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Source: Trump Considers Firing Guilfoyle Amid Misconduct Reports; El-Sayed: Democrats Must Win Midterms by 'Massive Numbers'. Aired 6-6:30a ET
Aired October 12, 2026 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[06:00:13]
AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everybody.
Today in the group chat, will Trump fire his son's ex-fiance, Kimberly Guilfoyle? The president is already talking about the ambassador in the past tense.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, CNN ANCHOR: I don't know too much, but she was always very nice.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: Plus, Trump's diesel deal with Putin just weeks from the midterms. Is he rewarding a ruthless strongman to win the GOP some votes?
Also, the president wants people to watch a firing squad execution in the name of American values. Now the pope is pushing back.
And Abdul El-Sayed's midterm warning for Democrats: Winning is not enough.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KRISTEN WELKER, HOST, NBC'S "MEET THE PRESS": Do you agree that Democrats need to make the election, quote, "too big to rig?"
ABDUL EL-SAYED (D), MICHIGAN SENATE CANDIDATE: We've got to win by massive numbers.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: Good morning, everybody. I'm Audie Cornish, and here is where we start: the alleged $100,000 credit card bill that could end up sinking the U.S. ambassador to Greece.
So, a source telling CNN that President Trump is now weighing whether to fire Kimberly Guilfoyle after a string of reports alleging misconduct. Guilfoyle has reportedly accepted lavish gifts as ambassador and a
former Trump donor also claims she promised access if he paid off her $100,000 American Express bill.
So, when asked heading into the weekend if her job was safe, Trump didn't exactly give her a vote of confidence.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The news reports about Kimberly Guilfoyle, your ambassador to Greece. She seems to have been --
TRUMP: I just heard about it. Too bad. I mean, I don't know, she's -- she's an ambassador. I just heard a little bit about it. I don't know too much, but she was always very nice.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: Joining me now in the group chat, Sara Fischer, CNN senior media analyst and senior media reporter at Axios; Tiana Lowe Doescher, political commentator at "The Washington Examiner"; and Herbie Siskind, former deputy communications director for President Biden.
So, I'll start with you, Herbie, since you're fresh to the group. When your primary client, in this case, your president says, haven't heard too much about it, what conversations have happened behind the scenes in the comms office?
HERBIE SISKIND, FORMER DEPUTY COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR FOR PRESIDENT BIDEN: It means she's probably on her way out. You know, she committed the -- the ultimate sin of stepping on the secretary of state's big speech in Athens with this debacle.
CORNISH: Because people asked him about it there.
SISKIND: He was talking about it a lot. It got a lot of attention. And remember, she wouldn't have even passed that in a normal administration, a typical administration based on what happened at -- at FOX News.
So, this is an embarrassment. We're three weeks out from an election, and this is what the president has to talk about. I think her time is quite limited.
CORNISH: So, "The Wall Street Journal" was back over the weekend with some new reporting I want to mention, where they were reporting that she was boasting at Davos about her close ties to some Greek tycoons, saying that they were bankrolling her high-rolling trips around the world, including trips to Paris Fashion Week. She was obviously spotted at a lot of events there.
And just a reminder: the person who is talking about the allegations was speaking publicly. Right? That's what's driving this. Here's Eric Deters on CNN last week.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ERIC DETERS, FORMER TRUMP DONOR: So, right before Senate confirmation, she says to me, I need $100,000 to pay off my American Express card or I'm not going to become Greek ambassador. This is embarrassing.
And I said, Kimberly, you haven't done anything that I've asked you to do. I mean -- I mean, just nothing. She hadn't -- she hadn't accomplished anything. And I said, Kimberly, why should I do this for you?
And she told me -- it's in the text messages. I'll be your ride or die forever in a Trump administration.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: So, keep in mind, we're only hearing about this story, because there's an unsatisfied customer who wanted to buy influence and didn't get it.
TIANA LOWE DOESCHER, POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, "THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER": That's what it sounds like.
Which goes to show that the corruption actually didn't work right. He wanted access to then-Attorney General Pam Bondi, then IRS commissioner Billy Long, and current FBI director Kash Patel. And he didn't get any of it. Right?
So, I mean, clearly -- you know, I'm pretty sure Don Jr. is glad that Kimberly Guilfoyle is no longer his problem, because clearly she's not in the inner circle. And I think that's why the administration is happy to sort of probably --
CORNISH: Yes. Here's the point from Stephanie Grisham, former administration person, saying online, "I would be shocked if Guilfoyle faced any consequences for this. She knows far too much about the Trump family inner circle, and I imagine they like her as far away as possible. An angry K.G. stateside would not be a good thing for Trump world."
