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Trump Offers $5000 To Every U.S. Adult If GOP Wins House & Senate; Trump: "I'm Asking You To Pretend I'm On The Ballot"; Fetterman Promises To Stay A Democrat After GOP Convention Cameo; Vulnerable GOP Senate Candidates Appear At GOP Convention; New GOP Ad Accuses El-Sayed Of 9/11 Terrorist Sympathy. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired September 10, 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: Yeah, very cool. I'm so glad that you made that point. Christine, great to have you on.

CHRISTINE BRENNAN, CNN SPORTS ANALYST: Thank you.

BROWN: We could just keep talking. There's so much news in sports these days. Appreciate it. And thank you all for joining us this morning. You can keep up with us on social media @wolfblitzer and @pamelabrowncnn. We'll see you back here tomorrow morning. Inside Politics with our friend and colleague Manu Raju starts right now.

MANU RAJU, CNN ANCHOR, INSIDE POLITICS: President Trump is dominating the GOP midterm convention and promising to make November's ballot all about him too.

I'm Manu Raju, in for Dana Bash. Let's go behind the headlines at Inside Politics.

Just 54 days until the election, and we are tracking the races, candidates, and stories that could shift the balance of power here in Washington and across the country. So, here's what's on our midterm radar. We begin with breaking news. The Supreme Court may have just saved a Democratic House seat.

After days of electoral chaos, the justices firmly rejected GOP efforts in Missouri to bring back a Republican-friendly congressional map that the state courts had blocked. So that means Democratic Congressman Emanuel Cleaver's district will still exist after a Trump- backed gerrymander attempted to dismantle it. It's just one seat, but in a tiny majority, every seat is going to count.

Next, you get five grand, and you get five grand. President Trump channeled his inner Oprah at the GOP's midterm convention last night by offering voters quite the party favor if things go his way in November.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Here is my promise. If the Republicans win the House of Representatives and the United States Senate, both of them, because of our economic -- tremendous economic success. I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: So, if you're trying to do the math, that's more than $1.3 trillion the president ever mentioned how he'd pay for it. And while Republicans rally in Dallas, Democrats are looking for other ways to break through. For House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, that involves spending five figures on a new digital ad using the GOP convention as a line of attack. It's aimed at NFL and sports fans, and opens with President Trump declaring, we're in a quote golden age before the man, the hoping to be speaker, flips the script.

(PLAYING VIDEO)

RAJU: And now to Rhode Island, where one of the last primaries of the 2026 cycle wrapped up, with voters ousting yet another Democratic incumbent. Former CVS executive Helena Foulkes defeated Governor Dan McKee, making him the first sitting governor to lose a primary in eight years. Now both ran as mainstream Democrats, but it was McKee who had to defend years of traffic chaos after the partial closure of a Providence bridge.

And from the Ocean State to Tinsel Town tonight, two of the Democrats' most hyped Senate candidates are hoping to turn buzz into bucks. The New York Times reports Texas nominee team Talarico and Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff are teaming up for a star-studded L.A. fundraiser hosted by Shonda Rhimes and Las creator Damon Lindelof. The price of admission up to $27,000, and the Times reports said, well, the cheap seats are already gone.

All right. I'm joined now by a terrific group of reporters who have been all over every single midterm dynamic, especially last night's speech. All one hour and 45 minutes of the president speaking in the primetime address, trying to set the stage, make his arguments, and also making this very point that I think Democrats are happy to hear about and some Republicans, but maybe not all Republicans are happy to hear that. He says that voters should vote like he's on the ballot.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: So, I'm asking you to pretend that I'm on the ballot. I'm on the ballot. I'm on the ballot. Just one more time, because if we lose, you're going to lose your border, you're going to lose your tax cuts, you're going to lose your safety and security, you're going to lose your wealth. A vote for any Democrat this year, anywhere in the country, is a vote to let a small and dangerous group of extremists hold our Congress and our country hostage.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[12:05:00]

RAJU: So, this is, you know, he's escalating that comment about voting that he's like, he's on the ballot. He did that in South Carolina. That was a Republican primary. Now this is his midterm general election argument that he himself Donald Trump is on the ballot. Isaac, what do you make of that?

EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Listen, history shows us that when people think about the midterms as a referendum on the incumbent president. It usually doesn't go well for that incumbent president's party. Donald Trump is not surprisingly wants to make this show all about him. This convention is all about him. It's why he's got all his cabinets there -- cabinet secretaries there. It's why he's got a speech again tonight after the one last night.

