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The Source with Kaitlan Collins
Blanche Faces Blowback Over $1.8 Billion Fund In Tense Senate GOP Meeting; CNN Obtains DNC's Long-Withheld "Autopsy" Of 2024 Election; SpaceX Scrubs Launch Of Starship Megarocket As IPO Looms. Aired 9-10p ET
Aired May 21, 2026 - 21:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[21:00:00]
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, ANDERSON COOPER 360: --you can listen to more of my conversation with Sheinelle Jones wherever you get your podcasts, or you can watch the entire episode at our grief community page, CNN.com/AllThereIs.
That's it for me. See you tomorrow.
"THE SOURCE WITH KAITLAN COLLINS" starts now.
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, CNN HOST, THE SOURCE WITH KAITLAN COLLINS: Tonight. An empty Capitol and canceled votes. Are Republicans sending a message to the President, and is this what finally pushed them over the edge?
I'm Kaitlan Collins. And this is THE SOURCE.
President Trump's $1.8 billion compensation fund to pay people who claim that they've been unfairly targeted by the federal government has become so politically toxic that Senate Republicans just delayed a vote on an immigration crackdown and left Washington.
Now that came after the acting Attorney General, Todd Blanche, spent the day up on Capitol Hill, trying to assuage their concerns in a meeting with Senate Republicans that appeared to do anything but.
Blanche actually skipped a planned press conference on fraud in Minnesota today, to try to calm this situation, after that DOJ announcement earlier this week.
But behind closed doors, today on Capitol Hill, our sources say the acting Attorney General faced stiff resistance during his more than 90-minute meeting with Senate Republicans.
He returned to the White House, this afternoon, as our cameras spotted him entering the West Wing. And judging by the comments that lawmakers made publicly, he had little to show for his efforts.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. SUSAN COLLINS (R-ME): I do not support the weaponization fund as it has been described. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We need more information on it.
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY (R-LA): I just don't know how this puppy dog will work.
SEN. THOM TILLIS (R-NC): This is, I mean, this is just stupid on stilts.
This is bad policy, it's bad timing, and it's bad politics.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
K. COLLINS: Stupid on stilts. Those are the words of Thom Tillis of North Carolina on this plan that would create a fund of taxpayer money that could potentially pay convicted criminals.
It appears to be pushing Senate Republicans, as you heard there, to their limit. A limit that, I should note, they were already approaching with the White House's requested $1 billion in funding for the White House ballroom, and also on the heels of the President's endorsement this week of a primary candidate in Texas against an incumbent right now in the Senate, and this candidate's so flawed that even Senator Lindsey Graham was expressing concern about it.
Speaking on Trump's attacks against Senators Cornyn, and Cassidy of Louisiana, we heard from the Senate Majority Leader, John Thune, today, who said, quote, "It's hard to divorce anything that happens here from what's happening in the political atmosphere around us."
Today, President Trump himself seemed to question his grip on Senate Republicans.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Are you losing control of the Senate, sir?
Are you losing control of the Senate -- Senate Republicans?
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I don't know. I really don't know. I can tell you, I only do what's right.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
K. COLLINS: Despite the acting Attorney General's struggle to try to convince lawmakers about the fund today. Right now, the administration has been showing no sign of backing down.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEPHEN MILLER, WHITE HOUSE DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF: We've had so many lives -- I think it really goes back, so I would say further -- but so many lives destroyed, so many livelihoods ruined, so many people who were deprived of their fundamental rights and freedoms as American citizens, and this settlement is just a small measure of the justice that they are owed.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
K. COLLINS: We'll see if Stephen Miller's comments there to reporters outside the White House hold.
But one thing that is clear tonight in Washington is that the administration has failed to quell concerns about how this fund is going to work, its legal basis, who is eligible for it.
And on top of all of that, when I speak of eligibility, there is one key question that is still unanswered, one that the President, the Vice President, and the acting Attorney General have all now refused to answer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Do you believe that people who committed violence against Capitol Hill police officers on January 6th should be eligible for compensation from this DOJ fund? And are you or your family members going to be seeking--
TRUMP: Yes.
REPORTER: --compensation from that fund?
TRUMP: It will all be dependent on a committee. Committee is being set up of very talented people, very highly respected people.
K. COLLINS: You previously told me that anyone who assaulted a police officer on January 6th should go to prison. So, why not rule out giving them taxpayer-funded money?
JD VANCE (R), U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: Well, Kaitlan, what I said is we're going to look at everything case-by-case. There are--
K. COLLINS: But why not rule it out?
[21:05:00]
VANCE: Because Kaitlan, there are people who I don't know their individual circumstances, and I don't rule things out categorically when I know nothing about a person's individual circumstances.
PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Should individuals who are convicted of assaulting law enforcement on January 6th be able to get money from this fund?
