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Trump warns of 'final battle' as staff sours on election chances · INSIGHT TODAY

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  Speaker 1: President Trump is calling it the final battle. And this morning,
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  Speaker 1: CNN has new reporting inside his strategy for the midterms,
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  Speaker 1: though his own advisers are acknowledging that they are bracing
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  Speaker 1: for impact. come November. One tells CNN the best case
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  Speaker 1: scenario now, holding the Senate and likely losing the House.
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  Speaker 1: And here's a quote for you. It's obviously going to
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  Speaker 1: be effing rough.
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  Speaker 2: Yes.
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  Speaker 1: Welcome to 7 a.m. on a Monday. That is the
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  Speaker 1: mood behind the scenes. But out front, the White House
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  Speaker 1: has launched another ad ahead of election day with the
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  Speaker 1: president once again front and center. And again, it is
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  Speaker 1: paid for by the American taxpayer. In this one, the
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  Speaker 1: president is warning of the, quote, final battle against communists
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  Speaker 1: and what he calls the deep state. It ends with
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  Speaker 1: the line and disclaimer paid for by the U.S. government.
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  Speaker 3: And we will liberate America from these villains once.
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  Speaker 1: And for all. That ad played during at least two
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  Speaker 1: NFL games on Sunday. It's the third taxpayer-funded ad featuring
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  Speaker 1: the president in just the span of a week. The
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  Speaker 1: White House continues to call these ads public service announcements,
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  Speaker 1: saying they're educational and unapologetically patriotic. But even some of
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  Speaker 1: the president's own party are questioning that and questioning the
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  Speaker 1: spending here. CNN's Elena Treen is live this morning at.
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  Speaker 4: The White House for us.
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  Speaker 1: And you have new reporting, Elena, on the final sprint strategy,
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  Speaker 1: if you will. from here. What are you picking up?
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, that's right, Kate. Our colleagues, Kristen Holmes and I,
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  Speaker 5: did a lot of reporting, talked to many Trump advisors,
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  Speaker 5: people on the president's political operation. outside allies and Republican strategists.
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  Speaker 5: And what's clear is the mood has greatly soured among
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  Speaker 5: the president's closest advisors about what is going to happen
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  Speaker 5: in the midterm elections. You read that quote, but I
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  Speaker 5: do want to highlight it again. One of Trump's advisors
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  Speaker 5: telling me that it's obviously going to be effing rough,
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  Speaker 5: saying that they believe one of the best case scenarios
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  Speaker 5: is that Democrats hold on to the Senate, or excuse me,
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  Speaker 5: what Democrats faced in 2022, which is when they held
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  Speaker 5: on to the Senate but lost the House. That's what
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  Speaker 5: they're thinking. could potentially be the best case scenario for
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  Speaker 5: Republicans just a couple of weeks from now on November
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  Speaker 5: 3rd when voters go to the polls. And look, what
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  Speaker 5: we're going to see from the Trump administration is despite
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  Speaker 5: a lot of this anxiety that people are internally feeling,
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  Speaker 5: they're still planning this aggressive campaign push and having the
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  Speaker 5: president on the road multiple times a week between now
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  Speaker 5: and November. And really, that's all about getting at this
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  Speaker 5: idea of turnout, trying to juice turnout among his fiercest supporters.
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  Speaker 5: I can tell you from my conversations with the president advisors,
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  Speaker 5: there was a strategy that they had in 2024, which
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  Speaker 5: was to try and target independent and more moderate leaning
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  Speaker 5: Republicans and conservatives and try to get them out. And
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  Speaker 5: that is what helped Trump win the general election roughly
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  Speaker 5: two years ago now. But that's not what they're doing
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  Speaker 5: this time. They recognize that it's going to be very
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  Speaker 5: hard to get these kind of more swing voters across
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  Speaker 5: the line for Republicans. And so that's why they're so
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  Speaker 5: focused on on using the president to try and turn
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  Speaker 5: out his baits. And that's what he means when he
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  Speaker 5: tells voters across the country to pretend that he's on
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  Speaker 5: the ballot. The problem with that is they recognize his
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  Speaker 5: approval numbers are very low right now. And also a
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  Speaker 5: lot of Republicans in these polls showing that they are
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  Speaker 5: unhappy with the Iran war. They are anxious and have
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  Speaker 5: concerns about high gas prices. And so they have to
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  Speaker 5: try and manage this in the weeks ahead. Now, all
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  Speaker 5: of this comes, as you mentioned, Kate, that they had
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  Speaker 5: this new ad out paid for the U.S. government, one
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  Speaker 5: of several ads we've seen like this in recent weeks.
