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Inside Politics

Today: Trump Endorsement Tested In Cornyn-Paxton Runoff; Trump- Endorsed Ken Paxton Aims To Defeat 4-Term Sen. John Cornyn; Trump Visits Walter Reed For Annual Physical & Dental Exam; Trump's Readouts From Past Exams Say He Is In "Excellent Health"; Centcom: U.S. Launches "Self-Defense" Strikes In Southern Iran. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired May 26, 2026 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00]

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR, THE SITUATION ROOM: Randi Kaye, CNN, Boston.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN CO-ANCHOR, THE SITUATION ROOM: And to our viewers, thanks very much for joining us this morning.

BROWN: Inside Politics with our friend and colleague, Dana Bash, starts right now. Have a great rest of your day.

DANA BASH, CNN HOST, INSIDE POLITICS: Is the Trump endorsement all Ken Paxton needs to defeat a Republican in office more than 20 years?

I'm Dana Bash. Let's go behind the headlines at Inside Politics.

It is Election Day in Texas, and President Trump has one message for voters, get the RINOs out now. That's the post the president amplified this morning when he urged Texans to vote for Ken Paxton, whom he called the country's best attorney general. President Trump says Paxton will be more loyal to him than incumbent Republican Senator John Cornyn. Now, Cornyn is still fighting to keep his seat. This morning, he made a closing argument on Fox.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN CORNYN (R-TX): Texans have learned that you can't trust a thing that Paxton says because he's lied to taxpayers. His senior staff got impeached by a Republican-led House of Representatives. And taxpayers with $6.6 million in a judgment from whistleblowers who turned him into the FBI. So, he -- because he was interfering with a federal investigation of one of his campaign donors. And look, Lawrence, I've been -- I've supported the president's agenda the whole time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Arlette Saenz is in Plano, Texas, at a polling location. Arlette?

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Dana, Republican voters will soon decide whether they try to extend Senator John Cornyn's time in the U.S. Senate or if they will go with the Trump-endorsed candidate in Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Now, Cornyn has been fighting until the very end, arguing that he believes Texas voters will have independent minds and make this decision for themselves, while warning that he believes Paxton would be a liability for Republicans come November.

But President Trump's last-minute endorsement of Paxton has given the state attorney general some momentum in this race, especially with the MAGA base. But I want you to take a listen to two voters that we spoke to earlier today, who were both swayed by President Trump's endorsement of Paxton, but in different ways.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GENA TATUM, TEXAS VOTER: I was torn because I was going to go with Croman (Ph).

SAENZ: Cornyn?

TATUM: Cornyn, but then Trump backed, and I like who he backs, and so I went Republican.

SAENZ: So, the president's endorsement was the deciding factor?

TATUM: Yeah, it was.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I made one vote, and that was for Cornyn.

SAENZ: And why is that?

RODNEY HALL, TEXAS VOTER: Primarily because he's not supported by Trump.

SAENZ: So, President Trump's decision to endorse Paxton went against.

HALL: Absolutely.

SAENZ: And why is that?

HALL: I think he's ruined my Republican Party. Think he's divided America. I think he's bad news, and I still lean Republican, so I voted for Cornyn.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SAENZ: Now, this has been an incredibly bruising and personal primary in this GOP race, and it really has tested President Donald Trump's grip on the Republican Party. As we have heard from some senior Senate Republicans who have expressed a lot of frustration with his decision to back Cornyn -- or back Paxton instead of Cornyn, but the Texas voters will have the final say a little bit later tonight as they decide who they will select as their GOP nominee to face off against Democrat James Talarico in November.

BASH: Arlette, thank you so much for that reporting. Those conversations with voters were really, really interesting. Thanks a lot. And here at the table, I'm joined by a group of terrific reporters. Jasmine Wright, what are you hearing from your sources at the White House about kind of where things stand now? We obviously know that the president weighed in late. He just did it last week, and the run-off has been going on for weeks and weeks and weeks. How are they playing, aside from the president posting what he's posting?

JASMINE WRIGHT, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, NOTUS: Well, I think that they are trying to trust the plan and trust the president's endorsement. I mean, I think that those two comments from those two voters is fascinating, because you're literally seeing the 80-20, 70- 30 split that we see represented in polling.

And I think that that young man at the end represents the minority of voters, and that's what the White House is expecting. They're expecting that the majority of voters who are voting in that Texas primary are going to stick with the woman before saying that it was President Trump who pushed me into voting for Ken Paxton.