TODD BLANCHE, ACTING ATTORNEY GENERAL: So, as I said yesterday -- I don't know why this needs clarification. I said it multiple times yesterday. The commissioners will determine who receives money.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
K. COLLINS: Of course, those commissioners that the acting Attorney General referenced there, and that the President referenced earlier this week, are all selected by the acting Attorney General, and they can be fired without cause by the President. For more on what's happening in Washington in response to this tonight.
Manu Raju is here, our CNN Anchor and Chief Congressional Correspondent.
And also Paula Reid, our CNN Chief Legal Affairs Correspondent.
And Manu, I mean, watching the blowback on Capitol Hill today is very clearly not what the administration was expecting whatsoever.
MANU RAJU, CNN ANCHOR & CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, look, this is the most politically fraught moment between congressional Republicans and the President in his second term of office. There's no question about it.
There's just been so many episodes piling up on each other, that has divided the two sides of Pennsylvania Avenue. Whether it was the President going after Senator Bill Cassidy, knocking him out of that primary. Deciding to endorse the opponent of Senator John Cornyn, against the wishes and demands of Senate Republican leaders. His push to add $1 billion in ballroom funding to this bill that would -- that Republican leaders wanted to be focused strictly on immigration enforcement.
And then, this dropping and blindsiding Republicans with this $1.8 billion fund from the Justice Department. One Republican after another told me that they just could not support this. They made that very clear in this tense meeting, with Todd Blanche today, and many of them went public with their concerns, saying they could not vote for this bill, dealing with immigration enforcement that the President wanted on his desk by June 1st, unless this issue was dealt with one way or the other.
And in a revealing moment tonight, Senate -- the former Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican who sits on -- who's the Chairman of a key committee in the House Senate Appropriations committee put out a statement saying, this Nation's top law enforcement official is asking for a slush fund to pay people who assault cops? Utterly stupid, morally wrong - take your pick.
And I can tell you, Kaitlan, that view is really felt widespread among Senate Republicans, even if many of them are not voicing that same exact sentiment publicly.
K. COLLINS: Yes, I mean, and Manu, I think one thing some people might look at this and say, Well, Bill Cassidy is saying this, Thom Tillis is saying this, Mitch McConnell saying this.
But it's also people like Tommy Tuberville who are saying, you know, massive allies of the White House that are usually in lockstep with the President, saying, I don't think this is a good idea, and you know, they seem to be worried about giving it tacit approval.
RAJU: Yes, there's no question about that. I mean, look, this is -- one of the things that's very clear, is that it's very hard for these Republicans to defend this in a midterm election environment. I mean, Tommy Tuberville, he's on his way to becoming the next governor of Alabama, but he still will be asked about this on the campaign trail. He still knows, politically, this does not look so good for their party.
And they are -- they are -- one of the things that I'm hearing from one Republican after another is that they wish the White House had consulted with them ahead of time and had waited until later to deal with this, and at least not deal with this the way that they did here, as one Republican, key -- one conservative member, Ron Johnson told me, it was a galactic blunder for the White House to roll it out the way that it did.
K. COLLINS: Well, and Paula, we know why it happened now because, things were coming to a head with the President's lawsuit against the IRS that he had filed for his taxes being leaked.
But in terms of the origins of this fund, they actually go pretty far back, based on your reporting tonight.
REID: That's exactly right. The general concept of having a fund to compensate people who had been targeted by the government goes back to 2023, as Trump was plotting his return to the White House. We've learned that they were working on a proposal throughout the campaign, but they kept hitting the roadblock that they could not figure out a funding mechanism.
But we're told that once Trump filed that lawsuit against his own IRS, quote, "The concept was always there, but the question mark was the funding... But along comes this case" the IRS lawsuit, "and it's like, hey wait a minute, there it is." That's according to a source familiar with the deliberations.
And ultimately, I'm told, the Justice Department modeled this after an Obama-era settlement, was called the Keepseagle settlement, that had to do with claims of discrimination related to the Agriculture Department. The big difference there, Kaitlan, is that was signed off on by a judge.
K. COLLINS: Well, I mean, yes, they've been pointing to that, but obviously, in terms of where this goes with people who stormed the Capitol, beat up police officers, as you asked Todd Blanche.
Manu, in terms of -- you said this is the biggest blowback you've seen from congressional Republicans in Trump's second term. The House just also canceled a vote tonight on a resolution to limit the President's war powers. Why did they do that?
[21:10:00]
RAJU: Yes, they didn't have the votes. The Republicans were concerned that the Democrats were going to win. They didn't -- the Republicans didn't have the votes to kill this measure. That bill would have essentially stopped the war in Iran if it were to actually become law.
So, this would have just been the first step, which would have been a rebuke, a symbolic rebuke of the President's wartime authority. And the Speaker of the House very clearly did not want to go through with that vote, and decided it was time to just pull the plug. They decided to leave Washington early.
And actually, during the middle of that vote series, they made the decision, realizing that there were not enough Republicans. There had been some Republicans who had been absent. And because of the Republican absences, they didn't have enough to stop the Democratic effort. So, they just decided to send Republicans home early for this recess.
