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Trump Urges Texas Candidate He Doesn't Endorse To "Drop Out"; GOP Sen. Steve Daines Won't Run For Re-Election; Ex-University Of Montana President Running For State's Open Senate Seat As An Independent; Gas Prices Surge, Stocks Tumble As Iran War Intensifies; CNN Poll: MAGA Voters More For War Than Regular Republicans; Younger Voters More Skeptical Of Iran War Than Older Voters. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired March 05, 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 ANCHOR: It may be a coincidence that the President has been putting on his social media feed all day information about the SAVE Act. He also said no one has been more loyal to Donald Trump than me, fighting the stolen election and so on and so forth.

CARL HULSE, CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: That's quite a bank shot. But -- so here's the situation with the SAVE Act.

BASH: Yes.

HULSE: The right wants a talking filibuster, right? There's all this pressure on John Thune to call the Senate and keep him in until they wear down the Democrats and pass this bill. It's not certain that could even work if you do that. Senator Thune does not want to do this. So Ken Paxton is evidently saying, OK, Senator Thune, if you go ahead and do that and pass the bill, then maybe I'll quit from what you just said.

But, you know, this is about money. This is about money.

BASH: Totally.

HULSE: So John Thune and John Cornyn's Republican allies have already spent, from what I've been told, about $80 million on this race. They don't want to spend another $100 million.

BASH: Which dwarfed everything else.

HULSE: Right. And another $100 million to get, you know, to the general election and then have to spend again. This is a Democratic dream, too, by the way, to have these people fighting it out. So I don't know that John Thune's going to be able to do what Ken Paxton says, but it's certainly quite an interesting proposition.

BASH: Yes. He's trying to -- Ken Paxton is trying to push his -- the Republicans in the Senate to get something done in order for -- to say, OK, he'll drop out. If you kind of take a step back, Phil, as far as the President sees it, there's not a lot of sparkle in either of these candidacies, right? Even though they both have a lot of loyalty to the President when it comes to how they vote. And with -- and Paxton is right. He has done a lot of things.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

BASH: Gone to the nth degree, especially on election denial for the President. But it is, at the end of the day, about whether the President's team can convince him, you've got to support John Cornyn, which it's hard to imagine at this point that he won't, but we'll see, in order to save money so that we can spend it elsewhere.

MATTINGLY: Yes. I mean, if Paxton's posting tweets about, here's my actual off-ramp or here's how you can get me out of the race, he's clearly pretty much under the assumption that Trump is going to endorse Cornyn. And I think that's kind of the pervasive view amongst Republican operatives. For a long time, that was a hope, not necessarily an outcome they expected. Now it seems like it's heading in that direction.

I think what's fascinating about this is, for the President, this underscores that he's very cognizant of base dynamics, particularly in Texas. While the loyalty on the voting side of John Cornyn is 99 point something percent, the loyalty that Paxton shows is the type of, like, genuflection, kissing of the ring --

BASH: Yes.

MATTINGLY: -- level of loyalty that the President doesn't miss when it occurs. And so trying to navigate that, I think is really interesting. And I think the biggest takeaway here is, if Trump endorses Cornyn, like, to Carl's point, and to your point, like the money that was spent to get here in a state like Texas, which again, is maybe a little bit more competitive than people thought it was going to be.

When you've got other races, you've got six Republican senators that are retiring now. You've got a tough midterm kind of environment and you spent $80 million plus, potentially more, and you don't even know if Paxton's going to get out.

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes.

BASH: Exactly. Well, OK. So on that note, James Talarico --

HENDERSON: Yes.

BASH: -- did win outright. He is going to be the Democratic candidate on the ballot in the red state of Texas. And here's what he said last night in Austin.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES TALARICO (D), TEXAS SENATE CANDIDATE: They're going to throw everything they have at us. They're going to call me a radical leftist. They're going to call me a fake Christian. They'll call our movement un-Texan, un-American. They'll call us a threat. The only truth is we are a threat.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HENDERSON: Yes. And this is why we're here, right? If it would have been Jasmine Crockett, that would have pleased Republicans quite a bit. But now they see Talarico, who is doing well among the voters that Donald Trump did well among, Latino voters in particular, so they are very worried.

So now, they're trying to bring in the big dog in Donald Trump and have him endorse Cornyn. But does Paxton actually get -- that's the big question, right? Is Paxton actually going to get out? And it doesn't seem like he's the type to kind of run away from a fight. He relishes the fight. It's part of why the base likes him because he has a sort of Trumpian kind of character about him in good and bad ways, I mean, a bit of a checkered past there.

But, you know, we'll see what happens. But Talarico, he's a comer and you've got Democrats, particularly national Democrats, who are very excited about their chances. We've been here before. You know how I feel about this, again. But it's a race everybody's going to watch.

BASH: Yes. All right, everybody stand by.

Up next, an 11th hour campaign exit is raising some serious questions about the senator's motives. We're going to explain what happened in Montana after a break.

