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State of the Union

Interview With Abby Phillip; Interview With Fmr. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA); Interview With Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT). Aired 9-10a ET

Aired October 26, 2025 - 09:00   ET

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

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(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST (voice-over): Penalty box. President Trump ices out Canada and turns his focus overseas. But as Americans here at home start to feel the pain, can Congress keep running the clock?

Democratic Senator Chris Murphy joins me, plus our political panel.

And California Dreaming. With days to go, as Golden State Democrats race to redraw their maps, it's governor versus Governator.

GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM (D-CA): This is not just about California. This is about our republic.

FMR. GOV. ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER (R-CA): Two wrongs don't make a right.

TAPPER: But can he pump voters up by Election Day? Former governor Arnold Schwarzenegger ahead.

Plus: a dream deferred.

REV. JESSE JACKSON, FOUNDER, RAINBOW/PUSH COALITION: America, our time has come.

TAPPER: A revealing new look. How are Jesse Jackson's historic presidential run still changing the face of American politics?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER: Hello. I'm Jake Tapper in Washington, where the state of our union is wondering what the Gipper might say.

President Trump is in Asia this morning for a week of high-stakes diplomacy ahead of an all-or-nothing sit-down with Chinese leaders Xi Jinping. But while the president touts his peacemaking skills overseas, he is stoking quite a few tensions in this hemisphere. Last night, for example, Trump slapped a new 10 percent tariff on

Canada in objection to a TV ad they aired featuring Ronald Reagan, while, to the south, Trump is ramping up his military campaign in the Caribbean and weighing strikes in Venezuela without congressional approval.

And just days away from elections that will serve as an early referendum on his second term, the president is pushing for more red state gerrymanders to stack the midterms in his favor, an unusual mid- decade process he's pushing to offset any election losses next year.

In California, Democrats' strategy to counter Trump's effort faces a major test and a powerful opponent who's flexing his political muscle to stop it.

And joining me now, someone who wants to terminate the redistricting effort in California, former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who we're catching up with at Gold's Gym in Venice, of course.

Good to see you, sir. Thank you for working us into your -- your busy fitness schedule.

A CBS poll this week found that 62 percent of likely California voters support this ballot measure that you oppose. Why do you think you're right and they're wrong? And what more are you going to do between now and Election Day to try to stop this from passing?

SCHWARZENEGGER: Well, I'm not really the spokesperson for the anti- Proposition 50. I just want to defend the kind of work that I have done, because we worked so hard to get the independent redistricting commission in California.

It was -- California was in the leadership on that issue. Then we went around the country, promoted it around the country and actually convinced 30-some percent of districts to go and have an independent commission. And now all of a sudden they're undoing all of that. There's this war going on all over the United States, who can outcheat the other one?

Texas started it. They did something terribly wrong. And then, all of a sudden, California says, well, then we have to do something terribly wrong. And then now other states are jumping in. And now this is spreading like wildfire all over the country.

And it saddens me to see it be going in the opposite direction, rather than having an independent commission draw the district lines. And so, Jake, I have to tell you that, when you think about this trying to outcheat each other, rather than outperform each other, it's all between Democrats and Republicans.

And the ones that are getting left behind are the people. And when I think about this cheating that's going on, I said, wait a minute, yesterday, I saw on television basketball players getting arrested. coaches, famous coaches getting arrested, mafia getting arrested because they're cheating with the card games and with gambling and with all of those kind of things. [09:05:06]

So they're getting arrested, and, here, they're cheating and they're having a war on cheating here in America with this gerrymandering. So it's really sad.

TAPPER: Democratic Governor Newsom was asked this week about your efforts to lobby against the measure. I want you to take a listen to what he said and then respond on the other side.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM (D-CA): He's wrong. What we're doing is temporary. It's completely transparent and it's democratic. This is a revolution that's going on in real time in our country. We need to wake up. Prop 50 is foundational if we're going to save this republic. So I would say to those that are opposed to it, wake up to these new realities. Spare me the moral high ground.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: So, I know this, sir, but this is a prevalent view among Democratic voters and Democratic officials. They think Republicans are blowing up all norms and standards for behavior, and they feel, therefore, they have to take extraordinary action in response.

