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Fed Workers to Miss First Full Paycheck This Friday; Energy Costs Surge in New Jersey, Virginia Ahead of Elections; Arizona AG Sues to Force Speaker to Swear in Arizona Representative-elect; North Carolina Legislature Approves New Gerrymander. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired October 22, 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]

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT AND ANCHOR OF 'INSIDE POLITICS': -- on Friday. Tomorrow, Senate Republicans will hold a vote on a bill to pay certain essential workers. Most Democrats say they won't support the bill unless all federal workers are paid, offering little hope to the over one million federal workers who are working without pay or furloughed, and are now struggling to make ends meet.

CNN's Rene Marsh is following all of this and joins us now. What we're seeing at a D.C. area food bank is heartbreaking.

RENE MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is, and I think it really, if you take a moment, it illustrates how the inability of Congress to resolve this is impacting just, yes, they're federal workers, but they're just average Americans as well. And what we saw last night, just outside of Washington, D.C. and Maryland, were long lines where federal workers were lined up waiting hours at a time just to get free food.

This was the Capital Area Food Bank in collaboration with a local ministry. They had to show their federal workforce I.D. in order to get the food. But again, this line, and you're seeing the video there, stretched for several blocks and they were waiting in line for hours. And many of them never thought that they would see the day that they had to come to needing these sort of services.

We spoke to some who were out there last night, and here's a little bit of their story.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROLANDA WILLIAMS, FEDERAL WORKER: There's really no words. It's like, wow, I can't believe I'm here, you know? Because you -- you always thought that getting a government job or a federal job, that that's security. And it is -- it's not.

SUMMER KERKSICK, FEDERAL WORKER: This is very important. I mean, you know, if my rent due next week, I could take anything I can get at this point. I haven't gotten a paycheck this month.

PAMELIA CARTER, NO LIMITS OUTREACH MINISTRIES & FEDERAL WORKER: It's overwhelming. It's overwhelming. There are at least 200 to 300 people in this line that we're servicing today, federal employees. It's mind boggling.

PASTOR OLIVER CARTER, NO LIMITS OUTREACH MINISTRIES: I'm really concerned because I know that with this current administration, our food bank has not received as much food. And now, seeing the need today and with our current population that we are already serving from the community, adding those federal workers on, in my mind, I'm really trying to figure out how are we going to meet this need.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARSH: And remember, Dana, it's the shutdown, the employees who are furloughed, but then also employees who had received RIF notices, layoff notices as well. So, there is this great need that they actually were expecting about 150 families, but more than double that showed up. And I'm afraid that we, as long as this stretches out, we're probably going to see scenes like this maybe even longer lines. We know, again, as you mentioned at the top, some of these federal employees are going to miss their first full paycheck this Friday. The last paycheck they got was a partial. This time, they will not get anything.

BASH: I mean, these are hardworking Americans, many of them with families who are literally getting caught in a political tit for tat. It's just -- it's -- as I said at the beginning, it's heartbreaking. Thank you so much for that report, so important, Rene.

And coming up, the issue electrifying voters this fall is their energy bill. How is that playing out of the campaign trail? The politics of power, next.

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[12:37:44]

BASH: Take a look at your electric bill and you will probably see that it's higher, much higher than it was just a year ago. That's especially true in two states where voters are heading to the polls in a couple of weeks, Virginia and New Jersey. Residential electricity prices are spiking up 11 percent and then 22 percent, respectively. Those increases are considerably higher than the national average.

How important is that to voters? My bright panel is here to discuss. Tamara, let's just give our viewers a sense of how it's playing out in the New Jersey race on TV.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKIE SHERRILL, (D) CANDIDATE FOR GOVERNOR, NEW JERSEY: Day one as governor, I'm declaring a state of emergency on utility costs, using emergency powers to end these rate hikes and drive down your bills.

JACK CIATTARELLI, (R) CANDIDATE FOR GOVERNOR, NEW JERSEY: What does the president have to do with rising property taxes and higher electricity bills? New Jersey is a mess because out-of-touch politicians like Phil Murphy and Mikie Sherrill care more about pronouns and sanctuary cities than they do solving our problems. That changes when I'm governor. I'll lower electricity bills, cut and cap property taxes, and keep our communities safe.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Tamara?

TAMARA KEITH, SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, NPR: All elections are local and high cost is a very big issue in New Jersey in particular. They also have very high property taxes and that is something that is often an issue in these gubernatorial races. But, the energy prices are a fascinating dynamic, and as you say, we're also seeing it in Virginia. As a Virginia rate payer, I can tell you the numbers are real. It is shocking every time I look at the electric bill and voters, this is a tangible thing that voters can complain about. And as you see, there are politicians who realize that this is an issue people care about and they're talking about it.

BASH: Yeah. I mean, it's affordability.

KEITH: Right.

BASH: It's the same issue showing up in a different way, that we saw play out in 2024. It is still a very big problem. Dave Weigel, you did a story about this in Virginia, and you wrote, "As electricity bills rise, a growing number of U.S. candidates in both parties are pointing to high energy costs of data centers booming thanks to tech companies' A.I. investments as the culprit."

