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Trump Says to Xi, Please Give My Warmest Regards to Putin and Kim as You Conspire Against the United States of America; Top Democrats Raise Fears That Trump Could Cancel Elections; Democrats Torn on How to Talk About Trump Expanding Presidential Power; Rep. Maxwell Frost Hosts YouTuber for Livestream Tour of Capitol; GOP Candidate for Virginia Governor Revives Trump's 2024 Trans Attack. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired September 03, 2025 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:30:00]

TIA MITCHELL, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, THE ATLANTA JOURNAL- CONSTITUTION: -- economically, but again, there is these foreign wars that Trump pledged to stop on day one and Putin is not -- you know, he met with Trump, but they haven't circled back around. And that two weeks is already up.

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR OF 'INSIDE POLITICS': I'm so glad you -- did you see what I have on my card?

(LAUGH)

BASH: I'm so glad you brought that up because I don't want to lose sight of that -- the war between Russia or the attack that Russia went against Ukraine, what, two-and-a-half, three years ago. And the deadlines that President Trump has put in place. May 28th, President Trump says two weeks to see if Russia is serious about ending the war. July 14th, Trump gives Russia a 50 -day ceasefire deadline. August 15th, Trump and Putin meet in Alaska. And then August 22nd, a couple of weeks ago, Trump gives Putin a couple of weeks before consequences. All of those have expired.

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF AND POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Yeah. No, and I think we heard again today in the Oval Office, as it relates to India and perhaps more tariffs, that there would be more action taken, just wait a couple of weeks. I do think, listen, this group of leaders, of authoritarian leaders, no American president, including Donald Trump, would want to be part of that. That's -- he wouldn't want to necessarily be standing there, but he does -- as he said today, he's like, he gets what they're up to.

What is yet to be seen and this is, I think is going to be the test for Donald Trump now, each one of them represent a real challenge and a real gamble and bet that Donald Trump has made, whether it is that he can solve the Russian-Ukraine issue, whether it is that he can beat Xi on the economy and with tariffs, these are huge gambles that Trump has sort of put his weight behind for his presidency. And I just think seeing them, exemplifies that that is still a challenge and a bet that has not yet paid off for Donald Trump. And it's a -- his presidency will be defined in large part about how they do.

BASH: Yeah. All right, well, thanks for rocking and rolling on some pretty important news. Don't go anywhere though, because when we come back, Pod Save America Co-Host, Daniel Pfeiffer is here to talk about a new message coming from some pretty important Democratic Party leaders about what President Trump may or may not do in the midterms and 2028. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:36:45]

BASH: Governors Gavin Newsom and J.B. Pritzker are two closely watched Democrats who may run for president in 2028. Both are increasingly sounding the alarm that a free and fair election may not even happen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM, (D) CALIFORNIA: People actually think this guy is serious about having another election. You think he's joking about 2028? I'm not calm and I'm not going to submit myself to niceties, not when this guy has tried to wreck our goddamn country.

GOV. J.B. PRITZKER, (D) ILLINOIS: He'd like to stop the elections in 2026 or frankly, take control of those elections. He'll just claim that there's some problem with an election and then he's got troops on the ground that can take control.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Let's talk about all of this with Dan Pfeiffer, a former Senior Adviser to President Obama, currently a Co-Host of "Pod Save America," and author of "Message Box" on Substack. Thanks for being here, Dan. I want to start with what J.B. Pritzker said, because this is the thing that I hear most from Democrats, which is just the first election nationally that we're going to see, the midterms. And that is how do we know that they're not going to be messed with?

I mean, it's the kind of thing that we heard on the Republican side pushed by Donald Trump, erroneously going into 2020 and others. But, I haven't heard Democrats this concerned. Talk about the ecosystem and -- versus the reality that's driving that.

DANIEL PFEIFFER, CO-HOST OF "POD SAVE AMERICA" PODCAST: Yeah, look, I think we should be very concerned that Donald Trump's going to mess with these elections. A, I think a really signature moment that did not get enough attention was when Gavin Newsom held his press conference to announce the California ballot initiative to do redistricting here in California. There were ICE agents outside the press conference. Right? So what is -- why should we not expect that Donald Trump will do something similar, as Governor Pritzker suggested, at polling places in key Democratic districts or precincts? That he's not going to do everything we can -- we already know that he has taken the extraordinary step of trying to have several states redistrict to hold on to power in the House. I think we have to be prepared for everything.

And there is a real, like, there is real concern out there. And I think that both Governor Newsom, Governor Pritzker, and a few others are speaking to that. And it's -- I would rather prepare for the worst and hope for the best than be caught flatfooted when Donald Trump does the worst.

BASH: So how do you prepare for, in your words, the worst?

PFEIFFER: Well, I think the first thing is to call it out, right? To start talking about it now. There's obviously things that campaigns can be doing in terms of legal strategy. We've seen some courts that have pushed back on Trump's use of troops. So we should do those things. But make everyone aware, right? Get people fired up, make people understand that these things are coming, so they're not surprised when they happen. Right? So that they know we can have poll watchers, we can have Democrats in attendance to help people understand what's happening. But we should be prepared for every eventuality.

