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Inside Politics
WSJ Reports Elon Musk Pumping the Bakes on Political Third Party; Newsom Raises Eyebrows With Trump-like Social Media Posts; Trump Promises Executive Order Eliminating Mail-in Voting. Aired 12:30-1p ET
Aired August 20, 2025 - 12:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[12:33:54]
DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR OF 'INSIDE POLITICS': The Wall Street Journal is reporting a major U-turn from billionaire Tesla CEO, once Trump whisperer, Elon Musk. "Elon Musk pledged to start a political party." He is already pumping the brakes. Musk's idea of a third party began early this summer, but crystallized just over a month ago as the details of President Trump's agenda bill became more clear. He wrote, "If this insane spending bill passes, the America Party will be formed the next day."
Well, July 4th, the bill signing happened. The next day, Musk announced, "the America Party." That was last month. It is now August and Musk refuted the idea that he was changing plans. Of course, he did so in an X post, but we'll see if this actually goes forward. Again, my panel is back. The Wall Street Journal is saying no and saying one of the reasons why is because he doesn't want to get sideways with J.D. Vance, who President Trump is effectively calling his heir apparent.
DAVID CHALIAN, CNN SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF AND POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Yeah, I mean, I remember when it was first floated at the beginning, summer, you and I had a chat --
BASH: Yeah.
CHALIAN: -- in your office.
[12:35:00]
And one of the things we immediately said was, let's see when the paperwork is filed and he actually puts the money behind this.
BASH: Right.
CHALIAN: So, I think we're still in that place of waiting for that. Right? And so the idea of, as you said when he announced the America Party, announced as doing a lot of work in that --
(LAUGH) CHALIAN: -- in that sentence, because we haven't seen what it means. Now, I do think the point you just made about Vance is really intriguing because given that we know Musk has been trying to get back in the good graces of the administration after the way that sort of exploded the relationship with the president. And the president has had kinder things to say about him more recently.
But J.D. Vance currently is the RNC Finance Chair as well. So he is charged with raising all the money the party needs for the 2026 midterms. And he is the clear front runner for the Republican nomination in 2028. And so, if indeed it is true that Vance's calculation is not wanting to get sideways with him, I mean that says a lot to me about how you have made the determination that if you were to move forward with this, it would clearly be disadvantageous to the Republican Party and you don't want to do that.
BASH: So, there's that. And then there's also what is, once again, his day job which is Tesla.
JACKIE KUCINICH, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST AND WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, THE BOSTON GLOBE: Right.
BASH: And let's just put up on the -- on the screen where the stock is. It started out the year, as Donald Trump was being inaugurated, you see there $423 and then really by the time he left, it was -- had plummeted. Now it's back up a little bit. But that is still no doubt, something that a lot of people are looking at, not only him, but members of the Tesla board.
KUCINICH: I mean, it kind of reminds me of his journey in politics.
(LAUGH)
KUCINICH: Like when he -- he helped -- he helped get the president elected, and then it kind of went -- because he saw his influence sort of wane in the wake of DOGE and wasn't able to convince Congress and convince his allies -- Trump's allies in Congress to take out or put in the things that he wanted in that bill. And we also saw the limits of his influence in places like Wisconsin, where he spent a bunch of money on that judicial race and it didn't work out. So, it does -- and I think a lot of his investors were saying, you need to be focused back on your companies instead of in politics. And listen, forming a new party is hard. It is -- it is, I mean, expensive, but it's JD Vance -- Elon Musk, that's all relative.
But, it just -- it -- it requires so much on the groundwork and so much -- so much attention to detail. It's hard to say that that's something he really wants to focus on when he has all of these other things going on.
ZOLAN KANNO-YOUNGS, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Seeing that Tesla graph also reminds me of the reason why Elon Musk and Trump kind of broke up in a way. I mean, it was the clean energy tax credits. It was the one Big Beautiful Bill and the provisions in it. You know who's tasked with selling the one Big Beautiful Bill right now? That's J.D. Vance. He's been the -- BASH: Right.
KANNO-YOUNGS: -- the prominent member of the administration, traveling the country, almost becoming the face of that package. So now, how does that impact the relationship between --
BASH: Yeah.
KANNO-YOUNGS: -- the richest man in the world and somebody who at this point represents the future of the party
BASH: He's going to Georgia today. Hans, we'll get you in at the beginning and the next, because you're going to want to talk about this. Don't go anywhere.
HANS NICHOLS, POLITICAL REPORTER, AXIOS: My bad.
