But he is someone who cares deeply about this country and paid a, I would say, the most, the biggest price, essentially, losing a son in this war against Hamas in Gaza in the early months of the war back at the end of 2023, losing two nephews. He also comes from a different upbringing. He is of Moroccan descent, so he's of a Sephardic descent.

Netanyahu's Ashkenazi, Eastern European descent. And typically, those are the people, the spharadim in this country, those are the people who actually vote for Netanyahu. Therefore, this makes it, Eisenkot makes for a difficult target for the Netanyahu followers and supporters to attack because of where he comes from, because of who he is, and because of the fact that he's a bereaved father.

KINKADE: Of course, Netanyahu argues that it's his security leadership that is essential to Israel's survival. He even used A.I. to show a version of what could happen in Tel Aviv without him at the helm.

You've written about Netanyahu's use of security threats during the campaign. Just how persuasive is that argument to voters after the wars with Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran?

KATZ: Well, I think it's definitely, it's a powerful argument, Lynda, and it speaks to a lot of Israelis, because at the end of the day, when Israelis go to vote, they're asking a very basic and simple question. There's a lot of issues, there's cost of living, there's the ultra-Orthodox service, there's judicial reform. There's a ton of issues.

But at the end of the day, we are surrounded by enemies who are bent on our destruction. Now, we can argue about how Israel prosecutes those wars, but I don't think anyone can argue with the fact that you have Iran and Hamas and Hezbollah and the Houthis and so much more that really want to attack Israel. And therefore, Israelis ask themselves, for them it's a real, raw situation.

This isn't some faraway threat. It's here on our borders. And as a result, Israelis ask, who is going to keep me safe? Who is going to make sure that I won't be killed, that my children won't be killed, that I can drive through the streets of my country safe, that I don't have to go fight in another war?

And until now, that has been Netanyahu. He has been the overwhelming answer.

And I think Eisenkot presents a real strong rival here, because he has the military credentials. He is a former IDF chief of staff. He lost a son in this war, he knows what the price of war is.

And that is going to be the question that Israelis are going to ask themselves at the end, at its core, who can I trust to keep this country safe going forward?

KINKADE: When you listen to the family members of those who lost loved ones during the Hamas attacks, what are they saying? What do they want going forward?

KATZ: Most of them want to see change, most of them want to see a new government. They are deeply disappointed in the fact that when we think about this, Lynda, in Israel there hasn't been accountability at a governmental level.

No politician has stepped down from this government that's been in office now for four years since what happened three years ago with the Hamas attack on October 7. Of course, it was at its basic level a military failure, an operational failure, an intelligence failure. But this was all the result of policies and decisions that were given top down from the political echelon from this Prime Minister over a period of many years that he was in this office.

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Remember, Netanyahu has been Prime Minister pretty much uninterrupted since 2009, except for a brief 18-month period that he was not Prime Minister between 2021 and 2022. They want to see change. And they want to see someone be held accountable for what happened.

So far, the head of the military stepped down. The head of the Shin Bet intelligence agency stepped down. But that's at the operational level. Nothing at the political level. This is a chance, I think, for Israel to have some sort of reckoning and some sort of accountability for what happened three years ago.

KINKADE: We shall see how the voting plays out and who can form a government. Yaakov Katz, good to have you with us. Thanks for joining us.

KATZ: Thank you.

KINKADE: Well, the U.S. President is inserting himself into Brazil's presidential election, casting doubt on the results. Donald Trump claiming without evidence that Sunday's vote looked, quote, "rigged."

Now, this comes after his ally, far-right senator Flavio Bolsonaro, lost to the incumbent president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Bolsonaro is refusing to accept the results and says his team will ask the courts to annul them. He also says he's being told not to leave the country.

CNN's Julia Vargas Jones explains.

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JULIA VARGAS JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's been a tumultuous day of post-elections in Brazil. President Donald Trump commenting on them, saying that they are, quote, "rigged" and that it looked very terrible. And now the loser of the elections, Flavio Bolsonaro, a senator and son of the former president, Jair Bolsonaro, saying that he was asked to surrender his passport, that he had gone to visit his father, who was under house arrest. And as he was leaving, federal police was waiting for him, requesting him to surrender his passport.

So that is connected to a comment his brother made on a U.S. podcast about what his brother should do if he lost the election. Take a listen.

STEVEN CROWDER, COMEDIAN, AND HOST OF "LOUDER WITH CROWDER": If your brother does not win the election, do you guys have anything planned to help your father? Or is it a situation where you figure it out if it comes to that?