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  Speaker 5: really featuring the president front and center. And one thing
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  Speaker 5: I just want to point out about that most recent
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  Speaker 5: ad that aired yesterday, I actually saw it watching football
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  Speaker 5: with my husband this weekend, is that it echoes what
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  Speaker 5: Trump said in a 2023 speech. It's almost identical as
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  Speaker 5: well to a 2024 ad that the president had released
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  Speaker 5: on the campaign trail. So just a little context for
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  Speaker 5: the imagery that they're reverting back to ahead of the
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  Speaker 5: midterms this year.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. And also then continues the questions of, is it
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  Speaker 1: a campaign ad or not, if it looks so much
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  Speaker 1: like a campaign ad of the recent Now.
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  Speaker 4: Even some in the president's party aren't sure it's the
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  Speaker 4: best use of money.
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  Speaker 6: I don't think any public official, including President Trump or
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  Speaker 6: Kristi Noem or John Kennedy, should spend public money on
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  Speaker 6: private ads for themselves.
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  Speaker 4: So joining me now in the group chat, Sarah Fisher,
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  Speaker 4: CNN senior media analyst and senior media reporter at Axios.
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  Speaker 4: Tiana Lodescher, political commentator for The Washington Examiner and Yasmin Raji,
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  Speaker 4: executive director of Swing Left. OK, I want to start
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  Speaker 4: with you because I don't know the laws here, basically.
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  Speaker 4: You're a candidate. You spend your candidate pool of money.
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  Speaker 4: You're an incumbent in office. You spend a pool of money.
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  Speaker 4: I was under the impression never the twain shall meet,
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  Speaker 4: but what am I missing? So the way that it.
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  Speaker 7: Works is that the Government Accountability Office will typically review
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  Speaker 7: these types of things once they get a complaint. They
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  Speaker 7: have received a complaint, and they're going to look at
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  Speaker 7: three things as it pertains to the law. The first is,
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  Speaker 7: is there an adequate disclosure? In this case, yes, there
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  Speaker 7: is an adequate disclosure that the person who paid for
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  Speaker 7: or the group that paid for this was the U.S.
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  Speaker 1: Government.
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  Speaker 7: The second they're going to look at is whether or
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  Speaker 7: not this is sort of self-grandiosement, meaning are you just
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  Speaker 7: promoting yourself as a candidate or yourself as a person?
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  Speaker 7: And then the third thing, is it policy and partisan
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  Speaker 7: in nature, meaning it's not a typical public service ad
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  Speaker 7: that it would be promoting something that everybody should be
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  Speaker 7: focusing on, like get a vaccine or something like that.
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  Speaker 7: It is focused on a particular policy or a person.
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  Speaker 7: I think that the complaint that's been filed by Public
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  Speaker 7: Citizen likely will have a strong review by the Government
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  Speaker 7: Accountability Office, which is a legislative branch. It's not governed
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  Speaker 7: by the executive branch. The man who leads it is
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  Speaker 7: a career official. And so we'll see what they have
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  Speaker 7: to say about it. But it's not like they filed
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  Speaker 7: a lawsuit in which the president could be found unlawful
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  Speaker 7: or guilty of doing something.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's not like a campaign finance violation or something
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  Speaker 4: like that.
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  Speaker 1: One last wrinkle.
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  Speaker 7: We do have state-backed media.
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  Speaker 1: In our government.
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  Speaker 7: It is foreign-sponsored broadcasters.