Are their concerns invalid, do you think?

SCHWARZENEGGER: Well, first of all, let me just say that it's important. This is not Governor Newsom against me or me against Governor Newsom.

We are friends and we get along. And he came to me and told me about this situation. And we have been working on this without attacking each other and all of that. So, that's number one.

Number two, I think, when he -- when they say this is temporary, there is no such thing. I mean, the longest programs are government programs that are temporary, OK?Just remember that, if it is a tax program or if it is a redistricting program, anything that is temporary with government is permanent.

So, in the year 2032, when the independent redistricting commission is supposed to come back, they're going to say, wait a minute, there's still gerrymandering going on in Texas. There's still gerrymandering going on in Ohio. There's still gerrymandering going on in Florida. We have to continue the gerrymandering.

This is what's going to happen. They will find an excuse. So, therefore, I don't think it is temporary. So that's total fantasy. So, the second thing is that you cannot cheat your way out of it. What they should do is, what the Democrats should do is, they should outperform Trump.

To me, it's all about competition creates performance. And so what they do is, with the redistricting commission, is that they're going to go and try to draw the district lines in such a way that they get voted in no matter if they work well or not for the American people.

So the American people get cheated on this whole thing. That is really the problem here. To me, I understand that the Democrats and Republicans have to fight about this. But the ones that are not really getting anything out of this is the people of America.

I think that, if you want to really fight for democracy, why would you go and destroy the Constitution in California, tear it up, and go and redo it, do the whole thing? So, to me, it just doesn't make any sense at all, the whole thing.

TAPPER: As you acknowledged, this all started because of redistricting in Texas. And this was Trump pushing Republican- controlled states to throw out their current congressional maps, so as to cook the books so that there is less -- it is less likely for Democrats to retake control of the House during the next-year midterms.

SCHWARZENEGGER: Well, no, Jake.

TAPPER: I mean, is it fair to argue that -- do you believe that the Republican Party is starting this?

SCHWARZENEGGER: Yes. No, Jake, there has been gerrymandering going on for 200 years. There is such extreme gerrymandering going on that, in a state like Massachusetts, that has like 40 percent of the people voting for Trump, they only had -- they had have zero representatives.

The Republican Party has zero representatives sent to the House. Think about that. In New Mexico, 45 percent of the people voted for Trump and vote Republican, and zero is sent to the House, zero representative from the Republican Party.

So there's gerrymandering, crazy gerrymandering going on all over the country. And we wanted to try to stop it in California, and we did stop it in California and we went around the country. So I think this whole thing about finger-pointing and say they did it, so therefore we should -- doing it, that's not really the way to go, that one party should outperform the other party. It should be performance.

And when it comes to midterm elections, as you know, always the party that is not in the White House usually wins by 20, 25, 30 seats. So what does five seats matter in the first place in Texas? It is crazy. We should outperform them. That is where the action is.

TAPPER: Let's talk about another issue you care passionately about. You met with Pope Leo earlier this month to discuss your efforts to combat the climate crisis. It's a top priority.

[09:10:00]

But, realistically, I wonder, what do you tell people who believe that climate change is an existential threat? What should they do when the president of the United States falsely claims it's a hoax, actively works to undermine climate initiatives, not just by the Biden administration, but climate initiatives by your beloved state of California?

What do you tell activists to do?

SCHWARZENEGGER: Well, first of all, I was very excited that the Catholic Church is really that enthusiastic about becoming involved in a fight against pollution, terminating pollution. So this was number one. I was very excited to be there at the Vatican, to give the speech there, to work with the pope together, and to work with the Vatican together on this issue.

Number two, my message has always been, don't go and focus on what the federal government is doing or what the president is doing or what the prime minister is doing. I said each community and each state has its own powers.

When I was governor, we did the most extraordinary work here in California. Democrats and Republicans alike worked together. We passed the most tough environmental laws in the country. And we proved that you can have tough environmental laws, but, at the same time, have also the economy grow.

Look at California now. It's the number one economy in the country, and we have the toughest environmental laws. So, you can do that. It was done on a local and on a statewide level, not on the federal level. As a matter of fact, the Bush administration hated all of our ideas that we did here. And we even fought in court and went all the way to the Supreme Court. And we won against the federal government, because they wanted to stop us from regulating our own air.