[06:05:04]
SARA FISCHER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA ANALYST: Yes, well, the common understanding here is that the reason that she was posted to this position was to get her as far away from all the drama as possible.
Remember, she breaks up with Don Jr., whom she was engaged to for four years. He pretty much immediately pivots into a new relationship with a woman who he is now married to.
And so, I think it was a very convenient situation to have her be the ambassador to Greece.
CORNISH: But she's also a media personality, right? Like her ability to come back and, like, start a podcast is pretty strong.
FISCHER: Yes. But so, you're -- I think you're the Trump administration, you're weighing legal liability and you're also -- not legal liability, but you're -- you're weighing the liability in terms of what she might say about you and your family versus any kind of embarrassment that she poses to you on the world stage.
I think Marco Rubio being upstaged is one piece of this, but I also just think they don't want any sort of headlines that are going to go against the grain of what they're trying to accomplish before the midterms.
CORNISH: OK, you guys, stay with us. We're going to talk about a couple more things today. There are a lot of elections going on.
Obviously, we're going to turn to Texas. A lot of attention there. James Talarico is actually back on the campaign trail. He says he was sick. The Internet -- surprise -- has other ideas.
Plus, Trump turns to Vladimir Putin to help lower diesel prices. We're going to ask what it means.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:10:53]
CORNISH: All right, so the president has made a deal with the Kremlin, and a bipartisan group of senators are saying they don't like it.
They released a letter on Sunday, calling on the administration to, quote, "immediately reverse course."
Now, the plan is to suspend sanctions on fuel exports on Russia and to release thousands of tons of diesel. Now they hope to bring the sky- high fuel prices down. The move, however, has triggered a clash this weekend between conservative hosts on FOX News.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's a reason why the president is buying the -- the diesel from --
BRIAN KILMEADE, FOX NEWS HOST: We need diesel.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: -- from Russia. And that's because Zelenskyy keeps blowing up the refineries.
KILMEADE: Can you blame him? That's the war machine that's killing his people that bombs apartment buildings.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He's a dependent on us, and the president said, don't do it.
KILMEADE: The diesel fuel --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you for America or for --
KILMEADE: The diesel fuel got stopped because Iran was blowing up the Gulf states' oil and their refineries. And now all of a sudden, there's new emphasis on Russia. (END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: Group chat is back. It was interesting hearing "new emphasis," because this is a massive flip-flop. The president had just signed into law the Lindsey Graham sanctions bill --
FISCHER: Yes.
CORNISH: -- for Russia and Iran. So, not only does it have Russia in the name of the bill, it was for his friend who had passed away and cared a lot about the war. And he stood up at the General Assembly and said, this is what I'm doing.
DOESCHER: And it's unlikely to make a real dent. And let's -- I just want to point out that Ukraine offered a mutual ceasefire on energy infrastructure that was rejected, obviously, because Putin is the primary aggressor in this campaign.
Look, the price of gas --
CORNISH: Does that feel obvious with this White House?
DOESCHER: I mean, a little bit, because I think, you know --
CORNISH: But Trump's announcing a deal here. We're announcing a Kremlin deal. So, they're not acting as though they're the aggressor.
DOESCHER: It'll be -- it'll be blown up. Look, there's Kushner and Witkoff want a deal. And Trump has, you know, two factions within the White House. He oscillates between the two.
And Scott Bessent would have to remove the existing Russian sanctions. Right? And with Bessent operation, the financial operation on Iran. And also, its benefactors, it's working. Right? The Iranian economy is in freefall. There are now renewed protests because the government, IRGC, can't -- can't pay.
CORNISH: Let me ask about this. There has been reporting from the U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia is contributing to intelligence by Iran.
DOESCHER: Yes. Not just intelligence, but also training.
CORNISH: So, let me let her get a word in edgewise. The president is doing, I think, at least three things, by my count, to deal with prices, right? There's this deal. There's the red fuel for the farmers.
And also, he's promised outright on Truth Social that he would not renew attacks on Iran until after the midterms, hoping oil markets would be excited. And then European allies are supposed to tap their oil reserves.
He's doing a lot. He is trying to lower prices.
SISKIND: He's the reason prices are up. You know, I worked for President Biden when we had a challenge with inflation. And it was the president was focused on efforts to lower inflation. What has Trump done? He put in place tariffs, which have driven up costs. He started a war of choice in Iran because he didn't --
CORNISH: He just put up a list. There's three things he's going to do.