If he wants to keep going this way, then Democrats are going to be happy about it, as he say. I think the question then becomes, is he going to campaign actually for anybody? Is anybody -- which of these candidates? There are a bunch who showed up in Dallas for the convention. Are any of them going to show up on the trail with him? Do they want him there? And also, how much of all of this money that he's amassed for his super PACs and other accounts. Is he going to actually be putting into the campaigns for some of the Republicans that he's backing?

RAJU: Yeah. And just to speak of that, there actually was news about the amount of money that he is spending from his political organization. Remember, they've been -- there's more than $400 million sitting in that campaign account, and Republicans have been begging him to begin spending in these very costly Senate races and House races too, and you can see that were just announced money from across the board.

You know, some of the critical swing states, of course, you see Michigan getting the most amount of money. Ohio, they have to hold Ohio. They are trying to flip Michigan, New Hampshire, a new increasing target for Republicans trying to take back that seat in New Hampshire. The rest of those are seats that they are hoping to defend other than in Georgia that they want to try to flip. Less money going there.

Leigh Ann, what do you make of that? Those early decisions that they're spending that includes the $10 million. That does not include the $10 million announced last week for Ken Paxton.

LEIGH ANN CALDWELL, CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, PUCK: Yeah. Well, as far as the spending overall is concerned. This is something that Republicans have been wanting for a long time, and Republicans were increasingly skeptical that this was going to happen. You mentioned $400 million in MAGA Inc., that doesn't include his dark money group, which we don't know how much money is in it, but Republicans tell me they think more than MAGA Inc.

So, he could have close to a billion dollars that he could potentially spend on Republicans in this midterm. We'll see if he does it. It's a little late in the game in order to do that. But the $50 million dollars so far is very welcome. The amount that they gave was actually quite interesting. The fact that Georgia and North Carolina were given such a low amount, especially against two Democratic candidates who have a tremendous war chest, that is not going to be enough to help them, and it is a big sign that they are probably very down on those two states.

RAJU: Yeah. But one thing to watch out, though, that some of those are for a certain duration of time. I believe that North Carolina money may have been about a week or so of ad time. We'll see if they add to it. If they don't add to it, it shows you how --

DOVERE: And Maine not on that list.

RAJU: Maine not on that list. Well, there's a lot of other money less going to into that place -- money from Maine. But just on the convention itself, Tolu, because the president gave this very long speech, right, we don't see midterm conventions. This is a presidential election. That's when you have conventions. That's when, you know, the networks take it. It's blanketed across the airwaves. It's a big event. And the question is, who is he gearing his message towards?

The president posted on Truth Social this morning. It was a -- it was a major sold out hit, far bigger, better, more important than anyone thought possible. He goes on to say, the overall numbers beat the NFL, the arena, which was nice, beat its own attendance records. The place was packed. I'm not sure we have the numbers even yet to know that they beat the NFL. I'm a little skeptical on opening night of the NFL that people are more tuned into his hour and 45 minutes speech. But who is he gearing this towards? General election voters, or is he just trying to get the Republican base out?

TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA, STAFF WRITER, THE ATLANTIC: Well, in part, there's an audience of one. People in Washington talk about the audience of one. President Trump also has an audience of one, and he often sort of talks about his own -- talks to his own ego and sort of tries to build himself up and say, oh, I'm the best. I have the most highest ratings. Most people coming out to see me, and the poll numbers that say that I'm unpopular are all fake news.

And so, he's sort of trying to talk his own book a little bit there, but he's also trying to get the MAGA faithful to show up in this upcoming election. We already know Democrats are fired up. Republican candidates know Democrats are fired up. They're going to turn out, and they are saying that they might as well get Trump to fire up his base because if they don't turn out, they don't stand a chance on the Republican side. So, he's trying to get his voters to show up and pretend that he's on the ballot because they do show up when he's on the ballot. They tend to turn out -- not turn up when he's not on the ballot.

[12:10:00]

RAJU: I want to talk about this other promise that he made, this $5,000 check that he wants to give Americans. You know, he didn't really mention is, how much it will cost. I mean, this is -- the estimated cost is $1.3 trillion, at least 1.8 -- and remember the deficit, that's the annual amount of money the United States government owes. That's $1.8 trillion. The cumulative amount of money the United States owes. The national debt is $40 trillion. We didn't really hear anything about that last night, but this is, you know, the president's been making these promises over and over again about, you're going to get a rebate check for this and that and the other, and we have a bit of a mashup of his promises over the months.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: There's even under consideration a new concept where we give 20 percent of the DOGE savings to American citizens. We're thinking about a rebate because we have so much money coming in from tariffs. We're going to issue a dividend to our middle-income people and lower-income people of about $2,000.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Will it be in time for Christmas about the shopping?