I don't think Donald Trump's going to cancel the elections. That's something -- not something he can really do. But we should be prepared for national deployment of troops. We should be prepared for masked ICE agents outside of polling places. And we should be prepared for shenanigans from Speaker Johnson and their House Republicans when it comes to ceding (ph) Democratic members in close races, if control of the House is at stake.

[12:40:00]

BASH: Well, you're saying that Democrats should be fired up. By the way, where did you get that term? I've heard that once.

(LAUGH)

PFEIFFER: Yes. Well, we seem fired up. Ready to go is an open question these days. But we'll see.

BASH: OK. Well, that's -- so that's where I'm going to go with this, which is just covering politics for a long time, the flip side of the coin is that this, sounding the alarm could suppress the Democratic vote saying, why am I going to go vote if it's not going to matter?

PFEIFFER: I think -- I've heard that argument before. We've heard that that is one of the things that campaigns have talked about in the past. I've been part of discussions around that. I think we are better off preparing people for what is likely to happen than to have them show up expecting a normal election and see these troops. If you can normalize the fact this may happen, I think it can increase turnout. It could keep people in line, keep people going to the polls. I just really think in this day and age, in this media ecosystem, trying to hide information from people to try to manage their emotions cannot work. So you should just be brutally honest with them about what may happen and try to help them prepare for how to navigate those situations when they come. BASH: You talk -- you recently wrote a piece about the divide in your party, in the Democratic Party, about the extent of this threat. You talk, for example, about the governors, you talk about Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan, who is kind of not as exercised as Pritzker and Newsom are. And you say Senator Elissa Slotkin has described it as the split between those who see Trump as an existential threat and those who think he is merely a bad but -- merely bad, but survivable. Talk more about that.

PFEIFFER: Yeah, so Elissa, I've heard Senator Slotkin make this point in a couple of different venues. She's making the case that the split in the party is not purely ideological. That's how we talk about it a lot in sort of political punditry, is it's left versus right. It's the center. It's what language can we use? Are we too woke? Are we not woke enough? But really, if you want to understand how individual politicians are acting in this moment, you should look at what's Senator Slotkin suggested, which is if you believe that this is an existential threat, you act one way. You act the way that Governor Newsom is acting in California. You talk the way Governor Pritzker is talking on Illinois.

If you think that this is a bad but survivable moment, then you believe that ordinary politics are sufficient, that you should agree to fund the government as Senator Schumer did a few months ago. You think about politics in terms of what can you deliver for your state by working with the Trump administration like Governor Whitmer has. And I think that's just if you want --

BASH: So --

PFEIFFER: -- I have found to be a very useful way to understand how individual Democrats are responding in this moment.

BASH: So on that, you'd mentioned funding the government. That's a good example. So there's going to be a question of that at the end of this month. Do you think that given that you're -- I know where you are on the side of the divide and the party, you say it's a five (ph) alarm fire. Do you, if a Democratic member or Senator called you and said, should I vote yes or no? What would you say?

PFEIFFER: I would tell them to vote no. I do not know how Democrats should -- can vote to fund this government doing the things it's doing right. Especially when you cannot trust that Donald Trump will abide by the funds appropriated by Congress. He's simply not spending money on the things that Congress wants it to and spending the money on the things he wants to. Like, we have a rare moment of actual leverage here, a rare moment to grab the nation's attention and tell them what's happening, to talk about what's happening in Washington, to raise alarms about the threat. And I think we cannot pass it up because we will not get another moment for a very long time.

BASH: Wow. Then there's -- so there's the message, the actions, the message, and it's the platform on which you deliver the message. This week, Congressman Maxwell Frost, who is the first Gen X-er to be -- Gen Z-er. I'm Gen X. He's definitely not Gen X.

PFEIFFER: Yes. A lot of Gen X-ers in Congress, yes.

(LAUGH)

BASH: -- to be -- to be elected. He hosted -- you're seeing there on your screen a popular YouTuber for a tour of Capitol Hill. Now, this guy is 20-years-old. He has 43 million subscribers and the video has 3 million views. Is this the kind of thing that Democrats need to do more of?

PFEIFFER: Absolutely. So if you look at polling after the 2024 election, what you found is a -- in a correlation between how much someone consumed news and how likely they were to vote for Kamala Harris. If you had consumed traditional news, the more someone got their news from social media, the more likely they were to support Trump. And that's because Democrats are getting massively outgunned in the social media ecosystem. And so what we need to do is, we need to find ways to break out the political media bubble, to reach people where they are. And that's going to include a lot of YouTube. It's going to include TikTok, it's going to be talking to non-traditional news, a lot of non-traditional news.

[12:45:00]

It's going to mean going into seemingly hostile spaces, the manosphere of some of those podcasts that hosted Trump. The Democrats who've been going on those podcasts, I applaud. We have -- we've been running the -- as Democrats, we've been running the same media playbook in large part in my very long time in politics, and we have to shift it. We have to have a broader understanding of what media looks like in 2025. So, I commend Congressman Frost for doing it and I commend the people. There have been a number of members who are really thinking strategically about this and doing it. We need to do it more.

