And there are now eight days until election day. And with just over a week to go before the final day, more than 30 million ballots have already been cast. That's actually several days ahead of the pace from the last midterm elections in 2022, if it gives you any indication of where this could all be headed. From the campaign trail to the White House, in the last few days, the Trump administration has been on defense. Right now, President Trump is in the Republican stronghold of Mississippi, where his party is trying to protect a GOP Senate seat. Yes, in a state that he won by 23 points just two years ago. But the numbers that might matter most there tonight are these. Right now in Mississippi, it costs on average $3.82 per gallon to fill up your gas tank. That is $1.33 more than it was the day the war with Iran started back in February. Yeah, the president didn't really mention it much tonight.
Nobody's ever campaigned like I have for midterms. I haven't. Why is he talking about men playing in women's sports? Why is he talking about the transgender mutilation? 15 years ago, if you would have talked about things like this, they would have said, 'Get this guy off the stage. He's crazy.' I really don't have to say that much anymore. You know, I should save my voice because...
Because Barack Hussein Obama, he came in yesterday and he made a speech, and part of his speech was to say, 'Isn't it terrible that Donald Trump spends a lot of his time...' Very little time. I do it very good. I'm really good at real estate and fixing things. I fix things very good, very beautifully and inex— I always build beautiful and inexpensive, which is a good combination if you can do it. But I can do it naturally. It's a natural thing. It actually relaxes me. Donald Trump spends a lot of his time fixing up the White House.' He said this isn't a Cheesecake Factory. Can you believe it? Which is a very successful company. This isn't— he doesn't like successful companies. But you know, he was very critical about me.
Well, we're nearly eight months into the Iran war, and right now the average price of gas during President Trump's entire second term so far is now more than it was during the Biden administration. According to a CNN analysis of AAA data, that milestone was nearly unthinkable as recently as January. And it comes as the White House is attempting to defend the president's comments about the price of gas this weekend.
The United States oil and gas business is making hundreds of billions of dollars. So I said, I wonder if I should say this. Our country is making hundreds of billions of dollars because of what's happened in the Middle East, because they're coming to Texas and they're coming to Oklahoma and they're coming to Louisiana and they're taking that oil. We're making hundreds and hundreds of billions, trillions of dollars. But my people said, 'Please don't mention that, sir, because people are paying a little higher.' So I said, 'Let me say it very gingerly, very softly, because somebody would say the fake news.' He's bragging about making money while people are suffering. Now I could just see the fake headlines: President Trump is talking about all the money they're making while people are suffering at the pump. That'll be the headline. But I said, I don't give a damn. I'm going to say it. We're making a freaking fortune. Our country is getting stronger and stronger all the time [cheering] and those pump prices are going to come down.
Now, when the president talks about oil and gas companies making hundreds of billions of dollars, he's right. ExxonMobil alone more than doubled its second-quarter profit to $14.5 billion. It works out to about $160 million per day. Now, President Trump owns stock in Exxon as well as Chevron and other oil companies. And an analysis that was released today by congressional Democrats found that the president made up to $81.6 million from oil and gas stocks during the war. Now, when issues about his stock trades have come up during this second term, White House officials have maintained that the president's assets are entirely managed by an independent third-party financial institution. Critics have noted it's not in a blind trust, which means he can still see what's in his portfolio as he is making decisions from the Oval Office. And even as the president is touting those massive profits for oil and gas companies, listen to what Republicans are saying. Those candidates are not following suit.
But what's important to South Carolinians is affordability, the price of gas, putting food on the table. I've heard from Iowans who are being squeezed by the gas prices and the challenges we're facing here at home.
It's the people, but they're all telling me the same thing. Everything costs more. Groceries, gas, the electric bill, everything is up except our paychecks.
The midterms will be decided by the price of gasoline in October.
We start tonight with a special edition of The Source live here on Capitol Hill, where of course control of power will be determined next Tuesday. I've got CNN political commentator and the former senior policy adviser in the Obama White House, Ashley Allison here. Mark Short was the chief of staff to Vice President Pence, and Jeff Mason is a White House correspondent for Bloomberg. And Mark Short, obviously you've worked in Republican politics for a long time. Do voters want to hear about the record oil profits that companies are making right now?
But Kaitlan, I think that as we head into this midterm, the Democrats have nominated truly some radical socialists in many cases that have harbored resentment toward America. But a challenge for Republicans this cycle is you're trying to make it about them when you have control of the House, the Senate, and the White House. So it's a really difficult challenge if that's what you're running the midterm on. And this White House isn't helping Republicans on the ballot. Number one issue remains affordability, and those concerns are generally dismissed. And what I think exacerbates the challenge for Republicans is every day there's a new story of grift coming out of the White House, of, you know, whether or not it's the president's son who's having a wedding paid for by a Russian oligarch, or you have Middle Eastern nations that have harbored terrorists invested in their investment funds or getting access to things that American taxpayers don't. And so there's a giant juxtaposition of the voter who's trying to see how can my wages keep up with inflation versus the grift and corruption. And Kaitlan, you know, I was on the campaign show with you in 2016 and 2020, and what would resonate with voters was the promise to drain the swamp and electing somebody who was the outsider who wouldn't get trapped and seduced by the swamp of DC. And yet that's where we now are, and I think that's a really big challenge for Republicans in the House and the Senate right now.
