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President Trump Fires Fed Governor Lisa Cook; New Swing Voters Bounce Between Elections, Not Just Parties; President Trump Bets Big On Struggling Intel With 10 Percent Stake; President Trump Hints At Name Change For Department Of Defense; Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired August 26, 2025 - 06:30   ET

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

[06:30:00]

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: That's just hours after President Trump signed an executive order to criminalize the act.

Good morning, everybody. I'm Audie Cornish. I want to thank you for joining me on "CNN This Morning." It's half past the hour. And here is what's happening right now.

President Trump says, if you burn the flag, you could get a year in prison. But this new executive order could be defying the Supreme Court. In 1989 ruling by the high court called flag burning a protected form of speech under the First Amendment.

The House Oversight Committee wants to look into Jeffrey Epstein's so- called birthday book. The GOP-led committee issued a subpoena to Epstein's estate. "The Wall Street Journal" first reported the book includes a message from President Trump to his former friend. The president denies that.

And incredible images coming out of Phoenix showing a towering wall of dust rolling through the city. The dust storm, also known as a haboob, was quickly followed by thunderstorms. Strong winds ripped up trees and left behind widespread power outages.

After months of public pressure on Fed Chair Jerome Powell over interest rates, President Trump wants to fire Governor Lisa Cook, the first black woman to serve on the Fed's board over allegations of mortgage fraud.

The allegation center on Cook's 2021 mortgage application, before she had joined the Fed. A CNN review found she listed two properties as primary residences.

In a letter posted to Truth Social, Trump questioned her competence and trustworthiness as a financial regulator. Cook denies the claims. She says she won't resign. And added in a statement that, quote, "President Trump purported to fire me for cause when no cause exists under the law."

Now, if the president is successful in firing her and replacing say Jerome Powell at the end of his term, Trump would have far more sway over the Fed and how it manages interest rates and inflation. So I'm bringing back the "Group Chat" to talk about this.

So, there's a couple things going on at once. One, Cook having to reply and deny these allegations. Two, people have also noted she is among a handful of black women who were appointees who have been fired by Trump, which obviously the administration is going through its DEI purge as well. All the people they believe were hired that way.

Zach, can I talk to you about what we're looking at here? Because it would be first time someone fired the -- a Fed governor in like 100 years.

ZACHARY WOLF, CNN SENIOR POLITICS WRITER: Yes. He's -- he's essentially gone there. You know, there was this talk about whether he could fire Powell. He sort of stepped up to that plate. He -- he said, I can do this. He's also sent a message to every other member on the board. I think the vote last time was nine to two about raising rates.

So, you know, I'll have to see what it is next time. You know, palace suggested there could be a rate cut, but everything now is tainted by this action that he's taken.

And I don't understand, legally, how do you stop from being fired? Like, the functionally, what happens next? I'm really interested to see how that --

CORNISH: Yes. I mean, certainly it will be in court. And we should note, someone else actually resigned from the Fed board just a few months ago, so there was a replacement, and then Powell. What are you seeing?

ASHLEY DAVIS, FORMER HOMELAND SECURITY OFFICIAL: Well, I think -- so, Bill Pulte referred this to the Department of Justice, and so she hasn't been convicted of anything. And so, I think that if she is, if it's true that this is happening, that she had two mortgages and, you know, she -- she broke the law, then she could be fired for cause.

I mean, what I'm watching play out is last night he said she's fired, today she said she's not fired, so is she just going to show up at work? So, I mean, I guess she can.

CORNISH: She can absolutely.

DAVIS: And so this is going to just go -- there -- this is going to be something in the public eye and then also be fought out in courts.

CORNISH: Yes.

JERUSALEM DEMSAS, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, THE ARGUMENT: And I think it's also, like, this story is not really just about one person, will they be fired by a president or not fired? Obviously, there are legal concerns that are -- that -- that matter for -- for -- for Lisa and -- and the country.

But the big thing is central bank independence. The problem right now is that the entire stock market has been pretty like chill about Donald Trump's various forays into tariff policy because they largely believe that even if he oversteps, the Federal Reserve is independent. No one will really go that far and interfere with them being able to stabilize the macro economy.