So what my message is, is, let's not focus on what Trump says. Let's not focus on what the federal government says. Let's focus on, what can we do, what can each individual do? I mean, this is where the action is, people power, not government power, people power.

The greatest things in the world were accomplished with people power, if it's the civil rights movement, if it is the anti-apartheid movement, if it is the suffrage movement, the independence movement in India. You go -- the list goes on and on and on. It's people power. And I want to encourage people and I want to pump them up.

And I want to say, you do the work, rather than waiting for, what does Trump say today? Oh, my God, Trump is saying this and he thinks it's a hoax. No, no, no, that's not where the action is. The action is, what do you do?

TAPPER: One last question for you, sir.

In just the last few weeks, we have seen a Democratic Senate candidate apologize for having a tattoo that he claims he wasn't aware had Nazi ties, but it's the Totenkopf from the S.S., the skull and crossbones. And then there's -- that's on the left.

And then, on the right, a top White House aide still working for the administration had his nomination withdrawn after he wrote in a text chain that he had a Nazi streak. Politico reported on messages from Young Republicans joking about sending people to gas chambers, praising Hitler.

The reason I bring this up is because you have spoken so movingly in the past about your father's membership in the Nazi Party, denouncing it. What is your message to anybody in politics today embracing or praising Nazis or Hitler in any way?

SCHWARZENEGGER: Well, I don't know anything. I don't know the details about this one individual that says that he had this tattoo put on by mistake or he was drunk or something like that, and now he wants to erase it and he wants to cover it. I don't know enough about this case that -- to really comment on it.

But I can just tell you one thing. Anyone that idolizes Nazis, it's bad news, because we have been there before and we have seen the outcome. There are no winners, OK? It's that simple. And I think that's not the direction we want to go.

What we want to do is, we want to make sure that both of the parties, doesn't matter if you're Democrat or Republican, get together and start figuring out what is best for the people of America, because, while they are fighting over here about anti-Prop 50 and for Prop 50 and gerrymandering and not gerrymandering and all this stuff, they're trying to put the spotlight away from the actual issues.

Because the actual issues is the debt problem. We have a $37 trillion debt, and no one is addressing it. We have a health care crisis in America. We have an immigration reform that we need in America. I mean, this is the kind of issues. You have to make it more affordable.

And all of those kind of issues, they're avoiding it. In California, it's the same thing. The more they talk about Prop 50, the more they take the spotlight away that we have more homeless in California than any other state. As a matter of fact, we have one-quarter of all the homeless in America right here with 178,000 homeless.

And the number goes up and up and up. They don't want to focus on that. You see what I'm saying? They don't want to focus there about affordability, that the affordability is so bad here that people have to move out of Los Angeles. They can't afford living here anymore because it takes $3,500 to rent an apartment here.

[09:15:12]

And you cannot even afford a house or anything like this. That's why we have so many homeless, because, in the homes, they don't have the permitting process in place. So those are the kind of issues they should address, or that we have the highest energy prices in California, the highest gasoline prices in California.

All of those kind of things need to be addressed. They don't want to talk about that. They want to go and focus on Prop 50. And it may win, Prop 50. I think the people that are falling short are the people themselves, and not the politicians. The politicians are going to celebrate because they finally won something, and then they're going to go and do it in another state, in another state, in another state. And it hurts the people. I am a guy that is not on the right and not on the left when it comes to that. I'm not a political hack. I'm a person that looks at, what is reality here and how do we make this country better? And this is not -- through gerrymandering is not the way we make this country better.

We make it better by the parties outperforming each other. That's how we make them better.

TAPPER: Former California Governor, actor, entrepreneur Arnold Schwarzenegger, it's been an honor, sir. Thank you so much.

SCHWARZENEGGER: Thank you very much. Thank you. Have a good day.

TAPPER: President Trump says Canada aired a -- quote -- "hostile TV ad," and, because of that ad, he's going to raise tariffs on Canada by 10 percent. Can he do that? Should he? Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut is next.

And he walked, so Barack Obama could run. A look at how Jesse Jackson reshaped American politics. That's ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:20:57]

TAPPER: Over the weekend, Canada was airing a TV ad showing former President Ronald Reagan criticizing tariffs. And, in response, President Trump said he's going to boost tariffs on Canada by 10 percent.