TRUMP: No, no, not for this year. It'll be next year sometime.

We have so much money coming in from tariffs that we'll be able to issue at least a $2,000 dividend and also pay down debt.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Yeah, that really didn't play out, Leigh Ann.

CALDWELL: Yeah, the funniest part of that entire thing was his lead up talking about the way that -- the reason they can do that is because the economy is so amazing and the fiscal situation is so great in the United States that he's able to pay Americans if Republicans win. Look, this is not going to happen. This --

RAJU: This meaning passing that, yes --

CALDWELL: Yes, the passing the $5,000. Congress is not going to do that. You're going to have fiscal conservatives who only complain really about the debt when a Democrat is in office might actually say something now. It's extremely expensive, and also when Republicans are trying to slam Democrats as socialists, this is probably not the best message, considering that it might just be a socialist policy.

RAJU: But it's also look, they are in control of Congress right now. They could do it now if they wanted, but I guess you'll love the Trump's promise if they win, then they'll --

DOVERE: Trump the universal basic income, I guess.

RAJU: All right, coming up. It was a convention for Republicans with President Trump at the center of it all. So why did a Senate Democrat make an appearance? And President Trump has used nearly every agency at his disposal to push his election fraud crusade. We'll bring you new reporting on how the Commerce Department is the president's latest tool.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:15:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

RAJU: President Trump's midterm convention was a hoo-hoo of Republican politics and one notable Democrat who condemned socialism and praised a GOP colleague.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN FETTERMAN (D-PA): I'm Senator John Fetterman, Pennsylvania. Yes, I'm a Democrat. Dave McCormick is the kind of senator that gets the job done and he's going to fight for Pennsylvania. I'm proud to count him as my friend. Right back over my shoulder, that's the iconic U.S. steel mill, and that's exactly the kind of thing that will work together and will work with President Trump to fight and defend the steel way of life.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: That appearance marks a new and major breach between him and his Democratic caucus, but he quickly swatted down speculation that he's on the verge of switching parties, saying, quote, I am a lifelong Democrat who votes overwhelmingly with my party, and should the Senate flip in November, I will still be the 51st vote that I ran on.

My panel is back. I mean, Leigh Ann, I mean, I found that to be the -- actually the most interesting part of all this is that he -- he's gone further in saying that he's not going to switch parties. The immediate thing that I thought when he and when this news broke was that he's on the verge of flipping and I had been skeptical about that. And then he brought out that statement, but is he going to change his mind again?

CALDWELL: I am 100 percent with you. I was -- I was in the camp of he's not going to switch parties. When I talked to says, he's not going to. And actually, that video last night, I didn't think that was a big breach, really, it was more of a, you know, here's my friend Dave McCormick. He wasn't really endorsing Republicans, but it has also brought up a lot of speculation.

Adam Jentleson, his former chief of staff was on, you guys' airwaves this morning, saying he just likes attention, which is very true. We are in the hallways with him all the time. And the 51st vote was what was really interesting to me too, because if there is a 50-50 Senate and he has the opportunity to decide the Senate majority, then he might actually do that. We will see. So, I am a little more skeptical than I was before about the switching part. I'm more apt to believe that he could switch parties than I was before. I do know --

RAJU: Yeah. If he does switch to Republican, he's not going to get as much attention.

CALDWELL: Can I just say one more thing, real quick?

RAJU: Yeah.

CALDWELL: He did have dinner with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer right before recess, and so that is a sign that the Democrats are aware of the situation and they are trying to keep him very, very close.

RAJU: Yeah. And if he joined the Republican conference, he wouldn't get as much attention as he was. You'd be another Republican attacking a Democrat. So --

DOVERE: Yeah.

RAJU: And I wait on that, and also, it reminded me also of maybe it wasn't as far when Joe Lieberman went and gave a campaign speech for John McCain. When Joe Lieberman came back to the Senate, he was totally as an outcast for the Senate Democratic caucus.

[12:20:00]

DOVERE: Yeah. Well, part of the difference there is that Lieberman was speaking on behalf of McCain in the context of an election to try to get him elected, right? Dave McCormick is not up for reelection until 2030, which makes the appearance of Joe Lieberman made at the convention last night, even by video, more confusing. What was the purpose of it if not for just getting everybody jined (Ph) up about this, and what's he doing, what's going on?