But his willingness to do this has scared markets. You're already seeing the 10-year yield go up which in English means that like your 30-year mortgage is more expensive now. This has real ramifications for people on the ground if the stock market begins to believe, oh, my gosh, the United States is no longer caring about making sure that despite its insane politics, the federal bank can do what it's going to do.

CORNISH: We should say Jerome Powell also was like, I'm not resigning, right? Like I think asserting some --

DAVIS: And he's almost done at this point.

CORNISH: He's got like a few months left.

DEMSAS: He's trying to calm everyone down.

CORNISH: Yes.

WOLF: There is something interesting in how they've gone after her with this mortgage claim. I mean, Adam Schiff, Letitia James, this whole, you know, what -- what have you claimed as your primary residence is kind of an interesting and very, you know, inside way --

[06:35:05]

CORNISH: Washington.

WOLF: -- to say, this is the cause, you know, you're --

CORNISH: Yes.

WOLF: -- you're not qualified. And it's also there's some irony there given Trump's own problems with, you know, how he obtained loans and, know, the -- the -- the -- what Letitia James charged him with or, you know, the civil case in New York that he was found guilty for.

DAVIS: I think a lot of that is because Bill Pulte, the FHFA administrator is a bulldog. I mean, this is what he's using. I don't know if you've seen him. I mean, this is kind of his.

CORNISH: So the person who holds the housing data is able to turn to the administration and say --

DAVIS: Correct.

CORNISH: -- I went and checked paperwork for you.

DAVIS: Correct.

CORNISH: OK. You guys stay with me. I want to talk about one more thing because the 2026 midterm elections are shaping up to be in a word, unpredictable. Both parties facing an uphill climb and not just because there's a redistricting battle going on between California and Texas.

Of course, swing voters could decide the balance of power, but these aren't your grandma's swing voters. They're not just bouncing in between parties. They're bouncing in between elections.

A democratic data and analytics firm found 126 million people voted in both 2020 and 2024's presidential elections. There were 26 million new voters in 2024.

Now, for some math, a whopping 30 million people who voted in 2020 just decided to sit it out last November.

As CNN senior political analyst Ron Brownstein writes, "Early signs suggest Republicans may end up facing the same problem Democrats did during Biden's term, when many of the casual voters the former president attracted in 2020 grew so disenchanted with his performance that they chose not to vote again in 2024."

Ron joins me now. Ron, welcome back. Thanks for being here this morning.

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Hi. Good morning. Good morning.

CORNISH: I think for political writers, we were grown up being told a swing voter is someone who sometimes votes Democrat, sometimes votes Republican, or they're leaning, or they're independent, or they flip. You're using a completely different metric.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes. I think, you know -- and right. I mean, you know, I -- I started covering politics in the 1980s and the image that the parties had of a swing voter was someone who reliably voted, who showed up in pretty much every election. But, you know, oscillated in which party they vote for. They vote for Republicans, they vote for Democrats. They would split their ticket between a presidential candidate of one party and a Senate or House candidate of another.

Those kind of voters have become extremely rare. I mean, you note that catalyst estimates that 126 million people voted in both 2020 and 2024 election. Probably only about six to 12 million of them switched from voting for a candidate of one party one time to a candidate of a party the other is their estimate.

And that was dwarfed, Audie, by the number of people who cycled in and out of the electorate altogether. You know, in each of those elections, there were about 60 million people who either voted for the first time or sat it out after voting four years earlier.

And so these kind of casual or intermittent voters, I think many strategists in both parties now believe, are essentially the new swing voters. And the issue is not only who they are going to vote for, but even more pointedly whether they vote at all. CORNISH: But can I ask a question? We are seeing increased numbers of Republican registration in many states. And people are looking at that and saying, A, this is bad for Democrats, that they should be worried.

But, B, that those represent some of these voters you're talking about.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes. I mean, you know, the -- the -- the numbers on the registration or what they are, they reflect the fact that I think, as I said to you before, the democratic image is probably weaker now than it's been at any point since the years before Bill Clinton's election.

But the number of people who are loosely attached to the parties and even more pointedly loosely attached to the political system, I think are still bigger than that and still has the capacity to sway elections.