Jeff, does the White House realize that, you think?
I don't know. I mean, I think the White House is hoping that things are going to go their way. You still hear people in the White House saying that the president sees a pathway for victory in the House and the Senate, and that there are others within the Republican Party who see that too. I don't think that's the conventional wisdom, but it is definitely a view that he has. He thinks that he's making a big difference with these rallies. I can tell you I've covered US politics for 18 years, and I'm not sure I've ever been to Mississippi as a political reporter. It's such a deeply red state, there's never been a reason to. So I think that alone is a pretty big sign of where their thinking is, even if they are putting on a brave face.
Yeah, it's a great place to visit, great food, great people, but for a Republican president to be there this close to the election obviously is concerning enough. And Ashley, when you look at this, you know, the Democrat who's running for that Senate seat there against Cindy Hyde-Smith, which is why the president is there tonight, he is using her own words, Scott Colome, on high prices in an ad like this one. Price of beef continuing to go up.
You know, you have so many proteins to choose from.
Pick another protein. I'd rather pick another senator instead.
She done lost her damn mind. I'd rather pick another senator.
What the— pick another senator instead.
I mean, that ad has been pointed to as pretty effective, but I think there's a real question of if Democrats think they have a real chance in Mississippi.
Well, Urban Dictionary would call that ad a banger, because it hit hard and it made the point. And she made it for him. I met Scott Colome a year ago, and he was talking about this Senate seat, and I have to tell you he was very clear-eyed on how he was planning to win it. It wasn't going to become a national race. He [clears throat] was going to talk to Mississippians about the real vacuum of leadership that Cindy Hyde-Smith is presenting right now because she's so focused on the audience of one, Donald Trump, and that he was going to focus on Mississippians. Now, to the panel's point, Mississippi is a ruby red state, and Scott is running a very intentional race. And I think this is the midterm of surprises. And I will just say in 2020 when Georgia flipped and went blue, there were people very high in the Democratic establishment on the Biden campaign that were surprised that was happening. But there were organizers in Georgia that have been working for decades and years building political power. And I have to tell you, some of those things have been happening in Mississippi over the last couple years. And if it's not this year that it goes blue, maybe in a couple other years. So I think there's a chance it will be a long shot, but there's possibility there.
Yeah. I mean, the fact that we're even talking about it obviously shows how much it's kind of upset the political conventional wisdom. You know, Mark, on this idea of gas prices and what people are paying, something the vice president said today got a lot of attention. It was what he said about gas prices in Montana. And then listen to what he said in his second speech tonight where he kind of tweaked his line that he delivered a little bit.
They skyrocket every time some tinpot dictator decides to throw a tantrum. But it's also true that the price of gas goes up each time a foreign leader in the Middle East throws a tantrum.
Why do you think he changed that line?
Well, I mean, obviously the first one is not going to be viewed favorably, and it's going to have connotations about other people he doesn't want to be bringing into this conversation with other people. Well, but look, I mean, I think there are better ways to talk about it. I think what the administration has failed to do is to talk about the threat that Iran has been for 47 years, to talk about why we're engaged there, what the peace dividend could look like down the road. But, you know, instead it's constantly been a 'this is a week' or 'it's two weeks' or 'this is for a nuclear reason' or 'this is to basically limit what their military capability is.' The rationale and explanations have continued to change. And I wish they would basically say, 'Here's why. Here's what the real peace dividend could be to the globe if we're actually to change the situation in Iran.' But that has not been their messaging.
Mark says the rationale has changed, but so is the timeline. And that's also something that's really tricky to sell right now. I mean, I can't imagine that President Trump in February of this year thought that during the midterms this war would still be going on, and yet he promised four to six weeks, and now it's months and months and months in, with all of the ramifications economic and political otherwise.
Yeah. And not clear when it's going to end, of course. You know, Ashley, you talked with the Democrat who is trying to make history in Texas. That's James Talerico. And you asked him specifically about what his message is in these final few days of the race to Black voters. And this is what he told you.
I want to be a senator for every single Black Texan. As the next US senator from Texas, I'll represent the most African-Americans of any senator in the country.
Wow. And that work of representing Black Texans doesn't start the day after the election. It starts now. When you look at the numbers, as you know, in 2018, Beto O'Rourke had 89% of Black voters in Texas. Kamala Harris had 86%. They both still lost the state. How are you viewing, you know, what his campaign has done in this space?
