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The Situation Room

31 Million-Plus Early Votes Already Cast in Midterm Elections; DOJ Dispatching 1,000 Election Monitors Across All 50 States; Israel Votes in First Nationwide Election Since Oct. 7 Attack. Aired 10- 10:30a ET

Aired October 27, 2026 - 10:00   ET

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

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PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now, one week to go. It is crunch time. Candidates are crisscrossing states, campaigns are in overdrive, and The Situation Room is live on the trail.

Plus, one-on-one with Eric Holder, the former attorney general under President Obama will join us. We'll get his reaction on new charges against former FBI Director James Comey and his takes on election security and A.I. regulation.

Also, new CNN reporting, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's faith adviser shared sexist and homophobic posts, and how the Defense Department is now responding.

Plus, early voting signs, the stories behind the numbers, and the two states and the two new tallies that could spell trouble for the GOP.

Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Pamela Brown. Wolf Blitzer is on assignment, and you're in The Situation Room.

We are now just seven days out from Election Day, and Americans are already making their voices heard at a staggering pace. Look at these numbers right here. More than 31 million votes have already been cast, tracking well ahead of the early voting pace of the 2022 midterms.

And fueling this massive wave of early voting is a relentless and record-breaking onslaught of political ads. According to Ad Impact, $11.21 billion has already been spent on political ads this cycle, surpassing the record set during the 2024 presidential election.

Republicans are growing increasingly anxious about competitive races in usually solid red states. And while Democrats' chances of power- checking President Trump look somewhat hopeful seven days out, our Stephen Collinson warns that it is far too soon to size up any Democratic wave.

President Trump is crisscrossing the country in a final days push to energize the GOP base. He's making two critical stops in Texas today to bolster Republicans facing unexpectedly brutal fights before heading to Ohio and Florida later this week.

The Situation Room is in eight states this morning covering the countdown to the midterms, tracking critical key races in battleground states from Kansas and Iowa to Pennsylvania and Florida.

And we start in North Carolina, where former Governor Roy Cooper is trying to flip a crucial Senate seat and currently leads GOP candidate Michael Whatley in the polls. So, that's where we find CNN national correspondent Dianne Gallagher.

Dianne, we're one week out and more than one and a half million votes have already been cast. How are Cooper and Whatley making their final pitch to voters?

DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You know, Pamela, what we're seeing from Roy Cooper is basically what we've seen him do for the past year. The small to medium events on his Make Stuff Cost Less Tour, he has basically put affordability, he has put the idea of things are just too expensive at the heart of his campaign and run a very disciplined campaign in what many people expected initially to be one of the most expensive races, one of the tightest races in the nation, Cooper has consistently led former Republican National Committee Chair Michael Whatley in polls and in fundraising.

Now, we're expecting this event to get started very shortly here at Little Rock AME Zion Church in Charlotte. Just as we're getting numbers from these robust early voting numbers we're receiving from the state, more than 1,773,000 ballots have already been cast in North Carolina. 41 percent of those come from registered Democrats.

Now, Republicans have seen a slight uptick in their numbers and percentage with about 24 percent of the ballots from Republicans. The largest registered group here in the state, unaffiliated, has also seen an increase in their participation in early voting at around 34 percent of the actual vote right now.

Something to point out, though, nearly a quarter of black voters in North Carolina have already cast their ballot in this election, according to state data.

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Democrats tell me they don't want to get too excited, and Roy Cooper has consistently said he wants to run like he's behind, despite what the polls say. But I will tell you that when I talk to them privately, Democrats feel very good about North Carolina right now.

BROWN: All right, Dianne Gallagher, thank you so much.

And happening now, election monitors in all 50 states. The Justice Department is gearing up to send about 1,000 lawyers to observe polling places for potential civil rights violations. They're instructed by the department not to interfere with the elections, but Democrats and activists are still concerned that monitors could undermine the process. A Washington Post analysis found that online messaging from right-wing influencers has ramped up the rhetoric, with more than 7,000 social media posts questioning the election's integrity.

