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White House Drops Key Nomination after Reports of Racist Texts; Can $400 Million Movement Help Revive Local News? Aired 6-6:30a ET
Aired October 22, 2025 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BRIAN ABEL, CNN ANCHOR: -- hundred and fifty Oasis items will also be sold, including Noel Gallagher's 1960 red Gibson guitar.
[06:00:10]
This entire auction is expected to raise more than $4 million. That is impressive.
Thank you for joining us here on EARLY START. I'm Brian Abel in Washington. CNN THIS MORNING with Audie Cornish starts right now.
AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: It turns out having a Nazi streak can cost you a job in the Trump administration. CNN THIS MORNING starts right now.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It would have been better to have pulled this quietly quite a while ago.
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CORNISH: President Trump's pick for a critical administration post is out.
And long lines and short tempers at airports and food banks. Who do voters blame now for the government shutdown?
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He's a citizen! He's a citizen!
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CORNISH: Confusion over Trump's immigration crackdown with dozens of U.S. citizens detained by ICE, including nearly 20 children.
And the Louvre reopened. What prosecutors are saying about the odds of recovering $100 million worth of stolen Jewelry.
And a suspect in custody after crashing his car into a Secret Service gate last night right outside the White House.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We need information to live, literally. It's like food.
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CORNISH: News deserts spreading across the country. One journalist's mission to keep every American informed.
It's 6 a.m. here on the East Coast. This is a live look at Capitol Hill.
Good morning, everybody. It is Wednesday, October 22. I want to thank you for waking up with me. I'm Audie Cornish, and here is where we begin.
The Trump administration's choice to lead a key White House office backing out after damaging text messages came to light.
Paul Ingrassia was supposed to have a Senate confirmation hearing Thursday to become head of the Office of Special Counsel. But in a message posted last night, he withdrew his nomination, saying, "Unfortunately, I do not have enough Republican votes at this time."
So, how did he lose support from the president's party?
Separate reporting from both CNN and "Politico" linked Ingrassia to messages like these, which he sent to a group chat of Republicans in which he claimed he has a, quote, "Nazi streak in me from time to time."
In another message, he called Martin Luther King Jr. the, quote, "George Floyd of the 1960s" before adding the holiday for the civil rights leader should be, quote, "tossed into the seventh circle of hell."
His lawyer, in a statement to "Politico," refused to confirm the messages were real, but added, quote, "Even if the texts are authentic, they are clearly read as self-deprecating and satirical humor making fun of the fact that liberals outlandishly and routinely call MAGA supporters Nazis."
Joining me now in the group chat to talk more, Nia-Malika Henderson, CNN senior political analyst and political and policy columnist at Bloomberg; Charlie Dent, former Republican congressman of Pennsylvania; and Antjuan Seawright, Democratic strategist.
I want to turn to you first, Nia-Malika, because when these texts first came out, I remember J.D. Vance, the vice president --
NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes.
CORNISH: -- going on "The Charlie Kirk Show" and saying, kind of like, kids will be kids.
HENDERSON: Kids will be kids.
CORNISH: Who among us has not? HENDERSON: Yes.
CORNISH: This is taking something too seriously. So why did Republicans break on this one?
HENDERSON: You know, I think it was so clearly offensive. You know, you sort of heard the defensive there, which is typically what Republicans do. They laugh it off. They downplay it.
But, you know, slamming Martin Luther King, who Republicans sometimes like to embrace as one of their own. And then the Nazis, I think it was just a bridge too far.
And it wasn't like this guy had, you know, such great qualifications to have this job anyway.
CORNISH: I was about to say, the reporting was that he bombed his --
HENDERSON: Yes.
CORNISH: Oh, look at those eyebrows. The reporting was he bombed his meetings on the Hill, as well. So, he didn't have people who were, like, rooting for him.
