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Inside Politics

Ranking The Nine Senate Seats Most Likely To Flip; CNN Analysis: North Carolina Senate Seat Most Likely To Flip; Poll: Iowa Dem Holds Slight Lead In Critical Senate Race; Poll: Ossoff Maintains Massive Lead In Georgia Senate; AOC Endorses Abdul El-Sayed In Michigan Senate Primary; Trump's Mar-A-Lago Revenue Surged To Record $78M In 2025; Trump Family Makes Billions Off Crypto Despite Coins Losing Value. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired July 02, 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]

BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm not quite clear on the direction, but a lot of security taking place around this area, in coordination with MSG security, the NYPD police officers, their counterterrorism teams, K-9 units, the full gamut for these A-listers. Guys, it's going to be quite a party here, ahead of the July 4th celebration.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR, THE SITUATION ROOM: Yeah, quite a party. And as you said earlier, you're still waiting.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN CO-ANCHOR, THE SITUATION ROOM: I haven't gotten my invitation yet. All right. We'll see what happens. Brynn, thank you very much. Enjoy the 4th of July. 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 day.

DANA BASH, CNN HOST, INSIDE POLITICS: The race for Senate control is hitting a decisive stretch. I'm Dana Bash. Let's go behind the headlines at Inside Politics.

There are just four months until election day, and in today's politics, that's short enough that every day is crucial for candidates on the trail, but long enough that almost anything can happen. Today, a brand-new CNN analysis ranks the nine senate races most likely to flip and decide control of the upper chamber. Six are Republican held, three belong to Democrats. Win a few, the majority is yours, of course. This is a map that will evolve over the next 124 days.

I'm joined now by a terrific group of reporters, including Arlette Saenz. Arlette, you wrote the analysis piece for cnn.com on this, so I'm going to put up on the screen the nine seats, the nine races that we're looking at the closest and you can see there, and here are the rankings. You start with number one, North Carolina, which is now a GOP-held seat that that is most likely to be a Democratic pickup. Maine, we're going to talk about this in a second, as number two, and then you go through to Michigan, Ohio, Alaska, all the way out here, Iowa, Georgia, and then Texas is last. Oh, I forgot about New Hampshire. There you go.

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, these are the nine states where the battle for control of the Senate will play out, and for the first time, we are ranking them in order of most likely of flips. This is really based on our conversations with various strategists who are involved in the races, polling, and a host of other factors, but North Carolina does top that list right now for Democrats. It's under Republican control.

This is a state where a senator has not -- a Democratic senator has not been elected since 2008, Then moving on with the list, we go up to Maine, then move over, which is also under Republican control. Move over --

BASH: This is obviously the Susan Collins and Graham Platner race.

SAENZ: Yeah, Susan Collins and Graham Platner. Then we move over to Michigan, where there is still a very unsettled Democratic primary playing out there. If Democrats have any chance of winning back control of the Senate, they need to hold on to Michigan because they would still need to flip four Republican held seats.

Then you go into a host of red territory, all of those states, Ohio, Alaska, Iowa, currently held by Republicans. Then further rounding out the list is Georgia, where a presidential battleground state, where you do have a very strong Democratic candidate in Jon Ossoff, and then you have New Hampshire and Texas. I know we'll get a little bit more into these races, but this is just a snapshot in time. It certainly will adjust over the coming months, but these are the nine states where the battle for the --

BASH: Let's just -- let's zero in on what you call number one, which is North Carolina, and this is just the latest Fox News poll. One of the reasons why Democrats are so bullish, and analysts as well, is because of -- excuse me, this is a New York Times poll of Roy Cooper, who is a popular governor and running to be the state's senator, and he's fair. I mean, this is obviously -- this got a almost a five- percentage margin of error, but still, given the fact that this, as you said, it hasn't been a Democratic held seat in years. He's got a pretty comfortable margin right now.

SEUNG MIN KIM, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, AP: Right. I was about to say, I've been talking to Republican sources this week as well, and they're looking at North Carolina as their most endangered seat in terms of those to split, and which is interesting, because you, we -- there's been a lot of ink about, you know, what's going on in Maine, obviously bloody primaries elsewhere in the state -- in both parties.

But North Carolina, first of all, it hasn't actually gotten a lot of attention for how important it is, because first of all, the candidates are both sort of boring and kind of low profile. But you're right, Chuck Schumer got an excellent candidate in Roy Cooper, the former governor. And I've heard some concerns about Republicans just about the quality of Mike Whatley, the Republican candidate who is very allied with Trump. He's seen as President Trump's pick, former chair of the RNC.

