Return to Transcripts main page

Inside Politics

Now: El-Sayed Campaigns With AOC In Red Part Of Michigan; Talarico Raised Record-Breaking $64M In 3rd Quarter; Talarico "God Is Non-Binary" Comment: "I Was Being Provocative"; Trump Brags About Cognitive Test Results While Stumping In Arizona; Joe Rogan: Trump's "No Wars" Promise "Wasn't Real". Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired October 15, 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]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DANA BASH, CNN HOST, INSIDE POLITICS: Progressive powerhouse hits GOP turf in a crucial Senate battleground.

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

Just 19 days until the election, and we're tracking the races, candidates, and stories that could shift the balance of power right here in Washington and all across the country. Here's what's on our midterm radar. We start in Michigan, where any moment now, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will appear with Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed. They're kicking off a two-day swing through the state's largely Republican Upper Peninsula.

President Trump carried 14 of the region's 15 counties just two years ago in 2024. But in a race as tight as this one. El-Sayed needs to cut into the support that Republicans have been getting in order to beat the current Republican on the ballot against him, Mike Rogers. Vice President Vance is also stumping in Michigan today. He'll hold a rally in Monroe.

And tonight President Trump is holding two tele rallies, including one for his handpicked South Carolina Senate nominee, Darline Graham. Tomorrow he'll campaign in Georgia, where Republicans are likely hoping he steers clear of some of the kinds of things he said yesterday at one of his rallies, this one in Arizona.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Our country is making more money than it's ever made because of the fact that oil is so high. Now they're going to say, isn't it terrible? He talked about the fact that he doesn't care about the little person they call them. I care more about the little person than I care about the big person. I care about the little person like crazy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Gas prices have surged to a national average of $4.33. Diesel is at $6.32, that's up more than 70 percent, seven zero percent since just one year ago. Now to Iowa, where a new Marist poll shows the Senate race deadlocked. No clear leader between Democrat Josh Turek and Republican Ashley Hinson. Now Turek is leading among independents, which may be why this new RNC ad portrays Hinson as someone who reaches across the aisle.

(PLAYING VIDEO)

BASH: And former President Bill Clinton will make his 2026 campaign trail debut next week. He'll appear alongside the Democratic candidate for Governor David Jolly at an interfaith event. Now Jolly is trying to pull off an upset against Republican Byron Donalds in a race that the Cook Political Report rates as lean Republican.

I'm joined today by a terrific group of reporters. Zolan, you're straight off the red eye. We're going to talk about what you witnessed that Trump rally in Arizona in a little bit, but let's start with what we expect to begin in Michigan momentarily, and that is the rally that Abdul El-Sayed is having with AOC. It's really striking because I mentioned that this area, the so-called U.P., the Upper Peninsula, it used to be a Democrat representative, Bart Stupak.

I remember covering him for many, many years. Since then, it's been Republican territory. It went for the GOP. This is Michigan's first district by 22 percentage points in 2024, 23 percentage points in 2022, and 24 in 2020. And yet, Abdul El-Sayed is campaigning there with one of the most well-known progressives in the whole country.

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST AND BLOOMBERG POLITICAL & POLICY COLUMNIST: Listen, I mean, it shows some confidence in so many ways that he's there with her. He campaigned with her during the primary, of course, but to do that in the general. In some ways, I think it is him saying, we are normal human beings, right? You can sort of demonize AOC, demonize El-Sayed as has happened on the -- on the airwaves there.

You know, you have the president, for instance, calling him a jihadist. It's him presenting himself as just a person who is talking about the issues. He talks about Medicare for all, for instance. He talks about data centers. He talks about getting the money out of politics, and so I think it's a smart move. It in some ways is a risky move as well, given the ways in which, obviously, Republicans see AOC but also independents as well.

[12:05:00]

But listen, he is feeling confident. I think he told someone he feels like he's going to win by seven points, which is quite an arrogant, you know, sort of approach to this campaign. But we'll see how it goes. AOC is quite an effective campaigner. She's very good on the stump. She's, you know, she's very good in terms of being sort of warm and personable, and also relatable in terms of the way she talks about these issues. So, we'll see how it goes.

