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New Poll: Californians Overwhelmingly Support New Map; Shutdown Now 2nd Largest On Record With No End In Sight; NYC Mayoral Candidates Trade Jabs In Combative Final Debate. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired October 23, 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]

ALLISON MORROW, CNN BUSINESS SENIOR WRITER: -- family have been in talks with Binance to potentially take a stake in the company, though we have not confirmed those reports and there's been some waffling from the White House on that front. So we don't know about a formal connection, but certainly there are informal connections and the Trump family has become very important to the crypto world writ large.

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: That is undeniable, no question.

Thank you both for jumping on with this breaking news, appreciate it.

And coming up, a new poll shows Californians are largely supportive of Governor Gavin Newsom's redistricting plan. I'm going to talk to one Republican who could lose his job if these new maps are passed. Stay with us.

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[12:35:18]

BASH: California's Democratic redistricting plan seems to be on a glide path to approval. If you see this brand new poll from CBS News, it says 62 percent of likely voters in the golden state say they support Governor Gavin Newsom's plan to redraw the congressional maps temporarily in a way that could flip five seats from red to blue. Now, pro-redistricting groups are massively outspending their opposition.

The, quote, "Yes Movement" has more than doubled ad spending from the no side. Democrats call this a direct response to Texas's redrawn maps that could give Republicans five extra seats.

One of California Republican congressmen's the one who is maybe most at risk of losing his job is the man you see there, Kevin Kiley, currently representing a purple district along the California Nevada border. Thank you so much for being here.

My first question is about your concern. I know that you have said that no matter what happens, you will run and you believe you will win because of the work that you do for your constituents. But the way that this is drawn, having an our next year name is certainly going to be a challenge. Would you agree? REP. KEVIN KILEY (R), CALIFORNIA: Well, certainly it'll make, you know, my district a lot different. But in the last cycle, I was one of the most targeted races and we ended up winning by 46,000 votes because, you know, voters look beyond the party label when they're looking -- when they're voting for someone and they judge the person.

And since I've been here in Congress, I focused on policies that don't have a particularly partisan valence that are about improving the quality of life for folks that I represent. Now, with that being said, I, of course, don't want to see my district butchered into six different pieces. I want to -- I believe I represent the most beautiful district in California.

It's where I grew up and went to local public schools. It includes places like Lake Tahoe, Death Valley, Mammoth Lakes. So I very much would like to continue to represent or at least have the opportunity to run for reelection in the beautiful third district as currently constituted. And, you know, that's why this election right now with Prop 50 is so important.

BASH: It is a beautiful part of the world. I definitely agree with you there.

Let's talk about the shutdown. If our viewers hear a little bit more of an echo than normal in the halls where you are, it's because you are in the Capitol, but the House is still not in session. There's really almost nobody there. Mike Johnson says he won't bring them back to D.C. or call them back into session until the shutdown is sort of dealt with. Have you spoken directly with him about bringing the House back into session any time soon?

KILEY: Yes, I have. I had a pretty lengthy conversation with him the other day and I relayed my views very clearly to him that it's totally unacceptable for the House to be out of session. You know, clearly, I have not succeeded in persuading him just yet because we're now ending yet another week of the House being out of session.

This is four weeks running. We haven't received any notice about the House coming back next week. And it is extremely frustrating to me. I mean, it reminds me of when I was in the state legislature and during the early days of COVID, things were canceled for seven straight weeks.

And I was like, we have this unprecedented crisis facing our state and our country. We need to have an opportunity as legislators to figure out the best path forward. That's how I feel right now as well. Like this shutdown is having such dramatic ramifications for people all across the country that we need to be doing everything we can to find a way out of it.

And that's really hard to do when the House of Representatives isn't even here, not to mention all of the ordinary legislative business that has now just been put totally on the back burner.

BASH: Like, for example, swearing in one of the -- your soon to be colleagues who was elected in Arizona. I do, though, want to ask about the way out of the shutdown. And 13 House Republicans signed a letter this week calling on the Speaker to immediately turn to extending the Affordable Care Act subsidies as soon as the government reopens. You did not sign the letter.

Now, the Speaker told my colleague Kaitlan Collins that Republicans do have a plan to address the subsidies when the government reopens. As you know, and our viewers know by now, the rub has been for weeks now kind of a chicken or the egg. Do you reopen the government and then deal with subsidies, which are going to expire very soon for a lot of Americans who rely on them for their health insurance? Or do you do the subsidies before you reopen the government? What is happening right now about those -- I wouldn't even call them negotiations, talks pass one another?

[12:40:05]

KILEY: Right, right. Yes. And so the letter, I think, was on the right track, definitely. What I -- the reason I didn't sign that is because it drew a very clear line and said we can't talk about this until the shutdown is over. And I think that we're at the stage right now where drawing those sort of lines in the sand are serving to calcify the positions of the two sides and cause this thing to go on even longer.