I mean, you look at what happened from '20 to '24. You know, there was enormous focus on Trump's improved performance among voters of color, right? Particularly non-college voters of color. And that was probably the single biggest thing that changed from his loss in '20 to his win in '24.

I had the Pew Research Center, who does the very, you know, well- respected validated voter study, break out some of those results by a race. And what you see is that the share of Biden 2020 voters who were Hispanic, Black, or Asian, who stayed home in '24 dwarfed the number who switched to Trump.

So, we are seeing that there are more swing voters at this point as a higher -- swing voters are higher percentage of non-white than white voters, and that they are expressing that swing more by staying home than by switching party.

And -- and that dynamic really adds uncertainty to a midterm election when turnout is lower. And you don't really have a good handle on who will turn out except that it is likely that a lot of those low propensity voters who fueled Trump in 2024, excuse me, will not be there in '26.

[06:40:05]

CORNISH: OK. CNN senior political analyst Ron Brownstein, you saved me from having to write a story about the dwindling numbers of swing voters. I appreciate this.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes. Always happy to help.

Next on "CNN This Morning," President Trump is trying to convince Vladimir Putin to attend a one-on-one peace talks with Ukraine. What he thinks is standing in the way.

Plus.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I don't want to be defense only. We want defense, but we want offense too.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Is the Department of Defense not strong enough?

And a different kind of power grab? Now the White House is reaching into the private sector. We want to know what's in your group chat. Send it to us now on X. We're going to be talking about ours in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:45:16]

CORNISH: OK. So, the president has talked about taking over America's biggest cities, but a business stake from Uncle Sam? That might be new terrain.

The White House is taking a 10 percent stake in Intel, the computer chip making company. And it's a move that's unheard of outside of a major financial crisis. The president says it's just the first of many deals with U.S. businesses.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Now, in the case of Intel was interesting, but I hope I'm going to have many more cases like it.

There will be other cases. If I have that opportunity again, I would do that. And then, you know, you do have stupid people say, oh, that's a shame. It's not a shame. It's called business.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: There's also some risk to businesses with more government involvement. Intel CEO is already warning of, quote, "adverse reactions" to the deal from investors, employees, and shareholders, that's according to a CNBC report.

So, is this the end of the kind of free market capitalism U.S. businesses are used to? We're bringing in Molly Ball, senior political correspondent with the "Wall Street Journal" to the group chat.

I -- I feel like this was pretty big news on the business pages. How was it being interpreted? Is it just a stake? Is it a friendly bit of support from the U.S. government? How are people hearing it?

MOLLY BALL, SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, WALL STREET JOURNAL: You know, what was interesting to me was that the political reaction to this was really sort of upside down. You had a lot of conservatives saying this is terrible, this is socialism, this is, you know, an unwarranted government intervention into the economy.

And you had some progressives, including Bernie Sanders, saying no, this is exactly right. The government should be getting something in return for what he called corporate welfare. So, there's an interesting sort of strange bedfellows reaction happening here.

But, you know, as you were saying in the intro, it's not that different in some people's view. From something like the auto bailout during the Obama administration. This was a troubled company that the administration believes is important to our national security, national infrastructure, national economy. So, they're propping up this company that otherwise might have failed because they see a public interest in doing so.

And for some allies of the administration, this is of a piece with industrial policy, something like the, you know, this -- the money --

(CROSSTALK)

CORNISH: What about the people who were like, this is a little bit like what China does in terms of having its stake in companies? I don't mean to be extreme, but like is that interpretation fair?

BALL: I -- you know, I spoke to both opponents and proponents of this move and they both cited that. And proponents say, we are competing with China which has a government that supports its important, you know, national champions in the economy, its businesses that are important to the public interest.

If we're going to compete with that, we can't do the same kind of free market economics where we just let the chips, so to speak, fall where they may. Sorry about that.

CORNISH: It's OK. That's welcome at this table.

I want to play something for you because you mentioned the company being troubled. Here's Kevin O'Leary, Trump ally, kind of caught in a moment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEVIN O'LEARY, BUSINESSMAN: Yes, I abhor this idea. I really do. What has made America so great for 200 years is the government stays in its lane and the private sector does what it does so successfully.

