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Dems Running For Senate Blast Schumer After Shutdown Deal; GA Sen. Ossoff, Up For Reelection, Votes No On Funding Deal; Hegseth's Policies Are Pushing Qualified Women Out Of The Military; Utah Judge Ruling A Curveball For GOP Redistricting Plans. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired November 11, 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]

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: -- the affordability crisis in America.

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: Yes. OK, so you mentioned Chuck Schumer. Let's listen to the -- I -- it's three of the candidates for the U.S. Senate who want to be in the Senate. They're all in primaries. Listen to their message.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GRAHAM PLATNER (D), MAINE SENATE CANDIDATE: I want to reiterate my call for Leader Schumer to step down. He is just not built for this moment and does not have the fight or the leadership skills to lead the caucus at this point in American history.

MALLORY MCMORROW (D), MICHIGAN SENATE CANDIDATE: The old way of doing things is not working. We need new leaders in the Senate.

NATHAN SAGE (D), IOWA SENATE CANDIDATE: He's the most pathetic minority leader and it's long past time for him to get the hell out of the way.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR & CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's exactly what they should be saying right now, given where their party is, given where the base is. I also don't think it actually means a whole lot in the grand scheme of things, only because we've been through these types of things before and how many people were never going to vote for Mitch McConnell or we're never going to vote for Harry Reid --

BASH: Or Nancy Pelosi.

MATTINGLY: This -- or Nancy Pelosi.

ZELENY: Right.

MATTINGLY: Exactly. And that may turn into subsequent battles and leadership fights in 2027, but you know what? You take that. You know, you'll have -- you'll deal with it right now. You'll take the leadership fight.

But this is part of the deal with being a leader. You're going to have to take the arrows for your caucus or your conference, or you're going to have to take them from the candidates. Understanding, it's not a personal thing, it's a political thing. And this lines up with what you're seeing in Democratic polling right now.

I think though, the thing that I -- that perplexes me a little bit in this moment is if you're Chuck Schumer, there is a way to own this, but yes, the base is still going to be pissed at you. There's no question about it. But you say, look, when you think about it, we fought them to at worst a draw in polling, which --

BASH: Right.

MATTINGLY: -- where they are on this -- in this shutdown always loses historically. You put front and center the biggest fight that you want to have for the next month on straight policy grounds with actual repercussions. And isn't that exactly what they wanted on some level?

And yet Schumer hasn't really -- he voted no. He stayed out of the spotlight over the course of the last couple of days and he's getting hit every which way from Sunday. It's just -- it's an interesting dynamic because I think if you're a Democrat two months ago, you would have said, all right, I'll take this.

BASH: Yes.

SEUNG MIN KIM, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Right. No, I think that how Schumer played this was really interesting to me because he really did, especially when the group of moderate Senator -- moderate Democratic Senators renegotiate the last minute, he did try to stay out of it. Obviously, he was not part of the negotiations with John Thune. He did not vote for the ultimate spending deal.

But I found what Jeanne Shaheen, the sort of the lead negotiator Democrats, what she indicated really interesting. She said Schumer never told her to not negotiate. So if you're looking at people who are kind of in the vote, no hope, yes, caucus, not a tough guess that Schumer might be one of them.

But he does -- you see how -- whether you're running in a primary or running for reelection in the Senate, you see where the party energy is, which is going against the current democratic leadership, which you're seeing the primary candidates do there or voting against the bill altogether.

We should point out that Jon Ossoff, the most vulnerable --

BASH: Yes.

KIM: -- Senate Democrat, he voted against the bill because right now he knows where the party energy is. It is fighting Trump. It is fighting on affordability issues, even if it meant, you know, in practical terms --

BASH: Yes.

KIM: -- keeping the government shut down.

BASH: I want to get to Ossoff in one minute. I'm so glad you brought him up, but just by way of contrast and giving broader context to Ossoff. Let's just look at the Democrats and one independent who did vote yes. Two of them are retiring. Most of them are not up for reelection for six plus years.