I mean, I am very concerned about the expiration of these subsidies when you're looking at millions of people who are going to see enormous increases in premiums, especially in my state, California. The cost of living is so high already. This is going to be a serious hardship. So I'm extremely concerned about it.

Obviously, the folks who signed that letter are and many others in the conference. So there is going to need to be a deal on the subsidies. I have no doubt about that. And so if we can at least start talking about it now or reach maybe sort of the tentative or the beginning stages of an agreement as one path out of the shutdown, I don't know why we wouldn't at least begin exploring that option now.

BASH: A lot of your Republican colleagues, I would say most of them argue, we're not just going to extend it, we want to reform it. But you're not there?

KILEY: Yes. Well, no, I think there's a lot of, you know, negotiation that's going to have to go into it into exactly, you know, how long are we going to extend for? How are we going to, you know, potentially contain costs? There are some people who believe that income caps are appropriate.

And then there are larger questions about the over ever increasing cost of health care in America. How can we institute reforms that will start to bend that curve? How do we get the fraud out of the system that we know there's been a lot of? So, you know, that's why I say there's going to need to be a deal that will probably touch upon all of those issues. But, you know, that's why we should be talking about it now, because it is a pretty complicated, you know, policy that there's going to be a lot of considerations going into.

BASH: While there's no business being done where you are on your end of Pennsylvania Avenue, down the street, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, there are massive renovations going on for the President's new 90,000 square foot ballroom, the cost of which has already skyrocketed. His estimated now proposal is $300 million.

And CNN compiled a list of corporations and individuals who have donated to this renovation project. It includes really big companies, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, as well as individuals, the co-founders of cryptocurrency exchange, Gemini, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and his family, the Adelson family. What do you make of all of this happening right now?

KILEY: Well, I'm sure that taxpayers are glad that, you know, they don't have to foot the bill for this. In California, they're actually renovating our state capitol, and it's been closed down since 2022. The legislators actually are supposed to have their offices there and they would have to work --

BASH: What about all these private donors?

KILEY: You know, I think that's fairly common for things like like this. I think, you know, the inauguration tends to get a lot of private donors for that sort of thing. So that doesn't really bother me. I think it's better than taxpayers having to foot the bill like they are in California at a cost of at least $1.2 billion.

But, you know, if this was the only thing the President was focused on, then maybe I'd say like, OK, there are more important things, but he's doing a lot of other things as well. So, you know, this one --

BASH: That's true.

KILEY: -- doesn't bother me that much.

BASH: To say he's doing a lot of other things as well is maybe the understatement of the four years.

Thank you so much, Congressman Kiley. Appreciate you being here.

KILEY: Yes, of course. Thanks for having me.

BASH: And when we come back --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ZOHRAN MAMDANI (D), NEW YORK MAYORAL CANDIDATE: We just had a former governor say in his own words that the city has been getting screwed by the state. Who was leading the state? It was you.

ANDREW CUOMO (D), NEW YORK MAYORAL CANDIDATE: Governor Hochul.

MAMDANI: You were leading the state for 10 years.

CUOMO: Governor Hochul.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: You think that was fiery? Just wait. Gloves were off for the final debate in the race to be the next mayor of New York City.

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[12:48:35]

BASH: This just in to CNN. Outgoing New York City Mayor Eric Adams will endorse Andrew Cuomo to be his successor. The two former rivals joined forces in a last ditch bid to defeat Democrat Zohran Mamdani as early voting begins on Saturday. You're looking at photos of them at a basketball game last night. This is coming after a really combative final debate in the race that happened last night as well.

Mamdani, Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa clashed on policy and it often got personal.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAMDANI: We first just heard from the Republican candidate for mayor, and then we heard from Donald Trump's puppet himself, Andrew Cuomo.

CUOMO: He thinks he's a kid and he's going to knock him on his tuchus.

CURTIS SLIWA (R), NEW YORK MAYORAL CANDIDATE: Zohran, your resume could fit on a cocktail napkin. And Andrew, your failures could fill a public school library in New York City.

CUOMO: You have never had a job. You've never accomplished anything. There's no reason to believe you have any merit or qualification for 8.5 million lives.

MAMDANI: The issue is that we experienced you taking a $5 million book deal while you sent seniors to their deaths in nursing homes.

SLIWA: Do you ever know that no means no?

MAMDANI: What do you say to the 13 women that you sexually harassed?

CUOMO: The cases were dropped, right? You know that is a fact. If you want to be in government, then you have to be serious and mature.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[12:50:06]

BASH: Seung Min and Shane are back along with CNN's Gloria Pazmino, who has been covering the race. Gloria, I'm going to start with you. Your big takeaway from last night.