But they're going to have to deal with this, Kaitlan, when they get back into town. Because, there is a push among a handful of Republicans and Democrats to do something about Iran, pulling back the President's power here.
And given that fact, the President could lose, it could just be a matter of days when they have to deal with this again. But the Speaker has decided, they didn't want to deal with this now--
K. COLLINS: Yes.
RAJU: --because, of course, passing it -- if this passed, it would cause a lot of blowback from the President over the Speaker's handling of the House.
K. COLLINS: Crazy times on Capitol Hill.
Manu Raju. Paula Reid. Excellent reporting by both of you. Thank you for being here tonight.
And speaking of something that is happening on Capitol Hill, there's a Democrat and a Republican who are working together to try to push legislation that would stop the President's new compensation fund from the Justice Department. My congressional source tonight is one of those members. New York Democratic Congressman Tom Suozzi is here.
And thank you, sir, for being here. Because, your co-sponsor, Republican Brian Fitzpatrick, was here on THE SOURCE with us last night, saying he wants to stop this.
How would your bill stop the President and the Justice Department from doing what they're trying to do here?
REP. TOM SUOZZI (D-NY): It's very simple language. It's very clear. It says that you can't spend money for this weaponization fund to give money to people in the way that you want to do it. It's a very simple one-paragraph bill, and it just says, You can't do this. The bottom line is it's the job of the United States Congress to appropriate funds.
There's a reason we have checks and balances in government. It's because sometimes presidents or their administrations, sometimes Congress, sometimes the Judiciary, sometimes they do things that are really dumb. And when they do things that are just totally out of touch and wrong -- I think you said, Mitch McConnell said it was either really stupid or morally wrong, take your pick. When that happens, you need the other branches of government to put a check on that, to stop it from happening.
And so, this is the first bipartisan effort, between Brian Fitzpatrick and myself, to try and stop something that is either stupid or morally wrong, take your pick, as Mitch McConnell said.
But it's really upsetting that we see what's happening right now, and the administration is so out of touch with what people are going through right now. Everybody is freaking out about the cost of living and about their gas prices and their grocery prices and the cost of everything. And they're trying to give $1.8 billion to people, on January 6th, that beat up cops? It really makes your blood boil.
K. COLLINS: You're a Democrat. You often appear on the show with Brian Fitzpatrick, obviously working together and trying to do stuff on a bipartisan basis. But are you surprised by just how critical Republicans have been of the administration over this? I mean, we have not seen anything like this, actually, this term.
SUOZZI: I don't want to say I'm surprised. It's -- I believe in our country, and I believe in our system of government.
Ad people are facing elections coming up in November, and they're starting to think about that, and they're doing their polls, and they're talking to their constituents, and they're saying, Hey, the people are really concerned about this, the cost of living -- the things I was talking about just a second ago -- and the administration is focusing on stuff that the people don't like. So, we can't support this any longer because, it's bad for us politically.
And that's how it's supposed to work. Because, you want people to do things that are right because it's the right thing to do, but you can't always count on people doing the right thing because, it's the right thing to do. That's why we have a democracy. We have to be beholden to the people.
And the people don't want you giving money to people that attacked the Capitol and beat up cops on January 6th. You know, they want you to -- they don't want you spending $1.8 billion on this Anti-Weaponization Fund. They don't want you spending a billion dollars on a ballroom. They want you to focus on, How you're going to make my life better, to deal with my gas prices and my grocery prices, the fact that my kids can't buy a house. They want you to focus on the things that affect their lives, and these are just -- these are abuses.
And I'm hopeful when I see so many Republican senators call this out, when I see colleagues like mine, like Brian Fitzpatrick, and I hope other Republican members of the House come out and say, You know, Mr. President, this is just wrong.
[21:15:00]
K. COLLINS: Why do you think they won't rule it out for the people who beat up cops that day? I mean that -- they're on video doing so. It's not like-- SUOZZI: Listen this--
K. COLLINS: --this is some kind of mystery to solve. You can watch the people who got convicted beating the cops up that day.
SUOZZI: You know, I -- this is the thing -- you know, I always try to be bipartisan, as you pointed out. I always try to look for ways that we can work together and not get outraged by every single thing that happens.
But when the President pardoned the people for January 6th, I looked at individual cases. There was one guy, Daniel Rodriguez, was -- they were beating up a cop on the ground, and people were saying, Kill him, kill him. And this guy, Daniel Rodriguez, went up and tased the police officer in the neck. The police officer had a heart attack and now has brain damage. He went -- then went on social media and said, I tased the expletive, expletive, out of this cop, and I got away with it. And then he had to go through a prosecution. He pled guilty, was sentenced to 12 years, and the President pardoned this guy, and that's just one of, like, 1,500 cases.
And I just get so upset when I hear the hypocrisy of saying, you know, Back the blue, and We're for the cops. And we should back the cops, and we should back the blue. But how can you pardon somebody who did something so blatantly wrong? And that's just one of dozens and dozens, hundreds of instances.