CHARLIE DENT, FORMER PENNSYLVANIA CONGRESSMAN: He just passed the bar, and he's going to have this big position. So, it's clear that this guy didn't have the experience for this job. This is before the --
CORNISH: But that's not disqualifying for the administration.
DENT: I know.
CORNISH: So, what is it about the -- this moment?
DENT: Well, I think everybody has finally acknowledged that Naziism is bad and that it is disqualifying. I mean, who would have thought that it would have taken this long? You know, we fought a world war over this. And so, I --
CORNISH: I have another theory.
DENT: It's almost -- its staggering. But --
CORNISH: My theory is you had Jewish groups say, We will not support this guy. And the -- and the party has very much leaned into dealing with antisemitism in the public space at universities. And this might have been the thing that tipped it.
ANTJUAN SEAWRIGHT, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Well, outside of being a basic, unqualified, unserious, perhaps DEI hire, consistent with many in this administration, I think the problem is, is that many who are trying to come into this administration have been very comfortable being racist.
[06:05:08]
They've been comfortable saying things and getting away with them, because it's in their everyday dialogue.
And I think that's the problem. I think we have to learn in this country, Charlie, to make racism, bigotry, and all those things expensive again.
And people have gotten more comfortable than perhaps in my sharecropping grandparents' generation with saying whatever they want, and there's no consequence to it at the highest levels of our government. White nationalism, Christian white nationalism, white supremacy, all these things have become consistent in the daily diet.
CORNISH: Well, let me add one more thing. Democrats are dealing with their own headaches dealing with leaked personal messages. So, you have this race for the Virginia attorney general. The Democrat, Jay Jones, has been -- look at you nodding -- at the forefront. His lead evaporated. basically, after some text messages surfaced from him.
HENDERSON: Yes.
CORNISH: And then in Maine --
HENDERSON: Yes.
CORNISH: -- Senate primary candidate Graham Planter [SIC] was found to have deleted social media posts. He tried to delete. He tried to get there.
That quote where he called himself a communist, dismissed all police as bastards, and said rural white Americans actually are racist and stupid.
I want to know if -- testing this theory out on you. Republicans think nothing is disqualifying, and Democrats think everything is disqualifying.
HENDERSON: Well, what's interesting, particularly about, I think, the Platner case, in more ways than the Jay Jones case, is that Plantner [SIC] made a pretty good apology that, I think, a lot of Democrats are saying this has been good enough.
CORNISH: Right.
HENDERSON: That that sort of absolves him, because he talked about having PTSD. We'll see if --
CORNISH: He also specifically said, I did this when I was --
HENDERSON: Angry, and now I found community in the great state of Maine and have a lovely wife and all of this. So, it really resonated with people.
CORNISH: You think there's a certain kind of apology that works or doesn't work? Or none at all?
DENT: I don't know. I just feel like, you know, once upon a time, and not so long ago, we used to vet candidates. And we used to do opposition research, and we looked for things like --
CORNISH: Well, we still do the latter.
DENT: -- bankruptcies, criminal records; oh, public statements --
CORNISH: Yes.
DENT: -- that would be disqualifying. I mean, I think it's -- I think this guy's got a real problem.
CORNISH: In the age of George Santos's commutation.
DENT: After this knowledge, this knowledge, yes, run this guy.
CORNISH: Is there actually -- you're like, once upon a time. It feels like that time is done when George Santos is like, I'm out, folks.
DENT: I mean, they didn't do opposition research on him. It was all out there.
CORNISH: Yes.
DENT: But they failed. I mean, what happened to the vetting of candidates by their opponents and by local -- and, frankly, local media?
CORNISH: OK, Antjuan, so to you, Nia-Malika's point, which is this is a guy they want. He's saying he represents a constituency they want and so are Democrats OK with what's happening with Planter [SIC]?
SEAWRIGHT: I think it's all bad. I think it's all wrong. And I think Democrats have been more consistent with not only throwing our folks under the bus, but calling it out, whereas, Republicans press the ignore button. And we just seem -- we seem to move on very quickly when it applies to them.