Let's be clear here. The president weighed in and I think you could argue whether or not he weighed in after internals and other polling showed that Ken Paxton was actually beating Cornyn, but he weighed in late, but it's still significant. And this question that we continue to ask of whether or not, Trump still holds really a vice grip on the -- on the Republican Party continues to show us yes, yes, and yes. And I think the White House believes that we're going to get another yes tonight with Ken Paxton.

[12:05:00]

JOSH DAWSEY, POLITICAL INVESTIGATIONS REPORTER, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: Well, that's right. And you know, initially the president had pointed to or was going to endorse John Cornyn. There was even a draft endorsement written for him. He signaled to others that he was leaning towards Cornyn, and he was convinced by his MAGA base to go for Paxton, right? He was convinced that Cornyn had not been sufficiently loyal, that Paxton was a guy who supported him in the 2020 false claims of the election been stolen, and so on and so forth. So, he goes for Paxton.

And what we've seen Trump do in recent weeks, right, is try to weed out all of the people in the party, he does not think are loyal to him. Cassidy in Louisiana, you obviously solve a Tom Massie race. Indiana lawmakers who would not go for his redistricting push to show when it comes to the Republican party, I'm still in control and I can put you out.

The problem the White House has for the midterms out is the Republican Party is not the entire country. So, what these other senators want him to be doing, and why they're so frustrated with this endorsement, is he's not talking about, you know, the economy. He's got the war in Iran, that's a problem. His numbers aren't very good on a lot of fronts. And he's spending all of his energy, or a lot of his energy, not all of his energy, but a lot of his energy, whacking Republicans who have not been loyal to him, getting them out.

OK. So, he's winning on that. He's successful on that front. I think it's undeniable, as Jasmine said, he's successful. He's making the party more like his image. Does that help in a general election? Does that help in midterms? Does that help the Republican Party long-term? I think that question still remains to be seen.

BASH: And Texas is going to be one of the telltale signs of the answer to that question, once we get to November, assuming that Ken Paxton wins, and we don't know if that's going to happen yet. Because going back to John Cornyn, he didn't vote for conviction in the president's impeachment, he didn't vote for really anything that is antithetical to the president personally, or more importantly, on the president's legislative agenda, or otherwise, he made a comment after 2020 that suggests that he was not happy with things like the insurrection, but that's about it.

BEN TERRIS, WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, NEW YORK MAGAZINE: Yeah. I was on the Hill last week, and, you know, Republican senators, both publicly and privately were pretty disappointed. It seemed like, in how this endorsement went, because as Josh said, just because Donald Trump has a vice grip on the Republican Party doesn't mean he has a vice grip on the entire country. John Cornyn, I think, is well liked within his caucus.

I think he is probably somebody that people believed had an easier time, winning in a general election, and also, if you were to have John Cornyn across the country, Republicans might have an easier time. Ken Paxton is sort of like Donald Trump in that, he's been indicted, he's been impeached. It makes him stronger in some ways, but there are now headwinds against Donald Trump that, you know, you didn't see when Donald Trump is on the ballot himself.

DAWSEY: The Cornyn endorsement, really -- the Paxton endorsement against Cornyn, really set off a backlash in the Senate. So, what happens is Trump endorses Paxton. His members are already very frustrated with a lot of things that are going on. The same time, the president says, we want a billion dollars for the ballroom, so we can do underground security. And we want you guys to be OK with this $1.8 billion weaponization fund that we're going to give out to allies who were investigated or convicted by the Department of Justice.

And so, the senators were closing their nose on a lot of these things and considering what to do, and then Trump endorses against Cornyn, who is one of the most favorite members of the Republican Senate for a lot of these guys, and they lost it. And they went after his attorney general, and they totally lost it, and it showed the president really, for the first time in his second term, real political problems from his own party in the Senate.

BASH: Let's look at the other side of the aisle, and another race that we're watching in Texas, and this is the Democratic primary in Texas 35. And there is a candidate running as a Democrat, Maureen Galindo, who has said many, many things that are frankly racist, antisemitic, and just plain ugly. She is somebody who has been helped by a super PAC called Lead Left, which it seems as though it's being funded by Republicans.

She did an interview last week, I believe it was, talk with NPR, and she was talking about various parts of her agenda and her views, not just on Jews, but also on Hispanics. Let's start there. This is a district that's in the San Antonio area, and it is a majority Hispanic. Listen to this.