I've heard from concerns from Republicans in the state that you -- he, you know, while the Trump, you know, association helps, he needs an identity that goes beyond Trump, particularly if you want to tell voters to vote for me for senator to be in there for six years beyond when Trump is out of office.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. And I mean, also anyone who's seen Michael Whatley speak or do an event knows that he's just not a dynamic candidate. He's not out there wooing the crowd. I mean, there is a reason that Trump waited to weigh in on this primary or on this candidate because he was waiting to see if Lara Trump was going to run. He was looking at other candidates. He likes Michael Whatley. The White House likes Michael Whatley, but he doesn't necessarily energize the crowds and that's going to be part of the issue as well.

[12:05:00]

BASH: But let's look at a couple -- well, let's look at one red state, which is actually one of the most interesting and that is Iowa. This is retiring Senator Joni Ernst open seat, so it is a GOP held seat. And we just saw primaries to decide who is going to -- who's going to be the nominees. Ashley Hinson is the Republican nominee, who is -- somebody who is Democrats and Republicans. Look at her and think that she is a very talented candidate, probably one of those who can potentially beat the odds against Donald Trump everywhere and including that state.

But right now, again, this is a Fox poll that just came out. Josh Turek, who is the Democrat is leading her. As we said at the beginning, 124 days is like eternity and eternity in politics, but still the snapshot is interesting.

ZOLAN KANNO-YOUNGS, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES & CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: This is interesting, and I think you hit the key point when you said that she has a chance to beat the odds when it comes to Donald Trump too, right? I mean, Ashley Hinson is somebody that has aligned herself with Donald Trump. She does a large part of her support comes from MAGA voters as well.

But this race has a theme that's emblematic more broadly when it comes to the Senate map right now, and that's, does the frustration, and in time support, frustration with Donald Trump seep down to impact these races. Does the frustration disapproval with the economy right now seep down and impact these races? This is a great example of that, particularly when you have a candidate that has really aligned herself with Donald Trump as she goes against somebody who has proven to be popular in Josh Turek.

BASH: Let's go back to Georgia, and that is on your ranking you have it as number seven as the potential to flip. It is a Democratic held seat, two of them actually in Georgia right now, but this particular race is, of course, Jon Ossoff, trying to keep it and prevent it from going from D to R. And look at this. I mean, this is a senator who got in, you know, barely by -- through the skin -- by the skin of his teeth in runoffs in a very dramatic way in 2020. And so far, it's not even close in the polling. I mean, Jon Ossoff is doing much better than Mike Collins. Now, there was just somewhat recently a primary where Mike Collins had to fight fellow Republicans to get this, but still.

SAENZ: Yeah. I mean, this has the potential to narrow, but 13 points is a pretty wide margin. And Senator Jon Ossoff has really -- Democrats have felt have been -- has been a very strong candidate. He's an incredibly strong fundraiser. He has this way of making these speeches that they can clip moments that then go viral. Of course, there's a lot of buzz about him, about whether, if he survives the Senate race, could he have his eye on the White House in 2028.

But Republicans for several months, even before the primary had been settled, had been expressing some anxiety around the Georgia Senate race. They had really hoped that the state's Governor Brian Kemp would get into this race. He's very popular, he did not decide to run, and then he backed to Canada, who he could not get over the finish line.

And so, there's a lot of different dynamics that play here in Georgia, but it's one of those states, it's a consequential battleground for president every single year, and right now Jon Ossoff does appear to be in a good position as he --

HOLMES: Well, and there's also a lot of Republicans who are concerned that Collins hasn't been vetted properly, and that there might be some skeletons there that might be --

BASH: Mike Collins.

HOLMES: Yes, Mike Collins, that there might be something there because they are concerned that he's not really had a big public race, and they want to make sure that they have the strongest candidate. He's very new to the scene. And, you know, if we look at the way President Trump handled this, he didn't endorse until he knew that Mike Collins was going to win, looking at both of these candidates. So, you know, Republicans still are a little skittish. Was he the best? Was he the strongest candidate to put out there? And we'll find out.

BASH: Let's go back to your rankings and let's look at number three on the list. This is Michigan, it's a Democratic held seat. Again, it's open because Senator Gary Peters is retiring. And this is one of those, as you said, that is very, very competitive on the Democratic side. The primary is not going to happen until later this summer. We did have some news this morning, which is that Alexandria Ocasio- Cortez formally endorsed one of the Democratic candidates, Abdul El- Sayed, in this critical Michigan Senate race.