We saw that with Charlottesville. We saw that with January 6th. We've seen that with some of -- some of the other examples, including the president of the United States dining with white nationalists and white supremacists. And somehow or another, that's OK and accepted.
Jay Jones will have his judgment at the ballot box. So will our candidate in Maine. And so, that will settle that.
But at the same time, we can't get comfortable in this space acting as if these things are -- or normalizing this.
CORNISH: OK. You guys stay with it. One of the reasons we were talking about this is, because this is about the pipeline, right? Like, these texts represent the people who are moving through a future to government.
SEAWRIGHT: In the highest levels of our government.
CORNISH: Well, before they even get there. It's like, can you nip that kind of thing in the bud? Stay with me. We've got a lot to talk about this hour.
Coming up on CNN THIS MORNING, there's a new lawsuit over the swearing in of a new congresswoman-elect that still hasn't happened. House speaker says he's just following the, quote, "Pelosi precedent."
Plus, an A.I.-powered web browser might be the new Google.
And there was a meeting. Now there isn't. What made President Trump change his tone so quickly on Vladimir Putin.
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DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: I don't want to have a wasted meeting. I don't want to have a waste of time. So, I'll see what happens.
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CORNISH: It's almost 15 minutes past the hour. Here is your morning roundup.
Arizona is now suing the U.S. House over Speaker Mike Johnson's refusal to swear in a congressional election. Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva, who was elected in late September.
So, Arizona's attorney general filed a lawsuit Tuesday, arguing that Johnson does not have the authority to delay her appointment. But Johnson says he's just following the, quote, "Pelosi precedent."
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REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): I think it's patently absurd. We run the House. She has no jurisdiction. We're following the precedent.
KRIS MAYES, ARIZONA ATTORNEY GENERAL: He's basically thumbing his nose at 813,000 Arizonans who don't have a representative. And my state is now down a representative. That's not OK. It violates the Constitution.
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CORNISH: So, the A.G. is asking a judge to allow another qualified person to administer Grijalva's oath if Johnson continues to refuse.
So, OpenAI just launched a new web browser, and it could be a big competitor for Google. The search engine, called Atlas, will use ChatGPT to answer user's questions.
It rolled out on Tuesday for download on Apple laptops. It will soon come to other platforms.
It's got a big challenge, though: to stand up against Chrome, which is also adding A.I. features with Google Gemini.
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And forget sugar-free. President Trump wants full sugar. Coca-Cola now selling a soda that uses cane sugar.
This follows a request from the president himself. Earlier this year, he asked the company to change their recipe from high fructose corn sirup, which makes it like Mexican coke, which many of us argue is better.
It's now available in select cities.
And after the break on CNN THIS MORNING, U.S. citizens caught in the president's immigration crackdown. A growing number of Americans have been arrested. Now, some members of Congress want answers.
Plus, reimagining local news. Can a multi-million-dollar movement revive what social media and corporate consolidation all but killed?
And good morning to Atlanta. We've got a warning for travelers there, because it could take a little longer to get through security lines as sick-outs are increasing for TSA workers as the government shutdown stretches on.
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CORNISH: So, there's this growing movement to revive local news. A group called Press Forward is backing the $400 million initiative, with 41 local chapters across the country.
And here is why. More than 3,200 print newspapers have vanished since 2005, with an estimated two newspapers closing every week.
Now, that unrelenting decline of local newspapers, still the primary news source in most areas, is leading to a rising number of what are called news deserts in America, estimated at around 213 counties, right, that don't have any local news.
So, as part of the Press Forward movement, author and journalist Charles Blow is hosting a new documentary series. It's called "Reimagining Local News." And it covers everyday people who are building nonprofit newsrooms and the universities stepping up to cover underserved areas. Here's a taste of that.
