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MAGA Favorite Ken Paxton Crushes John Cornyn in Runoff; Trump Takes Questions From Reporters During Cabinet Meeting; Trump Says He Won't Be Rushed Into an Iran Deal Because of the Midterms. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired May 27, 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]

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: -- add all this up. Texas traditionally is somewhere around 10 or 11 points to the right of the country. If there is a big Democratic wave and it is a double- digit Democratic environment, you could see Talarico getting over the top. Otherwise, the math remains hard to put together.

PATRICK SVITEK, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: Yeah, I think that's a good point. And it was -- it's kind of a double-edged sword for Talarico right now, because he established himself as a formidable candidate in this race much earlier than Beto O'Rourke ever did in 2018. And that's been great for him. He's raised a lot of money, gotten national media attention.

Part of that was because he had a competitive primary against Jasmine Crockett. Beto O'Rourke did not have a competitive primary in 2018. But the flip side of that is that he's now less of a blank canvas to voters in Texas.

I mean, at this point in the 2018 cycle, not a lot of national people were talking about Beto O'Rourke quite yet.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT AND ANCHOR OF 'INSIDE POLITICS': All right, everybody stand by. We're going to stay with the conversation about Texas yesterday. And look at Democrats, who are clearly still working through questions about a generational reset. And also, one Texas runoff result may have sent a powerful signal about that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:35:30]

BASH: The Texas primary runoffs didn't just expose GOP fault lines, they also sent some revealing signals about the Democratic Party. After more than two decades in Congress, 78-year-old Al Green lost his seat to 38-year-old Congressman Christian Menefee. The Texas gerrymander plan last year forced both into the same Houston-area district.

Their four-decade age gap underscores the party's continued push for generational change. Also, former Congressman Colin Allred cleared a path back to Congress, knocking off incumbent Julie Johnson, the very Democrat who replaced him when he gave up his seat to run for the Senate.

And Democrats shut out a candidate who pushed anti-Semitic rhetoric in Texas' 35th district. Maureen Galindo lost to Johnny Garcia after drawing serious rebukes from within her own party.

My panel is back now. Let's talk about this generational situation.

Al Green is somebody who obviously represents the older side of the Democratic Party. He also got a lot of money dumped on him from people who support A.I. and are worried that he does not support the changes that A.I. is bringing in the way that he should as somebody with the top position on a key committee.

LEIGH ANN CALDWELL, CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, PUCK: Yes. So there's obviously a lot of dynamics in all of these races, but there was a clear message last night that voters want someone new to represent them. This is not a new phenomenon. This has been happening for the past several election cycles.

You know, in Texas, these incumbents were forced upon each other because of redistricting. So it did scramble the districts a little bit as well. But, you know -- Ron, I'd love to hear what you say. Is this like a change election?

BROWNSTEIN: Yeah.

CALDWELL: Can this be defined as that already considering the types of people who are being elected?

BROWNSTEIN: Well, I mean, Biden has settled this issue in the Democratic Party. I mean, the demand for generational replacement of the Democratic Party is extremely powerful. You saw it in Maine, where a candidate with as many vulnerabilities as Graham Platner, like blew the governor out of the water. And I think you're going to continue to see this.

BASH: Well, blew the governor out of the water before the waters were even tested, right?

(LAUGH)

(CROSSTALK)

BROWNSTEIN: Right. Before a vote was even cast. And --

BASH: Yeah.

BROWNSTEIN: You know, I think -- I think you're going to continue to see this, I think, very, very strongly on the Democrats. I will note that your point about them being forced into the same district. You know, as I've written, if you -- if you look at what's happening in the redistricting in the South, it is possible that there may be a greater loss of Black congressional representation in this election than any election in American history, even at the height of the dismantling of reconstruction in the late 19th century.

The most Black seats that were lost in one election was four. And even with Colin Allred, we may be on track to exceed that this year. So that is something to sort of keep in mind while we're focusing on the partisan kind of who's up, who's down --

BASH: Yeah.

BROWNSTEIN: -- math. What we are watching is something we really haven't seen since the late 19th century and to some degree, it was not even this rapid and intense even then.

SVITEK: Christian Menefee kind of hinted at that as he tried to keep things positive throughout his runoff. Al Green was attacking him a lot. And he would repeatedly say, you know, I don't want to respond to that.

But this is exactly what Texas Republicans wanted when they pitted two Black --

BASH: Yeah.

SVITEK: -- Democrats against one another. And I think that that was a unifying message and obviously, it was very successful in the runoff.

BASH: Yeah.

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yeah. Listen, you know, I think people want energy and new ideas. And it's hard for these members, particularly CBC members who are older. Some of the CBC members wanted to hang on to their seats, so that they could see a Hakeem Jeffries make history as speaker. They thought they would get that chance in the last election. They didn't get that chance.

It's partly why I think somebody like Jim Clyburn is running as well. But you're right, the dynamics are going to shift so much in terms of the CBC numbers. They're at a peak now and they will likely not see that peak for years to come.