Joining us now, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy.

Senator Murphy, what's your response to this new Trump tariff on Canada?

SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D-CT): I think it's just further confirmation that these tariffs have nothing to do with us. Prices are going up on everything in this country. Manufacturing jobs are leaving. We have lost already this year about 30,000 manufacturing jobs.

These tariffs really are just a political tool that the present uses to help himself, sometimes to enrich himself. You have seen companies openly admit that they're making investments in his cryptocurrency in an attempt to win favor for him to try to get better treatment on the tariffs -- you saw Apple make a million-dollar contribution to his inauguration and then magically get an exemption from the tariffs -- and then sometimes to try to suppress free speech.

Whether he likes it or not, even the government of Canada or the government of Ontario has the right to criticize him, but he's now going to use the tariffs to try to punish people overseas from speaking out against him, just like he's using the Department of Justice or the FCC to try to punish and control people who are speaking out against him here in America. So these tariffs aren't about rebuilding our economy. They aren't

about helping regular consumers. They're just about giving Trump additional power to try to benefit himself politically and financially.

TAPPER: Let's turn to the government shutdown.

Funding for food stamps is expected to run out at the end of this week. This is happening because Democrats have not agreed to vote to fund the government without the Republicans making concessions to seriously change health care policy.

So is this a trade-off you're willing to make and continue to make, letting some Americans go hungry until these Obamacare subsidies get extended?

MURPHY: Well, let's be clear. We're shut down right now because Republicans are refusing to even talk to Democrats about a bipartisan budget bill.

As you know, the reason that we didn't shut down for four years when Joe Biden was president was because Democrats negotiated with Republicans, and every single one of those short-term or long-term funding bills included both Democratic and Republican priorities.

So the government is down because Republicans have done something unprecedented. They have refused to talk to Democrats about a bipartisan budget. Yes, we have priorities, just like they do. One of our priorities is pretty simple, making sure that premiums don't go up by 75 percent on 22 million families this fall.

Now, the reality is, if they sat down to try to negotiate, we could probably come up with something pretty quickly. The president just announced $20 billion going to bail out the Argentinean economy. For $20 billion, we could open the government back up. That's enough money to relieve a lot of pressure of these premium increases.

So we could get this deal done in a day if the president was in D.C., rather than being overseas. We could open up the government on Tuesday or Wednesday, and there wouldn't be any crisis in the food stamp program.

TAPPER: "The New York Times" reported that the private donor who gave President Trump $130 million to pay U.S. troops during the shutdown, that he is billionaire Timothy Mellon, and the donation appears to violate federal law.

But what do you say to Americans who look at that and think it's President Trump, not Democrats, making sure that troops get paid?

MURPHY: Well, I think one of the reasons that President Troop...

(LAUGHTER)

MURPHY: President Trump is refusing to negotiate is because he likes the fact that the government is closed, because he thinks he can exercise king-like powers, he can open up the parts of the government that he wants, he can pay the employees who are loyal to him.

I mean, this is a leader who is trying to transition our government from a democracy to something much closer to a totalitarian state. And so this is part of what happens in totalitarian states. The leader, the regime only decides what things get funded and what don't, often in coordination with their oligarch friends.

[09:25:01]

So, I just don't want to live in a world in which Donald Trump and a handful of billionaires decide which part of government works and which don't, which is why I would rather have him at the negotiating table tomorrow, so that we can reopen the government and it can be a democratically elected Congress that decides what things get funded, not a handful of super rich dudes.

TAPPER: The leader of the Senate, John Thune, has said that he offered to Democrats a commitment to vote on extending the Obamacare subsidies at a date certain, but Democrats won't take yes for an answer.

MURPHY: Yes, but that doesn't help anybody in my state because all these Republicans are going to vote against it.

I mean, this is like real life, right? This isn't a game. In Connecticut, if you're 60 years old and making somewhere around $60,000, you could be seeing a $25,000 increase in your premiums, not 25 percent, $25,000.

So we don't need a commitment for a vote that fails. We need Republicans to come to the table and say, we're going to fix this problem. We're not asking for much here. We're not asking to fix the entirety of the health care system.

