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Inside Politics

Sheriff Nanos Says All Tips Investigated, Including Unverified Ransom Note; No Suspects Identified in Guthrie Disappearance; New Book Charts Harry Reid's Legacy as Democratic Senate Leader; Ohio is Must- Win State for Democrats to Win Back Senate Control. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired February 04, 2026 - 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': The search for 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie, mother of NBC "Today" show host, Savannah Guthrie, is growing increasingly desperate. It's been four days since she last had critical medication, and officials follow every lead.

Now, unverified purported ransom notes are part of this investigation. CNN's Josh Campbell is following the latest. Josh, it seems as though the important critical issue with regard to these ransom notes is that they didn't go to the Guthrie family. They went to media outlets.

JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: That's right. In any high- profile case, we have to have a healthy dose of caution when this kind of information comes to light.

But what we're hearing is that the sheriff's officials say they are aware of these ransom notes that went to two local stations there in Arizona. TMZ also said that they received one. It purports to demand millions of dollars in cryptocurrency, while also purporting to say that, you know, they have evidence of what was actually inside the home.

Take a listen here to the sheriff, who spoke about how this is factoring into their investigation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JONATHAN VIGLIOTTI, REPORTER, CBS NEWS: Is there anything in that note that seems credible at this moment that you're giving weight to?

SHERIFF CHRIS NANOS, PIMA COUNTY, ARIZONA: The entire note. That's what I would do.

VIGLIOTTI: The entire note?

NANOS: When the note comes to us, it's like any piece of evidence. You give it to us. You give us a lead. We're going to look at every aspect of that lead and work it as a lead.

VIGLIOTTI: So, you're not dismissing this note at this point?

NANOS: Absolutely not.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMPBELL: Now, it's important to note, obviously, we can't read too much into that because the sheriff has been consistent that they're looking at everything. Any tip that they're getting from the public, they are factoring in. So we're waiting to determine if they actually credit that note, deem that to be valid.

Meanwhile, there's some other information we're learning to include details about Nancy Guthrie's pacemaker. We're learning that the last time it appeared to sync up with her iPhone was around 2 a.m. on Sunday, which is critical because there's been this long window between when she was last seen and when she was actually reported missing.

That could give investigators some indication when she was last separated from the phone, which was still inside the home. But authorities still say right now no suspects that they have. They're appealing to the public to continue to provide any tips, Dana.

BASH: All right, Josh, thank you so much for that reporting. And again, if you see at the bottom of your screen, the FBI is asking the public to please share any information that they may have.

Call the tip line at 1-800-CALL-FBI.

When we come back, how did Nevada become one of the most pivotal states on the electoral map? The answer in two words, Harry Reid.

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[12:37:20]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HARRY REID, (D-NV) FORMER MAJORITY LEADER OF THE UNITED STATES SENATE: I didn't make it in life because of my athletic prowess. I didn't make it because of my good looks. I didn't make it because I'm a genius. I made it because I worked hard. And I tell everyone, whatever you want to try to do, make sure you're going to work as hard as you can at trying to do what you want to do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: That was longtime Nevada Senator, Harry Reid, saying farewell to Washington on his last Senate floor speech.

Now, we talk a lot about his state on "Inside Politics." Nevada is one of the few that decide our presidents early on in the primary calendar and a must-stop for every candidate in the general election. It didn't get there by accident.

Harry Reid had a lot to do with it. Reid lived a lot of lives before he got to Congress. He was raised in abject poverty. He had a stint in boxing, run-ins with the mob when he was the head of the Gaming Commission. All of it shaped his leadership and his persona as the top Democrat in the United States Senate.

And it's all in a new book, "The Game Changer: How Harry Reid Remade the Rules and Showed Democrats How to Fight." That book's author, Jon Ralston, the legendary Nevada reporter, Jon Ralston is here. Thank you so much for sticking around and sharing this book.

I had the pleasure, sometimes I mean that sarcastically and sometimes not, because I certainly got yelled at a lot by him, but I also got to watch him in the United States Senate. You not only did this terrific book, but you got to watch him in his home state.

And on that, can you just help fill in the blanks on how he put Nevada on the political map?

JON RALSTON, AUTHOR, "THE GAME CHANGER": Well, he and some of his aides, including his top political aide, Rebecca Lambe, who I know you know of, decided in 2006 that one way to help Nevada become more important was to get it early state status.

Now, it wasn't coincidence this is how Reid operated, that he was going to be up for a very tough election the cycle after the presidential and he wanted to get a really robust Democratic registration edge, get the Democrats in position to win in the presidential election and for him.