Maggie Hassan is up in 2028. John Fetterman, who never liked the shutdown to begin with, is up in 2028. None of the people who are going to -- Democrats who are on the ballot in 2026 voted yes because they understand where their party base is. Jon Ossoff is fascinating because he is a Democrat running in purple at best state. I mean, it's purple to light red.

And here's an AJC, Atlanta Journal Constitution, headline. "For Ossoff and Georgia Democrats, the shutdown fight is the message." He voted no. And it's a pattern that we've seen from him since he officially said he was going to run for reelection, not running to the center, as is the sort of tradition, but actually staying to the left to keep the base engaged.

Here's his statement when he voted no. "Premiums are set to double for 1.4 Georgians and nearly half a million Georgians could lose health insurance altogether. The President refuses to fix it and withhold SNAP benefits while the House has not even come to work for six weeks. With health care votes ahead, the question is whether Republicans in Congress will join us to prevent catastrophic increases in health insurance premiums."

ZELENY: Look, this is who he is. It's not like he's suddenly taking a progressive stance here. I mean, this is who he who he is the first time he ran and he believes the way to victory and we will see over the next year is by activating and engaging progressive Democrats and the Democratic base.

[12:35:11]

The middle may come later. He's hoping for a Republican challenger who's outside of the mainstream. We will see if that happens or not. But for now, like this is authentic Jon Ossoff, but it is going to be a test. There's no doubt about it. It's going to come up -- I mean, he's not going to have a primary because of this. It'll come up in the general for sure.

BASH: And it's noteworthy because this is also -- is could be cut and pasted to any Democratic candidate who is listening and looking ahead to Election Day.

MATTINGLY: There's no question about it. Again, this is where the party is right now. And I think if you look at the polling and it's -- I'm not like a huge poll nut here, but in every other shutdown, you have seen it fall off a cliff for the party that starts the fight. It hasn't here. So not only is the base motivated, they're not taking punishment from independents as well. You swap out Roy Blunt and Pat Toomey and a bunch of Republicans that were retiring or were kind of always with leadership and with the list you just put up. And it's the same thing we saw --

BASH: Yes.

MATTINGLY: -- in the past shutdown battles. The only primary difference, you would see McConnell there, too. You didn't see Schumer there this time. And I think that's notable.

BASH: All right. Everybody, stand by.

Coming up, new exclusive CNN reporting about women being pushed out of the military, prompting one former member of SEAL Team Six to tell CNN it's, quote, "f-ing bullshit." Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:41:05]

BASH: Quote, "She was the best man for the job. There is absolutely no DEI. She's a badass, and also extremely smart and capable." That is a quote from a former enlisted member of SEAL Team Six. It's part of new exclusive CNN reporting that the policies of the Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, are pushing qualified women out of the military.

CNN's Brianna Keilar and Haley Britzky spoke to more than a dozen active duty women across -- and veterans across all branches of the military, and you see there. My friend Brianna is here now. This is such extraordinary reporting.

And let me just start with that quote, because she was the best man for the job, which, by the way, is the best quote. I might put that on a pillow. It's about a female Navy officer. She was promoted to become the first woman in a Naval Special Warfare command overseeing Navy SEALs. And then she saw her promotion suddenly canceled.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: That's right. This is a Purple Heart recipient who met the physical standards. This is someone who spent years working with SEAL Team Six in bomb disposal as a Navy diver and was approved for that command role by really the who's who of Navy special warfare leadership. Navy SEAL leadership in what is essentially a recruiting command. It is a SEAL command.

And she was yanked just days before the big ceremony, very uncharacteristically. We're told by sources this happened without a paper trail through a series of phone calls from the Pentagon. And the consensus in what is a really tight knit community, the Naval Special Warfare community, was that this happened because Secretary of Defense Hegseth did not want to see a woman in this SEAL command.