We're just saying, let's take a piece of the damage that you did with a Big Beautiful Bill, just a piece of the damage, and let's fix it so that this fall, as prices on beef and school supplies and car repairs are going through the roof, families don't also have to pay these enormous increases in health care premiums.

I don't think we're asking too much. I don't think we're being unreasonable. I don't think we're being any more unreasonable than Republicans were when they asked to have some of their priorities funded in budgets written when Democrats were in control.

TAPPER: We're running out of time, but I do want to ask you about the Maine Senate race because, earlier this month, you called main Senate candidate Graham Platner impressive, but, since then, obviously, a lot about him has come out, including the fact that he had a Totenkopf, which is a skull head -- it's the Nazi emblem for the S.S. -- he had one of those tattooed on his chest.

He's denied that he knew what the tattoo meant until recently, but CNN did find several times he discussed the Totenkopf emblem in recent years and months. Do you still think Platner is impressive? MURPHY: Yes, I saw that reporting. I think I'm meeting with him this

upcoming week, so I'm certainly interested to hear from him about it. I mean, any time you see something like that, you scratch your head.

But I have also listened to him talk about, I mean, the difficult time that he went through in his life. And, frankly, it's not unfamiliar to a lot of soldiers who came back from service and had a very difficult time readjusting. So he sounds like a human being to me, a human being who made mistakes, recognizes them and is very open about it.

But, yes, certainly, I'm looking forward to sitting down and talking to him about it. He's obviously right now performing very well in the polls in Maine. He's talking a language that speaks to a lot of middle-class voters, a lot of Trump voters that, frankly, are looking for Democrats that understand working-class concerns. And I'm looking forward to hearing from him.

TAPPER: Senator Chris Murphy, thank you so much, sir. Appreciate it.

MURPHY: Thank you.

TAPPER: President Trump has all of Washington revolving around him, so what happens when he leaves town for a week?

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:32:46]

TAPPER: The federal government might be shut down, the East Wing might be gone, Trump is killing alleged drug smugglers on the high seas and lashing out to Canada with new tariffs, but he's feeling good. He's dancing in Malaysia. There he is.

My panel joins me now.

Xochitl, you might be upset about the state of the country. President Trump is feeling good. He's dancing.

XOCHITL HINOJOSA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: He is. Yes, he's -- the government is shut down. Health care premiums are about to go up. He is putting opposition research on the White House Web site. East Wing is coming down. That's apparently his priority, according to Karoline Leavitt this week.

I think that all of these visuals are not good for Donald Trump. And I think that you're feeling it. You're hearing from Americans. People are angry. They're not getting their paychecks. Costs are going up. They did not want all of this. They wanted him to address costs. And so it'll be interesting to see what happens in the upcoming elections and whether or not the Americans speak loud and clear that they don't want the Republican Party.

TAPPER: What do you think?

BRAD TODD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, this ballroom thing could have been settled a long time ago.

In 2011, Donald Trump offered to build a ballroom for Barack Obama for $100 million. He offered to pay for it. So we could have saved ourselves all this trouble. And, instead, Democrats would have to talk about the fact that they have shut down the government, instead of talking about the ballroom.

TAPPER: Let me just ask you, as a pollster, do you think there are bad optics here that voters actually see in terms of the glitz of the ballroom and the hundreds of millions of dollars? And Trump is overseas. Obviously, he's doing serious stuff overseas. But prices are going up.

KRISTEN SOLTIS ANDERSON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, I think the ballroom is not actually something that we're going to be talking about a year from now as we're approaching the midterm elections.

But I do think what people are paying at the grocery store, what they are paying in rent, those are the things that are going to define this election. And in the polling right now that I look at, I don't see voters seeing Republicans or Democrats as focused on that issue, that, for Democrats, they are very focused on right now this health care issue that they sort of chose as the pretext for the shutdown.

For Republicans, voters see them as very focused on crime and immigration. But those issues have faded a little bit in salience, frankly, as the border has gotten under control, as crime has come down a little bit. So this is the real challenge, is that, for Republicans and Democrats alike, no voters trust them right now to tackle that number one issue.

What do you think?