[12:40:00]

In this fall's closely-watched gubernatorial race, Republican Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears has said that the centers are here to stay and blamed higher energy costs on liberal policies. Democratic nominee Abigail Spanberger has argued that tech companies should pay their own way for electricity.

DAVID WEIGEL, POLITICS REPORTER, SEMAFOR: That's right. That's the difference in see -- Earle-Sears obviously is trying to see Glenn Youngkin as governor. One of his overall policies is bring your business to Virginia. If you've got a tech company, great. If you want to build a data center, great. If somebody introduces a bill that would raise their costs because they're very favorable energy bill -- energy costs in Virginia for companies, we're going to veto that. We're going to pocket it.

That is not -- it's been a little bit of an issue in the election, but Earle-Sears pivoted in the one debate with Spanberger to talk about something else because it is not a winner. It's coming up from the grassroots in Virginia. I was in Prince William County and Republicans in that county, who are running to hopefully be part of a Republican majority, are promising to stop the data centers. It is starting to bubble up because Republicans have an answer, energy bills are high. It's because of the Green New Deal, because Democrats took coal offline, et cetera.

And one of the Democratic answers is becoming, actually, they took Clean Energy offline and they're recklessly building these data centers, which might not even be that popular because voters have concerns about A.I. Voters have concerns, if you're building a data center that's going to create something that sucks my job away in a couple years.

BASH: Yeah. Well, it's also -- it's mostly, I would think that, but also the NIMBY thing.

WEIGEL: And that -- don't build -- don't build this loud thing in my backyard. That's part of it.

BASH: Loud thing and one that makes my energy costs potentially go higher.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT AND ANCHOR: From a price perspective, the most static and salient element of it is electricity costs, end of story. And if you want kind of evidence of that, it was the current president of the United States on the campaign trail last year, promised out of the blue and with no actual policy behind it to cut all energy prices in half within 18 months. Now, he's still got time. So far, doesn't seem like that's actually playing out. In fact, I think the Energy Information Administration said 4 percent will be the total increase, the most in several years, for all users of electricity in the next year. It's going up, end of story.

And this is an issue that matters as inflation has come down and prices kind of toggle back and forth, and people try to figure out tariffs. This is the thing you see that's tangible, you know?

BASH: Right.

MATTINGLY: As (inaudible) always used to say, gas prices are such a problem for us because it's a political billboard at the corner of every single street. This is how the administration saw it. That's the same thing with electricity prices. It's a political billboard in your mail every single month. And that's problematic if you can't figure out a way to answer the question or a policy to try and address it.

ZOLAN KANNO-YOUNGS, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: This is fascinating also because while the president committed to that in the campaign, there's been multiple instances where actually he's brought out a business leader who has promised to invest in data centers and in A.I. centers in this country as well. So, one Republican who has defended this is the present. Will there be long- term benefits? We'll see. In the short term, it seems that it has frustrated some of the voters you've talked to.

BASH: Yeah. Really, really interesting. This is not going away. All right. Riddle (ph) us this, what do you do if you've been duly elected to Congress by voters in your district, but the Speaker of the House is refusing to swear you in while Congresswoman still elect, Adelita Grijalva finding out day after day.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:47:43] BASH: Arizona Representative-elect Adelita Grijalva is taking to the courts as Speaker Mike Johnson still refuses to seat her. Grijalva won a special election in the Arizona Seventh District on September 23rd. Today is October 22nd and Grijalva is not seated. Now, the Arizona Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes is asking a federal judge in D.C. to force the Speaker to swear her in, or allow someone else to do it. Manu Raju is at the Capitol with the latest. Manu, what is the latest explanation from the Republican leadership?

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, there's been a shifting set of explanations from the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, who really refuses to swear her in and has indicated -- initially, they were saying they would do so when this House came back into session. But they have scrapped week after week of the congressional session amid this government shutdown, as a strategic effort to try to force Senate Democrats to accept the House bill.

And then I asked him a couple weeks ago whether -- why not swear her in during a, what's known as a pro forma session. That is these gavel in, gavel out sessions that the House has to do every couple of days. He had done that for two Republicans from Florida the day after they won earlier this year. I said, why not do the same thing as you did with them? He said, well, I'll let her get sworn in as soon as she can.

Then they quickly walked that back and said, not till the government shutdown is over. He tried to make the explanation that those Florida Republicans were sworn in because they had a date certain on the calendar and then the congressional session was abruptly scrapped, which is why they were in that pro forma session back then. But these congressional sessions have been abruptly scrapped week after week.

Now, the Speaker is also saying that it is not unlike what happened to Julia Letlow, a Republican from Louisiana, who back in 2021 waited about 25 days to get sworn in when Democrats were in the majority. That was during a congressional recess during -- later, she was sworn in as soon as they got back into session. And we are approaching a timeframe longer than 25 days here, Dana. It's been a month since she won that election and this government shut down could drag on for weeks and weeks, potentially longer than 35 days, the longest in history, maybe even until past Thanksgiving are some predictions on Capitol Hill, which means that unless this is resolved now in court, in the Democrat's favor.