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  Speaker 4: So it's like VOA. What's left of it.
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  Speaker 7: Yeah, what's left of it. Yes, a lot of it
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  Speaker 7: was attempted to be dismantled by the Trump administration, but
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  Speaker 7: a lot of that's been.
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  Speaker 1: Overruled in courts.
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  Speaker 7: But you have Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Liberty, all
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  Speaker 7: of those things. It is illegal for those entities to
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  Speaker 7: run ads targeting the U.S. That is very clearly considered propaganda.
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  Speaker 7: But in this case, there is, because of the public
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  Speaker 7: service and the public service announcements component, a little bit
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  Speaker 7: more of a gray line.
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  Speaker 4: Okay. So let me go back to that gray area.
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  Speaker 4: It is very gray in terms of the service. The
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  Speaker 4: White House has said, look, We saw the George W.
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  Speaker 4: Bush administration spend money promoting a Medicare plan. President Obama
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  Speaker 4: spent money on the Affordable Care Act PSAs. And of course,
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  Speaker 4: Biden spent hundreds of millions of dollars on a COVID
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  Speaker 4: vaccine PSA campaign. Yasmin, does that put him in the clear?
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  Speaker 3: No, I think this is pretty blight. This is state
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  Speaker 3: sponsored propaganda at its finest. This is I think we're
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  Speaker 3: in a race to the bottom with North Korea and
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  Speaker 3: Iran with the kind of propaganda that we're seeing here.
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  Speaker 3: But I think something that was to me really interesting
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  Speaker 3: in the ad is that he is focused on getting
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  Speaker 3: rid of the warmongers and also in sort of uncovering
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  Speaker 3: the deep state in this ad. That's him. He's the warmonger.
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  Speaker 3: He is the one who himself has promised an America
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  Speaker 3: first agenda and then has invested two billion dollars a day.
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  Speaker 3: in an illegal war with Iran. And so I see
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  Speaker 3: that really as an attempt to desperately try to cling
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  Speaker 3: on to any ability to win over Republican voters in
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  Speaker 3: the midterms. And that is so clearly the play that
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  Speaker 3: we know what he's doing here.
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  Speaker 4: Ads do reveal where you're weak, meaning you're only advertising
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  Speaker 4: what you're concerned about. What do you see in this ad,
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  Speaker 4: and what do you see about him? And again, this
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  Speaker 4: is not about how much money it is. It's the
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  Speaker 4: fact that, you know, he's sitting on $ 400 million. Like,
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  Speaker 4: why isn't he paying for it?
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  Speaker 8: The White House's defense is exactly what I think the
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  Speaker 8: issue is. Look, I think the difference between us and
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  Speaker 8: Iran is that Trump critics are on television not, you know,
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  Speaker 8: hanging from a crane. So it's not exactly the same thing.
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  Speaker 2: We have free speech, and the president's always supported that.
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  Speaker 2: The issue with the ad is that the ad doesn't
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  Speaker 2: actually say what he has done. It does not say
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  Speaker 2: shutting down Joe Biden's open border that saw an influx
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  Speaker 2: of over 10 million illegal aliens, passing the Lake and
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  Speaker 2: Riley Act to make sure that criminal illegal aliens.
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  Speaker 4: Well, you're not here to give him free advice. So
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  Speaker 4: are you saying this is just going to work?
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  Speaker 2: Trump aura farming and sounding cool and talking about taking
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  Speaker 2: down the commies, all right, I think it works for
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  Speaker 2: people that already like him. But why not explain the
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  Speaker 2: Trump accounts?
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  Speaker 8: My daughter is sitting with a Trump account with $ 1, 000.
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  Speaker 4: From the Treasury. Or how to get one, which is
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  Speaker 4: what a PSA.
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  Speaker 3: Is supposed to do.
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  Speaker 2: Explaining how to get the tax cuts that he passed.
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  Speaker 4: Here's where to sign up. It's not, as you said,
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  Speaker 4: aura farming. Thank you for that on a Monday.