President Trump makes his closing pitch ahead of the 2026 midterms, but instead of reflecting what's on voters' minds, he spent more time focused on the reflecting pool. I'm Kaitlan Collins, live from Capitol Hill, and this is a special edition of The Source.
And it is 9:00 p.m. here in Washington, which means we're just about eight hours away from the first polling places opening on election day. Vermont, I hope you have your coffee ready for tomorrow. Secretary Pete Buttigieg is going to join me live in just a moment, as will former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. Also this hour, I'll be joined by Maggie Haberman of the New York Times, after President Trump today here in Washington delivered his closing pitch to voters while standing in front of the newly renovated, yes, again, Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool. Now, this was billed as his final message to Americans and his last chance to draw a contrast with Democrats, but instead it focused for about 10 minutes on the midterms while spending closer to 24 minutes on rusty pipes, algae, and granite.
I'm thrilled to announce the official opening of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. Now, we're giving serious thought to changing the name to the Trump reflecting pool. We'll announce that sometime tomorrow. I'm sure that Secretary Doug Burgum will have a lot of fun in announcing that now. I'm only kidding. It was our goal to open it temporarily for the July 4th weekend. That was the big weekend where we had so many incredible things take place, the UFC fight and so many other things. Does somebody have those pictures for me? The pictures? Yeah. Do you want to stand up here? Greg, these are the pipes. So, this is a, it's painted blue for purposes of, it was all rusted.
And by the way, we resurfaced the granite. We tried not to replace because you can really never match stone, but some places we had to. The algae is brutal, forms easily, and we have it. I don't think you'll see too much. We have, they took out the water. So all you saw was dirt and filth and paper and everything else for years. It literally has thousands of years of life, which is the only stone that does. It creates the bubbles and creates what's necessary that the algae doesn't form because from the beginning algae formed. I mean, they've had years here where you couldn't see any water. It was just algae and it had a bad aroma, to put it mildly. But we're replacing all of the grass on all of the parks because like the human being, grass has a life also.
The triumphal arch military complex, it's going to have tremendous drone capability, you would say sniper or shooter capability. Its height, its platforms, its storage capacity is incredible. It's the best, right smack in the middle of everything. So very important for our military. So we have a lot of great things planned for Washington, and I could get into the nation, but for that you don't have enough time.
My colleague Kevin Liptak was there and mused tonight, saying, quote, if the pool was finally operating as the administration always hoped it would, it's not clear the president was. That's because sources say that several of the president's advisers have urged him not to focus so much on his makeover projects, but instead to talk about what matters most to voters: the economy. This might be why when voters go to the polls tomorrow, those who are voting in person, they're going to do so while paying the highest election day gas prices on record. Instead, the president today was focusing a lot on the reflecting pool, of course, and as he was talking about this, and somewhere that was the site of a lengthy and at times embarrassing series of events over the last six months, which includes that botched installation of the bright blue liner, which the president sought to blame on vandals as the dark algae quickly returned. That was something that was highlighted today for several minutes during the president's speech. In the meantime, the vice president, JD Vance, had instead chosen a more traditional venue and message to close out the campaign.
I want to remind you that we are on the eve of one of the most important, I would actually say the most important midterm election of my lifetime. And I'm closing out this midterm campaign right where it all started for me, the great state of Ohio, because I know you're going to choose right tomorrow.
By CNN's latest count, upwards of 57 million people have already chosen because they've already voted. And the last time the president was facing a midterm election, of course, when he was in office, was 2018. On the Monday before the midterms that year, look at this. The president had held three rallies in three states. And on that final Monday before the 2018 midterms, the president focused on a red meat message that was designed to motivate his MAGA base.
Democrats are inviting caravan after caravan, isn't that nice, of illegal aliens to flood into our country and overwhelm your communities. If you want strong borders and safe communities, no drugs, no caravans, vote Republican. Democrats are openly encouraging millions of illegal aliens to break our laws and violate our borders.
That was 2018. This is 2026. And this is what the president has been saying in the final days of this election cycle, one that of course will set the course for the final chapter of his presidency.
I'm closing the sucker down. I'm getting out of here. I got to get a little sleep. I've been doing a little too many of these. How many times do I have to do this?
