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Ted Turner, CNN Founder and Philanthropist, Dies at 87; Five Indiana Republicans Lose Primaries After Defying Trump. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired May 06, 2026 - 12:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:31:34]

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT AND ANCHOR OF 'INSIDE POLITICS': When Ted Turner first launched CNN on June 1, 1980, there was some eye-rolling and a lot of criticism and big questions about whether there was any way that a Cable News Network could compete with the big three networks, NBC, ABC and CBS. Then came an iconic moment during the first Gulf War back in 1991 and it cemented CNN's role as a force to be reckoned with.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BERNARD SHAW, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): This is -- something is happening outside. Peter Arnett, join me here. Let's describe to our viewers what we are seeing. The skies over Baghdad have been illuminated. We are seeing bright flashes going off all over the sky.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Joining me now is CNN International Diplomatic Editor, Nic Robertson. Nic, you are in Islamabad, Pakistan right now. You joined CNN in 1990 and you were in Baghdad at that time with CNN's Bernard Shaw, whom we just heard, Peter Arnett, John Holliman, Robert Wiener, Ingrid Formanek, Tracy Haberlin (ph), Chris Minaj (ph) and the legendary Mark Biello, cameraman, who I believe, it is his birthday today. That all happened, you were all together during that moment the world shared.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yeah, and it was because of Ted, right? Because of his vision of what he wanted our CNN journalism to be. He inspired us because he wanted to get the news from the ends of the earth.

He inspired us with his passion that, you know, if only we could tell the stories, we could bring people closer together, bring that understanding, bring world peace. And I think we all liked that, this was -- this was positive and that's what had brought us there. And that moment and that broadcast we just had, that was all part of Ted Turner.

We were broadcasting on a system that nobody had ever used in a situation like this before. It was an out of the box idea. It was the legendary full wire (ph). But we came up with the idea and through Robert Weiner and through our bosses, Eason Jordan and Tom Johnson and Ted at the top of it all, go do it, spend the money, be over budget, make it happen, bring this in. And that's what we did. And then we -- and then we bought the satellite dish in after that.

And that was all because Ted gave everyone the space and opportunity and vision to imagine and do big and do good. I remember, when I was first hired by CNN and I was just a young wide-eyed engineer at the time. And I've been covering the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, the Berlin Wall coming down, and Ceausescu's overthrow in Romania.

And the CNN -- CNN was having trouble getting its engineers into Romania. I was working for somebody else and they spotted me and they said, after this, come over to us, come talk to us. And I remember, it was my first time to the United States and I'd obviously done a lot of research about CNN and I got Ted's vision and it was like, this is who I want to work for. This is where I want to be.

And I walked into the Omni Hotel in the CNN Center on the evening of Friday, the 26th of January, 1990. And you know who is sitting with his family, having his dinner in the restaurant?

[12:35:00]

That was -- that was Ted Turner. I kind of -- I didn't really see him again. I was hired by the chief engineer the next day and back to London before I can turn around. And I don't think I saw Ted for 10 years or more than that. That was because we were going to the ends of the earth all the time to get the news. I met my wife because of Ted Turner.

We were on the road together, working for CNN, going into Baghdad during the war. Ted gave us the passion, the commitment to do that, the inspirational things we did. I remember not long after Ted had passed his pen, passed Johnson's pen to Mikhail Gorbachev, signing that letter. We did, CNN did a broadcast from Red Square. No one had ever done it before. I'm sorry, it's a helicopter flying by.

This was Ted's vision to do what no one -- he said, the idea was go live in Red Square, but not just one camera, four cameras, build a stage in the middle of Red Square. And it was Ted's relationship with Mikhail Gorbachev that allowed that to happen and gave the space to do this news and bring cultures together, reach across boundaries, reach across borders. You know, he inspired us to do that.

BASH: Yeah.

ROBERTSON: He inspired us to go to the ends of the earth. He also inspired us to go into the jaws of danger. And we did that. And we did that willingly because he gave us that sense of commitment for good. We'd be in danger, in bad places. It was for a good reason.