So, I think that much the way I'm feeling, a lot of Americans are feeling, but a lot of our elected officials, our senators and members of Congress are feeling, and they're finally standing up. And we've got to stop this from happening. It's our country, it's our country's at stake, and we can't let people just do what they want to do on a whim because, they think it's good for them to build their team and make their base stronger.
They've got to call out bad behavior. And it's not only the January 6th behavior that's the bad behavior. It's the creation of these funds, or the spending of things without proper authorization, and rewarding people that committed the bad behavior on January 6th. That's just wrong, and I think that people are going to stand up to it. I know the public is going to stand up to it, and I think the elected officials are starting to stand up to it.
K. COLLINS: Congressman Tom Suozzi, we will see if the elected officials do hear. Thank you for joining us tonight. I really appreciate it.
SUOZZI: Thank you.
K. COLLINS: Up next. The President was asked today about Donald Trump Jr.'s wedding this weekend, and apparently it might be missing an incredibly notable guest. What the President said earlier today inside the Oval.
Also, CNN obtained that long-awaited Democrat report on what went wrong in the 2024 election. Our reporter who got it is my source tonight, and we'll break down what's in it, and notably what is not in it.
[21:20:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
K. COLLINS: For a lot of parents, their children's wedding is a can't- miss event. But this is how President Trump answered today when he was asked if he is attending his son's wedding this weekend.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Are you attending your son's wedding this weekend, by the way?
TRUMP: He'd like me to go, but it's going to be just a small little private affair, and I'm going to try and make it. I'm in the midst -- I said, you know, this is not good timing for me. I have a thing called Iran and other things.
(LAUGHTER)
TRUMP: That's one I can't win on. If I do attend, I get killed. If I don't attend, I get killed. By the fake news, of course, I'm talking about. Now -- but he's got a very -- a person who I've known for a long time, and hopefully they're going to have a great marriage.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
K. COLLINS: The President's no-win scenario, as he put it, is his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr.'s wedding, to the Palm Beach socialite Bettina Anderson, this weekend. Sources tell CNN it's taking place on a small island in the Bahamas.
And on that note, my sources here tonight are:
New York Times White House correspondent, Shawn McCreesh.
Former communications director to Vice President Harris, Jamal Simmons.
And host of the "Off the Cupp" podcast, S.E. Cupp.
Shawn, obviously, you never know what the President's going to say when you ask him a question in the Oval Office. But that answer today was really something.
SHAWN MCCREESH, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: I thought it was hilarious. And you know, it was honest. He's basically like, I'm damned if I do, I'm damned if I don't, and you know.
JAMAL SIMMONS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, FORMER COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR TO VP HARRIS, FORMER DEPUTY ASSISTANT TO PRES. BIDEN: But he's not though.
S.E. CUPP, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, PODCAST HOST, "OFF THE CUPP": But he's not. SIMMONS: It's his son's wedding.
CUPP: We'd all think it was OK.
SIMMONS: Right.
CUPP: Right? Like that's the thing. This is the thing we'd all be like, Of course, you should go to your son's wedding. Maybe golf less when you're at war with Iran. But like this, for sure go.
SIMMONS: And they've got phones in Bahamas. I'm sure the WHCA can figure out how to put the phones in, so he--
K. COLLINS: Which is the White House Communications Agency.
SIMMONS: Yes, that's right, yes.
MCCREESH: I think if you flew to a small island in the Bahamas this weekend or Monday, there'd be a little uproar.
K. COLLINS: You think so?
SIMMONS: As long as it wasn't that island.
CUPP: Yes.
MCCREESH: I do.
SIMMONS: Yes.
MCCREESH: Yes.
K. COLLINS: I mean, he has traveled a lot, obviously, during the war as it's gone on during the ceasefire period, I mean. But he was threatening to hit Iran just on Tuesday this weekend, said he called those strikes off.
I do think it speaks more to the fact that it's a small wedding, it's the second wedding, it's -- the way the President was answering that.
MCCREESH: I have to say, what interests me about this subject is that I think never in modern history has the children of the president been so known to the public and so part of the presidency.
[21:25:00]
And I think Trump's children and their spouses so often are basically appendages to his power, his influence, his wealth. Ivanka's husband is involved, Tiffany's husband is involved. Eric's wife is involved. And Don Jr.'s last fiancee was like a top-tier courtier in the old court. And so, this stuff is just sort of interesting. I think that they all end up becoming minor characters in the larger opera of Trump.
SIMMONS: Now, Kaitlan, this could also be a tell, right? It could be that the President-- K. COLLINS: Explain.
SIMMONS: --is planning to do something this weekend, and that if he goes to the wedding the same day that he's going to have an assault on Iran, that would be the problem. So, it might be that he's letting something out of the bag that he's not supposed to let out of the bag about their planning to the rest of the world. Or Cuba.