BASH: Yeah. So yes, AOC is the big one today. And this part of Michigan. I was just in Michigan last week was for the past 10, 15 years extremely red and it still is. But there are Chicagoans and others moving to the Lake Region to Traverse City. Pete Buttigieg moved to Traverse City, so the thinking is that perhaps is getting a little bit less red. But just looking at the big picture about this marquee Senate race, Zolan, you have AOC today. Bernie Sanders has been there, Elizabeth Warren, that's -- those are sort of the left superstars.

And then, with regard to the other Democratic part of the electorate that he really needs to get, the black vote, which is huge in Michigan. He's pulling out all the stops. We know Kamala Harris was there, Lisa Blunt Rochester was there a couple of days ago, and the big, big guest that he's going to have next week is Barack Obama.

ZOLAN KANNO-YOUNGS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Right. He is bringing in Democratic figures that can bring people out that have shown that they can -- that their presence results in turnout. And what I also that signals is an awareness in the Democratic Party that this is still a tight contest, right? And that here you do have a candidate that is bringing baggage, right? Like did have success in the primary, but is now facing added challenges in a general, right?

Still, there are moderate voters expressing concern about past statements that El-Sayed has made, as well as Jewish voters as well. And you mentioned also black voters, right? We saw that with some of the mail-in ballots that weren't coming in from some more urban areas in Michigan as well. So here you have Democrats that have shown that they can bring out those constituency groups going to support El-Sayed here.

But I do think it signals that the party realizes this is still a tight contest between El-Sayed and Mike Rogers, and that while there is growing popularity for El-Sayed, there's also concern among some constituency groups of the baggage that he's going to --

BASH: Yeah. And we see now they just turned on the transmission. We now see AOC beginning the rally there. We're going to continue to monitor it. And as we do, I want to kind of move south in our conversation, very far south to Texas, and talk about the money there. We talk about kind of everyday about how much money is in all of these races, but particularly Texas. It's an expensive state.

Talarico's third quarter fundraising, they just announced $64 million. This is third quarter. This isn't total. This is one quarter, and Paxton has 18 million. And just for our colleague David Wright, this is record-breaking. There's been no candidate for the Senate in history that has raised this kind of money in one quarter.

KANNO-YOUNGS: If I knew how to whistle, I would whistle.

STEPHEN COLLINSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICS REPORTER: Yeah, that number 64 million. You know, not so long ago, that was -- would have been an amazing haul in a presidential race in a monthly fundraising figure. I think it shows you the importance of this race, obviously to the Senate. But the fact that Republicans are having to pour so much cash into this race tells you everything about where the Senate campaign is and the complexion of this election. There are so many interests, not just politically, but in terms of business and everything else.

There are, I'm sure, a lot of donors to the Republican Party who do not want a Democratic Congress and everything that would entail in terms of oversight, looking into links with this administration. So that's on that side. And I think it does speak to the fact that Democrats, we saw it with Barry O'Rourke before who was also a prolific fundraiser.

BASH: Yeah.

COLLINSON: They believe that there is actually a chance this time, you know, that lightning might strike and they might win Texas -- a Senate seat in Texas for the first time since Lloyd Bentsen.

BASH: Yeah. And I should just mention that this is just eye popping. Obviously, the Republican money that is coming in mostly is from super PACs, which is unlimited. Can we just talk about this town hall that CNN had with Jubilee last night? It was so good. It was so interesting. It was riveting for lots of reasons, but the most fascinating was watching him one-on-one with voters trying to, you know, really get answers. And we're just going to you one example, the voter's name is Sarah and push him on his Christianity versus hers. Let's watch.

[12:10:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMES TALARICO, (D) TEXAS SENATE CANDIDATE: The first comment about God not being defined by gender. When I said that I was being provocative, and I want to admit that and come clean about that. But I think what I was saying is actually not controversial theologically. The idea that we can't define God using human categories. Oh yes, I was doing it maybe in an annoying way. I can admit that.