And so, they set about and if you're in leadership in the Senate, as you know, you can lobby the DNC and all those members. And they did it, and they got Nevada onto the map in 2008. The rest is history.

30,000 Democrats registered; 114,000 people turned out. I mocked Harry Reid when he said 100,000 would turn out. And not only did he call to say, I told you so, he called, and you'll appreciate this, to a live television broadcast that I was on and said, I told you I was right.

[12:40:00]

BASH: Yeah, that sounds about right. It really became known as the Reid Machine in Nevada. It helped elect not just him, but a lot of Democrats. Then he passed away in 2024, and that was the first presidential cycle without him sort of at the helm behind the scenes. Let's just look at what the results were.

First of all, in 2008, President Obama did very well. 2012, less well, but still won. Hillary Clinton, 2.4 percent, won, but it kind of kept going down. And then in 2024, President Trump won by three percent.

RALSTON: Surprised me, actually, because the Reid Machine still existed in 2024, even two-and-a-half years or so after his passing, Dana. But, the state has changed a lot and let's face it, when you have a guy who's the Senate Democratic leader, he can raise unlimited amounts of money to fund that machine, so that certainly doesn't exist. And just the shadow of Harry Reid overshadowed everything in Nevada.

And so, as you mentioned, they were able to not only elect him in his last race in 2010, but they destroyed the Republican bench for many cycles. There's still three Democratic Congressional representatives there who were there because of the Reid Machine. But now, you have a Republican governor for the first time in 20 years.

BASH: Yeah.

RALSTON: And that's changed the dynamic there, too. Would things be different? Would they have been different in 2024 if Reid were still alive? Maybe.

BASH: All right. Well, the book is "The Game Changer." It is a terrific book. I encourage you to go get it, and you're going to learn a lot about a very important person in political history. Thank you, Jon.

RALSTON: Thanks for having me.

BASH: The path to the Senate majority runs through Ohio. I'm going to speak to the Republican Senator trying to keep his seat there, next.

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[12:46:23]

BASH: Like so many past elections, this year's Senate majority could all come down to Ohio. Republican Senator, Jon Husted is running for his first full term to represent the Buckeye State. He was appointed to fill Vice President, J.D. Vance's seat in 2025.

He's going to have to beat the former Ohio Senator, the Democrat who represented Ohio for a while, Sherrod Brown. He narrowly lost his seat to Bernie Moreno in 2024. Joining me now is Senator Husted.

Thank you so much for being here. I appreciate it. I want to talk about the race in a second, but I want to start by playing something that President Trump said yesterday about elections.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: The state is an agent for the federal government in elections. I don't know why the federal government doesn't do them anyway. But when you see some of these states about how horribly they run their elections, what a disgrace it is.

These are agents of the federal government to count the votes. If they can't count the votes legally and honestly, then somebody else should take over.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: So Senator, you were the Secretary of State of your home state in Ohio, so you were the official who oversaw your state's elections. Do you agree that a state is an agent for the federal government in elections?

SEN. JON HUSTED, (R) FORMER OHIO SECRETARY OF STATE: Well, there's always a partnership between the state, federal and local officials on many things. I understand the president's frustration with how some states run their elections, but the Constitution gives the states the right to do that. And -- but we can make a difference here by passing the SAVE Act to have nationwide photo ID to uphold the way we do our voter rolls.

I actually had a case, Husted v. A. Philip Randolph Institute, which went all the way to the Supreme Court, that set the standard for how we maintain voter rolls. And so, we can do those things through the SAVE Act, and I think instill confidence both in the president and the American people that elections are run well.

When I was Secretary of State in Ohio, I used to say we make it easy to vote and hard to cheat, and you can do both.

BASH: The president wasn't talking about the SAVE Act there, though. He was talking about the idea of the state being an agent of the federal government in elections. As you understandably pointed out, that's not what the Constitution says. There are a lot of people who are very concerned that he is not just saying this, but making moves to have the federal government reach into elections in a way that does not comport with the Constitution.

HUSTED: Yeah. I don't know exactly what he means about the state being an agent, but in all of government, we should be partners in getting things done. But the states, your neighbors are the local poll workers, the county elections officials, the Secretary -- this is a bottom-up effort in most states that works very well, but the president has a really good point about some states, and I'll pick California for example.

They don't have photo ID in California. They don't properly maintain their voter rolls in California. And they send out unsolicited absentee ballots in California, which is a formula for fraud and undermines public confidence. So, if we set some standards on photo ID and on maintaining the voter rolls, and not sending out unsolicited absentee ballots, then I think we can build confidence in the election system that both the president would support and the American people would support. That's what I would like to see us do.