And it has really rankled people who are familiar with her career. One naval special operations source said, "It pisses me off because it is clearly someone who is capable and has done extraordinary things and is being punished because of, and I hate that I have to say it this way, weak ass men."

And you mentioned that we spoke to more than a dozen women who are currently serving in the military across service branches. This kind of environment reflects what they're dealing with. They're talking about really low morale. They're talking about women being passed over for promotions.

One woman was talking about something that happened after Secretary Hegseth was speaking at Quantico to generals where he was talking about women not meeting standards. And she said that a male non- commissioned officer in her unit told her, "All you women are getting out now." She said, "I want nothing to do with the military after this."

BASH: Oh my gosh. And I just want to underscore with the first thing you said, which is that obviously people know that Navy SEALs are among the most elite in every way, including physically. And she cleared the bar for all of the physical requirements.

KEILAR: She cleared the bar, not for -- she's not a Navy SEAL.

BASH: No, no, because there aren't female Navy SEALs.

KEILAR: She cleared the bar for Navy Special Warfare, which is like that umbrella group --

BASH: Right.

KEILAR: -- over the SEALs and other special operations.

BASH: OK, so what is the Pentagon saying?

KEILAR: The Pentagon, when we asked about this, said that "Women are excited to serve under the strong leadership of Secretary Hegseth and President Trump. Our standards for combat arms positions will be elite, uniform, and sex neutral because the weight of a rucksack or a human being doesn't care if you're a man or a woman."

This was when we asked specifically about the situation with the Navy captain and also about what we're hearing from a number of women. We asked the Pentagon, CNN did, to provide examples of claims that physical standards have been lowered for women in these combat arms roles, they did not provide any examples.

And certainly in the case of this Navy captain, she more than met the standards. We're talking -- this is someone who in her spare time ran Ironmans, who could do weighted pull-ups. That's a pull-up with a 25- pound weight attached.

BASH: Oh my gosh.

[12:45:03]

KEILAR: And now you see her career effectively being ended by this decision here. So this is something -- you know, it's really reflective of what we're seeing with women in the military. BASH: Again, tremendous reporting. It is so important. I encourage everybody to -- you see the QR code on your screen there. Take your phone, your camera, open it up and read it because it's important for people to know.

KEILAR: Thank you.

BASH: Thanks, Brie (ph). Thanks for being here.

Up next, months after President Trump and the state of Texas launched the redistricting wars of 2025, is it possible that Democrats could be the party that ends up winning? We'll explain after a break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:50:16]

BASH: A curveball win for Democrats in Utah overnight, where a district judge ordered the Republican legislature to draw a new congressional map. But not protecting the four Republican-held districts as they hoped. Instead, they have to create a Dem-leaning district in the currently divided Salt Lake County.

Now, you can see that could directly impact Republican Blake Moore. That one seat, plus five in California, puts Democrats at six possible gains going into 2026. Republicans are favored in nine possible seats from redistricting so far. But the desire to add states to the map is very present on both sides of the aisle. And we're going to talk about that right now.

And Phil Mattingly, I just want to put back up on the screen the states that we've been talking about. And obviously, as we said, it started with Texas. But you have Democrats trying to -- or they will have gains, likely in California and Utah. GOP in Texas, Missouri, Ohio, and North Carolina.

Then, particularly in the wake of the elections last week, Maryland, Illinois, and Virginia. That's one to watch with the elections. And the pressure is mounting on Indiana, Florida, and Nebraska.

MATTINGLY: I think if you flash back to when everything started moving on the Texas front, Democrats would be quite stunned at where they are right now, but also in particular what they've seen over the course of the last week. Obviously, you had Prop 50 in California, which was a huge win, poured a bunch of money into it. Everybody seemed to know where that was going to go, given the month leading up to it.