GLORIA PAZMINO, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, look, it was definitely a last chance for all of these candidates to try and shift the conversation in this election. But it was really a big and last opportunity for Andrew Cuomo, who is second in the polls and really had a sort of anemic performance in last week's debate.

And we saw a version of Cuomo last night that was much more fired up, attacking Mamdani directly and landing quite a bit of his attacks. We saw him question his experience, his political experience, his governmental experience. But we also saw Mamdani trying to fight back, bringing up the governor's corruptions -- sexual harassment scandals, I should say.

And Republican Curtis Sliwa in the middle of it all, trying to attack both of them, continuing to stay in this race. He's been facing pressure to drop out, but there is no indication that Curtis Sliwa is going to do that.

And Dana, just in the last hour, we are learning that Mayor Adams is expected to endorse Andrew Cuomo. You know, this is after he called Andrew Cuomo a snake and a liar days before deciding that he was going to have to drop out his own reelection bid, accusing the former governor of trying to push the only black candidate out of this race.

So it's a really sort of stunning turn of events here. The current mayor endorsing the former governor who they -- who has been viciously attacked by him. It's all in a day's work here in New York City politics. The question, of course, is whether or not it is going to make any sort of significant change for this election. Voting starts this weekend and Zohran Mamdani continues to be comfortably in the lead.

BASH: Yes, on the Cuomo-Adams thing, it's the political enemy of my political enemy is suddenly my political seatmate at an NBA game.

So Shane, let me ask you about a moment, another moment in last night's debate, which is about policing and the question of whether or not Mamdani would keep on the current police commissioner. We saw her front and center a lot in national news, obviously in local news even this morning with this NBA sting, Jessica Tisch.

Let's listen to what Mamdani and Cuomo said about her.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAMDANI: Commissioner Tisch took on a broken status quo, started to deliver accountability, rooting out corruption and reducing crime across the five boroughs.

CUOMO: I would ask her to stay on. I don't believe Zohran when he says he would ask her to stay on. Their philosophies are totally incongruous.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: And then obviously the context here is the -- go ahead.

SHANE GOLDMACHER, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, THE NEW YORK TIMES: I was going to say Mamdani made news yesterday saying he would in fact --

BASH: Yes.

GOLDMACHER: -- ask her to stay on as police commissioner. And I think this is part of his closing campaign strategy to try to reassure some New Yorkers who are concerned potentially about his level of experience that he would keep popular senior administrators in the city.

I do think that that Eric Adams endorsement is truly fascinating though, right? You have the former governor trying to claw his way back in the polls, hoping that this endorsement from the mayor who has longtime support in the Black community and in some Orthodox Jewish communities can help put him over the edge. But Eric Adams isn't popular, right? That's why he's not running for re-election anymore at this point.

And for Mamdani, it actually feeds into his message, right? These are two people who are representing the past as he's trying to represent a future and a shift from the past. And so while this could help Cuomo, I do think it reinforces this whole idea that the entire political system is in it together and this is your choice if you want something totally different.

BASH: Seung Min?

SEUNG MIN KIM, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I'm continuing to watch just how the New York City politics intersects with federal politics. President Trump, he often talks about this race. We know his personal interest in the race and how he sort of tried to get involved and there were considerations about potentially offering Eric Adams a job to drop out. Obviously, he dropped out on his own accord.

But the President has not been shy in threatening, you know, money, projects to New York City should Mamdani win the race as it looks like he may in next month. And also just the continued dance of the New York -- the leaders of the Democratic Party who are in New York. You know, you had Hakeem Jeffries talking with Wolf earlier today, and he's still not getting on board.

He says maybe when there's -- when we're closer to the race, he may have more to say. I mean, we're less than two weeks out. I think we know how this is going to end. He'll probably --he may just say --

BASH: Yes.

KIM: -- I voted for him and then go cut and go from there.

[12:55:07]

BASH: Yes, yes. And Gloria, we're almost out of time, but I will say on that note, so Hakeem Jeffries hasn't endorsed him yet. We'll see what happens when early voting starts on Saturday. Chuck Schumer, the highest ranking Democrat in the United States Senate in New York, the highest ranking Jewish elected official in the country, has not endorsed him.

And meanwhile, you have Mamdani still trying to appeal to Jewish voters in New York who are skeptical of him. Many of them are continue to be --

PAZMINO: Yes, and it came up -- BASH: -- even though some have signed on.

Gloria, I'm sorry. I'm told we're out of time. We're going to have you back. This is a fascinating race.

Thank you to all of you for being here. Thank you for watching Inside Politics. CNN News Central starts after a quick break.

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