It wasn't to win Dave McCormick any votes. That said, look across Pennsylvania, Democrats are quite frustrated with him, and across Washington, Democrats are quite frustrated with him --

RAJU: And all the primary, if he decides to run, it's going to be problematic.

DOVERE: Yeah, he is the one who's up next. McCormick is not up until 2030, Fetterman's seat is up in 2028. We're going to see what happens with that.

RAJU: Yeah. And if he decides to run, there will be a big question in the next cycle. There's a lot to discuss in this cycle, including last night when a number of Republican candidates who are running for the Senate in some of the most closely contested races, they actually did decide to show up, align themselves with Trump, and obviously, clearly, their strategy is, yeah, vote like Trump is on the ballot.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL WHATLEY, (R) NORTH CAROLINIAN SENATE CANDIDATE: As the next senator for North Carolina, I will always fight for your values, and I will always fight for you.

KEN PAXTON, (R) TEXAS SENATE CANDIDATE: I need your prayers, your votes, and your support.

SEN. JON HUSTED (R-OH): I'm Jon Husted, and it is my honor to fight for the hardworking families of Ohio.

REP. MIKE COLLINS (R-GA): Y'all, I'm Representative Mike Collins from Georgia, and I am the proud author of the Laken Riley Act. (END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: George, Texas, Ohio, and North Carolina, four Republican states, which they're showing up there. Not necessarily the purple state candidates, although Mike Rogers from Michigan will be tonight.

OLORUNNIPA: Yeah. And Trump won those states, and so a lot of those voters that voted for Trump have to come out in November if these candidates are going to win. Until they realize that, they realize that Trump watches who comes out in favor of him that he watches who speaks out and aligns himself with them, and he has that huge war chest that we're talking about. And he might hold back from folks who show that they're a little bit squeamish about showing up next to him. And so. they don't really have a choice in some of these cases other than to sidle up to Trump and show up when he asks them to.

RAJU: And you had some reporting, Leigh Ann, about how these are the four worst Senate GOP candidates, according to Republicans, their last night.

CALDWELL: Yeah. So, they -- I spoke to a lot of Republicans, and you know, ask them which ones -- which candidates are you worried about. So, we ranked them, and those are the four that people are worried about. You know, Mike Collins in Georgia, he is almost completely written off by the Republican Party. They're going to spend a little bit. We'll see how long the spending by the National Republicans lasts.

You know, Ken Paxton is someone who everyone believes is a horrible candidate. The redness of Texas might save him. Jon, who said people are really frustrated with his campaign as well, unable to break through against Sherrod Brown, and then of course Michael Whatley in North Carolina. That's probably Trump's favorite candidate because Michael Whatley was so instrumental in electing him in North Carolina, but also as RNC chair. But these are not -- these are -- Republicans said that the candidate quality is a C plus.

RAJU: Yeah. And Isaac, meanwhile, while Collins is campaigning with Trump, you have reporting about how Ossoff is campaigning with Kamala Harris.

DOVERE: Yeah. Kamala Harris is going to start doing a couple more midterm campaign events than we've seen her doing so far. She'll do two House races in California, starting out at the beginning of October, and then the last weekend in October, those last couple of days before Election Day. She'll be in Georgia speaking at the Fulton County Democrats dinner. Fulton County, obviously the center of all the vote counting stuff, and then she will be stumping with Jon Ossoff.

What's notable about this is obviously Ossoff is running for a second term here, running it seems like ahead of Collins in a strong way. But a lot of other Democrats have put their distance between themselves and Kamala Harris. Ossoff being very -- the statement from his spokesperson telling me that he's very proud to campaign with her and have her support. RAJU: So, fascinating, and Ossoff being the one Democrat from -- Democratic incumbent from a state that Donald Trump won in 2024, making that calculation as he has a cycle. It's a base election, rally up and fire up the base, and we'll see if it ultimately works.

All right, coming up next. Republicans did very well in the Bush era by calling Democrats weak on terror. 25 years after 9/11, will that still work? Michigan Senate candidate Mike Rogers wants to find out.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:25:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

RAJU: On the 25th anniversary of the worst terror attacks in American history, we're seeing the return of a type of politics we have not seen as much of since George W. Bush left the White House, especially in Michigan, where Republican Mike Rogers is running a campaign that seems to link Democrat Abdul El-Sayed to the attacks. Watch part of this new campaign ad from a pro-Rogers super PAC.

(PLAYING VIDEO)

RAJU: An El-Sayed spokesman tells Axios that, quote, Abdul has always unequivocally condemned terrorism and the September 11th attacks. Mike Rogers' attempts to represent Abdul's beliefs are bad faith lies.