CUPP: But he's -- but he's known him a long time.
SIMMONS: But he has known him a long time.
CUPP: He's known his--
K. COLLINS: I listened to that.
(CROSSTALK)
K. COLLINS: I listened to that again. I think he was talking about the fiancee, at the end of that.
CUPP: He did.
K. COLLINS: When I listen to it a little bit closer.
SIMMONS: Yes. For sure.
K. COLLINS: I think he was saying that he's known the fiancee a long time.
But you know one thing that he talked about in the Oval today that has been a huge focus of his over the last several weeks was not just the construction of the White House ballroom. Obviously, he took reporters out there, this week, on Wednesday, to show them what it was looking like.
He was also asked about the arch today and the construction of that outside of Arlington National Cemetery, and this is what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We're the only important and major city that doesn't have one. We don't have a triumphal arch. So, it was meant to be built for many years. The circle going up to the bridge, it was -- people pass that circle, they say, Why isn't something built here?
And so, that's very good. We just got approval from Fine Arts. That's fantastic.
REPORTER: Do you need Congress to sign off on it?
TRUMP: No, we don't. No. No. We're doing it. It's -- the land is owned by Secretary -- by the Interior Department. We don't need anything from Congress.
(END VIDEO CLIP) K. COLLINS: That last answer is not surprising, but it seems to hit a different chord after what we saw on Capitol Hill today. This revolt from Senate Republicans over the weaponization fund, but also they're angry about the billion dollars that the President is asking for it too.
CUPP: Yes, these kind of -- this kind of largess, these frivolities are really, really unpopular. And I think what you're seeing in this -- in this revolt over the almost $2 billion slush fund, is senators and members of Congress are finally -- it's finally sinking in, that he doesn't care about the midterms, he doesn't care to help them in the midterms. In fact, he's going out and actively hurting them in the midterms.
I think they were hoping that he'd come around and stop saying things like, Affordability is a hoax, stop talking about the ballroom, stop talking about the Reflecting Pool, stop talking about the arch, and get down to business.
I think they realize now he is not, and so they are realizing, We have to save ourselves out here. And if that means going against him, so that we can hold our heads high when we go home and talk to our constituents about what we're doing, that's what we're going to have to do.
K. COLLINS: What was your sense of that today? I mean because, I will never forget being in the White House once, a few months ago, and one of the ways they really do register when something is a problem is not by headlines or chyrons anymore. Maybe the President does. But it's whether or not Senate Republicans are upset with them.
MCCREESH: Yes, I think what we're seeing here today and this week is actually really profound, and it's a lot of story lines converging in one.
Basically, the guy has like three fixations, right? He's got the construction projects. He's got the immigration crackdown. And then he's got this complete and total inability to accept that he was defeated in the last election. And what you're seeing right now is that last fixation is tripping up the other two. And so, it's sort of like Trump v. Trump.
K. COLLINS: Yes. Well, I mean, that's truly what it was with the IRS and his settlement.
MCCREESH: Yes.
SIMMONS: That's right.
K. COLLINS: That is why all of this came to head. I mean, Paula was saying that--
SIMMONS: Yes.
MCCREESH: He's self-destructive. K. COLLINS: --that was happening this week, and that's why they came up with the fund, and then obviously did not test it enough, and it went over like a lead balloon with Congress.
SIMMONS: Yes, could you imagine being a United States senator who was in the Capitol on January 6th, when people were threatening your safety? They were going to hang the Vice President in gallows off the yard. And you're now being asked to approve a fund to give money to the people who were threatening your life just a few years ago, and now you want to pay them because they were prosecuted for trying to threaten you. That is pretty audacious legislating the President's up to there.
K. COLLINS: No sense that they are backing off of it yet. We'll see if that changes.
Shawn McCreesh, thanks for joining us with your excellent reporting, as always.
SIMMONS: They should have some self-respect.
K. COLLINS: Don't worry, Jamal Simmons and S.E. Cupp are sticking around.
Up next. It is the report that the Democrats did not want you to see, at least the Democratic National Committee. But CNN obtained a copy of what is known as the autopsy report of the 2024 election. Kamala Harris wanted it released. We'll tell you what it says, right after this.
[21:30:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JARED MOSKOWITZ (D-FL): An autopsy is a medical procedure you do over a corpse. And now it sounds like we need a malpractice attorney because we couldn't even do the autopsy correctly.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
K. COLLINS: That was Jared Moskowitz.
And ever since Donald Trump's return to the White House, the Democratic National Committee's so-called autopsy report, on why Democrats lost the 2024 presidential election, had become something like the Bigfoot of American politics.
The DNC chair, Ken Martin, promised that it would be released in the spring of 2025. Then the deadline became last summer. Then it slipped until October, until eventually Martin announced that actually he wasn't going to release the report at all.
And with each extended deadline, theories grew about what it might say, or whether the report even existed. That is, until my colleague, CNN's Edward-Isaac Dovere, got his hands on a copy of it, and unveiled how the DNC's long-withheld postmortem actually devolved into an intraparty crisis.