[12:10:00]

And so, you know, one of the questions is whether or not he will win and how that will sort of play out, considering that he is further to the left and the other -- than the other Democrats running. And how that will play in a purple state when he's going to be running against former Republican Congressman Mike Rogers?

KANNO-YOUNGS: Yeah, there's a couple here, right? I mean, it does expose sort of the factions in the Democratic Party. It does raise a challenge of the person who might be popular when it comes to a primary. How do you then take some of those views and translated to a general, and we know it can be -- there can be a bridge there, right? It can be a gap, it can be different.

The AOC endorsements also interesting, just from when you look at her in isolation because she's actually been hesitant to really get out there and endorse some of even the progressive candidates that we've seen, even though we're coming off a week where we've seen a lot of wins coming from the progressive flank. You do wonder if sort of that momentum after New York, as well as Colorado, provided an incentive to sort of get in there and actually come with this endorsement. It's interesting, though, because I'll say it is not Chuck Schumer's endorsement, right? So, which of those carries more weight as well as we move forward in this primary --

BASH: Well, I think we -- well, we've seen answer to that, and a lot of these, but it's an -- it's not -- it's not consistently against him but there have been more surprises for him than he would have liked. Let's just look at the current balance of power, so we have proper context of what needs to happen in order for Democrats to flip. It's a -- it's a hill, it's a pretty steep hill, Arlette?

SAENZ: Yeah, it is. Democrats with the current makeup, they would need to hold on to all of their seats and flip four if they were to regain control of the Senate. But so much of this battle is going to play out in these states that have been red and trending even more red in recent years. The question is whether those dynamics might be changing with this election, especially as there is frustration with President Trump and the economy.

You know, Republicans have been long hoping that there would be some type of resolution to the conflict with Iran, that that could potentially ease some of the economic concerns. But right now, given all the volatility we've seen, there's really no guarantee that that's going to happen before --

BASH: Thanks for bringing us. This is a great analysis and reporting. Appreciate it. Don't go anywhere. Up next, the White House is apparently good for business. We have new CNN reporting on the record revenue pouring into President Trump's Florida resorts since his return to office. Plus, at such a divided time in the U.S., Team U.S.A. is turning millions of Americans from coast to coast into one large cheering section.

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[12:15:00]

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BASH: President Trump has made billions in online cryptocurrency ventures, but his longtime real estate holdings are still major sources of profit, especially since returning to the White House. New CNN reporting dives into the explosion of profits at Mar-a-Lago and Trump Doral, two Florida resorts that double as his homes and hubs for the MAGA elite.

Kevin Liptak is one of the reporters on this story and joins the panel. Kevin, this is such an interesting kind of subplot of the larger story that we've been reporting on, which is the remarkable amount of money that the president has made, even for him in the second term. Why has he been able to profit so much at these resorts?

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yeah. And it's so interesting because the insane crypto profits, I think, obscured the fact that his more traditional ventures, the real estate, the resorts are also doing very, very well, particularly since he came back into office. So, just taking Mar-a-Lago and Doral as two examples, and the truth -- in his first term, Mar-a-Lago is bringing around $20 million a year. Last year, it brought in $77.5 million, that's a multifold increase. And the same is true of Doral. In the first term, it was bringing in around $75 million. Last year it brought in $122 million. And so, you see this explosion in revenue from these resorts.

And what we found is there are a couple of reasons. One is the membership fees have skyrocketed at Mar-a-Lago. It used to cost $100,000 a year -- or $100,000 as the initiation fee, now it's a million dollars. That crossed the million-dollar mark just before he was reelected in 2024, and of course it costs, you know, tens of thousands of dollars each year to stay a member.

And the interest in the membership has spiked because you're getting this access to President Trump, you know, he's at the club almost every weekend in the winter, he's having dinner on the patio. You can't necessarily walk up to him and talk to him, but he's around. And if he wants to have a conversation with you, he will.

The other source of revenue is from the political committees. You know, dozens of political candidates have held fundraisers at Mar-a- Lago, so has the RNC, so has the Trump super PAC, in all the RNC spent a million dollars at Mar-a-Lago and Doral over the last year, so it's an extraordinary explosion environment.

BASH: And there are no ethics slash laws that prevent the president of the United States from hosting political.

LIPTAK: There are no laws, I would argue there are some ethics, particularly when, you know, the other area where the money is coming from --

BASH: It's been horrible.

LIPTAK: --from the taxpayers, you know, every time that Trump goes down there, and he's been at these resorts dozens of times, the secret service, the military, and the staff are all paying to stay there and that money comes from the government.