[12:10:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAUREEN GALINDO, TEXAS CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATE (voiceover): My ex- husband is Hispanic. My son is Hispanic. I have a lot of love for Hispanic men, especially the ones who are super supportive, but there's also a lot of them who are oppressing their families, all of the women and children in their life.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: OK. Now, let's turn to what she has become known for, which is some pretty vile rhetoric when it comes to Jews. She says not necessarily Jews, but Zionists. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GALINDO (voiceover): I'm not antisemitic. In fact, my last serious relationship was with a Jewish man. Not a big deal to me at all. I am against Zionist Jews. When I said that the Jews who own Hollywood are doing this, do all Jews own Hollywood? Yeah, no, the Zionist Jews do. The Zionists own our media, our banks, and all of our politicians, including San Antonio.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Lady that is part of the key definition of antisemitism, and that is what Democrats are dealing with right now because from the leadership on down, they are trying very hard to make sure she does not win in this runoff, so that she becomes the Democratic nominee.

WRIGHT: I mean, that audio was insane. I think one thing that is fascinating, though, is that Democrats over the last six months -- not six months, six weeks, and particularly the last two weeks, since Trump endorsed Paxton, have become so much more bullish on Texas. In just my conversations with them, particularly when it comes from the Senate on down, but there are, you know, these kind of candidates on the fringe like this that kind of imperil that mission.

You know, we hear that the DCCC and the DSCC, the both the congressional and Senate arms of those Democratic parties are going to kind of spend a lot of money in there and trying to create a new Ted Cruz and O'Rourke, and you could argue that Paxton has vulnerabilities that Ted Cruz obviously didn't have, and that makes their money potentially better played. But there are always these folks on the fringe that bring down the collective effort, I think, for Democrats. And so, you're going to see them probably try to spend a lot of money to get her out, if you haven't already, but you know, if she wins, is that a problem for Democrats, perhaps.

BASH: And as we go to break, I will just say that her Democratic opponent, Johnny Garcia, who has been endorsed by most national Democrats, said the problem -- one of the problems with what she says is it gets people to sit out elections and lose faith in the Democratic Party, which is your point.

OK, coming up. President Trump is at Walter Reed for his third checkup since he was inaugurated last year. Will the public get any more information about the president's health? Plus, the stages being set for an unprecedented White House event. Look at that, President Trump's big UFC match on the South Lawn for and on his 80th birthday.

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[12:15:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BASH: Right now, President Trump is at Walter Reed medical center for his annual physical. It's his third medical exam at the military hospital since he took office last year as the oldest president ever. This visit comes amid renewed questions about the president's health, the bruises on his hands, which he conceals with makeup. They are, according to the president, because of handshaking and taking a huge daily dose of aspirin.

And then there are the times the president has closed his eyes during meetings. He's joked about some of those meetings being quote, boring as hell. White House staff insist the photos of him with his eyes closed are just because he was blinking or listening intently. President Trump says he's one of the healthiest, if not the healthiest men ever to hold the office. And he says, his doctors agree that he's healthier than Barack Obama or George W. Bush when they were president.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Who's the healthiest of the three? He said, President Donald J. Trump by far. If he didn't eat junk food, he'd live to 200 years old. He was my doctor, and he said, I'm the healthiest human being.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Josh Dawsey?

DAWSEY: Do you want me to comment?

BASH: Yeah. No, no. I mean, you can if you want to, if you've got some reporting on whether that's true or false, otherwise --

DAWSEY: We spent a lot of time with the journal earlier this year writing about his health, and Ben wrote a great piece in New York Mag about it as well. I think it's a complicated picture, right? I mean, you see the hands. I mean, clearly his hands are not well. I mean, he takes an aspirin. He told us he takes an aspirin bigger than his doctors want him to take. He has some swelling in his ankles, that is definitely the doctors have looked at that and tried to do for things. They asked him to wear compression socks, he wouldn't wear compression socks.

You know, that said, also, we didn't find any signs that he was slipping physically in a significant way. I mean, he still, you know, keeps a pretty robust schedule mentally. People who work with him closely say he's not, you know, forgetful. They -- we certainly did a lot of reporting to try and figure out what was there behind the scenes. If there was some big story we were missing, and we didn't really find a lot that we were missing, so he had some health issues, certainly, that are kind of consistent, you know, for what people have as they age, but I don't know that there's a -- there was no smoking gun there that we found, at least.

[12:20:00]

BASH: And you referenced this, Ben, you did terrific reporting. You talked to him about his health back in January, and just on the whole blood thinner question. Here's part of what you reported, Ben. I want thin blood, he said. Real thin blood. In 2016, Trump shocked executives from major pharmaceutical companies when he told them he took 325 milligrams of the company's aspirin each day. He told me, I've been doing it for 30 years and I don't want to change.