BROWNSTEIN: Super quick. This weekend, Massachusetts Democratic Convention, Seth Moulton running a generational challenge --

BASH: That's right.

BROWNSTEIN: -- against Ed Markey that has not received a lot of attention yet, but he is almost certainly going to make the ballot. And that could be another race where this dynamic could play out.

BASH: Yeah. Well, Joe Kennedy tried it against that exact Democrat and it didn't work. So let's see if it's a different time.

[12:40:00]

BROWNSTEIN: Pre-Biden.

BASH: Exactly. All right. Don't go anywhere. Coming up, the president's cabinet meeting is underway. President Trump says he won't be rushed into a deal with Iran because of the midterms. We're live at the White House after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BASH: Welcome back. You're looking at live pictures of President Trump and members of his cabinet. The meeting there is approaching the one-hour mark, and I want to go straight to the White House.

[12:45:00]

CNN's Kevin Liptak has been monitoring all of the developments. What else are we hearing from the President, specifically, Kevin, about a potential deal with Iran?

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Frankly, not a whole lot. He does seem somewhat reluctant to seem overeager to strike a deal. Remember, it was only four days ago when the president said that this memorandum of understanding was largely negotiated. Now, he seems to be suggesting that it is not at all in the place where he would be able to sign it.

He says he's "not satisfied" with the document as it currently stands, and really tried to make the point that he is in no rush to come to some kind of agreement with Iran. Listen to a little bit of what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Right now, I think it looks like they want to just make a deal. They want to -- I don't think they have a choice. They're just going back to the internet because they're getting clobbered. Their economy is in freefall. They have 250 percent inflation. Their money has no value.

Their whole economic system is broken down. They thought they were going to outwait me. You know, we'll outwait him, he's got the midterms. I don't care about the midterms. Look what happened last night. That was the prelude to the midterms. People understand it. They know that -- very simple. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. I'm doing that for the world. I'm not doing it just for us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIPTAK: So, the president saying that he doesn't care about the midterms, I'm not sure how that will land among the Republican caucus on Capitol Hill, where there is this growing urgency to try and get this conflict concluded as the economic fallout seems to widen. We also heard from the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio.

He, too, very hard to detect where exactly this negotiation stands. He said it could be another few hours, few days. That is a big difference. We heard far more, so far at least, in this cabinet meeting about the president's efforts to renovate all manner of buildings around Washington, quite a lengthy sort of tangent about his efforts on the reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial. He also revealed that he's planning to paint the bottom of the World War II Memorial, which is just nearby, a similar color. Pete Hegseth, who spoke after that, the Defense Secretary, made something of a pained comparison between the president's efforts in Iran and his efforts to paint the reflecting pool, saying that it reflects the president's ability to do unconventional things.

Hopefully, we'll hear a little bit more about Iran when the questions start in this meeting. But so far, very hard to detect where exactly this stands.

BASH: OK. Well, that's an interesting comparison there. It is also noteworthy, and you made this point, Kevin. We've been talking about this throughout the show, that the president talking about the very real wins that he has had among Republicans and conflating that support with what will happen potentially in the general election with a broader electorate that is exhausted and worried about lots of economic issues, not the least of which is what they pay for gas.

Kevin, thank you so much for keeping us up to speed there. Appreciate it.

Up next, could Georgia poll workers get a knock on their door from the Trump Justice Department? We have new reporting about the escalating probe of Fulton County's 2020 election results. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:52:40]

BASH: We're continuing to monitor the president's cabinet meeting. You see the back of the head of the Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, who is now presenting.

We believe that at that point, the president will take questions from reporters who are in the room and have been for about an hour as this cabinet meeting has been open.

TRUMP: Any questions?

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: There we go, let's listen.

IRIS TAO, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, NTD: Thank you, Mr. President. Iris Tao with NTD Social Media with the Epoch Times.

You've done a lot to clean up D.C. and fight crimes here. And as a lot of Americans and people from all around the world are coming to the nation's capital ahead of the major 250th birthday events here, how important is it for you to really keep delivering on these results? But also what does it mean for America's identity on the national and international stage?

TRUMP: So I'm very proud of D.C. because when we came here a little more than a year ago, it was a very dangerous place. And now, it's a very safe place. It's been incredible what's happened. As you see the crime numbers, we had restaurants closing up and nobody wanted to go to a restaurant. They were afraid to walk to work.

It was a very dangerous place, very unsafe. And now, it's a very safe place. We brought in the National Guard. We worked with Kash and the FBI. And Jeanine is doing fantastically, and Todd, everybody. And it's now a very safe city, and people are pouring in.

And you see the grass is all beautiful. We put a lot of new grass in because, you know, like people, grass has a life too. There's grass. It was up a long time. But the waterfalls we talked about and the fountains, most of them are in the final stages or fixed. People are writing me letters. People are talking about it. They are all -- we have some of the most beautiful fountains in the world. There wasn't one, not one that worked.