ALEXANDRE DE MORAES, VICE PRESIDENT, SUPREME FEDERAL COURT OF BRAZIL: Send the Marines.

(LAUGHTER)

CROWDER: And watch, you'd have people on the left here being furious about it.

VARGAS JONES: In the video he made for his followers, Flavio says that he never thought of leaving the country and that he will surrender his passports and that he will defend himself from this aberration, as he called it, a clear attempt to intimidate me.

Now, Flavio is under investigation for money laundering related to the financing of a film about his father, "Dark Horse," as well as tax evasion and corruption. Now, Flavio's argument for the questioning of the elections is that there was an order that came out on Sunday, close to 5 p.m., when polls were about to close, to extend voting hours for about two hours.

Both him and Lula, Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, had requested extra time because of different issues, that voters were not then able to get to the polls. One of them was complaining about access to public transportation, and Bolsonaro himself, that rains in a part of the country where a lot of his base is, would have prevented people from getting to the polls. Even so, he issued a statement after the results came out, saying that he could not believe that it was impossible to believe the results of these elections because of the jump that Lula had made.

He did get about 10 million more votes in the second round than in the first. It is unheard of, unprecedented, that anyone had ever done this, losing in the first round and then coming to win the second round. In the whole history of Brazilian democracy that dates back only to the 1980s, but still, Lula was able to mobilize his base, both online and in person, with young people being a big part of the reason why he was able to be elected to his historic fourth term.

Looking forward, of course, there are these challenges that will continue to be happening of these results. But more than that, Lula has now very much a conservative majority in both House and Senate, and of course the tenuous relationships with Donald Trump and the administration of the United States, to which Flavio Bolsonaro has positioned himself as a lot closer than Lula. And now we'll see how the next four years of these relationships, or at least two years in the United States, will be for Lula.

Julia Vargas Jones, CNN.

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KINKADE: Well CNN has contacted the Brazilian Federal Police to ask about Bolsonaro's remarks and is awaiting a response. He has denied all wrongdoing.

[03:15:00]

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio says Venezuela's electoral infrastructure must be replaced before an election can be held. He told reporters Monday that the nation's current voting system was designed to be fraudulent. His remarks coming as calls for elections in Venezuela are growing with the return of opposition leader Maria Corina Machado.

Now her supporters welcomed her back Sunday after she'd spent nearly a year in exile. Machado left Venezuela in December 2025 to accept a Nobel Peace Prize for promoting democratic rights. A month later, the U.S. ousted the former Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, and Delcy Rodriguez took over as the interim president.

Rodriguez has denied claims of blocking Machado's re-entry and called her return a spectacle.

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DELCY RODRIGUEZ, ACTING VENEZUELAN PRESIDENT (through translator): The show could have been voided. The airports are there. There are temporary facilities which, as I mentioned, have received very positive feedback from the people who granted amnesty.

So let's move away from the spectacle and focus on ensuring that the political process is treated with the utmost seriousness. That is something she and her organizers chose to do.

We don't know why, but if they did it that way, they must have had some objective in mind.

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KINKADE; President Trump is on the final leg of his midtown red-state blitz ahead of the election day next Tuesday. His first stop this week was at a rally in Mississippi to support Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith.

But the President also took aim at one of his outspoken critics on the campaign trail, former President Barack Obama.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Barack Hussein Obama, have you heard of him?

Donald Trump spends a lot of his time fixing up the White House. Isn't that a nice thing to do? That place? No.

He said, this isn't a cheesecake factory, can you believe it? Which is a very successful company. This isn't. He doesn't like successful companies.

But you know, he was very critical about me because I spend time. It's not money, it's peanuts. But the White House is now in better shape than it was in 1792.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KINKADE: The President also announced a new plan to deal with election security concerns. He's offering a reward, writing on Truth Social, quote, "Anybody reporting voter fraud in past elections, or the upcoming 2026 midterm election will be paid $1 million upon the arrest and conviction of those that created the fraud." He didn't explain how this would work or where the money would come from.

The Trump administration has also hit a roadblock in California as it tries to snuff out alleged voter fraud. A federal appeals court has rejected its efforts to force the state to set aside 20,000 midterm ballots allegedly cast by non-citizens. California Attorney General Rob Bonta has called the Justice Department's lawsuit an unconstitutional effort to sow distrust among voters. CNN contributor Rick Hansen pointed out that the Justice Department has never had the authority to force a state to comply with an order like this. Here's part of his conversation with my colleague Elex Michaelson.