Why would anybody want to own this thing? Take it behind the barn and shoot it. That's what should be happening if you're to tell.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Blunt, of course. But, Ashley, you've been watching this as well?

DAVIS: Yes. And I actually work a ton with Kevin. And he has had a lot of back and forth with Intel over for years, so that's also a little bit personal.

CORNISH: We should say their corporate stock performance it's a downward arrow so far.

DAVIS: Yes, absolutely. But one of the things that Larry Lindsey said yesterday whom a huge fan, you know, know he's from the Bush administration economist. And he said the CHIPS and Science Act remember, and I forgot this, they were grants that they gave to Intel and other companies on chips.

So, his -- his thought, which I do agree with because I've been struggling with this like -- because I lived through the too big to fail days under the Bush --

CORNISH: Yes.

DAVIS: -- under the Bush administration, beginning of the Obama administration with the banks and then the autos.

But we already are giving so much money to Intel because of national security reasons. Now, there's tons of people that say we should not be doing this as well for national security reasons because of some of the issues with Intel.

However, we are giving them so much money, why don't we get something in return?

If you also look, going back on China real quick, the golden share. China's been doing this for years, owning companies with the golden share.

DEMSAS: I just think that this is like, we're making a lot of false equivalences there. If we want to -- to get money back from corporations, you can tax corporations. They can raise the corporate tax rate. That is available to anyone at any time in Congress if they're not aware of that.

[06:50:03]

This is a different situation where they're not picking a national champion and -- and building up a nascent industry, right, where you're like going, oh, it's very, very difficult to, like, develop a manufacturing for -- for chips in this country. It took, you know, such decades for -- for Taiwan to be able to do this. These are very expensive machines. How do we invest in our -- I our country? That's what the CHIPS Act did.

This is -- let's pick a like lumbering giant of American industry that has been on kind of like a downward trend for a while and then try to make it provide some value to the U.S. government despite the fact that it's not actually winning in the market right now?

I just think that we're all conflating like, yes, the government can intervene in -- in companies. That doesn't mean all intervention is the same.

WOLF: Yes.

CORNISH: it also maybe because it's legit confusing for the average person. And I think with all of these things, whether it's the militarization of people on the streets or some of these other questions, it's, yes, there may be merit to an idea, but is there a true emergency that allows for this? Or is this a pretext so that you can do something later on?

I feel like that is the biggest question over time. When is it really an emergency? Is it just when he says?

BALL: And I think that that is the source of a lot of the objections. This is not like on paper, are there abstract arguments you can make for having a government investment in a company?

But in this case, is that what it's really about? Or is it because Trump had a meeting where someone sucked up to him?

CORNISH: Yes.

BALL: And does that have to be every corporation's strategy, basically, from here on in, that if you want to survive in the American economy, the most important thing is not out competing others in your industry through innovation, it's sucking up to Washington. And we've seen that happen over and over and over again with this administration.

DEMSAS: Trump is now more interested in like -- and their stock going up. And the real threat is, OK, when we have a stake in this company, then do we start doing other things to meddle with other businesses' freedoms, other businesses' ability to succeed because we want that.

CORNISH: Or does it cost me if they fail?

DEMSAS: Exactly.

DAVIS: I also don't know if we just continue to give companies free money and see if it works.

CORNISH: Oh, OK.

(CROSSTALK)

DAVIS: I mean, which is the CHIPS and Science Act did to Intel.

BALL: They -- they were already getting this money under the CHIPS Act, right? All the (INAUDIBLE) will say, instead of just being a grant, we're going to take something in return.

CORNISH: Oh, yes. Grants.

BALL: But the money was already being handed out. And it was being handed out, to your point, under a Biden administration initiative.

DAVIS: With absolutely no teeth if they weren't spending it correctly.

DEMSAS: But we were. No. But we were getting something. The idea that you're getting the investment out of it.

DAVIS: That they weren't --

DEMSAS: The whole point is to -- yes. We have -- they have a chips factory in Arizona. Like we are getting things out of it. And so to me, just find it like --

CORNISH: But what I hear that's interesting is you leaning towards this idea of like there's another way to do this. It could be taxes. You pointing out it was grants and they switched it to stakes.

