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Judge Blocks Pentagon Effort To Reduce Sen. Kelly's Rank; Grand Jury Rejects Indictment Of Six Democratic Lawmakers; New Mills Ad In Maine Attacks Susan Collins For Being "Always Concerned, Never Courageous"; Charlie Kirk's Turning Point Endorses Ken Paxton In Texas; Van Der Beek Family GoFundMe Illustrates Americans' Top Worry. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired February 12, 2026 - 12:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:33:57]

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back. We have some breaking news in Senator Mark Kelly's lawsuit against the Pentagon. I want to bring in Katelyn Polantz for what is going on. Katelyn?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Dana, Senator Mark Kelly, he is indeed winning at this point in time the relief of a court. A judge stepping in and saying that the Pentagon basically can't censure him and that he should have protections. Some of these statements from the judge right now.

This is Judge Richard Leon in Washington, D.C. in the federal court. He is a Republican appointee on the bench, has been there a long time, and he is ruling not just in favor at this point in time in the emergency action here from Senator Mark Kelly, he is also writing with multiple exclamation points.

I want to read just some of the start of what the judge is saying here, that he sees that Mark Kelly, a retired naval officer and now a U.S. senator, is able to have First Amendment protections and that unfortunately the Trump administration has come in and tried to have some sort of censure or process for Mark Kelly that could hurt him as a former service member because of things he has said publicly about the Trump administration and the military.

[12:35:24]

And so, what Judge Leon is writing here is, "Unfortunately, for the Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, no court has ever extended principles to retired service members that they want to do here. Obedience and discipline," if they believe that someone has not been obedient in the military, "much less has the administration done something to a retired service member serving in Congress and exercising oversight responsibility over the military. This court will not be the first to do so!"

He also writes, "To say the least, our retired veterans deserve more respect from their government and our Constitution demands they receive it!" Exclamation point, again from Judge Leon. And Dana, this comes just two days after Senator Mark Kelly narrowly avoided being indicted by the Justice Department for some of the things he had said.

And this judge here, he's saying that, "That too should not be something that Mark Kelly should have to fear, criminal or administrative action." Dana?

BASH: Yes. Wow, obviously, it's not just the pushback and the siding with Mark Kelly in this, it's clearly the way that this judge is doing so that is trying to put the Secretary of Defense in his place in his attempt to censure a retired member of the military and a United States Senator.

Katelyn, thank you so much for that.

And this is coming on the heels of both Mark Kelly and five other members of Congress, Democrats who served in national security positions, you're seeing on the screen right now, they -- this is kind of the baseline of what happened, they put out a video, and in that video, they warned that active-duty military, they do not have to follow orders.

Well, a grand jury was presented with an indictment or indictments against these members of Congress. And the grand jury, we learned this week, rejected those indictments, which is pretty extraordinary.

I want to bring in New York Times Columnist David French to talk about this. David, I want to say that you caught my eye and our team's eye with a column that you wrote, This Is Not a Drill, warning about the administration, including the Justice Department interfering with upcoming elections.

I'm going to get to that in a second, but let's talk about what we just discussed. Your background is -- you know, you've lots of incredible experience on many fronts. One of them is you're an army lawyer and president of --

DAVID FRENCH, OPINION COLUMNIST, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Yes.

BASH: -- the free speech nonprofit, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. Your reaction to what Katelyn just reported?

FRENCH: Well, I mean, the judge's decision was obviously correct and deserved exclamation points. I mean, it's not very often you see exclamation points in a judge's ruling, especially a federal judge's ruling, but it's not often you see this kind of grotesque abuse of power.

And so, you know, what we're seeing with this Trump 2.0 is -- I don't know if you remember, Dana, but the phrase back in 2016 that you should take Trump seriously, but not literally --

BASH: Corey Lewandowski.

FRENCH: -- that was -- exactly. That was completely wrong. You should take him seriously and literally. And the only reason why we weren't often taking him literally back in 2016 in his first term in 2017 and onward was because he had a lot of Republicans working for him, who were throwing their bodies in front of his worst impulses, saying no and trying to stop it.

Now he's stacked his administration with people who want to fulfill his every wish. And what we are seeing, what his wishes are. He wishes that his political opponents be prosecuted. He wishes to suppress the free speech of his political opponents. And thank goodness for a judiciary that is independent and is able to see this for what it is, and it's pure authoritarianism, and the judge is exactly right to cut it off at the knees.

BASH: Well, you know, it's interesting, and that's something that I think, if we can take a step back for a moment here, that there are so many data points along the way on a host of issues where the judiciary is putting a stop to what many people, even some Republicans, see as overreach, much of which you just described.

I mean, just, you know, a few minutes ago, we heard about a judge in a civil suit siding with Mark Kelly, but then, of course, the idea that a criminal referral was given by DOJ. This was not, you know, the judges, but it was a grand jury, which, you know, sort of famously grand juries indict a ham sandwich. Well, didn't happen this time. And then there are lots of other points along the way.

[12:40:08]

Does that give you hope? I mean, now you use the A word a lot, authoritarian. Does that give you hope in this time that we're in?