SISKIND: He's got a lot to try to do as a result of the policies he put in place. He didn't read page two of the memo that said there's a waterway called the Strait of Hormuz. And so, he's scrambling here.
And this is his playbook. Let's find a boogeyman to pin the blame on whether Zelenskyy --
DOESCHER: Exports are back up to their pre-war levels.
SISKIND: It doesn't matter.
CORNISH: Why is he doing this?
DOESCHER: Because --
SISKIND: He's desperate.
DOESCHER: -- it's not enough.
CORNISH: If they're back to pre-war levels, that implies that we have the oil that we need. I am getting the sense that is not the case, or else he would not be doing all of these various measures.
FISCHER: Yes that's correct. He's worried that, when people go to vote in the midterms, all they're going to equate to that vote is the price of the pump. So, he's trying to do desperately what he needs to do to get the price lowered.
And the thing is, there's a lag time when it comes to a lot of things with oil. Ships take a long time to bring the oil over, et cetera.
And so, one of the things, I think, he's trying to do is to score political messaging points ahead of the midterm, so that even if the prices aren't down, people have a perception that he's doing everything he can.
CORNISH: In the meantime, the war he wanted to end on day one, will it not be prolonged if you are paying Russia?
[06:15:04]
DOESCHER: Yes. Which is why it's a bad deal that he announced. And I expect the treasury secretary to explain that, again, the sanctions regime --
CORNISH: To explain what? To Trump or to us?
DOESCHER: To -- I would hope to both. Right? I would hope to Trump and to us that the sanctions regime is working. Going after those secondary benefactors and patrons of the IRGC. So, you don't want to help Russia.
CORNISH: But that would be going against Trump's Kremlin deal. I don't -- no, no, be clear. So, we just struck a deal. Why would the treasury secretary come out and be like, We're actually not doing that deal?
DOESCHER: Because in order for this deal to actually go into action -- remember, Trump says a lot of things. It's going to say that on his epitaph, right? The president says stuff.
Does he actually do it? One, it will threaten our arms deals with the Europeans. The European Commission has already said that they will not stand for this.
Two, we could just go to the Canadians and increase our diesel imports from Mark Carney.
CORNISH: You have a lot of "ifs" here. Do you think the president is going to do any -- do you think this is just saying it out loud? I feel like the Kremlin --
SISKIND: First of all, he has a legal --
CORNISH: Yes.
SISKIND: He's got a legal authority issue. He's got to consult with his lawyers now that he's come up with this policy.
I worked for President Biden when he signed legislation banning imports of Russian energy. So, I don't even know if this is practical. And it's certainly not going to relieve folks at the pump in three weeks when they go to the polls.
FISCHER: It's just a messaging thing. That's my belief on it.
CORNISH: OK.
FISCHER: I also think, when you have people like Susan Collins -- remember she's a Republican. Her seat is facing a lot of pressure right now in Maine who are coming out swinging very hard against this policy.
CORNISH: Yes.
FISCHER: To me, what that's a signal of is. And remember, she's vulnerable in this years' midterms. She -- that is a signal that she believes most Americans would likely side with her. And believing that this is not the right move.
And that's why she's so comfortable coming out three weeks before the midterm and saying that this is not the right.
CORNISH: Right. It'd be interesting if someone's going to get a quote from Darline Graham today.
DOESCHER: Yes, absolutely. CORNISH: Hey, that bill --
SISKIND: He probably would need to be briefed on what this means.
CORNISH: OK. After the break on CNN THIS MORNING, we're going to talk more about these local races. Why a Kansas senator took six years to pay a bill at the bakery.
But first, we're turning to Michigan. Abdul El-Sayed, the Democrat there, with a blunt warning for the party ahead of the midterm vote.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:21:25]
CORNISH: So, Michigan Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed tells NBC that he'll accept whatever the election results are next month. He has his doubts, however, that his opponent, Mike Rogers, and the president will do the same.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EL-SAYED: Donald Trump has already threatened to do what he did in 2020, which is deny the outcomes of an election.
The guy I'm running against, he insinuates that he didn't actually lose in 2020. He talks about this -- this mythical van that showed up in Detroit with a bunch of votes, as if he didn't lose. That's the guy I'm running against right now.