Well, I look at Texas the same way I look at Michigan and Mississippi for that matter. It's not about the percentage of voters that are voting with you. It's how many voters actually show up. James Talerico has to run the numbers up in a place like Houston. I met with him in San Antonio, and there were Black voters at that rally that literally talked about how they had not been engaged in the political process since 2008 because they did not feel like their vote mattered. Now compare that to Mississippi. You have Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, all that feel like they've been under attack with the Dobbs decision and the Supreme Court gutting the Voting Rights Act, gerrymandering attempts by this administration, and it has animated Black voters. And in Texas in particular, it's animated Latino voters. So if Talerico can pull those Latino voters that went to Trump who are upset that they redrew their congressional districts, he can animate Black voters in higher numbers, not just percentage of alignment but actual turnout. That's the type of coalition, and he can get some of those disaffected Trump voters. That's the coalition he's looking to win this race with.
The other ad that I saw today that [clears throat] really stood out to me was in Michigan, where this super PAC that is seeking to help Abdul El-Sayed, and this is the ad, and this is part of it.
You're going to have to put those eggs back.
They don't like eggs anymore.
No, they like eggs. But we have to set that $7 aside for killing Palestinians.
What, I mean, don't we give Israel $4 billion a year anyways?
Yeah. And now we're giving them another $26 billion. Do you know how much that is per American taxpayer?
No.
It's like $161 per person. Apparently, it's costing us a lot of money to drop bombs on Gaza.
Now, El-Sayed's campaign says they had nothing to do with that. They weren't affiliated with that ad, but given obviously the conversation that's been had in Michigan, I wonder what the two of you made of it.
Well, it certainly brings attention to sort of the controversy around him, at least on the right, about what he would represent. It also makes me think, listening to it, of the controversy that surrounded the war for Biden and for Democrats in the last presidential election. I mean, it was such a— Joe Biden couldn't get through a rally. Kamala Harris often had the same issue with interruptions from people who were complaining or protesting the war. That struck me just a few days ago when some of the protests at the rally that I was covering in North Carolina with President Trump kept interrupting him. That is something that was a big deal the last time around, and this was the reason.
Come on. I think the ad is not just a canard. It's actually offensive. And the reality is that El-Sayed has had the opportunity to even condemn Hezbollah and Hamas and has refused to do it. Kaitlan, El-Sayed actually even condemned President Obama for going after the Houthis. And so you have a candidate there who is so radical and anti-Semitic. But I think still the challenge is that in this cycle, the election is going to be about the party that's in power. But it's actually crazy that Michigan can actually be on the precipice of electing this person.
Mark, Jeff, great to have both of you. Ashley, you as well. Thank you so much for joining us. Up next, the Justice Department is now going after James Comey again. What we are now learning about this new case. James Comey just put out a video responding, and we'll have Ellie Honig and Tom Dupree to break it all down.
The former FBI director James Comey is responding directly after the Justice Department today charged him for a third time. According to newly unsealed court documents, the Justice Department alleges that James Comey leaked a sensitive national security document when he served as the FBI director 10 years ago. If that sounds vaguely familiar, it's because it is. This was investigated and it resulted in no charges. Now, James Comey says he's taking it in stride.
Well, they're back again. It would almost be funny if it weren't such an appalling abuse of the Department of Justice, one that we cannot become numb to. Nothing's changed with me. I'm still innocent. I'm still not afraid of these people. And I still believe in the independent federal judiciary. And I'm still lucky to have an amazing family and an incredible group of lawyers. And we'll stand up in court and fight the latest and whatever comes after this. The next couple years are going to be hard for all of us. It's really important that we stand straight and keep the faith in America.
My legal sources are here tonight. Ellie Honig is a former state and federal prosecutor. Tom Dupree was the deputy assistant attorney general at the DOJ. Ellie, first off, can you just lay out what happened here? And also, was James Comey actually charged here? Because his attorney, I noticed, said in a statement that they attempted to charge him. So, I mean, I read through all these documents, and I need your legal expertise on this.
Okay. Yes, everyone does. I think because this is procedurally absolutely bizarre what has happened here. This is not an indictment. This has not gone to a grand jury. The Justice Department right now does not have a warrant to go out and arrest Jim Comey. Instead, what this is is a document we call a criminal information. Now, these get used sometimes. I used to use them sometimes, but you have to have the defendant agreeing to it. The way it usually happens is if you have a plea agreement and both sides say, 'Okay, we agree, we're not going to have to bother with the grand jury here.' However, Jim Comey's team has not agreed to this. So the Justice Department has filed, as far as I know, the first ever unilateral criminal information. And let me tell you why that's a problem. I think a judge is going to say that criminal information is invalid. And now we've got a statute of limitations problem. Because the conduct they're trying to indict Jim Comey for happened on October 5th, 2016. Now, there's a 10-year statute of limitations. So even if DOJ goes to a grand jury tonight or first thing tomorrow morning, we are outside the 10-year statute of limitations. So I don't know what DOJ was trying to do here. I think they tied themselves into a knot, and I think they've sabotaged their own case by doing that.
Well, and so Tom, I'm reading— I mean, to Ellie's point, I was reading in the motion to dismiss from Comey's legal team here where they argued that there needs to be an indictment within those 10 years, not just the charges, as Ellie pointed out there, and they say the DOJ filing doesn't meet that. Is his team right in that point?