FRENCH: I'll put it this way. It does give me hope because it gives us a chance. Think about the judiciary as like a rearguard action for a retreating army. The judiciary cannot save the country. The -- that's up to the American people.

The American people, it's up to us as to who we elect as leaders at the end of the day. But if we elect a rogue leader, as has happened, the judiciary can keep them confined within a box for a while, for a while.

So here's the way I would look at it. Look at it as the judiciary is sort of keeping the spark of hope alive. And then it's up to us, it's up to the American people to fulfill our responsibilities because at the bottom line is our Constitution is drafted in such a way is that it can restrain rogue presidents.

It can restrain rogue legislatures. It can even restrain a rogue populace for a short while. But ultimately, the people get what they want. And that's why the conversation about elections gets so important.

BASH: Well, I'm glad you got there because that's exactly where I was going to take this conversation next, because the President said Republicans should nationalize elections. There has been a debate about how real the threat is ahead of this midterms, these midterms. Again, the column that you wrote, This Is Not a Drill, you walk through the ways that you believe President Trump could legally manipulate the vote. And you said Americans need to start paying attention. What worries you the most?

FRENCH: Well, several things worry me. One is, for example, flooding the streets of cities with ICE. Now, ICE is going to be even bigger than it is now by the time the election rolls around. And some people might say, well, why is that a problem? They're only after illegal immigrants.

No, as as we have seen, ICE has an indiscriminate pattern of stopping people of creating an atmosphere of fear. And so you will have American citizens who are maybe Latino or black, depending on who's the targeted population in that city who might not even want to leave their homes out of fear as to what's happening, a pervasive fear.

So you've got voter suppression. And Steve Bannon has said we should flood the polling areas with ICE. You have arguments for seizing of voting machines, for example, or alarms already being raised about this phenomenon where Republicans tend to come out on more on Election Day and Democrats tend to vote.

This is a recent phenomenon, by the way, more by mail. So you often have an initial red way followed by a blue shift. A lot of Republicans see that is proof of fraud when you have the blue shift as the absentee ballots are counted. So you could immediately see calls to stop the count while Republicans are ahead or fraud allegations raised.

You could see refusals to certify election results because another issue here is that the argument is for Republicans to MAGA aligned Republicans to state -- take over state election apparatuses. So all of these things are very possible. Not only they're possible, these air things are being talked about openly, and we should take them seriously.

When people say what they want to do, don't scoff at it. Don't call it just bluster. We know, we know Trump means what he says.

BASH: Yes, and I think you're referring to the House Speaker talking about three Republican candidates who were ahead on Election Day, and then --

FRENCH: Yes.

BASH: -- the Democrats came back to win as the ballots were being counted. He said it looks on its face to be fraudulent. Can I prove that? No. But your point, David -- and we're going to have to leave it here -- but your point is, yes, that's just counting the votes and Republicans are voting ahead of time, and that's how it works.

Please come back. Thank you so much for being here. Well, we got lucky that we had you here when we got that breaking news about Mark Kelly.

FRENCH: Thank you so much. BASH: And coming up, with control of the Senate at stake, main candidates are dropping the niceties. You're going to see it for yourself after a break.

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[12:48:34]

BASH: It's a race that could turn the Senate blue, which is why one Democratic contender in Maine is going straight for the political jugular. Check out this ad from the current Maine governor running for Senate, Janet Mills.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Susan Collins. For 30 years in Washington, she's been --

SEN. SUSAN COLLINS (R), MAINE: Very concerned.

I have a number of concerns.

I'm also concerned.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Collins is always concerned, but never courageous. Caving to Trump on health care.

COLLINS: Concerned.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: On affordability.

COLLINS: Concerned.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: On ICE.

COLLINS: Concerned.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: I mean, wow. That's really tough. I mean, in any other state, in any other set of circumstances, it would be like, OK, that's just like a run-of-the-mill ad. No pun intended. But her first ad out of the gate from somebody, and I just want to make sure people understand, the two of them, Janet Mills, the sitting governor, the senior senator, Susan Collins, have been friends.

EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Friends. And Maine is a really small state.

BASH: Exactly.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

DOVERE: It is truly the case that the politicians know each other there. And those two women have been around alongside each other for a long time now. For Mills, what this is, and why -- she's got a primary. Why start with the general election ad? Because she is trying to show people, yes, I'm 78 years old, and yes, you think of me as just like the governor's round, but I'm going to fight harder than Graham Platner is saying that he's going to fight.

Now, whether she can convince people that that's actually true is what she's got --

BASH: Yes.

DOVERE: -- ahead of her in this primary. That's what this is.

BASH: Yes, Graham Platner being her opponent --

DOVERE: Yes, sorry.

BASH: -- in the Democrat -- yes, in the Democratic primary.

[12:50:08]

TAMARA KEITH, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, NPR: And certainly this ad doesn't hurt the Democrats either way. This ad just goes after the Republican opponent. This primary on the Democratic side is not -- that is not a slam dunk for Governor Mills at all. So I guess do no harm to your opponent, at least in the primary.