CNN Political Commentator Jamal Simmons put it this way. Take a listen.

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JAMAL SIMMONS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: In normal times, that would give people comfort because you would believe the Justice Department is going to help solve problems. Now, we all believe the Justice Department is going to help create problems. That's why they're headed out into the country.

When the president of the United States has inserted himself into the way that the Justice Department works, it's hard to trust how any of it works. So this is something that is making everyone nervous.

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BROWN: CNN Correspondent Gabe Cohen is here in the situation room with all those details.

So, Gabe, observers are a normal part of elections, but this is different in terms of the scale. Tell us more about this broad move by the department.

GABE COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And I think Jamal actually really captured some of the concerns well that I'm hearing from officials across the country. Look, the Trump administration has said this is going to be the biggest federal election monitoring effort in history, more than 1,000 of those monitors going out. They're going to be in all 50 states. That's the newest piece of information we've gotten. But for a little context, the Biden administration during the 2022 midterms did send out monitors, a little bit less than 400 in just 24 states.

So, there is this longstanding precedent, not at this scale, though, as you said. To be clear, these are not law enforcement officers. These are mostly federal lawyers who have very little authority. In general, they can't even enter a polling place unless given approval by state and local officials. I will say, we did have reporting a couple weeks ago indicating that some of the federal monitors who were sent out during the primaries to various states had previously worked on some of the legal efforts to challenge or even overturn the 2020 election in Trump's favor.

And we also had this incident in Wyoming where Republican officials there were raising concerns about the two DOJ officials who were sent -- two DOJ monitors who were sent to their state during the primaries, and some aggressive behavior they say they saw from them.

But as you mentioned, the Trump administration has said that they are just going to be watching. They're not -- and we've seen no evidence that there are going to be any disruptions on Election Day as a result of these monitors. They're going to be watching instead for any sort of disruptions or irregularities that could lead to legal challenges after the fact, and I think that's going to really be the area to watch, what comes after Election Day.

We don't expect disruptions, but what you heard from Jamal is something I've heard from other officials, which is, will this Justice Department follow the longstanding federal standards when it comes to monitors?

BROWN: So, DOJ is making a series of moves before the elections. One of the latest moves is seeking information on voter records in Washington State. What can you tell us about that?

COHEN: Yes, I think this is a really big deal, at least that's what I'm hearing from folks across the country, including in Washington, where the Department of Justice sent this letter to state leaders yesterday saying that DHS has identified roughly 400 non-citizens who have been voting in the State of Washington who have cast ballots some 1,500 times in recent years, in recent elections.

And it's really a sort of a copy/paste letter, what we saw from DOJ that is very similar to the letter they sent a few days ago to California saying that they had identified 20,000 of these non- citizens registered to vote in California and said, you need to take action. You need to separate their ballots, and you need to investigate whether these people are non-citizens and are voting before Election Day. Otherwise, we are going to file a lawsuit, that we're going to step in. That's what happened in California, and that's now being litigated right now. It's moving through the courts.

We don't know if DOJ's going to follow up with a lawsuit in Washington, but one of the reasons this is so important is because DHS has been auditing public voter lists in states across the country in recent months.

We didn't even know they had done this audit in Washington. At least, that's what appears to have happened. And a lot of people have been calling into question, scrutinizing the data that Homeland Security has come back with, saying that it doesn't turn out to be entirely accurate. The number of non-citizens who are either registered or voting tends to be much, much smaller.

We cannot say if that is the case here, but Washington State is pushing back right away saying that they don't know that these numbers are accurate.

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And yet we are just a few days, we're a week away from Election Day, and the administration is calling for an investigation of voters who may be casting ballots right now, saying separate their votes until we know that they're citizens. And they're -- people are worried they're going to be disenfranchised.

BROWN: All right. Gabe Cohen, thanks for bringing us that latest reporting, very important. Still ahead, daring prison escape. A convicted murderer on the run in Tennessee, and you would not believe where he was spotted on cam.