SARAH GARDNER, TEXAS VOTER: I think we have to be careful using modern cultural terms when talking about God.

TALARICO: Sure. I think that is very fair criticism.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: So there -- just to give a little bit of context, I think people watching the show probably know the question was about one of the old clips that has been out there where he said God is non-binary.

HENDERSON: Right, which Republicans have been using against him and really questioning the kind of Christian he is. You know, this set up in this sort of setting of the sort of one-on-one debate and conversation was really brilliant and made for such good TV. And Talarico himself makes for good TV, right? He's incredibly charismatic. He talks about his faith in a way that most Democrats, who some are people of faith, but they don't talk about their faith in the way that he does.

So, that was a really good moment for him and a necessary moment, given the ways that Republicans are going to come at him about his faith, right? You see J. D. Vance doing this, sort of calling him, you know, suggesting that he is something other than Texas, the Texas brand of Christianity, the Texas brand of masculinity. So, I think him showing up in that way, in a very warm way, in a very, you know, just sort of down-to-earth way, I thought it was very good moment for his campaign.

BASH: All right. He also separated himself so much from the Biden administration, from the National Party. I'm a border security Democrat. Joe Biden failed us on not securing the border. I'm going to stand up to my party on the oil and gas industry, which, needless to say, is pretty big in Texas.

Coming up. I am going to speak with the Democratic congressional candidate, staying away from the AOC El-Sayed rally, which is happening right now. It's happening in the district she wants to win. And you're going to hear President Trump brag about remembering words at a rally where he was supposed to be telling people to get out and vote for Republicans.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:15:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BASH: President Trump hit the trail in two states yesterday, but per usual, a lot of his remarks had very little to do with the candidates he was trying to boost. Here he is in Arizona bragging about passing a cognitive test.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: They give you five words, and you don't know what they're doing. They say, sir, we're going to give you five words. We would like you to repeat those words, preferably in order. And what they don't say is, at the end of the test, a half hour later, they do it again, so you don't know that. Five words, sir; hat, hair, logo, white, black. Sir, would you please repeat those words? Hat, hair, logo, white, black. Oh, you got it right. Now you get extra points if you can do them in the same order, right? Now, a half hour goes by. They've asked you 25, 30 other questions.

Sir, in the middle of the test, we asked you about five words. Will you please repeat them again? Ideally, in order, you will get points if you get them all. You will get points. But if you can repeat them in order, you get a lot of points. Go hat, hair, logo, white, black, and they go, holy shit! Nobody -- no, nobody can do that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Vote Republican because that's what it was supposed to be. You were there, as I mentioned. You took the red eye. Thank you for being here.

KANNO-YOUNGS: Of course. BASH: How much of his speeches, and this one in particular, since we're talking about it, was about saying go vote for Andy Biggs, who is the candidate there.

KANNO-YOUNGS: There was -- there were parts of the speech saying, go vote, but it was go vote because Trump is on the ballot or you should think of Trump. But it wasn't -- it wasn't a speech dedicated to why they should vote for Andy Biggs --

BASH: So, like percentage wise, Trump being Trump versus --

KANNO-YOUNGS: It was majority Trump and his legacy, and the usual hits of attacking the press and attacking Somali Americans and defend -- and honestly acting as if the political vulnerabilities of the economy and the war in Iran don't exist, and very minimal of it was Andy Biggs.

[12:20:00]

At one point, he even brought Andy Biggs, who he was -- the campaign says, therefore, and President Trump claims, therefore, he brought him onto stage. And before he brought him onto stage, he actually told him, let's keep brief, just about a minute, right? I mean, the entirety of the time that Biggs spoke might have been the duration of that --

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: That was a minute 20 who is probably less than that?

KANNO-YOUNGS: Right, yes. But the focus of these speeches, and it reminds me of a speech that report on last week as well in Texas with Ken Paxton, right? So much of it is about defending Trump being Trump and his own legacy. And the candidate that he's there for does appear to sort of be an afterthought of putting the spotlight on them. The spotlight is on Trump at these events.