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[12:39:42]

BASH: A surprise and controversial Senate retirement. Republican Steve Daines of Montana announced he won't run for re-election. And he did it minutes before the filing deadline last night. That is where the controversy comes in. It appeared to be carefully orchestrated. No one else had time to jump into the primary other than his preferred successor.

[12:40:06]

Montana U.S. Attorney Kurt Alme was immediately endorsed by Daines and by President Trump. His likely opponent is former University of Montana President Seth Bodnar, who entered the race yesterday as an independent rather than a Democrat.

My panel is back here. Carl, we've seen a lot of stuff in our time. This is something.

HULSE: It was a real stunner. I have to say, you know, we were all shell-shocked. And also, I think so were Steve Daines' colleagues. I mean, maybe John Thune knew about it. I don't know, but others did not know about this. And this is actually -- this kind of maneuver is something you'd see a little bit in House races. And we have seen where you're really trying to line your successor up. And you see it like in City Hall, you know, machine politics. You don't see it in U.S. Senate races, right? These are statewide races. These are a big deal. So they froze out the competition to put their preferred candidate in, who, by the way, I think in my research today, has never run for office before. He's never been on the ballot. He's been in the government.

So the question is going to be, how do the people of Montana respond to this? Montana is, these are independent-minded people generally. They have elected Democrats pretty recently. So how are they going to -- I don't know that they want someone foisted on them like this, right?

BASH: I mean, it's like Chicago politics.

HULSE: Yes. It really smacks of that. And, you know, we'll have to see how it plays out. The person to watch maybe is this independent candidate who's got some credentials.

BASH: Yes. Let's play a soundbite from him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SETH BODNAR (I), MONTANA SENATE CANDIDATE: They must think we're stupid, but we see this for what it is. A sleazy insider plot led by party bosses in Washington, D.C. to rob Montanans of their voice at the ballot box. Montanans deserve an independent leader who's going to stand up to political elites and who will fight and push back against these kind of dirty political games.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Phil, he's 47 years old. He's an Army veteran. He served in Iraq, Green Beret, West Point grad, Rhodes Scholar.

MATTINGLY: I mean, it's a decent resume. I will grant him that.

BASH: He's not the Ohio State.

MATTINGLY: What I think is -- exactly. That's obviously a glaring omission for him. What I think will be really interesting to watch, and I think Carl and I were talking about this before the show, is where you see national Democrats -- yes, running as an independent, but where you see Democratic donors and where you see national Democrats who I think, over the course of the last 12 hours, their eyebrows have gone up a little bit for a state that they weren't paying any attention to. Didn't think they had any reason to, felt probably still a little bit burned by how Jon Tester, somebody that they liked and was probably the only person that could win in a state like Montana, got swamped out in his last cycle.

Whether or not they decide, not just to hold meetings or to consider it, but to actually start spending money on it.

BASH: Yes.

MATTINGLY: And I think that will be really fascinating to watch.

BASH: And just quickly, let's look at the map to underscore your point, Phil. And that is, you know, already the Republicans are in a more -- I'm not saying they are in a precarious place, but a more precarious place than they have been in the past few election cycles.

HENDERSON: Yes. And, you know, Schumer got some of his picks in these states, Alaska and Maine, for instance. And now here you have this person who is running in the way that successful candidates have run, sort of as an outsider, as an independent, not beholden to either party. And then for the Republicans to kind of pull this kind of inside the beltway game, you know, we'll see what he's able to do with it.

BASH: All right, everybody stand by.

When we come back, could surging gas prices cost Republicans the midterms? Two political pollsters will be here to talk about what this war could mean for November.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:48:15]

BASH: President Trump's affordability message always hits on one thing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Gasoline, which reached a peak of over $6 a gallon in some states under my predecessor. It was, quite honestly, a disaster.

Today, right here in Corpus Christi, the price of gasoline is down to just less than, actually, now $2.30.

They were pricing you out when gasoline's at $4.50, and now it's at $1.

$1.99, numbers that nobody has heard for years.

Gasoline is now under $2.50 a gallon in 17 states.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Enter the war with Iran. The average price of a gallon of gas is now $3.25. Last week, it was just $2.98. Last month, $2.89. And while the price of gas goes up, stocks are going down. You can see here the Dow falling almost 1,000 points, about 2 percent.

Here to talk about the risks for President Trump and Republicans are two experts on political public opinion. Margie Omero, who is a Democratic pollster, and Kristen Soltis Anderson, Republican pollster. Nice to see you both.

MARGIE OMERO, DEMOCRATIC POLLSTER, GBAO: Good to see you. KRISTEN SOLTIS ANDERSON, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST & POLLSTER: Good to see you.

BASH: I'm going to start with you. What do you think is the biggest political risk for the President with gas prices?

OMERO: Well, if the economy is going well and people feel economically secure, they've shown in his first term that they'd be willing to overlook some of his other personality flaws, what people see him as un-presidential or bullying. But that's not the case now. That's why you've seen his numbers drop so consistently since he's been in office, that people feel costs are too high.