For some reason, the sitting president doesn't win the midterms, but we gave this a very strong shot.
Now, my lead source tonight was the Secretary of Transportation under President Biden. Pete Buttigieg is here, and thank you, sir, for joining us. If you're a politician, what did you make of the president's closing message to voters today?
He sounded a little defeated in that bit about taking a shot. But I think the most worrisome thing about this is Americans are hurting right now. Americans are facing the economic pain of being unable to afford health care, unable to afford groceries. They're wondering if the people in charge of the government are focused on the issues. And the obvious answer from the president is no. He's focused on the reflecting pool. And I think that is why you're going to see so many Democrats across the country winning elections tomorrow. You know, the candidates that I have been engaging with today, we've been crossing the state of Wisconsin. Yesterday we were in Minnesota, are squarely focused on bringing relief to Americans who are hurting economically because that's what voters are asking for. That is a winning message, not whatever the Trump, whatever the president was talking about.
How are you feeling about what the polls have been showing for tomorrow? I mean, we've been looking at the final numbers in several key races that probably, you know, six months ago Democrats wouldn't have thought were even going to be contested. There are ties or Democrats are leading right now. Do you have faith in what the polls are showing you right now?
Look, it's encouraging, but you do not want to go off of polls. You want to go off of your own hard work and focus on a message that reaches people where they are. You know, in some ways I actually think Speaker Johnson may have said it best today. He said this election is common sense versus crazy. I think that's true. For most Americans, for most voters, common sense is that Republicans should not have cut Medicaid. Common sense is Republicans should not have cut taxes for the wealthiest people in the country. Common sense is we should not be at war with Iran right now, and Republican congressional members should not have allowed the president to do that. Crazy is having the leader of the free world and the head of the Republican party on the eve of consequential midterm elections standing around in front of the reflecting pool and going around at rallies talking about senators' bodies. It is very clear who is dialed in, locked in, focused on the issues that Americans care about, and that is the candidates that we've seen. So, polls are polls. As has famously been said, the only one that counts is the one that is taken at the ballot box, and that's happening right now. It's been happening with early vote, and of course that wraps up tomorrow evening.
I mentioned the vice president also being out today campaigning. He was in Ohio. This is a little bit more of what he had to say to voters.
Now, I saw a story just in the last couple of days that there are illegal communities of illegal immigrant Somalis who are coordinating to flood the polls and drown out your vote. Well, I happen to believe that we want American elections to belong to American citizens.
What did you make of that comment?
Well, the vice president is embarrassing himself yet again. Look, some of that scaremongering might have worked in the past, but we all understand that only eligible voters can and do vote in elections. You can see though how desperate he is not to talk about results. You would think if the Trump-Vance administration had done anything good, he would be focused on that. But of course, they can't. They promised to cut the cost of living, and the cost of living is up. They promised to keep us out of wars, especially JD Vance, and we are at war with Iran. Everybody's paying for that. The highest gas prices I think we've ever been paying on election day. So you see he cannot talk about what they've actually been doing. Instead he has to talk about something that's not happening. It's embarrassing, but it really reflects just how tough a situation they're in because Americans are so fed up with their policies and with the results.
I've asked the vice president before about what inflation looks like now, what promises they had made to voters, you know, when they were running two years ago in 2024, and they've said that they inherited a mess from your administration that you were a part of, President Biden's administration, when you were in that administration in 2022. This is what you said to voters about the economy.
The president's made clear that inflation is his top economic priority, and he's laid out a very clear strategy for doing that.
You know, that kind of comment is a lot of what we hear from the administration right now, that the president has a plan for dealing with this, that the numbers are still too high, that they will get it under control. How do you view that?
Well, what I know is that when Donald Trump took over from Joe Biden, inflation was at 3.0%. And today, it's higher than that. So, their number one promise was to take inflation and move it lower, and instead it's higher. And let's remember why we're here, right? This inflation right now, this isn't happening because of COVID, what happened four years ago. The gas prices aren't happening because Putin started a war like what happened four years ago. Gas prices are happening because Donald Trump started a war. Mortgage rates are over 7% because the Trump-Vance administration decided to give away a trillion dollars in tax breaks to corporations and the wealthiest people in the country, blew up the deficit while doing so. You know, the war alone is estimated to be costing Americans about $2,000 per household. That's when you add up what it did to interest rates, gas prices, and the direct cost in terms of our taxes. Trump's tariffs are costing a typical family over $1,000. So, it's not even that they have tried and failed to lower costs. It's that their choices have actively, directly increased costs. And as you can tell from the president's performance today, they don't care.