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RICHARD HANSEN, AUTHOR, "ELECTION MELTDOWN", AND CNN CONTRIBUTOR: So we know we have a little bit that we know about these 20,000 voters. Only 7000 of them are in Los Angeles County. And the Los Angeles County registrar did a quick check of 200 of them and more than half of them were not even registered voters and about 40 percent of them were citizens of the United States who are presumably entitled to vote as citizens.

So it's just the whole thing is being rushed and there's no reason for it. This could have happened months ago. And also DOJ has never had the authority to force a state to count ballots or set aside ballots the way it wants to.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KINKADE: Well, there's much more to come here on "CNN Newsroom" including a new report that accuses Russia of war crimes and crimes against humanity following their attacks on Ukraine's civilian infrastructure. We'll have those details next.

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KINKADE: Welcome back.

Russian and Ukrainian officials say a local ceasefire in the occupied Ukrainian city of Oleshky is now in effect. Russia's defense ministry says it stopped shelling in the direction of that town overnight. U.S. First Lady Melania Trump says she helped broker the ceasefire after working with Ukrainian and Russian officials.

About 1700 civilians remain in the city. The hope is to evacuate elderly residents and bring in urgently needed humanitarian supplies. The resident who escaped Oleshky and did not want to show his face offered this somber assessment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VITALY, ESCAPED RESIDENT OF OLESHKY, UKRAINE (through translator): I respect Melania Trump very much but she has absolutely no influence on dictator Putin. What should be done with those people who cannot move on their own? The severely ill people, the elderly people, what will happen to them? The Russian Federation never mentions the evacuation of people at all. What I think regarding a truce is that I am very skeptical about all of this.

Having lived here for four and a half years among the Russian military you realize that almost everything they say is all a lie.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KINKADE: An independent U.N. investigation has found that Russia is committing war crimes and crimes against humanity by intentionally targeting civilian infrastructure in Ukraine. That includes the country's energy systems. In a new report, the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine says the attacks were carried out with intent and were in line with Russia's policy to deprive civilians of essential energy supplies and cause suffering.

Here's more on their findings.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PABLO DE GREIFF, INDEPENDENT INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION OF INQUIRY ON UKRAINE: The frequency, intensity and geographic range of the attacks have increased over the years. This has caused extensive damage to Ukraine's energy facilities.

The energy crisis has affected multiple aspects of civilian life. The impact of outages has led to great physical and mental suffering.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KINKADE: New video from Kyiv shows extensive damage after explosions rocked the city. Ukrainian officials reported Russian missile strikes Monday including one that hit the grounds of a university and the area around it. According to Reuters, one official said at least one person was killed, 10 others injured.

There is much more to come here in "CNN Newsroom" including details of a meeting in Iran among regional powers that spears grove a new U.S.- Israeli offensive that could plunge the Middle East into further instability.

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KINKADE: Welcome back. I'm Lynda Kinkade. Let's take a look at today's top stories.

Russian and Ukrainian officials say a ceasefire in the occupied Ukrainian city of Oleshky is now in effect. Russia's defense ministry says it stopped shelling in the direction of Oleshky overnight, about 1700 civilians remain in the city. The hope is to evacuate elderly residents and bring in urgently needed humanitarian supplies.

A new report from the U.N. Commission has found that Israel continued to commit genocide in Gaza after last October's U.S.-broken ceasefire. The inquiry found that Israeli authorities committed the acts, quote, "with the genocidal intent to destroy in whole or part the Palestinians in Gaza" and that the situation had also continued to deteriorate in the occupied West Bank. Israel has dismissed the report as part of a misinformation campaign.

Voting is underway in what's shaping up to be Israel's most consequential election in recent memory. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud party are locked in a close race against former military chief Gadi Eisenkot and his newly formed centrist party Yashar. The latest polls show that neither party will likely win the 61-seat majority in the Knesset needed to govern.

Saudi Arabia and its allies sent top security officials to Iran Monday for talks as fears grow of a new U.S.-Israeli offensive. Senior military and intelligence officials from Pakistan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia met in Tehran with the Iranian President Masoud Peshkian and other top officials. This comes as officials tell CNN that U.S. forces in the Middle East are ready to launch new strikes against Iran if President Trump chooses.

CNN's Zachary Cohen reports.

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ZACHARY COHEN, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Sources are telling CNN that the U.S. military now has the forces deployed to the Middle East sufficient to carry out a major military operation against Iran should President Donald Trump give the go order to initiate such an attack. And sources are saying that it would only take 96 hours from the time of a potential order from the President for the U.S. military to be ready to execute that order.