[12:50:00]

The Speaker of the House is holding firm. He's not moving off of this and he rejects the suggestion that her -- that he's doing so to deny the vote, to force a vote on the Epstein files, to release a full Epstein files, which they can do if she signs onto an effort to call for that vote. He says it has nothing to do with that, Dana. Of course, Democrats respectfully disagree.

BASH: All right, Manu, thank you so much for that report. Don't go anywhere. Coming up, Breaking News out of North Carolina where Republicans just approved the president's dream. We're going to have details ahead.

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[12:55:15]

BASH: Breaking News, North Carolina's GOP-dominated legislature just officially approved a new, more Republican-friendly congressional map. Now, you can see we have a map that will show that this essentially flips one swing district into a dark red district. Now that swing district is currently actually so swinging that a Democrat holds it. The idea is to take that away and make it a firmly GOP seat.

Now, what does this mean big picture? We're going to discuss this with our panel here because several other states are to follow. Zolan, we have North Carolina, which we talked a lot about on the show yesterday. Missouri has already done, I believe, one seat and then Texas, five seats. That's part of litigation. It's not clear. And so is Missouri, we should say. It's not clear whether or not those are going to make it for the 2026 election. But, this is a fast-moving train, one that the president himself and his political aides in the White House aggressively set in motion.

KANNO-YOUNGS: Yeah, so big picture, right? This speaks to the concern that often the incumbent, right, is going to do worse in the midterms, in the forthcoming midterms. So here you see the administration trying to, in some cases, put pressure on some of these local governments in order to try and gain some extra seats, and try and gain a political edge here for the forthcoming midterms.

Just to add to that list too, I think we've also seen some pressure on Indiana as well, and the Indiana state legislature -- state legislature there. Vice President J.D. Vance even traveling to that state and the White House putting calls into those folks. So, you're seeing really a broad effort here to gain this edge. In terms of North Carolina, you might think that this could face a challenge and it likely will, maybe citing the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

But of course, the Supreme Court is gearing up to probably weaken a provision there in terms of redrawing maps based off of race. So, really there's a lot -- there's a lot here. The political edge and just what it really means for our electoral system when it comes to redrawing maps.

BASH: Yeah. And in North Carolina, it is a very -- they have a very deep GOP bench in the legislature. There is a Democratic governor, but he doesn't -- they changed the rules. He doesn't get to veto this.

WEIGEL: He has no role in vetoing it. But, even looking at the Grijalva situation, why might Republicans do something that might be unpopular, might be remembered by voters later. There's a lot of confidence that maps will be different, not just from the map that you showed, but in Mike Johnson's home state, Louisiana is behind a lawsuit that could succeed in curtailing the Voting Rights Act. The ways it could do that are to be determined.

But Republicans could gain up to 20 seats by -- if they get the right to stop asking for permission for drawing racially -- minority -- majority/minority seats. They could redraw the entire south. There could be new seats in the election. They could be spotted 18 to 20 seats before they vote. And that's run through everything.

BASH: Yeah.

WEIGEL: The confidence they have that they will not face total accountability from voters, they won't face them on the map that they had in 2024, that's changed how they approach I think every single uncomfortable news cycle.

BASH: There's a statement that we just got in from the North Carolina Democratic Party Chair. "Just 10 months into this dumpster fire of a presidency, Republicans knew they had to even more brutally rig our state's congressional maps because of their agenda, raising costs, trampling on rights, ripping away healthcare. It couldn't win in North Carolina even under the previous gerrymander."

We've been talking about elections coming up in a couple of weeks. One thing that's going to be on the ballot that we can't forget about is the question in California about doing away temporarily with that independent commission and effectively getting Democrats more seats because of this.

KEITH: Yeah. And this is another instance where politics have changed. The rules have just changed because in California, that ballot measure -- there were two ballot measures to create this independent redistricting commission. People wanted to end gerrymandering.

BASH: It's very popular.

KEITH: They believed in it. It's very popular. And guess what's also very popular? This ballot measure now to temporarily undo it. And the campaign is very simple and pretty effective. And it's, essentially, we need to counter Trump. That is the message that they're delivering to California voters and California voters believe it. They say, well, if Republicans are doing it in Texas and these other states, then we have to counter it, and that --

BASH: Yeah.

KEITH: -- the latest polling has it up.

BASH: Final quick word.

MATTINGLY: Unilateral disarmament is not an option. Watch Indiana. It's not just a little bit of pressure, massive pressure for the White House to try and win there on this issue. Watch that.

BASH: Yeah.

MATTINGLY: It'll be fascinating.

BASH: There is pushback though, the governor.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTINGLY: Oh, no, there is. That's why it's the most fascinating, all the dynamics.

BASH: I agree. It's all about Indiana guys. All about Indiana always. Thank you for joining "Inside Politics." Today, "CNN News Central" starts right now.

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