Also, I mean, speaking of Democratic politics and what's been playing out, obviously you've seen this, but as a Michigan voter, do you think what Haley Stevens did by endorsing the Republican in that Senate race, Mike Rogers, what impact do you think that's going to have on Abdul El-Sayed tomorrow?
I doubt it's going to have much of an impact. Look, my neighbors in Michigan, my relatives in Michigan are very focused on what this election is going to mean for their lives. There are people I know, again, including people I'm related to, whose lives depend on the Affordable Care Act. Abdul El-Sayed has been clear that he is for reversing the Medicaid cuts, making sure more people get health care, making sure everyone gets health care is his message. Mike Rogers literally voted to destroy the Affordable Care Act. The choice is abundantly clear on that, or on Mike Rogers' enthusiasm for the Iran war, which of course Michiganders are fed up with, not least because it's why we're paying so much for gas and diesel. These are the kinds of things that I'm hearing people talking about. What does this election mean for me? For the prices I'm paying at the store, for the prices I'm paying at the pump, for my chance of having a better life and being able to access health care. What I'm not hearing a ton of from neighbors and relatives in Michigan is a list of which member of Congress endorsed who.
Well, there's consideration among Democrats of ousting her from the House Democratic Caucus. Would you support that?
I don't care. Right now, we need to make sure that we win, and we need to focus not on one member of Congress making an endorsement, but on making sure that we get out every single vote. Look, folks watching at home, especially if you already cast your vote or made a plan to vote, if you care as much as your neighbors and fellow Americans do, there's still work to be done. There are still people who have not made a plan to vote. You can go to iwillvote.com to get more information. Encourage others to do that. We need to make sure that we turn out every vote, both in the races that look like they're good for Democrats, but you can't be sure until the bell rings, and races where we never thought we would be competitive, but where we're actually likely or at least have a good shot of winning right now. I've been amazed at races from the Mississippi US Senate race where I was campaigning with David Blount a few days ago, to a district in Wisconsin once held by Paul Ryan where Rebecca Cooke may well win. But that depends on everybody being locked in and completely focused for the next 24 hours and change on getting out that vote.
If Democrats have a good night tomorrow night, do you think that's a reflection of their policies or a referendum on President Trump and his policies?
Well, it's both. You know, Democratic policies of expanding Medicaid are more popular than Trump's policies of cutting Medicaid. Democratic policies around making sure that the wealthy pay their fair share are more popular than congressional Republicans' decision to increase the deficit by handing out tax breaks to the wealthy. But, you know, it is true that just because Americans are rejecting Republicans, which appears to be happening right now, doesn't mean they're automatically fully embracing or trusting Democrats. What they are doing, if all goes well tomorrow, is giving Democrats a chance. And look, it's going to be a challenge. Obviously, Donald Trump will still be president of the United States tomorrow and the next day and the day after that. But there is a chance for Democrats to put these issues back at the center of the agenda, because it will be a lot harder for the president to have us all talking about the reflecting pool or the Cheesecake Factory or whatever he wants to make the issue of the day when you have a congressional Democratic majority and I hope a Democratic Senate majority making sure that issues like health care affordability, bringing an end to this Iran war, having a fairer tax code, and reforming our broken political system, making sure those issues are front and center.
Secretary Pete Buttigieg, thank you for joining us on this election day. We appreciate your time tonight.
Same here. Appreciate you.
Up next, what is on the mind of the president in these final few hours before election day? Maggie Haberman is the best source White House reporter. She'll join us right after this. Also later tonight, former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene will join me to talk about her expectations for tomorrow. With only a few hours to go before election day, President Trump is already contemplating what life could be like if things don't go his party's way tomorrow night and Democrats retake control of Congress.