We had 29. Out of the 29, not one was working, in addition to the reflecting pool, which is even -- you know, that was the big one of them all, but that was a disaster. So, with all of that, and we -- this place is looking beautiful.

I rode through it yesterday. The fences are down. The homeless aren't staying here any longer. We're helping them out, but we're not -- you know, we just can't have them in the nation's capital.

[12:55:00]

And when foreign dignitaries come in, they're saying -- the first thing they say to me, this place has really changed. They saw that it was going down -- the whole country was going down, just like D.C. was going down. And as you know, the restaurants were closing up. There weren't very many restaurants and now they're opening up. You can't get a space.

And everyone's going out to dinner and they're safe. And we have the national security and we have the National Guard and we're going to keep them. You know, I want to -- by the way, just in case I mentioned, keep them --

(LAUGH)

TRUMP: And don't lower the number either. So somebody said, oh, are there less? I said, I hope not, but don't lower the number if you don't mind. OK?

PETE HEGSETH, UNITED STATES DEFENSE SECRETARY: We're going to surge this summer too. Yeah.

TRUMP: They look great. You know what they give people? We have -- we took out 5,000 criminals, hardcore criminals. By the way, 90 percent of the crime is calculated. They count 2 percent of the people do 90 percent of the crime. That's a great number because when you get rid of 2 percent, 2 percent you can get rid of, 90 percent you can't get rid of, 2 percent.

So 2 percent create 90 percent of the crime, 91 percent action to be exact. And we have really -- we moved 5,000 people, Todd, out of here. We -- these are career criminals. Many of them came over from the last administration through the open border, the ridiculous open border. No vetting, nobody knew who they were.

They came out of prisons. They came out of -- they are drug dealers. There were people from mental institutions and Washington, D.C. is now a safe and beautiful place. And it's only going to get more beautiful.

Yeah, please.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: President, thank you so much for having us in here today. What are your thoughts? Why do you think that Joe Biden is trying to sue the Department of Justice, former President Joe Biden, to have his tapes that he did interviews blocked from the American people hearing them. Do you think that he's trying to hide something and maybe Acting Attorney General, Todd Blanche could comment on, if they will counter sue and release those tapes to the American public?

TRUMP: Are you talking about, with respect to his book?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (Inaudible).

TRUMP: I have to see it. I don't know. Maybe there's some constitutional reason. I don't know. I'd like to -- I would like to see what he has to say because we can never allow what happened to this country to happen. The man was grossly incompetent and the Democrats, I call them the Dumbocrats because the policy is so bad that they came very close to destroying our country.

We can never let it happen again. And I hope that you're able to produce that. I think it would be a very interesting reading for people.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Iran wants control of the Strait of Hormuz. Would you accept a short-term deal that allows Iran and Oman to control the Strait? And would they have to open it immediately? Or would you be open to that happening over a period of time?

TRUMP: No, the Strait is going to be open to everybody. It's an --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And who will control it?

TRUMP: It is international waters. Nobody's going to control it. We're going to watch over it. We'll watch over it, but nobody's going to control it. That's part of the negotiation that we have. They would like to control it. Nobody's going to control it. It's international waters and Oman will behave just like everybody else. So we'll have to blow them up. They understand that, they'll be fine.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. President, thank you. How much economic pressure do you feel to get the Strait of Hormuz open? TRUMP: Well, I have to say, the United States has so much oil that we are an exporter of oil. So we have plenty of oil. We're very lucky. We're blessed with the greatest piece of land in the world from that standpoint. And we have more than anybody else.

And now, when you add Venezuela to it, we have, I think, 64 percent of the world's oil. And we're getting along very well with Venezuela, by the way. It's being run really beautifully. The big companies are moving in. It's going to be amazing because it's also, like us, they're very blessed in that sense.

But we have natural energy that no other country has. We have more than anybody else. So it's really a world problem because most of the world doesn't have that. And we're making it available. During the closing, I don't know if you've seen some of the satellite pictures, boats, hundreds of boats lined up.

It looks like, I used to say, the Long Island Expressway.

(LAUGH)

TRUMP: They're lined up and they're coming to Texas, Louisiana. They're coming to Alaska to fill up their boat, their big boat. Some of them are really big, you know, two billion gallons, even bigger than that. Now they make them. They make them up to four, Chris, I hear.

Now they make them up to four. The four are now the big ones. Used to be the ones. Now it's four million barrels of, think of that, four million barrels of oil in one boat. But they're lined up and they're right now heading to Texas. And they've already filled up and they've gone back.

In addition to that, you have a lot of boats, you have about 1,400 to 1,500 boats in the Strait wanting to get out. And at the right time, we'll release them.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But the American people, sir, are seeing higher gas prices. It's come down a little bit, but it's still $4.45.

TRUMP: Well, it'll come down a lot. It'll come down to where it was before. We had it -- when I was in Iowa, we were driving by and we saw gas stations, $1.90 a gallon, $1.85, $1.87 were the three that we saw. We had it down in some places below. Now we can't help in California where they charge so much tax that, you know, you lower it and they charge tax --