[12:50:00]

And I don't feel economically safe. And it's not just anyone. I mean, he may want to parse out different costs of different things. People say all of the above. Everything costs too much. Housing, utility bills, groceries, gas, everything.

And so even if gas prices, he may say, have dropped, if they're going to go up and they think everything else is also too expensive, they're going to continue to feel, I don't think things are going very well.

BASH: And, you know, one of the questions is about how the economics are going to potentially force the President to, you know, make decisions about how the war is going. The other question is how his base is going to determine things. There's a lot of discussion about people like Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Steve Bannon, expressing skepticism about this war.

But if you look at CNN's poll out this week, MAGA Republicans, among MAGA Republicans, that's how they describe themselves, 88 percent approve.

SOLTIS ANDERSON: Yes.

BASH: Other Republicans, 61 percent. And I'm told that in sort of internal polling, the White House is seeing even broader support for -- among MAGA, which supports the idea that MAGA is what President Trump says it is.

SOLTIS ANDERSON: Right. My own data is showing the same thing, that I think there's this conventional wisdom that the MAGA movement is different from sort of old school conservatives, right? You had these Reagan conservatives who might have been more comfortable with foreign intervention, American projection of power abroad. But Trump has this special MAGA movement that was more isolationist.

And what you're seeing in your data, as well as what I'm seeing in mine, is that actually the MAGA movement is, we put our trust in Trump, what he wants goes. And so I think it'll be interesting to see how conservative influencers who have kind of bet on the idea that there is this growing isolationist block within the GOP really clash with Trump, who has enormous influence with his supporters. BASH: And just on that note, your polling shows that MAGA voters are more likely to want a candidate who shows strength on the international stage and is less isolationist, which might clash with the whole idea that people have of President Trump as America first.

SOLTIS ANDERSON: Well, I think his voters view America first as being advanced by a world where Iran does not have a nuclear weapon. And so at least for the moment, I think he's able to hold this together. However, when you're looking at something like the midterm elections, just having your coalition is not enough.

And so that's why these questions around median swing voters wondering, is this a prudent decision, a prudent course of action, worrying about things like gas prices? It does present some significant political risks, even if for the moment, the risk to his own base splintering may be overstated.

BASH: Let's talk about how this breaks down by age, because it's really fascinating. Now, I think, you know, since the beginning of time, or certainly since the 60s, the idea of being anti-war has been more for the youth than older people. But this is really bearing out in how they see what's happening in Iran.

Under 45, 32 percent say that they approve of the war in Iran, 45 plus, 48 percent. And again, there is, you know, I'm curious to know what you're seeing in your data. There's a feeling that it sort of the 9/11 generation, the younger people who say, no, no, we're not doing this again.

OMERO: Right. I mean, you have people across the board who say -- and we've heard this, you know, for years, people in focus groups say, what about what's happening here at home? What -- who is paying attention to what's going on with me and with younger voters in particular who feel, you know, I feel unsteady. I feel like I'm going to graduate from high school or graduate from college and not really know what's next for me.

And if you are -- if there's a perception that President Trump is being cavalier about their lives and future, then that's going to have a -- there's going to be a cost attached. And it's not just his base -- and it's not just swing voters they should worry about, it's also people who voted for him in '24.

We're seeing in our data that a growing number of people say they regret voting for him. There's been some analysis that people who voted for him now are not even saying that they voted for him because they want to say that they did something else. So you're seeing a lot of fracturing across the board, not just with younger voters, not just on the issue of Iran, but across the board.

BASH: Let's look at the Democrats and you worked on a focus group for the New York Times last month where you talked to them and what the kinds of words that we're going to highlight here that you got from these voters, like Mike from North Carolina, "Spineless," "More complacent than I thought that I want them to be." "Paralyzed." "Afraid." OMERO: Yes, it's tough sometimes to moderate that and hear people -- these were Democrats talking about Democrats and it's tough to listen to. And I think what people are saying is that they want to see results and they want to see someone fight. It's not about -- and I think this is important as we're now in primary season and people want to talk about progressives and moderates and differences on this policy or that policy in that group, it was really interesting.

[12:55:11]

People were not saying, I wish Democrats would have a whole brand new set of policies or I'm mad about X, Y, and Z, or I can only vote for a candidate who believes such and such. They just want to see someone who's fighting for the core values that they feel they share with other Democrats and that they hope they share with other Americans. And I think that's important.

So as we're thinking about, and I think it's actually relevant to Texas too, going forward, people want to see Democrats stand up and do something. And even though people felt kind of despondent in that focus group, the fact that you have so many candidates running and you have Republicans retiring is a sign that people feel that there's some change happening.

BASH: Thank you both. I always learn so much from both of you.

SOLTIS ANDERSON: Thank you for having us.

OMERO: Thank you.

BASH: Thank you for coming in.

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

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