It's all the same thing, which is getting money to a company. It's how you do it and what you get back.

DAVIS: And if you get something back --

(CROSSTALK)

DEMSAS: And also how you distort things, though. Because like if you go -- if you decide, instead of like raising corporate tax rates, that you're going to pick winners and losers in the economy, you're inherently also disadvantaging other companies in other ways.

So, let's say we're now concerned about, you know, this company that we have a huge stake in failing. How then like we disadvantage other people in the economy to make sure that doesn't happen?

CORNISH: The winners and losers argument kind of comes up here and there, depending on any given policy.

DAVIS: And too big to fail.

CORNISH: yes. And too big to fail. We're -- we're clearly haunted by that, Ashley. I hear that.

You guys, I got to leave it here because we've got some international news. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has been rolling back name changes at U.S. Army bases around the world this year. Now another name change could be in the works.

The Department of Defense could become the Department of War. The department took its modern form after World War II when Congress put the Army, Air Force, and Navy departments under a new cabinet level agency.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How do you plan to do that? It requires an act of Congress to rename the Defense Department to the Department of War.

TRUMP: We're just going to do it. I'm sure Congress will go along if we need that. I don't think we even need that. But if we need that, I'm sure Congress will go along.

Defense is too defensive. And we want to be defensive, but we want to be offensive too if we have to be. So, it just sounded to me better.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: This feels like it falls in line with the president's, what is it, strength through -- peace through strength kind of idea and the perception. Does that make sense to you? I feel like especially coming out of the era we did something similar with DHS, right? We created --

DAVIS: Right.

CORNISH: -- an agency --

DAVIS: Right.

CORNISH: -- put everyone together. Why go back to war?

DAVIS: I think it's to show strength. I mean, think it's messaging. I -- I mean, I don't know how I -- this obviously has been kind of bubbling up for a while. I'm not sure.

CORNISH: I didn't know that actually.

DAVIS: Yes. No, it has been.

CORNISH: I didn't see this one coming.

DAVIS: Yes. I actually think he may have even talked about it on the campaign. But it's kind of the strength message.

DEMSAS: Hamilton. He misses the Department of War.

CORNISH: It's like (INAUDIBLE)

BALL: Hamilton reference.

CORNISH: Drink. Yes.

(CROSSTALK)

BALL: It was better before they changed it to something bland and inoffensive.

CORNISH: I know, but nothing says, give me a Nobel Peace Prize like naming it the Department of War. Like it's sort of an interesting imagery.

(CROSSTALK)

[06:55:59]

WOLF: One thing he definitely said on the campaign trail is that there would be no war under him and, you know, changing the name to the War Department, there it is. Like the entire posture of the U.S. government is going from one that's setting back to one that's stepping forward.

And, you know, words are powerful things. This doesn't necessarily mean the U.S. is going to go invading countries, but it certainly changes the way, you know, others are going to view the U.S. the way the American military is going to view itself.

And that is a notable thing that people --

CORNISH: Which has changed profoundly under Hegseth. I think he has really put the idea of physical strength --

WOLF: The warrior ethos.

CORNISH: -- image of strength, the warrior ethos. And this seems to reflect that maybe?

DAVIS: Yes, I think so. I mean, I just think that, listen, I look at it from -- if this keeps our country safer because of how it's named and perceived strength, then fine. I mean, I don't know. Of course, my mind goes to how much is it going to cost to start changing everything the -- the Department of War again.

CORNISH: OK. But hold on. My favorite part of how Trump described it is -- is this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: It used to be called Secretary of War. In fact, if you look at the old building next to the White House, you can see where it used to be Secretary of War. Then we became politically correct. And they called it Secretary of Defense. Maybe we'll to start thinking about changing it, but we feel that way.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Just because the politically correct times of 1947 just made me -- made me chuckle.

DEMSAS: Yes.

CORNISH: But yes.

DEMSAS: I mean, I -- I do think too that this is just more evidence of Trump sort of agenda setting power, right? Because it's not really that important, right? What you call it, Department of Defense. Like obviously, like there is some sort of messaging that he's trying to send to the rest of the world and to this country that like we're -- we're stronger, we're -- we're actually more of an offensive actor, if you try to threaten our interests.