[21:35:00]
Now among the autopsy's main takeaways when you read through it, and everyone should, is blaming President Biden and his team for neglecting Kamala Harris, stating that the Biden White House, quote, "Did not position or prepare the Vice President" throughout her first three and a half years in office.
The report also blames Harris and her campaign for taking too much for granted, stating, quote, "Harris lagged in rural areas nationally, which proved to be insurmountable in swing states. ... Harris wrote off rural America, assuming urban/suburban margins would compensate."
But for as many claims as the report makes through its -- throughout its 192 pages, many of them riddled with spelling mistakes and factual errors. What you might really raise your eyes and -- eyebrow is the report's total silence on some of the biggest questions about the 2024 election overall.
Not included in those 192 pages is any judgment about President Biden's decision to run for a second term, or the impact that the war in Gaza had on splitting the Democratic Party. And there's also no mention of the fact that Harris replaced Biden without any electoral process, or of the former Vice President's failure to do an interview on the Joe Rogan podcast and other media opportunities.
CNN's Edward-Isaac Dovere is my source tonight, along with Jamal Simmons and S.E. Cupp.
And obviously, this is an amazing scoop, and we're so glad you got this because, it was the only reason that it actually ended up getting released. When you talk to your sources, at the Democratic Party, now that we can actually read through this, why do you think they refused to release it for so long?
EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Well, it seems pretty clear that they were frustrated with the process, they were sort of embarrassed by what had happened.
And I think if you get -- go through the story that I wrote, that accompanies the publication of the autopsy, you can see a year of blunders and missteps that really built this existential crisis that is now looming over Ken Martin and the DNC.
But it is really important here, Kaitlan, as you pointed out, the DNC had no plans to release this autopsy. None of what you are seeing there was going to be released. It only happened after I confronted them with reporting that I had done that was going to get at most of the contents of the autopsy and much of what was in there that they decided that they would release it.
And then when they released it, the pages that you were showing there all have some red sentences at the top. That is, every single page carries a disclaimer, essentially disavowing this report and saying, This is one man's opinion.
And this is creating a problem for Ken Martin in a bigger way now because, it's a question of, OK, this was about a lot of mismanagement and fumbles in people's minds. But this was just an autopsy, an internal look at what was going on.
And there are really big things ahead for the DNC and for the Democrats, they hope. The midterms in a couple of months. Obviously the presidential primary process starting up. All the things that will happen about deciding the calendar of which states vote when, things like the debates and managing all of that, and all the forums and all of those things, and then all that building up to what is probably going to be a pretty intense 2028 election.
K. COLLINS: Yes.
DOVERE: And the question is, if Martin had these troubles over this autopsy, how is he going to handle any of those much bigger things?
K. COLLINS: Yes, I mean, and so the fact that they didn't -- they weren't going to release it until you got your hands on it is a sign of great journalism. So, excellent scoop.
DOVERE: Thank you.
K. COLLINS: But as I was reading through it this morning, and your takeaways from it. The fact that they didn't interview any of President Biden's top political aides. They did interview Harris' top political aides that were on the campaign trail with her. I mean, that was kind of stunning to me because, you think you'd at least want to get their view of, of what they think could have been done better.
DOVERE: Yes, it's a long list of people, and I include a bunch of the names in there. There are many more names of people who were not talked to.
But really, there were three people who were making most of the decisions for the Harris campaign once she took over: Jen O'Malley Dillon, Stephanie Cutter, and David Plouffe. None of them spoke to the person, his name is Paul Rivera, who was in charge of the autopsy. Some of that was by choice, that they -- some people decided not to speak to him, and some people were just never asked.
Anita Dunn, who was one of the main political advisers for Joe Biden, she was never asked. She was never asked to speak for the report.
Also, never asked, though, as you mentioned is, Gaza was left out of this report. It's not just left out of the report, it was left out of the process. No leader of the Uncommitted Movement, that protest movement for the pro-Palestinian protest movement, was asked to speak for the autopsy. Also, no leader of groups like the Jewish Democratic Council for America or the Democratic Majority for Israel. This was -- that issue is obviously divisive in many ways. But one of the things that unites it is, or unites people on both sides of it, is that they were not asked for their opinions about this.
[21:40:00]
K. COLLINS: Yes. I mean, Jamal, when you look at this. I mean, one, on that alone, that's a huge issue that's going to come up in 2028, so, you would think that they would want to tackle it. But just overall, in terms of how this was handled, what do you make this?
SIMMONS: So, I did some calling around today, and I can tell you, from people who are familiar with Paul Rivera's thinking about this, that this was the first draft of a report, that he was handing in the first draft.
The first draft was supposed to be reacted to. He was then supposed to get direction about what to do next, which is why there aren't things like executive summary is not in there because, they hadn't made a bunch of decisions about where it was going to go. You can't write a summary until you have a conclusion. There's no conclusion in the report.