BASH: Well, luckily Maxwell Frost still comes on this program and we can be seen on YouTube (ph).

(CROSSTALK)

PFEIFFER: Yeah, you should (inaudible).

(LAUGH)

BASH: Dan, always good to talk to you. Thanks so much for being here.

PFEIFFER: Of course. Thank you.

BASH: Up next, a blast from the campaign past, not so distant past, Republican candidate for governor in Virginia is reviving one of President Trump's most potent 2024 attack lines. Wait till you see the similarities. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:50:35]

BASH: Only two months until Election Day, the Republican candidate for Virginia Governor is trying to define her rival in a new ad. Here's some of what Winsome Earle-Sears' campaign released this week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Spanberger believes this woman has a right to undress next to young girls.

Our LGBTQ neighbors have the same legal rights as anyone else.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And if a child secretly identifies as transgender at school, she says the parents shouldn't be told. That's insane. Spanberger is for they, them; not for us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: That sounds familiar; it should. You likely heard it over and over again last fall.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Kamala is for they, them. President Trump is for you.

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I'm Donald J. Trump and I approve this message.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: My panel is back. David?

CHALIAN: Yeah, I mean I've been looking at campaign announcements and ads from Republican candidates all throughout the country. Yes, in the 2025 governor's race, but also in 2026 races. And this line of attack against Democrats about how they deal with and speak about these trans issues is as constant and apparent as it was in 2024. This is an issue Republicans are keeping very much in their playbook. And so my question is, how are Democrats dealing with it differently? Because Kamala Harris obviously, did not work really well with how they decided to respond to it. And I don't see an answer yet. I don't see a very different playbook yet. I still see Democrats grappling with how to answer these attacks.

MITCHELL: I do think one of the reasons why the Donald Trump ads were so successful is it was not just an anti-trans ad. It was that Kamala Harris is so concerned about transgender rights that she's ignoring the real issues that American voters care about. That's what made that ad so impactful. So to your point, if Democrats want to have a way to talk about this, they've got to address that. These -- the core issues is what we're focusing on. And I do think what puts Democrats in a tough spot is, it's not like Abigail Spanberger is talking about trans rights as a central tenant of her campaign, but then she gets attacked for how she talks about trans rights, which forces her to talk about trans rights.

That's where Democrats get put in a tough spot. But the question is, can Lieutenant Governor really make this about deeper issues and make it so that voters believe that Spanberger is so focused on trans rights, that she's not focused on the real issues.

BASH: And you have seen testing the waters, you saw several months ago now, Gavin Newsom come out and say, no, there shouldn't -- when it -- just focusing on sports and J.B. Pritzker of Illinois standing by the notion of being a lot more liberal on trans issues.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, I mean, look, I think there's also a particular reason. I know that you said you've seen it as a through line between all the campaigns, but I do think that when you have a woman running and you're looking at who's going to come out and vote, Republican polling that I've seen and that I've talked to different campaigns about all shows that this is still an issue when you talk about sports and school that suburban women are concerned about.

And if you are looking at a race that has women running and they're out there talking, and they believe that suburban women are going to come out and vote, I can see why they are pushing this issue. That has not gone away in terms of what they think that the demographic and that people want to hear. And that's why they're going to continue on this line. And as Chris LaCivita told me in 2024, we are going to continue hitting this issue until they can fight back.

BASH: So, you mentioned the suburbs. This is a race -- we always have Virginia races and New Jersey and I don't know, off year, in an --

CHALIAN: In a year after the presidential --

BASH: -- uneven year. And in Virginia, the races tend to be won or lost in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. And on that, I want you to watch Abigail Spanberger, her ad about Winsome Sears, and you might see a familiar set. Manu Raju was anchoring this program and he's in the ad.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Do you support the president's purge of the federal workforce? Yes or no?

[12:55:00]

WINSOME EARLE-SEARS, LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR OF VIRGINIA: Oh, OK. If this is the way you want to go, then go ahead, but I'm just not going to participate.

RAJU: OK. Well --

EARLE-SEARS: Because I want to talk about real issues.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Really? Not a real issue that thousands of Virginians are losing their jobs?

EARLE-SEARS: I want to talk about real issues.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's a real issue that Sears supports Trump, not Virginians. (END VIDEO CLIP)

CHALIAN: I mean this comes from earlier and the whole DOGE effort which obviously, as you noted, in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., this is an issue and it has -- it knocked Winsome Earle-Sears on her -- on her back leg for a while. There's no doubt about that. You see Spanberger talking to your point about affordability. I don't know that the trans stuff is going to be the decisive factor in any of these races. As you said, it's there because it's something that Republicans see advantage in. But where voters are is where the Democrats are going to continue to be. We see it in Spanberger in Virginia and we see it in Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey. And we see what Mamdani in New York, affordability is where all these Democratic candidates are focusing their messages.

BASH: And that ad, $1.2 million has been spent on it since August. Just with a little context, the second most paid for ad by Spanberger is only 350 k. So tells you a lot. Thank you so much all of you. Thank you for joining "Inside Politics." "CNN News Central" starts after a break.

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