But at the same time too, I think that, like, what's going on here is he is very much a master of changing the conversation to places where regular people hearing this, are they going to think I care a lot about what the Department of Defense is called?

CORNISH: Right. Ashley said the same thing earlier --

DEMSAS: Exactly.

CORNISH: -- how you end up talking about something else which --

DAVIS: This is what he does. CORNISH: Guilty. OK. You guys, I want to talk about then what's in your group chats. Molly, you're new. We're hazing you. What's in your group chats?

BALL: Well, I was just in Texas covering the redistricting fight, which was --

CORNISH: So, you have a very nerdy group chat is what you're about to tell me.

BALL: I mean, my actual group chats I cannot tell you about.

CORNISH: Oh, man. OK.

BALL: But, you know, it was striking the degree to which Republicans were doing this. When you ask them, why are you doing this? It was because we can.

And it was also interesting, you know, the Democrats in Texas have been pretty demoralized for a very long time, but they were really invigorated by this fight. And you saw the sort of creation of a folk hero around Representative Nicole Collier, who slept in the House chamber for a couple of nights.

I think there's a real feeling on the Democrats' part that because California is fighting back in the way that they are, that there's been a national battle joined. Now, is this good for all of us?

CORNISH: So, they're not alone. Right.

BALL: Is this good for democracy? Who knows? But it's fascinating to me how basically with a flick of his wrist, Trump can get all of these states involved in a multi-state battle over redistricting.

CORNISH: OK. Zach, what's in your group chat?

WOLF: You know, I was watching the Illinois governor yesterday, J.B. Pritzker, kind of unload on Trump and sort of their interaction with each other, comparing that to Gavin Newsom.

We know that Trump is not or should not be on the in 2028, but he's going to play such an important role, just how the Democrats, you know, veer around him in the -- in the Democratic primary that we're starting to sort of see take a little bit of shape here.

CORNISH: OK, guys, help me out on these group chats.

DEMSAS: So, my group chat is about Kelsey Piper has a new story today at "The Argument" mag about the AI hiring craze that's going on right now. So, anyone's trying to get a job --

CORNISH: And a good -- a good craze or a bad craze?

DEMSAS: Bad craze -- bad craze. No. Always a bad craze.

So essentially, I think most people have experiences if you've looked for a job, there's just so many more applications now because people are using ChatGPT to write their resumes. They're using ChatGPT to write their cover letters. They even send emails, cold emailing recruiters. There's like massive influx.

I have a friend who was just applying for a job. There's 1,300 applications for like a random nonprofit job here in the city. And I mean, this is something where, you know, it's also on the other end on the employer's end. They are using ChatGPT.

CORNISH: We've talked about this, bot versus bot.

DEMSAS: Bot versus bot.

CORNISH: On LinkedIn. Godspeed.

DEMSAS: And it's not even -- I mean, it's a situation where now you're ramping up in the hiring process, right? So, like now it's like, okay, well, I'm afraid that my -- my candidate is -- is using a ChatGPT resume. So, now, I'm going to have them talk to a ChatGPT screener so I don't have to waste my employees' time.

So, we're getting a much more onerous hiring process. And that's what I think a lot of job seekers are feeling is that, you know, it's harder and harder to get a job even though supposedly it's still --

CORNISH: Yes.

DEMSAS: -- on the economy.

CORNISH: Ashley, last word to you.

DAVIS: Well, I'm doing something fun today because doing T.V., we all know, we get trolled by mean people sometimes. But there's one person I'm looking at her right now, if she's awake. H. Grace Cornish, who's Audie's mommy, who actually likes how I dress every morning.

CORNISH: She does.

DAVIS: So I love her. She makes my day.

CORNISH: In my group chat, I will get a text. And it'll say, red lipstick, pink dress. Ashley, amazing.

But I promise we're very --

DAVIS: So thanks, mom.

CORNISH: -- smart people who text redistricting links as well.

I want to thank you guys. We talked about a lot today. We covered a lot of ground. I want to thank you for waking up with us. I'm Audie Cornish and "CNN News Central" starts right now.

[07:00:00]