So, from the perspective that I was told today, they went into the process to try to just get the first draft done, get feedback, didn't get it, it got shut down at that point.
So, the question I'm asking because, a lot of people have been taking after the -- they've been taking after the typos and taking after the things that, you know, the factual errors. They're not talking about the substantive questions, though, that are in there.
And if Ken Martin wasn't happy with the report that he got 16 months ago, where is the next report, right? Where are the -- either the additions and fixes, or the additional report that says what happened? I think donors in the Democratic Party want to know that, volunteers want to know that, activists want to know that, voters deserve to know.
CUPP: Voters want to know.
SIMMONS: Voters want to know what happened in this campaign. And so, I think the party now has a necessity to either say what's right in the report. They went through a lot of detail here to tell us what was wrong. So, the question is, are there things that are in there that are right, like should the campaign always be on, or always -- or just show up late.
The last thing I'll say about this is, I think from Rivera's perspective, when they were trying to take on this project, he was trying to look at the systemic issues, not the episodic issues. That's the reason why you don't see some of the big things about Biden, or some of the big issues. Because, the perspective they were looking at was, Here are things that have started, going back 15 or 20 years, from where Democrats were when Barack Obama took off in 2009 to where Democrats are today.
K. COLLINS: Yes.
SIMMONS: That lasted a lot longer than Joe Biden's tenure.
K. COLLINS: I mean, you mentioned the voters. The candidates also probably want to know going into 2028.
CUPP: Yes.
K. COLLINS: I mean, the report pretty bluntly says: At times, it seems Democrats are trying to win arguments while Republicans are focused on winning elections.
CUPP: Yes, I mean, there's a lot of, I would say, obvious revelations in this, right? They talk about Democrats have lost connection with American voters. That's pretty obvious. We talked about all the things that aren't in there and should be.
But listen, I went through this. I worked on the 2012 Republican autopsy. Let me tell you, we had dozens, maybe upwards of a 100 people working on this in discrete areas. I was charged specifically with reaching new kinds of voters that we had been missing for years: millennials, minorities, women, and LGBTQ.
And when I tell you, what we did was granular, it was microbiotic. I was looking at the tax code and what we could glean from the tax code to appeal to entrepreneurial millennials. Right? I mean, that is how down in the weeds we got because, we got sent to the woodshed in 2012. And what you do when you get sent to the woodshed is you shut up and you think about what you've done. And so, we did that. We took that really seriously.
I read this, it's a joke. Yes, it's incomplete. Yes, it was meant to be filled out more. I don't know why you send one guy off to do a report, don't release it, release it half-assedly, and sort of defend yourself, It's incomplete. What was the point of it then?
Because, as a voter, I did vote for Democrats in 2024. Not -- you know, that wasn't in my nature, right? But it was an existential threat. I want to know what the party got wrong--
SIMMONS: Yes.
CUPP: --what it knows it got wrong, and what it's doing to win voters back for the future. You owe us that. You let us down in 2024. Give us the answers.
SIMMONS: And it's a tough moment for Ken Martin. He's gone from being someone who I think everyone was looking at as a change agent, to now he's defending a mess that people don't quite understand.
CUPP: Yes.
K. COLLINS: Jamal Simmons. S.E. Cupp.
Edward-Isaac Dovere, excellent reporting to even have us talking about this tonight, and give us the report itself. Everyone can read it on CNN.com including Edward-Isaac's takeaways.
Up next here for us. A signing ceremony that was supposed to happen at the White House today on a new executive order on artificial intelligence was just postponed again. Why? Kara Swisher will join me right after this.
[21:45:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
K. COLLINS: Tonight, SpaceX canceled the launch of its new Starship rocket, which is the most powerful rocket ever built, after engineers were unable to fix some last-minute issues before the launch. After the hype leading up to it, that even brought Starships singer Nicki Minaj to the Texas base. You could see her on the livestream during the countdown as it was underway. They're going to attempt another launch tomorrow.
And this comes, as the stakes for SpaceX really could not be higher. That's because the company is preparing for a blockbuster initial public offering that could make Elon Musk, who is already the world's richest person, also the world's first trillionaire.
Joining me tonight is the veteran tech journalist, Kara Swisher, who is also the host of our CNN Original Series, "Kara Swisher Wants to Live Forever."
And Kara, when you look at this, and this comes as we're watching the launch of this happening, the postponement of it, I don't think it's that surprising--
KARA SWISHER, CNN CONTRIBUTOR, CONTRIBUTING WRITER, NEW YORK TIMES OPINION, PODCAST HOST, "SWAY," AUTHOR, "BURN BOOK": Sure.
K. COLLINS: --because of the IPO that's underway.
SWISHER: No.
K. COLLINS: But I wonder what you are watching in terms of what this IPO moment could mean for Elon Musk.
[21:50:00]
SWISHER: Well, he could become the world's first trillionaire. It could also be a bust. I mean, we've finally gotten a look at the financials here, and they're problematic for a $2 billion -- $2 trillion -- excuse me -- company.