And it's one that we're told would go beyond maintaining the status quo or quote "mowing the grass" so to speak by hitting targets that could be quickly reconstituted by the Iranian regime things like radars, launchers and other elements that the Iranian regime has shown that it can quickly build back and continue to threaten commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and potentially American bases across the region.

Now this comes as President Donald Trump has been expressing frustration with Iran and the current stalemate wondering aloud if he should make a deal with the Iranians or initiate -- reinitiate combat operations as we saw earlier this year. And one source putting it to us this way, quote "it will be a big effort speaking about the potential for another major military operation by the U.S. and potentially Israel."

We're told as well by sources that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been pushing behind the scenes for the U.S. and Israel to conduct new joint attacks against Iran in the lead up to both the Israeli elections and the U.S. midterms. Now that's something we're told both the President, President Trump and U.S. officials have told the Israelis to hold off on, to delay until the Trump administration is ready to conduct some sort of a joint attack which most sources expect to happen if it happens at all sometime after the U.S. midterms. So this does come at a period of escalating tensions in the Middle

East. Iran meeting with leaders -- defense leaders from other relevant Gulf countries today to try to see if there is a path forward for some sort of a diplomatic resolution. And yet U.S. negotiators have made little progress to date in securing any sort of a commitment from Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz as well as to discuss its nuclear program which remains one of President Donald Trump's outstanding strategic objectives for starting this war in the first place.

And so it remains to be seen if Trump will ultimately order a resumption of combat operations at any point over the next several months.

[03:35:06]

But some U.S. officials saying that it's now a matter of when, not if, he may do so.

Zachary Cohen, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KINKADE: Well there's much more to come here on "CNN Newsroom." U.S. industries are feeling the sting of rising fuel costs. How the crisis is impacting price tags for American consumers, next.

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[03:40:06]

KINKADE: Welcome back, I'm Lynda Kinkade. Here are your business headlines.

A.I. giant Anthropic has filed paperwork for its initial public offering, moving one step to its stock market debut. The filing outlines potential risks to humanity from the very technology Anthropic is developing. Investors anticipate Anthropic's IPO could be the largest markets they've ever seen.

Microsoft is offering voluntary buyouts for about 60,000 employees, more than a quarter of its global workforce. The time-limited offer includes eligible workers in its A.I., Copilot and Xbox finance and human resources divisions. The buyouts come as the company looks to cut costs as it invests billions of dollars in A.I. initiatives.

Meta plans to raise a record $95 billion to fund its artificial intelligence expansion. The Facebook parent is launching stock offerings worth about $35 billion, it plans to raise up to $60 billion more through future share sales. Chipmakers Nvidia, AMD and Broadcom have also expressed interest in buying up to $5 billion in Meta's stocks.

Soaring gas prices are putting more pressure on American consumers and could become a key issue in the midterm elections. Higher fuel costs are also driving up prices right across the economy. Jenn Sullivan looks at how U.S. industries are navigating the growing economic strain.

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JENN SULLIVAN, CNN CONSUMER REPORTER (voice-over): Skyrocketing diesel prices are costing companies a lot more to transport items. And those costs are trickling down to consumers.

UNKNOWN: It's starting to get to the point where it almost costs as much for fuel as it does to pay an employee to drive down the road.

SULLIVAN (voice-over): Diesel is used to power transportation, construction vehicles and farm equipment. Since the war with Iran began though, diesel prices have jumped more than 70 percent. As of Monday, the national average for diesel was $6.35 a gallon. That's $2.69 more than a year ago, according to AAA.

Because of this, FedEx and UPS have added fuel surcharges, reaching 30 percent because it's costing them so much more to fill up trucks, ships and planes that transport goods. And all of this is happening ahead of the holidays, when many household budgets are already stretched thin.

ROBERT ARMSTRONG, U.S. FINANCIAL COMMENTATOR, "FINANCIAL TIMES": You cannot overstate the emotional impact that inflation has on families.

It could also mean retailers have to charge more because they're also hit with these higher shipping costs. And items like toys and clothes are already higher due to inflation.

ARMSTRONG: We all know that prices are about a third higher than they were just five or six years ago. And we all feel that.

SULLIVAN (voice-over): For Consumer Watch, I'm Jenn Sullivan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KINKADE: Thanks so much for watching. And I'm Lynda Kinkade. Good to have your company.

"World Sport" is up next, then I'll be back at the top of the hour with much more "CNN Newsroom."

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