BASH: So, here's the reality that he's facing and he's up against, despite what he says. Fox has a brand-new poll out that shows his approval at 36 percent, his disapproval 64 percent. Then among Republicans, same poll Fox. In March it was 92 percent, now it's 76 percent. So, we're talking about a 16-percentage point drop in really a little more than a year.

COLLINSON: And nothing the president is saying at these rallies is going to arrest that. I think there's an extent to which he's trying to recreate the magic, the chaos of 2016, which is what bound him to his most loyal voters in the first place. That's what people came out for. There was this guy that was saying things that nobody else would have dared to say. He was voicing what people thought. Perhaps he's trying to do that again to get those voters who he needs to get out.

The problem is, it's not 2016 anymore. We've been doing this for a decade now. It's sounding a bit old. This doesn't speak to the pain people are feeling in their everyday lives over the economy and prices. And unlike 2016 and 2024, he's not being compared to Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden. He's being judged against his own performance.

KANNO-YOUNGS: And he's actually not on the ballot, right? Like -- and as I was there yesterday, you see this crowd that is erupting in applause and what have you at each of sort of these familiar things -- subjects that he's talked about at these rallies, 2016 and to now. But I was thinking, is this crowd really the one that that the Republicans need right now?

The ones in a very red, you know, state and county that are dedicated to President Trump, I'm not sure, dedicated to the Republican Party, by the way and dedicated to Trump. Do they need them, or do they need people that actually are frustrated, you know, with the economy and the Iran?

BASH: The answer is all of the above. Speaking of people who are frustrated with him, Joe Rogan, who has a little bit of an audience. He spoke yesterday about his frustration with Trump. He had Michael Douglas on, who by the way has a fantastic memoir out, which is probably why he was on Joe Rogan, but Michael Douglas sat there and listened to Rogan say this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE ROGAN, HOST, "THE JOE ROGAN EXPERIENCE": What Trump stood for, some of it turned out to not be real. Like one of them was the no wars. Well, look, we're at a war with Iran, so that wasn't real. You're setting a precedent. If you allow a militarized police force with no identification with masks on to enter into cities. Of course, people are going to say this is an overstep, of course it seems crazy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HENDERSON: Yeah. And this is at the heart of the fracturing of the MAGA movement. Donald Trump promised back in 2016. You remember him running against Bush's legacy of wars in 2024. The two key promises: no new wars and fixing the economy. Not only did he start a war, he started a war that then broke the economy on top of the tariffs and people understand it. It is not very difficult for the average Americans to go to the -- to get groceries or go get -- go get gas and understand that this is Trump's fault, the prices that they're paying.

BASH: And did he say something like it's good that oil prices are higher? Is there any more context to that?

KANNO-YOUNGS: Context in one of these rallies? No, I wasn't picking up on that. But that does go to the fact that he takes these things that are very clear problems with the Republican Party and tries to spin them to say actually everything is fine and it's crazy (Ph).

BASH: Because he has a history like his entire adult life of having examples of success in doing that and trying to change the reality by changing the narrative. And this is going to be the biggest test of his whole life.

Coming up. Speaking of mortgage rates, hit pause, but home ownership remains out of reach for many Americans. That's next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:25:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BASH: This just into CNN. After weeks of spiking, the average mortgage rate remains unchanged at 7.4 percent, it's a brief pause. But it still leaves the American dream of owning a home out of reach for so many people, including voters still weighing their options a little more than two weeks from election day.

CNN senior business reporter David Goldman joins us now. Walk us through the data, David.

DAVID GOLDMAN, CNN SENIOR BUSINESS REPORTER: Yes, 7.4 percent is a lot, right? We're still at the highest that we've had since November of 2023, and that's a lot for people who are looking to buy a new home, not like me. That's my house right there. I have a sub 3 percent rate that I think a lot of folks are jealous of, and we're going to get into why that matters in just a bit.

Because in 2020, right, for every $100,000 of a mortgage, it costs you $400 a month, but today that is $690. Another $300, almost in added