I think most people would base this about maybe a billion dollars, and that's being kind because of the Elon (inaudible). Everything that Elon does, it gets higher because it turns into a meme stock. But a lot of these businesses are really troubled, especially xAI, which is just burning money. The rocket company is growing, but not in the massive way Google did when it went public.
And the real -- the real star here is Starlink, which is doing really well, and it's a great company, and everybody thinks it's a great company. It's a great product. But a lot of these other -- it's surrounded by businesses that Scott Galloway, tomorrow, on our podcast, calls a money furnace. And it may not matter. Math and economics don't matter when it comes to Elon Musk, and he's -- he's going to get a massive run-up on the valuation here, even though the finances don't quite zero, you know, they don't math out, essentially.
K. COLLINS: Why does Scott think they're a money furnace, as you say he put it?
SWISHER: Because you can see the numbers. Go read -- go read the documents that they filed with the SEC to go public, they lose a lot of money, and the growth isn't that spectacular. I think what -- you know, Google, I think, traded 10 or something times, and had 10 times the revenue at the time. This is trading at a 100 times different things, and some of the businesses lose money.
Now, again, in the middle of this is this beautiful little Starlink business, which is really important. But Grok AI is sucking money out of this thing at a massive rate. I think it's a $100 million a day. And they've pivoted to being an infrastructure company, and they've rented out Colossus 1 and 2 to Anthropic. That means Grok isn't -- nobody wants to use Grok, so he's renting out the space, and that's good for -- that's a good thing because he's getting -- they're getting, I think, a billion dollars a month from Anthropic for their Claude service.
K. COLLINS: Yes.
SWISHER: So, just look at the numbers. The numbers are pretty tough. And he'll have to either get a million people to Mars or sell a million robots, or all manner of things, to make this work out financially. But people might buy it anyway. It doesn't really matter. It's just a question whether it will pop at the IPO.
K. COLLINS: Yes.
SWISHER: They'll probably try to make it seem like everybody wants it, or if it'll decline, or whatever, but.
K. COLLINS: Can I get your take as well as we're watching that.
SWISHER: Sure.
K. COLLINS: Speaking of CEOs. The White House was supposed to have this executive order signing on AI at the White House today.
SWISHER: Yes.
K. COLLINS: They delayed it, postponed it again. It was supposed to have a bunch of top tech CEOs that were going to be there, from Anthropic, OpenAI--
SWISHER: Yes.
K. COLLINS: --Google, Meta, Microsoft.
SWISHER: Yes. K. COLLINS: The President said--
SWISHER: Yes.
K. COLLINS: --he did not like certain aspects of it and postponed it because, it gets in the way, he talked about, leadership with China, like beating China.
SWISHER: Yes. That's always there, yes.
K. COLLINS: The New York Times said that a lot of them weren't happy that many of their chief executives couldn't make it to the White House.
SWISHER: Weren't there. Couldn't make it.
K. COLLINS: What did you make of that?
SWISHER: Well, you know, he's very resistant to doing any kind of AI safety, anything, essentially. And there's warring groups within the White House. And it's funny that he didn't like aspects of it, but his people wrote it, right? I mean, it's kind of unusual.
But there are some people that feel like we need more AI safety, I would suspect, Scott Bessent and maybe the CTO. And then there's the other forces from Silicon Valley, like David Sacks and others, who seem to have lost power, but now have sort of gained another upper hand again, which is a free-for-all kind of thing.
And so, they're going to keep struggling with this because, what he was probably proposing was like what the Biden administration proposed many years ago, and he just is not interested in regulating this because he's getting well-paid by these tech companies not to.
K. COLLINS: Yes. We'll see what changes, and if it revives itself.
Kara Swisher, always great to have you. Thank you for joining us tonight.
SWISHER: Thank you.
K. COLLINS: Up next here. There's a special programming note for this Memorial Day weekend of a CNN Film that I promise you, you won't want to miss.
[21:55:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
K. COLLINS: This Memorial Day, CNN's powerful new film, "Why We Dream," follows the final generation of World War II veterans who return to Normandy, France for the 80th anniversary of D-Day. That historic operation in 1944 laid the foundation for the Allied defeat of Nazi Germany.
Here's a look. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sniper was in that steeple. Oh, I was a mess.
Now understand that all these boys, they were in the attack here, and none of them left but me.
I didn't have any help.
I remember I walked over and I said this prayer that I wanted something to hold on to.
And this vision came to me. And it was Christ, put out his hands to me, but he didn't touch me, and he left, fast as he appeared as he walked over to me. And that vision stayed with me all to this -- to this day.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
[22:00:00]
K. COLLINS: "Why We Dream: The Last Living Heroes Go Back" premieres this Monday at 08:00 p.m. Eastern.
Thanks so much for joining us tonight.
"CNN NEWSNIGHT" starts now.