BASH: And just real quick, when I first started here at CNN, we were not allowed to use the F word. And by the F word, I mean foreign. And that was a Ted Turner mandate. ROBERTSON: And I remember that too. You couldn't say it in the newsroom. You know, if anyone said that, I think you had to put money in a jar.

(LAUGH)

ROBERTSON: And obviously the money went to charity.

(LAUGH)

ROBERTSON: There was a penalty for that. He so believed that it wasn't foreign, it was international. You know, and we bought that. And then, you know, when eventually we did start using that word again, like now, you sort of look over your shoulder because it was --

(LAUGH)

BASH: Exactly.

ROBERTSON: -- it was not -- it was a different ethos.

(LAUGH)

BASH: Yeah. Listen, Nic, I want to say thank you so much for joining us. Ted Turner always says, the news is the star and the news is still the star. And you have been breaking a lot of news from where you are in Islamabad. So I'm going to let you go and keep reporting on that.

But thank you for coming and sharing your memory and the celebration of this man who did so much in this world, not to mention for this company. Thank you, Nic.

And as I mentioned, Ted Turner always says the news is the star. So coming up, we're going to get back to the news, the news that we cover on this show, politics, a huge political story. President Trump had some big primary wins in Indiana. Stay with us.

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[12:42:49]

BASH: It is President Trump's party and he'll exact revenge if he wants to. That's really the main takeaway from last night's Indiana Republican primaries, five of the seven GOP state Senators the president pushed to oust lost their seats last night. One survived and one is still too close to call. So what does this mean for the president's grip on the GOP?

Well, I asked James Blair who is one of the president's top political advisers who's running his efforts on the midterms. Here's what he said, quote, "Sometimes you can vote your feelings, but sometimes you need to vote with the party. As the elected party leader, the president gets to decide which vote is which and he is always clear and upfront about it. Nobody should be surprised about any of this."

I'm joined by a terrific group of reporters. And Zolan, this is something that the president was very upset about, the Indiana Republican Legislature said nope, we're not going to go along with your plan to do mid-decade redistricting and he said I'm going to exact revenge. I'm going to run primary challengers and we're going to beat you and in most of the cases, he did.

ZOLAN KANNO-YOUNGS, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: He did, right. Right. Indiana stood out really as an outlier for the most part, when you look at the last year in terms of Republicans and really Republican state legislators pushing back against President Trump and his impulses, and in this case, for redrawing the maps to gain an edge. They stood out and the president was clear that he was going to focus on challenging those representatives when it came to this election.

And he put that focus on the primary and we're seeing that the results show that up until this point, yes, there are fissures in the MAGA base. Yes, the most outspoken critics of President Trump in his own base have gotten louder as the war in Iran has gone on, as gas prices has gone up, but he's still got a grip, right? He's still got a grip.

BASH: I mean, let me just tell you the way that Jim Banks, Senator from Indiana, put it. The message we've learned over the last 10 years is, it's Donald Trump's Republican Party.

[12:45:00]

I mean, doesn't get any more blunt than that. And so, it's a question of the analysis of last night, which I think is pretty obvious, but it's also about what message he is sending to Republicans about how they act towards him and towards the things that he wants for the next two-and-a-half years.

MICHELLE PRICE, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, AP: Right. And does it mean he's going to go after every single person who defies him? No, it doesn't need to, but the threat is there and that's enough. You know, there's some people -- he does have some pragmatism about it. Like, if you are Susan Collins and you have taken votes that are not in line with the president, they still know that that's Republicans' best chance in Maine.

But if it's something that the president is very personally involved in, like he was with this Indiana project, that's a sign that everybody else in the party should fall in line or they can expect a lot of power and money and effort behind it to go after them. Even if it doesn't change the result in November, it's a very personal thing for the president and the people working for the president here on his political team.

STEPHEN COLLINSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICS REPORTER: Yeah, I think if you're Senator Cassidy or Thomas Massie in Kentucky, who's facing a primary in the coming weeks and who broke with the president, you're going to be slightly worried by these results.