(LAUGH)
BASH: Because you know who's playing the role of Donald Trump? Gavin Newsom. The California Democrat is turning his own X account into a clone of the president's. What he is saying and doing, that's next.
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[12:42:40]
BASH: Art is often a lie that makes us realize the truth. That's a quotation attributed to Pablo Picasso. Think about that as you consider Gavin Newsom's latest social media posts. The Democratic governor is tweeting from his governor press office account to sound just like President Trump. The posts are, of course, in all caps. They're sometimes very petty. They often have nicknames that double his insults, and they always put himself at the center of the story.
For example, look at this. Donald TACO Trump, as many call him, missed the deadline. California will now draw new, more beautiful maps. Big press conference this week with powerful Dems and Gavin Newsom, your favorite governor. Or this one after President Trump's meeting with Vladimir Putin in Alaska. Teeny hands is out here copying me, but without the stamina, sad, and certainly without the looks. Total beta. GCN -- of course, Gavin Newsom's initials. And it is definitely an imitation and one he is very clear is not meant to flatter.
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GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM, (D) CALIFORNIA: I hope it's a wake-up call. The president of the United States, I'm sort of following his example. If you've got issues with what I'm putting out, you sure as hell should have concerns about what he's putting out as president. I think that the deeper question is, how have we allowed the normalization of his tweets, Truth Social posts over the course of the last many years, to go without similar scrutiny?
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BASH: Hans?
NICHOLS: Well, I don't know if Oscar Wilde and Pablo Picasso are contemporaries, but imitation clearly is the sincerest form of flattery. Right? And it's a clear imitation. But Gavin Newsom seems to be enjoying himself. He also seems to be sucking up a lot of oxygen in the political atmosphere. And going forward on this big redistricting fight, it's going to be, what? 10 weeks until they have this big initiative, $100 million might be spent on both sides. Gavin Newsom is going to continue to dominate headlines -- continue to dominate news cycles, may or may not be a problem for Donald Trump. I bet it's a concern for some of the other potential 2028-ers. The pig folks the Democrats are also thinking about running for president. I wonder if there's any emergent jealousy there on just how good.
BASH: Oh, you're fake (ph)?
NICHOLS: Yeah, Gavin is about getting --
(LAUGH)
NICHOLS: getting our attention, right?
BASH: You think -- you think.
NICHOLS: Here we are, talking about him.
[12:45:00]
BASH: You think there's that, but then just like the point that Governor Newsom was making at the end there, that he's not just -- he's obviously doing this and he's getting a lot of attention for it. But he's trying to point out that what President Trump does on his social media feeds has been, in his words, normalized. And if you see someone else doing it, you realize it's not normal.
KANNO-YOUNGS: I thought Politico described it well, where they said that he was kind of taking a macro look at this and trying to hold a mirror up to the Trump Administration's communication methods. But, I do struggle to like, like -- will voters actually get that? I mean, it almost assumes that we live in a world where there's this united media ecosystem and that people --
BASH: Where the people understand nuance.
KANNO-YOUNGS: Or that people understand nuance or that people aren't just paying attention to their media outlet that is aligned with their political beliefs in a way. So, I do wonder if this is a little bit inside baseball politics, just that nuance -- that nuance of what Gavin Newsom is looking for here. It seems to me that it would be much more realistic that people would look at these posts in isolation, and then there's a question of will they actually compare it to the Trump Administration's communication methods or judge you and your camp based off of what you're putting out. And maybe people will like that. Maybe people will like that.
Again, I also see this connected to the previous conversation about the Democratic Party looking for a fighter, right? So, all of those things are at play here.
KUCINICH: I mean, I -- to me, I don't know that he wants the voters to get all the nuance. I think he is playing in the attention economy and he is looking to dominate that space. And I do think that Democratic, potential Democratic primary voters engaged in the political process are probably more plugged into this in some way, which is a clearly an audience he is playing to, to your point, Hans, to some degree. But it seems to me, I know he was answering there a little more seriously about trying to like let the Trump Administration be reflective about what they're -- I mean, I don't -- that seems to be a convenient messaging after the fact.
I think he's trying, and I think if you look -- the -- I don't know -- I don't know how we verify this, but I think the stats that nuisance team have put out is sort of algorithmically because of what he's doing. he is getting much more attention in these online spaces.
BASH: Yeah. And I'm glad you said team. I don't think that the governor -- Donald Trump, I think it's fair to say 99 percent of the time, he writes his own posts. I don't know that the governor is writing them. In fact, Camille Zapata, I think is her name, who is the social media guru, the Digital Director behind this new campaign.