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CHARLES BLOW, JOURNALIST AND AUTHOR: My love of local news began here in Arcadia, Louisiana, eight miles east of my hometown, where my 4-H club visited the offices of "The Bienville Democrat," the small newspaper that served my home parish.
FREDDIE BLOW, MOTHER OF CHARLES BLOW: This is where it used to be.
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CORNISH: Joining me now to discuss is the host of the doc, Charles Blow. Welcome to CNN THIS MORNING.
C. BLOW: Thanks for having me.
CORNISH: So, you've obviously written for national audiences, and I think a lot of journalism students get into the process hoping to be at a big paper. So, how has this series, doing it, changed your view of local news?
C. BLOW: Well, I think it brought me back to my beginnings. I began in my local area, writing for local newspapers, and you know, spent 30 years after that writing for major publications.
And you know what? What it reminds you of, when you're back in the local news trenches, is how critical these places are. They're not just doing big journalism. All the things that would win the prizes, the holding people to account and governments to account, which is incredibly important.
They're also doing all the grunt work of the small "J" journalism, which is the wedding announcements, and the obituaries, and reporting on the high school games, and the features of the lady who wins the local gardening competition.
And I think we forget how much connective tissue that sort of information brings into a community. You think you know the guy at the end of the block until he dies, and you read his obituary, and you realize that he was in the Vietnam War.
Or you think, you know, the valedictorian until you read her profile.
CORNISH: Yes.
C. BLOW: And you realize that she's going to study bioengineering. That kind of thing is what reduces the kind of "othering" of our neighbors. And what we have now is a tremendous amount of that.
CORNISH: So, local news, going through a financial crisis. But I have to ask, $400 million. It's coming from a lot of different donors, many of which, certainly, on the right, they're criticizing them as kind of left-wing donors.
How are you reconciling with this conversation about how people -- like, where the money comes from for the news, affects how people see it, or whether they should trust it?
C. BLOW: Well, what Press Forward is doing is it is not a partizan operation.
In fact, what we found in the research is that, when you have healthy local news environments, it decreases partisanship, not increases it.
And what we found with the legislators around the country who have jumped in to offer government subsidies for -- to support small -- small community newsrooms is that they also recognize that this is a community good, a public good that is not partisan.
The thing about local news is that they're actually not writing as much about national politics. That's really not their function. And in a community, it's more likely to be more homogeneous anyway.
What they're doing is just trying to provide the information about the grocery store that's coming, the -- the dry cleaner's that's closing down. That kind of information is less partisan.
So, this kind of conversation skips over a lot of the partisanship that we see in national news.
CORNISH: Lastly, how are these papers drawing new audiences? We're in this moment where obviously, I mean, OpenAI is launching a web browser. So much of the news people get, they're getting online.
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How do you think this approach can change to basically win back those people who now have -- have kind of lost their taste for their local news?
C. BLOW: The one thing that this reporting showed me is that they have not lost the taste for it. People desperately want reliable news sources, and they really, really, really appreciate it.
It's just that they weren't making enough money to survive.
And when you find a way to put those resources back into those papers, and they can survive, people really love what they're getting and what they're seeing from those newspapers.
And so, that is part of it. Also expanding the universe of people who are kind of targeted. The current report years ago (ph) said that newspapers -- news industry was not doing enough to be diverse enough. The news industry said it would -- it would kind of self-police and increase those numbers. It still has not happened.
Many of these entrepreneurs in media are doing just that. They're focusing on niches. They're saying, This group is underserved. I will serve them if I can get enough money to help me out.
And that is what's happening.
CORNISH: Well, Charles Blow, I appreciate hearing about this. Thank you so much.
C. BLOW: Absolutely. Thank you for having me.
CORNISH: Straight ahead on CNN THIS MORNING, President Trump demanding payback. Literally. He wants his DOJ to pay him millions.
Plus, one person arrested after ramming their car into a gate at the White House.
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