BASH: Let's put up on the screen because those are coming up very soon. They're this month, those primaries. Keep going. COLLINSON: Yeah, you're going to be slightly worried by those results. I think what it shows is that Donald Trump is not just a political force. In red state America, he's a cultural force. That means that however badly the war in Iran goes or gas prices rise, there's going to always be this residue of support for him and loyalty.

But this sharpens the dilemma, I think, for Republicans who are not running in deep red states because they have to be careful not to lose their own base, the Trump base, who they need to come and vote for them in November. But Donald Trump is deeply unpopular. His approval ratings are in the 30s. There was a special election in Michigan which Democrats won for a state legislature seat.

Kamala Harris won that by less than a percentage point. Now Democrats, after last night, have a big majority and a lot of that is to do with Donald Trump's unpopularity. So while he clearly holds the control of the Republican Party, I don't think what happened in Indiana is going to change the broader story of November's election.

BASH: Yeah, it's such an important line. I mean, you always have great lines, but the idea that it is not just political, it's cultural in a lot of these places. Let's just pick up on where Stephen left off about the bigger picture for the president.

This is the Washington Post-ABC News poll that came out this week. His approval among all adults, only 37 percent. Independents, 25 percent, very low. Republicans, 85 percent. MAGA Republicans, which are the kinds of voters that obviously came out for the challengers on the president's behest last night in Indiana, is, you know, it's almost perfect.

KANNO-YOUNGS: Right, right, right. And you also, that comes with, you coincide that with this overwhelming attention that we're talking about on really an inter-party fight, right? Yes, we are at a time of primaries, but while the president and the White House has been focusing on these primaries against members of his own party, we really haven't seen that attention to go after some of those independents, some of those -- to actually bolster Republicans for the general when it comes to actually the November elections as well.

And that's where you look at the poll numbers on the economy, you know, his overall approval rating, and there is still cause for concern.

BASH: Yeah. They, I would imagine, you cover the White House, that they would argue, well, that's why they talk about prescription drug costs, that's why they talk about the tax cuts that help people, but --

KANNO-YOUNGS: And do they? Like --

(LAUGH)

BASH: Well, that's what they're saying. They try, but they have a president who tends to overshadow that with things that he's talking about on any given day.

PRICE: Right, and one of the issues we're hearing and one of the things you kind of hear quietly from some Republicans, is the question of how much does the president care about the midterms? How much is he going to invest from, like, how much will his political arms invest, how much is he going to go out and campaign for these people? We hear him speak about it a lot. It's a historical trend. The president loses, I don't know why, it's unfortunate. But it's almost like, not a resignation quite so much, but it's not his name on the ballot.

BASH: Thank you all. Sorry, it was an abbreviated panel. But coming up, we're going to go back to the big story here at CNN, that Ted Turner has passed away. But it wasn't just TV news where he made history, he helped preserve film history as well. I'm going to speak to the host of Turner Classic Movies after the break.

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[12:54:00]

JANE FONDA, ACTRESS: My favorite ex-husband created Turner Classic Movies. That was Ted Turner.

BEN MANKIEWICZ, HOST, "TURNER CLASSIC MOVIES": You were married to Ted Turner?

FONDA: I was.

MANKIEWICZ: I didn't know that. That's amazing. When?

FONDA: On our very first date, he talked to me all about Turner Classic Movies.

MANKIEWICZ: Is that right?

FONDA: Yeah. And I think it's -- I do think it was one of the great things that he did.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: That was, of course, the legendary Jane Fonda with, I would argue, the legendary Ben Mankiewicz, talking about Turner Classic Movies. Ben is my guest now. And Ben, thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate it because you are somebody who people turn to when they want to reflect, when they want to live in another time and era.

And you're able to do that because Ted Turner created the network, TCM.

MANKIEWICZ: Yeah, well, first of all, Dana, thanks for having me on. It's very important for us to share, as you have been, how important Ted Turner was.

[12:55:00] You know, two things he was definitely -- Jane is right, that was just last Thursday, opening night of what was our most successful film festival ever, our 17th film festival in Hollywood. And you know, we're not -- I think Ted knew this was not merely a television channel.

I mean, I'm an evangelist like he was for this place. But, you know, it's a repository of our shared history. You know, this is a place that night after night, day after day, reflects our dreams. And there's no other television channel that does that.