[09:35:00]

ADAM KINZINGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think the ballroom thing, we aren't going to be talking about it in the year. I think what it is, though, is, it's emblematic of kind of how Donald Trump has run his presidency.

And you love that or you hate it, right? He basically made a decision without the will of Congress. I'm actually kind of creeped out by the fact that he's raising money from outside sources for this. I almost would rather it be tax dollars, because then he wouldn't be beholden to anybody and then people wouldn't be trying to get favors from him.

That's where I think...

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: You don't think all these corporations and cryptocurrency boards...

KINZINGER: They're just doing that out of the kindness...

TAPPER: ... are just doing this because they're sweet? KINZINGER: I know. They're very sweet actually.

And -- but, no, I mean, so I think that's going to be -- it's just kind of emblematic of that. But really the big deal is, how do we get through this government shutdown? And when paychecks stop going out a second time now or food stamps are cut, then the pressure is going to be really turned up out here.

TAPPER: Xochitl referred to oppo on the White House Web site. Let me explain to that -- people what that means. That means opposition research.

And this was the White House, as they were facing criticism to the East Wing being torn down, posted on the White House Web site pictures of Bill Clinton with Monica Lewinsky, a photograph that claimed to be Obama -- it's supposed to be representative of Obama with the Muslim Brotherhood, a photo of Hunter Biden in a bathtub, suggesting, with no evidence, that the cocaine found in the White House during the Biden years was his cocaine.

Let me ask you. The trolling that this White House does -- and it is a big part of the Trump presidency, is trolling, not even by him necessarily, although he certainly does his share, but, like, the White House communications office does a lot of it. Does it work? Does it hurt them? Just a wash? What do you think?

SOLTIS ANDERSON: So, as someone who is both a big-C and a small-C conservative, I don't love the way that government -- I don't love the way that our politicians talk to one another just in general these days.

So I'm personally not a huge fan of this. However, I don't think that there are a lot of voters out there who didn't think this is kind of who Donald Trump is and that he likes to just go punch people in the mouth with every tool available to him.

And especially these days, Republicans really believe, I'm willing to accept extremism -- I'm willing to -- or extreme forms of communication, we should say, in exchange for a government that's actually going to get something done, that's actually going to be like vibrant and effective.

And they're willing -- that is a trade-off they have willingly made.

TAPPER: But you obviously are bothered by it.

HINOJOSA: Well, of course.

And I think the interesting part of all of this is that Donald Trump understands a visual. He understands cable news. He watches it. He's obsessed with it. The visual of bulldozers knocking down the East Wing, that really took to people and was obviously covered, and he did not like that.

And so he needed to find a way to distract. And this was...

TAPPER: So find Hunter in a bathtub?

HINOJOSA: And so this was a way of doing it, because now people are talking about how Hunter Biden -- and all this opposition research is now on a government Web site, not a political campaign Web site, but used by government dollars. This is his way of distracting.

TODD: But swing voters value Donald Trump's sense of humor. They think he makes it different from other politicians. We have studied this and we know it.

And I think what's really going to happen with this ballroom is every Democrat running for president in 2028 is going to swear they're going to knock it down and it's going to make them look like an idiot to the voters.

(CROSSTALK)

HINOJOSA: .. swear they're going to knock it down.

KINZINGER: I will tell you what kind of is just so tiring is, this president and this White House, all they do is punch down. They punch down all the time.

They celebrate deportations. I think it's one thing to deport people and be like, with a heavy heart, we have to deport you, so you have a chance to come back. Instead, they're putting out tweets where they're like dragging chains and celebrating the fact that this family who tried -- who is was such a desperate situation that they came, took a dangerous journey, worked for almost nothing to provide for a family, and they celebrate their pain and deportation.

And you see that in this too. Everything is a troll. Everything is punching down. Everything is LOL. And we live in a really serious time in this world that stuff is like right on the verge of breaking, and we have children in charge.

SOLTIS ANDERSON: But it feels as though there are some Democrats who are looking at that and going, maybe we need to do it too. I mean, Gavin Newsom in California now has an entire Web site devoted to saying like, well, if you can't beat them, join them. And I think that is probably unwise for him.

KINZINGER: But he's not president. That's a big difference.