And he said that in a time when Joe Biden was president. Now you got Donald Trump as president. So, we've got to win by massive enough numbers that it is unquestionable that we won.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: OK. I was super intrigued by this, because there are a -- there are still some election deniers who are running around the country, and they very much are toeing the line on that.
However, Mike Rogers is somebody who actually wrote an op-ed condemning the president for sowing doubt, condemning the president for pushing conspiracy theories.
So, Abdul El-Sayed is not up against one of those Republicans. Walk me through what he's doing here.
SISKIND: Well, this is --
CORNISH: Is this just nationalizing it. Or it's just whatever Trump says.
SISKIND: It is nationalizing it, and it's turning the attention on -- on Trump, because this is not an academic conversation. I mean, what happened in 2020 could be a harbinger of what's to come based on past actions. And remember, every single judicial nominee this term, every single
one has refused to say who won the 2020 election and what happened on January 6th.
So, it's a legitimate cause of concern, and it is smart to bring a national focus to this race in Michigan, given Trump's unpopularity.
CORNISH: One of the things that's interesting to me about Michigan is like -- and what he's dealing with there, there's a lot of black voters. And I think it's very common for Trump, or Republicans to say to majority-black cities, there be corruption there. And is he also kind of playing on that?
FISCHER: Yes, I think so. He also probably recognizes that that's a constituency where he needs to pay a lot of attention. There was a "Guardian" poll out recently where I think it was like 67 percent of black voters said that they didn't know that he understood their population and understood their side of the economic equation.
CORNISH: Hence, Barack Obama and the -- the reigniting of that friendship there and his visit.
FISCHER: Yes. In order to -- in order to attract that vote. I think for him, though, the focus on the elections is -- comes down to in 2024, President Trump and the Republicans swept so broadly, it made it really hard for election legitimacy to be anywhere near any race, even where Republicans lost.
Because you couldn't say, Oh, I lost. The elections weren't legitimate. And then have the vast majority of your colleagues win.
And so, I think what he's trying to do here is say, if we can replicate that playbook, meaning if we can win in such a widespread manner, it makes it very hard for any Republicans who have lost to say that we didn't deserve to lose and that it was an illegitimate.
DOESCHER: And every moment that El-Sayed can deflect from Mike Rogers, who is a maverick who has stood up to the president on tariffs, right, who has called him out over the January 6th stuff that happened six -- you know, five years ago, is -- is a moment that we're not talking about the El-Sayed lied about the fact that his family has -- is associated with the Muslim Brotherhood. Right?
He lied to Kristen Welker, even though his sister had tweeted multiple times over the years that his family is Muslim Brotherhood.
You know, the fact that he could not on a debate stage say that Iran is a greater threat to the United States, when they say "death to America" and kill our service members, than Israel.
Any moment that he can make it about Donald Trump, he's gaining, because people are distracted from the insanity that is Abdul El- Sayed.
CORNISH: But are people distracted from something Trump himself has been saying for the better part of 15 years. I mean, like, if anything, I feel like Democrats have been making the democracy, we're worried argument for so long that I have often worried, even as a reporter, that there's a kind of Chicken Little effect. Like people are like, you guys are always saying it's going to be bad.
[06:25:07]
SISKIND: Well, look, he still has ground to make up. I mean, Michigan is bluer than Ohio, than Texas, than Kansas, than Alaska.
DOESCHER: And his polls.
SISKIND: And yet this race -- and this race is much closer. So, he still has work to do among black voters, among Jewish voters --
CORNISH: Rural voters.
SISKIND: -- among other rural voters.
And so, trying to nationalize it, I think, makes tactical sense for him. But it's a question of whether, as you say, I mean, this is -- this is now six years old, this story. And we'll see if it -- it has legs.
CORNISH: I'd say the only difference now is last month, there were some Democratic leaders who sued the Trump administration to keep armed federal agents away from polling places. This still is hovering in the air as a potential issue.
FISCHER: Yes. And I think what El-Sayed recognizes is that, again, if they don't win by an absolute landslide, you're giving those that might try to do the "election is rigged" argument a little bit more of an in to do it.
And so, I think what he's trying to say is, unless we go big, we leave room. We leave cracks for that argument to continue to influence our elections.
CORNISH: OK. Straight ahead on CNN, we're going to go to Texas. James Talarico says that he had the flu, so he was off the campaign trail. But with weeks away until his Texas Senate election, can he afford to lose any more time?
And later on, CNN, Saudi Arabia's biggest airport has been attacked. In the next hour, how this could impact the U.S. response in the Middle East.
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[06:30:00]