[12:20:00] HOLMES: Well, I would argue that this year Doral is going to probably go up as well, because they're holding the G20 at Doral, and that's going to be a multi-day event with different countries. They're going to have people staying at the hotel, and all of those events will be held there.

KIM: Right. You know, what I've just found so fascinating, too, is, you know, this might not be directly related to why those resorts and his properties have been able to profit so much, but the relative lack of pushback that you're seeing about how he's using these properties to enrich himself, his family has been such a stark contrast, even from Trump one.

Because I recalled, you all recall that when the president tried to hold the G7 back in his first term, there was an outcry even from House Republicans who thought that was very unseemly to have this global summit at his own personal properties, but when the president announced in this term that he was going to hold the G20 at the Doral, there was none of that.

BASH: We were just putting up on the screen some of the other earnings. This is going back to the president's broader financial disclosure; cryptocurrency, 1.1 billion, then the resort-related revenue that you were talking about, watches, Bible, sneakers, I mean, in the millions, hundreds of thousands, and you know, beyond.

Let's talk a little bit about the meme coin and the meme coin value. So, this is the Trump meme coin, just to be specific. And a crypto analytics firm estimates that 58 investors into the Trump coin made profits above 10 million. At the same time, 764,000 wallets lost money per the New York Times.

HOLMES: I mean, yeah, it was down 98 percent is what we looked at yesterday, and of course, at the same time, you have President Trump saying that he did so well because the markets were up, but one of the things that he made this vast fortune on in the market has obviously completely tanked in that case.

But I do think, going back to your larger question, I want you to be able to share your reporting because you actually interviewed President Trump about this, but like that is the sentiment across the whole White House and with House Republicans. It's just that President Trump said this to you, which is --

KANNO-YOUNGS: Yeah, yeah. Earlier this year, in January, we asked the president, look, you at least said in the first term that you were going to restrain from having your family conduct business abroad, that's not the case this time around. Why? And he essentially said I didn't get credit the first time around. Nobody cared. And I'm allowed to, right? To your point, he is aware of the lack of pushback, right, when it comes to these actions.

BASH: I think he keeps pushing.

KANNO-YOUNGS: So, he keeps pushing, and it's -- that's by the way emblematic of -- so, you made a point earlier of there's no civil and criminal law -- the president is exempt from the civil and criminal laws when it comes to conflict of interest, but we're -- there's still norms even if there's not laws.

BASH: And there is -- and there's something else and that is the just going back to the Trump coin, yes, you said, it has lost like 98 percent of the value, but every single time there is a an interaction or a sale, he gets a profit, or his -- the Trump coin gets a profit from it, even if the value is going down. These are just some examples that Reuters found in discussions with -- these are two investors into the Trump coin, and these are Trump supporters.

If Trump was putting his name behind it, it must be a legitimate investment. This is a woman who spoke to Reuters. She put $2,000 of her savings into the Trump meme. At the end of May, her Trump holding was worth less than $120. She now thinks it was just a pump and dump scheme.

The second investor, Matt, a 45-year-old machinist in Indiana, put $40,000 into Trump family tokens. When a stock has presidential backing, in a way, at least from his sons, you would think it would go up. Matt's shares have dropped 79 percent in value since he bought them for a loss of about $32,700. He does not blame the Trump family, he said, he believes Democrats and anti-Trump investors are taking short positions.

LIPTAK: And it's interesting because the position that these people find themselves in is actually something that President Trump himself worried about before he became a crypto billionaire. You know, he was pretty skeptical of crypto right up until he came into office, when he was convinced by people, including his sons, that this was a venture worth exploring, and suddenly he rolled back regulations that you saw in the Biden era.

Suddenly, he was hosting crypto billionaires at his resort in Sterling, Virginia, and he had a sort of complete 180 in his own view of this as potentially a casino where the house always wins. And clearly his fears are being realized by his own customers, but -- because he's making, you know, $1.4 billion from this, I don't know that we're necessarily going to see him reverse course.

[12:25:00]

KANNO-YOUNGS: The crypto piece of this is so important, it's just worth like, emphasizing again. He is a crypto operator now, when it comes to business, and he is the top crypto policy maker. As his family has embraced this industry, he has also under the Trump administration, eased regulation of this very young industry. One of the primary regulars has seen its workforce shrink at this point and it's really important to square those two things.

BASH: And, you know, we keep highlighting it. Republicans in Congress, there's very little real pushback, and that is definitely one of the key things that the Trump White House is and probably should be worried about if Democrats take back at least the House. All right, illuminated monuments, more than 10,000 fireworks, and a very long Trump speech. The president promises the, quote, most unforgettable birthday party any country has ever seen, but will the crowd show up.

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