TODD: It's also a reflection of where our culture is too. The politics tends to be downstream of culture.

HINOJOSA: Yes, we're in a race to the bottom at this point. So...

TAPPER: But do you think that Democrats should -- under the whole when they go down low, we go high, do you think Democrats should be returning to that? Or do you like Gavin Newsom mocking Trump endlessly on his Twitter feed?

HINOJOSA: Well, I think that the Gavin Newsom thing is just noise in the background. I do think that, when it comes to redistricting, as your earlier

segment, I do think that Democrats need to be responding to Republicans and not letting them get away with it. And so that's why I support the redistricting effort, and a lot of Democrats do.

TODD: Even though they're going to deny the will of two-thirds of Virginians.

TAPPER: All right, to be continued.

Thanks so much, everyone.

Coming up next: He's the forgotten forefather of modern politics. How leaders from Barack Obama to Bernie Sanders to AOC all owe a debt to the Reverend Jesse Jackson.

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:44:30]

TAPPER: The Reverend Jesse Jackson may not have ever become president, but he sure laid the foundation for a new era of progressive politics in the U.S.

And this is the subject of a brand-new book coming out this week by CNN's Abby Phillip. It's called "A Dream Deferred: Jesse Jackson and the Fight for Black Political Power."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(CHANTING)

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST (voice-over): That chant was a rallying cry for millions of Americans.

JACKSON: I rise to declare that I can and announce to you this day my decision to seek the nomination of the Democratic Party for the presidency of the United States of America.

[09:45:10]

(CHEERING)

PHILLIP (voice-over): A campaign that ushered in a new era in American politics.

JACKSON: All precious...

AUDIENCE: All precious...

JACKSON: ... in God's sight.

AUDIENCE: ... in God's sight.

JACKSON: Rainbow...

AUDIENCE: Rainbow.

JACKSON: ... '84.

PHILLIP: Black voters flex their muscle in the Democratic Party, and Jesse Jackson forced his party to open the political tent to all voters.

JACKSON: We challenge the Democratic Party to respect all of its constituency. We will have a negotiation. Blacks, women, Hispanics, workers, Indians, Chinese, Filipinos, we must come together and form the Rainbow Coalition. We need each other.

(CHEERING)

PHILLIP: Jesse Jackson's historymaking run has influenced a new generation of American politicians, from Bernie Sanders to AOC and Zohran Mamdani in New York City.

ZOHRAN MAMDANI (D), NEW YORK CITY MAYORAL CANDIDATE: My friends, our time is now.

PHILLIP: Mamdani's insurgent campaign of economic populism channeling a Jackson refrain.

JACKSON: Our time has come. We must leave racial battleground and come the economic common ground and moral higher ground. America, our time has come.

PHILLIP: In 1984 and 1988, Jackson shocked the political establishment by drawing the votes of millions, including in unexpected places.

Ultimately, after coming in second place in the 1988 Democratic primary, Jackson pushed through rule changes that paved the way for the country to elect its first black president, Barack Obama, 20 years later.

For decades, Jackson's campaigns were dismissed as a momentary flash. But his dream of politics, anchored by economic solidarity and racial justice, deferred for more than 40 years, may hold a blueprint for today's Democratic Party.

(CHANTING)

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER: And it's great to have CNN anchor and author Abby Phillip here with me now, the author of "A Dream Deferred."

So you were born three weeks after Jesse Jackson's 1988 campaign ended.

PHILLIP: Yes.

TAPPER: You have covered so many campaigns. What made you want to go back...

PHILLIP: Yes.

TAPPER: ... in history to pre-Abby to find out more about him and his career?

PHILLIP: Well, look this campaign, I think a lot of people remember that Jesse Jackson ran. But I think most people don't remember how close he actually came, especially in 1988, to being the Democratic nominee.

He was the second runner-up in that campaign. And there's one particular moment, when he won the Michigan primary, where everybody in the Democratic Party had to contemplate for the first time, wait a second, what would happen if there is a Jesse Jackson who is the Democratic nominee and perhaps a Jesse Jackson for president?

That was also the first time Jesse Jackson had to contemplate that. And so this book is really about taking a much closer look at those campaigns, because I think, when he was running, it was not very clear what the significance of his campaigns were.