KUCINICH: But I think -- but it -- it's -- obviously, it's done with his blessing.
BASH: No, no, no. Of course.
KUCINICH: Right?
BASH: Of course, of course. Right.
KUCINICH: But -- but I think -- but just kind of wrapping up what everyone said. I think this -- the -- the target audience right now for this is both the -- the very online, but also Democrats again, like this, looking for the fighter. We hear it over and over and over again. But -- and to what end? I mean, he's not really changing anything, but he is getting a message out there and for a party that has been sort of really trying to find a message. This is -- he's filling that void.
BASH: No question about that. All right. Coming up, President Trump has long raged against mail-in voting, and he now says he's going to try to end it with an executive order. That move could backfire for people in his party who are trying to get elected. We'll explain after a break.
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[12:52:39]
BASH: President Trump is promising to sign an executive order eliminating mail-in voting, that after he got some election advice from Vladimir Putin, a man who miraculously won his own election last year with almost 90 percent of the vote.
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DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Vladimir Putin, smart guy, said you can't have an honest election with mail-in voting. And he said there's not a country in the world that uses it now.
You'll never have an honest election if you have mail-in and it's time that the Republicans get tough and stop it.
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BASH: In fact, dozens of countries use the practice, including Canada, the U.K., Australia, Germany, Switzerland, and of course, under Russia, you saw me -- the sarcastic air quotes. Vladimir Putin, he doesn't really conduct free and fair elections. Now, there is no evidence as President Trump claims, that mail-in voting in 2020 contributed to widespread voter fraud. My panel is back now.
Before you weigh in, I just want to go in the "Inside Politics" way back machine to Donald Trump in 2020 when talking about how he voted.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So you were highly critical of mail-in voting, mail-in ballots for voting.
TRUMP: I think mail-in voting is horrible.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But you voted by mail --
TRUMP: It's corrupt.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: -- in Florida's election last month, didn't you?
TRUMP: Sure. I could vote by mail for the --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How do you reconcile that?
TRUMP: Because I'm allowed to. Well, that's called out of state. You know why I voted? Because I happened to be in the White House and I won't be able to go to Florida and vote.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BASH: Yeah. Mail-in voting is very convenient for a lot of people, including the president.
CHALIAN: So, somewhere between 30 and 35 percent of voters are mail voters, or were in the 2024 election. What I just think about the advisers around Trump. I mean, do you remember when Ronald Ronnie McDonald was running the RNC and there was a huge -- and Donald Trump participated in -- he -- she got him to participate in a video with all the candidates advocating for mail-in voting. Lara Trump, who was at the RNC, (inaudible) were part of this all effort. Right? Making sure the president stayed on the page here. But I just want to point something out. Donald Trump won a larger share of mail voters in 2024 when he won the presidency than he did in 2020 when he lost the presidency. Like, he is -- he is harming his own success story.
[12:55:00]
KUCINICH: And they spent millions --
BASH: Mail voters, M-A-I-L.
CHALIAN: M-A-I-L, voters by mail. Yes, exactly.
KUCINICH: And to your point, they spent -- the Republican spent millions of dollars --
BASH: Yes.
KUCINICH: -- trying to push mail-in voting and kind of undo some of the damage done by saying it was bad in 2020 and places like North Carolina.
BASH: Yeah.
KUCINICH: -- were edged out. Yep. Go ahead.
BASH: Well, no, and I'll give you another example. Pennsylvania, you gave the broader point. Let's just look at it by party. Democrats in 2020, their number of mail-in voters went down nine points. Well, look what Republicans -- because of the effort by Donald Trump's own top political advisers, they were able to increase their share of mail-in voting by nine points. Real quick.
NICHOLS: 2024 Republicans almost felt like they were getting away with something. Right? You'd talk to them, they'd watch the -- their precincts come in on early voting and mail-in, and they thought they were getting away with something. Donald Trump won under that system. Now, he wants to do away with it. We'll see.
KANNO-YOUNGS: Not only are the same aides around him, but also this could impact Republicans that are looking towards the future. This may be Donald Trump's last time in office, but statements like this could impact members that are representing the future of the party as well.
KUCINICH: And he said on the ballot in 2026, so this could impact the party.
BASH: Not technically.
(LAUGH)
BASH: Everybody, thank you so much. Thank you for joining "Inside Politics." "CNN New Central" starts after the break.
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