Plus, Israelis head to the polls for the first national election since the October 7th attacks. We are live in Tel Aviv with what's at stake as Benjamin Netanyahu fights to keep power.

You're in The Situation Room, and we'll be right back.

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BROWN: Happening now, voters in Israel are heading to the polls, and that includes Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu is facing a fierce challenge from the former chief of staff of Israel's military.

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Now, even though Israelis do not vote for a specific person, instead they vote for a party, this election is viewed as a referendum on Netanyahu's leadership amid wars and conflict.

CNN's Nic Robertson joins us live from Tel Aviv, Israel. Nic, how has voter turnout been, and what does that tell you about the passion surrounding this election?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Look, huge passion. The records for voter turnout keep tumbling. Two hours ago, we got the latest readout. 3.29 million voters have cast their vote. That's 44.9 percent of the vote. That's the highest turnout since 1973, so over 50 years.

Passions are high. Look, these are some of the people. Let me take you around this polling station. These are some of the people they can vote for, Naftali Bennett, former prime minister, Yair Lapid, seen as being on the left. These are the people that are in the block, if you will, that want to oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Polling station inside a school, and look here, down on the ground, you see these footsteps going in? That's the sign if you're voting for Gadi Eisenkot. He's the guy that's leading the block that's trying to oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

There are about 12,000 polling stations like this. When you go inside, you get one of these little slips when you go into the polling booth. This one is for Gadi Eisenkot's party. This one would be for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. There are 36 of these to choose from, so you get the idea, it's going to take a long time counting. Six hours of voting left to go, and as you say, the turnout is really high.

But this is the guy that's really leading the challenge, Gadi Eisenkot, former IDF chief of staff, military man, 40 years in the military wearing the green uniform, turned politician a few years ago. So, if the turnout is high, a lot of people say that's going to benefit him.

Right now, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on social media, is telling people to get out and vote, because he knows that same equation. He needs to get his voters out.

This polling station here is sort of a mixed community, if you will, around here, so a lot of people voting, voting for different sides. We have to wait six hours from now, 10:00 P.M. here local tonight, six hours' time. That's when we'll get the first exit poll. That will give us the first indication of which way it's going. Does Prime Minister Netanyahu hold on? Does the challenger benefit from this massive turnout?

BROWN: We shall see. Nic Robertson, thank you so much.

And coming up, new CNN reporting, a key figure behind Pete Hegseth's push to dramatically reshape the American military, and that top adviser's long record of sexist and homophobic posts.

We'll be right back.

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J.D. VANCE, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I think the question presumes quite a bit. I mean, look, a lot of Alaskans are going to go and look at the ballot and realize exactly what you said, that this is all a big fraud. But people are busy. People have lives. People have jobs. And when you put a person on the ballot explicitly to try to confuse voters, I think that's the definition of electoral fraud, and I don't think that we should endorse it.

And, by the way, I think that if the shoe was on the other foot, if we were running somebody whose name was Mary Peltola in the state of Alaska, the media would be accusing us of election fraud. So, I think that you guys should actually do your job and ask some difficult questions of the Democratic Party. Why are they trying to confuse people? You're right, a lot of people won't fall for it, but some people are going to be confused by that. It's just human nature.

You've asked your question. Thank you.

REPORTER: Is Abdul El-Sayed a jihadist like President Trump said yesterday?

VANCE: I'm sorry?

REPORTER: Is Abdul El-Sayed a jihadist like the president said yesterday?

VANCE: Well, look, he certainly has a lot of weird friends, and he's said a lot of crazy stuff, and he's identified himself with a segment of the Democratic Party, which, by the way, I don't think represents most Democrats in the country. But, unfortunately, it represents a lot of elected Democrats who seem to align with people who justify violence against the United States of America. I don't know what's in the guy's heart. I just know he has a lot of weird friends.

REPORTER: Can I ask you, do you think that Tucker Carlson's criticism of Rogers and his defense of El-Sayed is going to have an impact in the Senate race in Michigan?