And in fact, many people thought he was just a gadfly, he was running to just make a point. I don't think it's been until maybe 20 or 30 years later that we have a better understanding of just how much of an impact they had.

TAPPER: Oh, for sure.

And I think one of the things that seems true to me, and you make the case well, is, you don't have Bernie Sanders without Jesse Jackson.

PHILLIP: Yes.

TAPPER: You don't have AOC without Jesse Jackson. And he made cases that took decades for the Democratic Party to catch up to, Palestinian statehood, national health care.

PHILLIP: Yes. Yes, absolutely.

And this idea that economic solidarity, economic justice should be the bedrock of the Democratic Party's platform is something that he ran on all the way back then, and now is how Bernie Sanders operates in politics. And it wasn't just that, but doing so while also not abandoning social justice, because, of course, he first ran to say to the Democratic Party, don't take black voters for granted.

And he proved through his candidacy that black voters could be an incredibly powerful force in the Democratic primary. I would also argue that Joe Biden owes a lot to Jesse Jackson.

TAPPER: Sure.

PHILLIP: Because the idea that there are all these black Democratic voters who helped him bypass Iowa and New Hampshire in 2020, as you remember, that was made possible largely by Jesse Jackson. That was also the path that Jesse Jackson envisioned for the future of

the Democratic Party, that they could go through the South, through the bedrock of the Democratic Party, which is black voters, to the nomination.

[09:50:03]

So there are so many people -- and I didn't even bring up Barack Obama, because, as we all know, it's not just because Barack Obama is a black candidate. It's also because Jesse Jackson changed the rules of the Democratic Party that allowed Obama to gain delegates in a proportional fashion in 2008.

TAPPER: Yes.

PHILLIP: He wouldn't be the nominee had it not been for that rule change.

TAPPER: Literally changed the rules.

PHILLIP: Literally changed the rules.

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: I remember this political cartoon from 1988 that had like a pickup truck in Michigan.

PHILLIP: Yes.

TAPPER: And it was like a Reagan -- it was one of the famous Reagan Democrats with a Jesse Jackson sticker on his bumper sticker.

PHILLIP: Yes.

TAPPER: Because he wasn't only attractive to black voters, working- class or college-educated. He was also attractive to white working- class voters.

And I wonder if there's anything in Jesse Jackson's example that the modern Democratic Party can draw on.

PHILLIP: Yes. He went where the people were. There was no part of the country that he said he wasn't going to go to.

And that image of that kind of pickup truck, there's another image that is in the book, if -- when you buy it. Hopefully, you all buy it.

(LAUGHTER)

PHILLIP: But it's in the book. It's of all these white farmers with brown paper bags over their heads, and they're at a Jesse Jackson rally, and they were protesting farm foreclosures.

And Jesse Jackson had spent -- between the 1984 campaign and the 1988 campaign,he had spent a large amount of time rallying with farmers who had their farms foreclosed. And he made his campaign about farm issues, just as much as it was about other things.

So that's one of the things that I think many people will find surprising, because it wasn't actually reported on in the media, I think in those years, just how much time he spent among white people in the South, among white people in Iowa and Missouri, and in rural Michigan and rural Wisconsin.

And those supporters are still there. I talked to a lot of them as I was writing this book. And his impact on them has really stuck around for decades.

TAPPER: The book is fantastic. I have read it. It's called "A Dream Deferred: Jesse Jackson and the Fight for Black Political Power." It's a warts-and-all look at everything he did, with his participation.

PHILLIP: Yes.

TAPPER: Really fascinating. It comes out Tuesday.

CNN's Abby Phillip, thank you so much for joining us.

Everyone out there, go get yourself a copy.

PHILLIP: Thank you so much, Jake.

TAPPER: Sacrebleu. French authorities made big progress on the Louvre heist investigation.

That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:57:11]

TAPPER: This just in: French police have arrested suspects in connection with the theft of priceless jewels from the Louvre. One was caught at the airport. The Paris prosecutor's office said that heist lasted just seven minutes, but cost $100 million in stolen gems.

Stay with CNN as we learn more.

Thank you for spending your Sunday morning with us. "FAREED ZAKARIA GPS" starts next.