BASH: Yes, and Mills is running. It's one of those examples of people who are established --

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Oh yes, she's established.

BASH: -- running at the behest of Chuck Schumer.

HENDERSON: Yes, she's 78 years old. If she won, she would be the oldest freshman senator in history. Collins is obviously 73. But this goes at what they think is Collins' weakness. Does she stand up enough to Donald Trump?

If you're Janet Mills, you're going to run as somebody who has confronted Donald Trump, who said see you in court in the early days of his presidency around transgender issues. People were wearing that on T-shirts in Maine at some point. So I think you get there in that.

I think it's a pretty powerful ad. You get the sort of stakes and the debate that they're going to have if she gets to the general.

BASH: OK, let's talk about the Texas Senate race --

JOHN BRESNAHAN, CO-FOUNDER, PUNCHBOWL NEWS: Yes.

BASH: -- because that primary is coming up soon.

BRESNAHAN: March 3rd.

BASH: Yes, in a couple of weeks. So there are primaries on both sides, but let's talk about the Republican primary right now because you have two candidates running against the incumbent Republican senior senator, John Cornyn. And this week, Turning Point, this is obviously Charlie Kirk's former group, the late Charlie Kirk's group, endorsed Ken Paxton. "The movement that Charlie Kirk has built inspired millions, and I'm proud to be standing alongside Turning Point Action in carrying on the fight to save this country and defend our freedoms."

You know, Turning Point under Charlie Kirk really helped elect Republicans, especially in primaries.

BRESNAHAN: Yes, it became a force, especially with younger voters. It got in the polls. That was one of the weaknesses Republicans have was younger voters. So I do think this is significant.

What I think is really interesting right now, you have Cornyn and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton both running ads, hammering the third candidate in the race, which is Congressman Wesley Hunt. So there will be a runoff. It's going to be a runoff.

If it's Cornyn and Paxton, it's very difficult. If Trump doesn't come in on the side of Cornyn, it's hard for me right now to see how Cornyn beats Paxton. You figure voters who would support Republicans, who would support Hunt, would go to Paxton rather than Cornyn.

Behind the scenes, there's a huge fight over the Trump endorsement. They've -- every couple days or every week or two, we hear, oh, he's going to endorse this guy, he's going to endorse this guy. And then the other two run up to call Trump or call people in the White House, they call Susie Wiles, they call somebody saying, you can't do this.

BASH: Yes.

BRESNAHAN: So, like, behind the scenes, there's a public fight and a private fight going on right now.

BASH: Yes, and we're going to take a quick break. But why does this matter in the big picture? Because a lot of Republicans are worried if Ken Paxton gets the nomination, that they could actually lose that GOP seat in Texas.

I know, I know, I know, I know. We've heard that a long time.

BRESNAHAN: Yes, I'm with her, I'm with her.

BASH: That's -- I know, I know. It could, I could, capital C.

Up next, a beloved actor's tragic death at age 48 casts a harsh spotlight on the staggering cost of health care in America.

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[12:58:00]

BASH: Most Americans know full well how expensive health care coverage can be. The fact that actor James Van Der Beek's family needs a GoFundMe page after they say his colon cancer treatment left them broke offers a surprising portrait of American life.

A family friend shared that throughout James' illness, quote, "The family faced not only emotional challenges but also significant financial strain as they did everything possible to support James and provide for his care." Adding, "The extended fight against cancer have left the family out of funds."

While their story has fortunately raised more than $1.5 million, it's not a story that is unique to the Van Der Beek family. That's really why we wanted to talk about this. We learned that he passed away this week, and he certainly is a beloved figure among a certain age group.

KEITH: Millennials.

BASH: Millennials, from Dawson's Creek six children, and here he is suffering, and their family is suffering this tragedy, and they can't pay his cancer bills.

KEITH: Health care affordability is an issue. It's surprising when it happens to someone famous that you know from TV who you think should be fine. But Americans rank health care affordability among all of the other --

BASH: Yes. And we have that poll. Let's put it up while you talk.

KEITH: Yes. So the Kaiser Family Foundation has a relatively new poll. It finds two-thirds of Americans say they are very or somewhat worried about affording health care. It says those fears outrank concerns about paying for groceries, utilities, and housing costs.

And one wrong diagnosis can bankrupt you. And paying for health care is a challenge. We obviously saw the debates in Congress about extending Affordable Care Act supports, but it's much bigger than that.

HENDERSON: Yes. And part of -- this is also, younger people are getting cancer more and more, right? He's under 50. The rates of this are going up something like 30 percent in terms of the cancer rates in this group. So Americans are dealing with it, including me.

I lost my former sister-in-law to cancer last year, stage 4 breast cancer, and everything was a strain, right? She was a mom of three kids. You know, she was somebody who really struggled financially with this, and of course her health as well. And so Americans are dealing with this every day.

BASH: So sorry, Nia.

HENDERSON: Yes, thank you.

BASH: Sorry. And we are thinking about James Van Der Beek and his family and everybody out there who is struggling with health challenges and soaring costs.

Thank you for joining Inside Politics. CNN News Central starts right now.