VANCE: You know, look, I'm not a political prognosticator, man. What I will say is I think Mike is fundamentally a decent guy and the kind of public servant that you want in Washington, D.C. And I think any Republican or any conservative who looks at this race and sees, on the one hand, Abdul El-Sayed, who may be more than any Democrat running in the nation, has engaged in the kind of explicitly anti-white racial hatred that has become common on the Democratic Party. I'd say that person should not be elected.

I think what Republicans stand for is whether you're black or white, we're for everybody. And Abdul El-Sayed is, again, more than anybody, a guy who seems to love to traffic in racial hatred. We should reject that guy as conservatives. We should reject him as Americans. And that's obviously a big part of what I'm going to be saying later today.

I'll talk to you guys later. Thank you.

BROWN: All right. Well, there you heard J.D. Vance. He's on his way to Michigan to campaign for Mike Rogers, who's running against Abdul El-Sayed for the Michigan Senate seat, and you heard them -- really, heard him going after El-Sayed calling him a little bit of a psychopath. Not directly coming out and saying he's a jihadist, like President Trump has said, but said he has friends that are crazy and that he's part of a group of Democrats that justify violence against the U.S., not sure where he's getting that from and that he traffics in racial hatred.

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So clearly heavily criticizing Abdul El-Sayed in this very, very tight Michigan Senate race.

All right, let's turn to our CNN senior investigative reporter on this new story we're following. A senior aide at the Pentagon who CNN has discovered has a long history of posting extreme and offensive statements on social media. Alli Gordon has been digging into all of this. You helped break this story. Tell us more about this adviser and what he said.

ALLISON GORDON, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER: Pam, Ryan Higgins may not be a household name, but my colleague, Haley Britzky, and I have learned that he is one of Hegseth's senior advisers, and he works on faith issues at the Pentagon.

Now, I reviewed hundreds of social media posts, Instagram streams, archived blog entries spanning years, including some pretty shocking examples from just the past few months. So to start let's take a listen to what he said on this Instagram stream in 2021.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They need to know that abortion's murder. They need to know that marriage is between a man and a woman, and anything else is abominable. They need to know that transgender isn't something you choose, but it's actually a mental disorder.

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GORDON: So, that video is just one example, but I found many other examples of homophobia, like when he referred to, quote, the Satanic cult of LGBTQ in March. He also posted derogatory comments about women, including a post questioning, how many abortions former Vice President Kamala Harris might have had, citing her age and claiming that she has, quote, a long record of sleeping around.

Now, since joining the Pentagon, he has continued to promote traditional gender roles for women, writing in May that, quote, no career will ever give you the fulfillment you're looking for that can only be found from being a mother. And in August, he called Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's decision to delay motherhood and freeze her eggs as a self-centered mindset.

He also has extreme views on abortion, even for a conservative Republican. Like let's look at this post from August, where he said, demonic human sacrifice packaged as women's healthcare would be like saying Nazi concentration camps were ethnic end-of-life care. Be wise and prudent. Don't fall victim to the ways of the devil, the prince of lies.

And I know that's a lot of examples, Pam, but the last one I wanted to cite for you is something that I know you have done extensive reporting about, which is Christian nationalism. That's a theme that I saw embedded throughout these posts on social media. For example, he said, this is a Christian nation, and then he also posted in June that the separation of church and state does not exist.

BROWN: And that's notable because he's supposed to be advising on faith, and our service members have a, a wide array of faiths in our military. So, how is the Pentagon responding to all of this?

GORDON: Yes. So in a statement, the Pentagon told us, quote, Mr. Higgins is a valued member of the secretary's team and does an outstanding job serving as a senior adviser. He has been completely focused on the spiritual health of our troops and the historic establishment of the Office of Religious Affairs.

And to see all of the examples that we found, including comments about Islam, you can check out our piece on cnn.com.

BROWN: All right. Excellent reporting, Alli Gordon, thank you.

We'll be right back.

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