[12:50:00]

BASH: And the fact that the Trump Justice Department is suing some states who have refused to give over their voter rolls, I mean, as a former Secretary of State, someone who was in charge of the elections, and a Democratic president said, give me all your voter rolls, including people's Social Security numbers, driver's license numbers, what would you have said?

HUSTED: Well, we don't hold people's Social Security numbers and the voter rolls are public information in our state. That information should be available to everyone. We are --

BASH: You're OK with that? You trust the federal government as a Republican to deal with this?

HUSTED: This is not a secret. The voter rolls are not something that's secret. Those are public information.

BASH: Right. It's the information about the voters, the personal information about voters.

HUSTED: That information is usually your name, your address, your date of birth, the last four digits of your Social Security number is oftentimes used, but not the Social Security number and your signature. That information in most places is public information that can be shared.

I know that there's a lot of mystery behind how elections really work, but it's not overly complicated, and it's easy to build public trust in if we can just agree on a set of uniform rules.

Again, it starts with properly maintaining your voter rolls and having some form of ID to make sure the person voting is actually the person that we say it is.

BASH: I want to turn to your state of Ohio, obviously, it has been historically a major manufacturing state. President Trump promised voters a manufacturing boom in 2024.

By the end of last year, manufacturing jobs hit a three-and-a-half year low. What do you hear from your constituents about that?

HUSTED: Yeah. Look, manufacturing has been hard hit. My dad, when I graduated high school, he worked at a machine tool shop and it closed. It's affected my family personally in Ohio for 30 years, we've been struggling with these issues. Technology creates more productivity, which means it takes fewer people to do the same amount of jobs.

But we're seeing a renaissance in Ohio with companies moving from states like California to set up their manufacturing operations. And that's everything from agricultural operations to cars, to trucks, to airplanes. Joby Aviation moved their electric aircraft operation to Dayton, Ohio.

We have pharmaceutical companies re-establishing the supply chain in Columbus. We have a lot of great -- Stellantis, Whirlpool up by the Toledo area, investing more to do more made in America. So, we're seeing the investments coming.

We're seeing the growth, but that doesn't manifest in jobs until we get these facilities built and they actually do the hiring. Honda is in the process of hiring 2,500 people for their new battery operation between -- outside of the Dayton area.

BASH: Do you -- the president is not on the ballot, you are. Are you comfortable with the way that he is prioritizing things like manufacturing, economic issues, which I would imagine, and you can tell me, is like number one on the minds of your constituents, the potential voters?

HUSTED: Yeah. Ohioans want jobs and they also want a good quality of life. That's why the working family tax cut plan was so important. No tax on tips, no tax on overtime. And really, a $2,200 per child tax credit for working families, all of those things help make life more affordable. You combine that with more made in America --

BASH: Do people feel it in Ohio?

HUSTED: They're going to start feeling it this year. But, look, the way I always view things, we're doing a lot, but it's never enough. We want more manufacturing jobs. We want more made in America. We have a national and economic security interest in making sure that that happens because we can't rely on China for our pharmaceutical chain, our rare earths. We can't have them stealing American technology and then building those products in China.

And you have to stand up to them. Tariffs are one of the ways to do that, but resetting, just doing this reset on manufacturing, doing more made in America is great for America, but it's also great in Ohio because I literally don't think you can do made in America without made in Ohio because that's what we do.

BASH: Do you want the president to come and campaign with you?

HUSTED: Yes, of course, and J.D. Vance too. J.D. is an Ohioan. He's the guy whose seat I took, and J.D., I know will be very active in our state as well.

BASH: So, it seems like you are going to face the former Senator, Sherrod Brown, in November, and he lost in 2024. President Trump won in 2024 by 11 percentage points, and Sherrod Brown lost to Bernie Moreno by less than four percentage points, so he outperformed Kamala Harris. And as you well know, the president is not on the ballot this year. How does that change the environment for you politically?

HUSTED: Well, I've won statewide four times. The last time I was on the ballot, I won by 25 points, so we all have our different brands and our different relationships with the voters. Sherrod Brown also spent more money in his election than anyone in the history of America in a U.S. Senate race and lost.

[12:55:00]

And so -- but that's the past. It's always a new election cycle. We always learn from the past but prepare for the future, and as long as I stay focused on the things that I said I would do, is fighting for working families, helping do more to Made in America and an America First agenda, then I'm confident the voters will reward us for that in the fall.

BASH: Senator, thank you so much for coming in. Appreciate it.

HUSTED: Appreciate you (ph).

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: We're obviously going to be very focused here on "Inside Politics" on your race, so we'll definitely be in touch.

HUSTED: Great, thank you.

BASH: Thank you so much.

And thank you for joining "Inside Politics" today. "CNN News Central" starts after a quick break.

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