But then you also have Kansas deciding not to go further down a path that would have eliminated a Democratic seat. You have Virginia starting to move forward on their potential efforts to do so. Ohio is really important. There was like a pragmatic bipartisan solution to maps on that front that could have been much worse for Democrats if it had gone another way.

And then you have Utah. This has been just a string of, if not victories, then at least play-em-to-a-wash moments for Democrats that I think a couple months ago were looking around and going, this is a huge, huge problem for us in the midterms.

BASH: Pragmatic, bipartisan. Those are not words we hear very much, but because --

MATTINGLY: It's in Ohio's.

BASH: -- it's your home state of Ohio, exactly.

MATTINGLY: Yes. It's in Ohio's.

BASH: You took the words out of my mouth, Phil. The dynamic that we are seeing since last week, since the election, and, you know, maybe it was sort of brewing before the election. And what I'm talking about is a little bit of backpedaling by Republicans in this whole redistricting fight. I mean, and we know why they're doing it, because the President said, do this.

But just look at some of the examples. Indiana, the legislature moved a session to deal with this to December because there's a debate inside about whether to do it. New Hampshire, the governor there, Kelly Ayotte, says the timing isn't right for redistricting despite pressure from the White House. In Kansas, Republicans did not get support for redistricting.

It's not dead yet, but that's kind of an interesting thing that's happening in these red states, or at least in the case of New Hampshire, states with Republican governors.

KIM: Right, right. And I think they're seeing something on the ground, whether it's from their constituents or their legislative bodies that are really resistant to kind of this blatant political redrawing of lines. And it's interesting that it's Republicans who are more getting kind of nervous about it when Democrats have fully embraced it.

I think one of the big sort of takeaways we're seeing from Democrats from this redistricting battle is that Democratic leaders are learning they're not going to be punished for really kind of going, like taking Republican tactics and embracing this, you know, embracing this political tactic of redrawing the lines.

Obviously Gavin Newsom had a tremendous victory, you know, by pushing Proposition 50 through. You see why Westmoreland, Maryland is trying to do the same thing despite the resistance from some in his legislature there. You know, Democrats have kind of seen themselves as the party that, you know, fights these kinds of things, like kind of respects these norms, kind of respects the every decade process rather than this.

But now they know they have to win. Every seat matters in the House. And they're really embracing it and not seeing any blowback for it.

BASH: Yes, it is one prime illustration of the idea that we can't go by the old rules anymore. We have to --

KIM: Right, you can't unilaterally disarm.

BASH: Right, exactly.

KIM: Right.

BASH: And then there's the idea of whether or not Republicans are right that it would be a clean win if you move a line. And our friend Abby Livingston over at PUC has a great story about Latinos in Texas. And she's been reporting about the fact that it may actually not end up the way that Republicans plan.

[12:55:02]

"Many political operatives and observers assumed that Trump's huge 2024 gains with Hispanic voters -- especially in South Texas -- might portend a permanent political realignment. Now Republicans are contemplating elections in 2026 and beyond in which swing voters might swing back." And that's not just probably from Texas, but also the demographics and the exit polls we saw in elections last Tuesday.

ZELENY: Abby from Texas knows what she's talking about.

BASH: Yes, she does.

ZELENY: Texas Republicans, a very smart Texas Republican has been telling me this for a while, they're very worried about redrawing maps based on one election, one Trump election. That's one of the other reasons that the districts are drawn once a decade, because it gives you a lot more information and data about these districts.

So there's no doubt there may be some surprises in Texas. But there's also some resistance from states like Illinois. Democrats don't want to redraw their seats. Largely, politics is local and people do not want to disrupt their own districts. But Virginia, that is going to be something to add to that, to Democratic column there.

A big win in the House of Delegates, some 64 seats. So this could be a wash, never mind the political environment. But the White House is obsessed with the midterms for this reason. There'll be some surprises a year from now because of this.

BASH: That's a promise. Thanks all. Thank you so much.

Thank you for joining Inside Politics today. CNN News Central starts after a quick break.

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