I get it. There may be more important television channels, but there's -- I don't know that there's a specific channel that is this guardian of this cultural history that we have. And I think Ted understood that right -- right from the start, he understood it.'

BASH: Yeah. And you know, the notion of preserving and putting out their classic movies, it didn't exist before Ted Turner thought of it. And that's a really important thing to know. You had a chance to speak with the Ted --

MANKIEWICZ: Yeah.

BASH: -- on the 25th anniversary of TCM back in 2019. I'm going to play a little bit of that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MANKIEWICZ: The word that gets tossed around a lot with you is 'maverick.'

TED TURNER, FOUNDER, CNN: I don't know why I don't really feel like I was a maverick.

MANKIEWICZ: You don't?

TURNER: Nah. I just thought a lot. I was smart enough to think a lot and think things through very carefully. I knew 24-hour news was going to work. And I knew 24-hour classic movies was going to work.

MANKIEWICZ: When you say you knew, your gut told you?

TURNER: Right.

MANKIEWICZ: Well, that makes you different. Don't you think?

TURNER: A little bit.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(LAUGH)

BASH: Yeah, I would say so. Just a little bit, Ben.

MANKIEWICZ: It was very hard in that interview to get him to take a bow. You know, he kept deflecting and deflecting like, no, I just had an idea and I thought it would work. But obviously, he had a really -- he did have these senses in his gut of what would work. And you know, back when he ran Channel 17, this local channel in Atlanta, he bought those old movies because they were cheap and he liked watching them.

And I think it's a really good lesson. It's one that I have had my entire time at TCM, which is that if I think something's interesting, I'm kind of just like everybody else. I think they'll like it, too. That's what Ted thought. I like these movies. There's no way I'm alone in liking these movies. And it turned out, of course, he was correct.

BASH: Yeah, I mean, obviously, I'm here at CNN. And so we've been talking a lot about his legacy and creating this notion of cable news and this notion of 24-hour news, which was non-existent before he came up with it.

But I did really want to talk to you about the legacy that you continue on, because film is another part of how we all connect as human beings and the classic films even more so.

MANKIEWICZ: Well, you know, it's in my head a little bit, Dana, because on that opening night of our festival again, I can't believe it's just six days ago and we had Jane Fonda there to talk about -- to salute Robert Redford. She came because she wanted to talk about Robert Redford, to give you an idea of like how other actors feel about these movies. Right?

She thought it was important not to talk about herself and talk about his legacy. But she said shortly after springing it on me that her favorite ex-husband was Ted Turner.

(LAUGH)

MANKIEWICZ: You know, she said that that he understood that we need to know what it used to be like, right? How we used to live, how we used to behave, she said. And we need to know who the greats were, the great directors, the great actresses, the great actors, that that matters.

I mean, these movies, they're fictional stories, most of them. Right? But they are each one of them, good or bad, a little mini documentary of how people lived, how people spoke, how people communicated in that moment. And I think that's invaluable to us, whether you love the movies or not.

There's a great bonus, is that most of these are really just thrilling stories that you can lose yourself in and escape a bit from what you had in your last segment, like take a respite, not a full break, but take a couple hours off from talking about all the divisive politics in this country.

BASH: Yeah. And as you're talking about Jane Fonda, I'm thinking about something I've heard her say, which is I used to sleep with Ted Turner, so I know CNN as she makes her arguments for independent news continuing.

MANKIEWICZ: Yeah. BASH: Let me just play a little bit more of your conversation with Ted Turner.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TURNER: All the movies in the library are 25 years older.

MANKIEWICZ: Yeah.

TURNER: But they're more popular than ever.

MANKIEWICZ: How come?

TURNER: Because people like old stuff.

(LAUGH)

TURNER: People do like old stuff. I'm old now and people like me.

(LAUGH)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Classic. Ben Mankiewicz, thank you for being here. I really appreciate it. And I love the "Citizen Kane" poster behind you. I think we can see it. You are the best.

MANKIEWICZ: Thanks very much, Dana.

BASH: Thank you for joining "Inside Politics" today. "CNN News Central" starts right now.