TERRIS: Yeah. The people for that company said, you probably shouldn't be taking that much. I mean, even they who want their product to be sold were like that's more than recommended.

BASH: Because he thinks it's going to prevent a heart attack.

TERRIS: Yeah, that's right. One thing I can say is true about Donald Trump's health is that his doctors do say that that he's very healthy. I had this surreal interview in the Oval Office with Donald Trump and two of his doctors from Walter Reed. This is in late December, and I did ask the question of the doctors. One of whom said that he saw Barack Obama when Obama was president. I asked, well, who is healthier?

And the doctor did say to me, without skipping a beat, even though I mean the president was staring at him, he had a little bit of pressure on him, but he did say President Trump is healthier. I'm not saying that President Trump is healthier than Barack Obama was when he was president, but it is true that the doctors are saying that. And so, either the doctors are under Donald Trump's thumb or they're seeing something that is pretty miraculous. Let's put it that way.

BASH: Let's look at some of the doctors' notes that we have seen as the president has been in office, just even this year. October 10, 2025, his cardiac age was found to be approximately 14 years younger than his chronological age. Then in July of 25, recent photos of the president have shown minor bruising on the back of his hand. This is consistent with minor soft tissue irritation from frequent hand shaking, as we were discussing the use of aspirin.

And then in April, President Trump remains in excellent health. President Trump's days, including participation in multiple meetings, public appearances, his press availability, and frequent victories on in golf events. That sounds a lot like something a regular doctor would talk about, the victories in a golf event.

TERRIS: It's a strange thing, right? Because the doctors are basically telling you, don't believe your eyes when you look at Donald Trump, and you see the bruising, you see him nodding off, you see the swollen ankles. Don't believe any of that. Believe us when we say he's the healthiest president in the world or believe the staff who says we can't keep up with this guy.

BASH: He does -- I mean, he does have a lot of energy. I mean, we see it. We see him going nonstop all through the night.

WRIGHT: And when you talk to his White House aides, that's the one thing that they say. They say you see it for yourself. You see how many pressibilities (Ph) he does in a week. You see how many events he's doing now. He is traveling domestically less than he did his first term. But they say that you see the proof is what you see every day, which is an engaged president who is not slipping mentally.

But this is something that people talk about. When I talk to folks on C-SPAN or across the country. This is one of the number one things that they bring up, particularly if they don't like the president. They bring up his age. I think the fact is, is that, you know, for better or for worse, or whether or not you agree with it, former President Joe Biden set this precedent where if you're an older president, people are going to be concerned about your health, and President Trump is coming in after him, and also made that a huge part of his campaign against him. And so, you're seeing President Trump now being faced with those similar questions.

I think another thing that we're not really talking about, though, is that it's not just the health that people are concerned about. I think you have people, even in his own party, who are supportive of him, wondering not he's talking about the things that matter to them. And whether or not the conversations feel in touch with the moment right now, and that may be something that comes to a head much sooner than questions about his health.

BASH: OK. We're going to sneak in a quick break. Coming up, the U.S. carries out what it calls self-defense strikes against Iranian missile launch sites. What does that mean for peace talks?

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[12:25:00]

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BASH: Iranian officials are warning that they have the right to retaliate after new U.S. military strikes carried out what the U.S. calls self-defense attacks, targeting missile launchers and boats. These strikes were just hours after Iranian negotiators met in Qatar to work toward a quote, memorandum of understanding.

CNN global affairs analyst Karim Sadjadpour joins us now. Thank you so much for being here. It's good to see you. What do you think this whole situation means, just at this snapshot in time with these strikes, and yet the promises that it doesn't necessarily mean. The ceasefire is done or that these talks are off track.

KARIM SADJADPOUR, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: So, Dana, we have two fierce adversaries who profoundly mistrust one another, but both of them actually want a deal for President Trump. He wants to move on from this war. He needs oil and gas prices to come down ahead of the summer travel season. The Iranian regime is badly hurting. They're losing probably $450 million daily as a result of this blockade. They're already dealing with 70 percent inflation, so they need a deal.

At the same time, it's two countries, two individuals who pride themselves on being masterful negotiators, and they need a strong deal. And so that is the gap here, that both parties want a strong deal and there's -- it's a zero-sum game for them.

BASH: Let's listen to what the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, said earlier today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARCO RUBIO, SECRETARY OF STATE: I think there's strong alignment and agreement on what a preliminary draft should look like, but there's going to be a deal, we're going to have to work through that. But this is, you know, it's either going to be a good