The Final 5: October 15, 2026

Ten-year-old Jack Russell Mix was with her family in a cabin. She ran off. They finally retrieved her after setting up a trap using clothing from the family's home. Yeah, Luna sniffed it right out. They say she lost a little weight but was otherwise okay. Luna had lived on the streets for a year before her family adopted her, so she did have some experience that helped her survive weeks on her own. In Yellowstone, though, instead of the streets? Well done, Luna. Have a good night. Here's the Final Five with our Jim Loke. Wait, what? That is a real song by Lee Greenwood, by the way. Welcome to the Final Five on this Thursday night. You're never going to guess what we're talking about today. War. What is it good for? I didn't write the song, but chaos spread across the Middle East tonight as at least six explosions rock Yemen's port city of Aden, targeting the presidential palace. The Iran-backed Houthis are claiming responsibility while launching fresh attacks on Saudi Arabia. It comes as Iran continues to strike the Strait of Hormuz, sinking nearly a dozen ships in the past few days. President Trump has said there would not be a new round of strikes by the U.S. until after the midterms and today once again he said this and the Iran war will end very soon it's gonna end very soon as soon as i want it to end it'll end but it's gonna end very soon they'll never have a nuclear weapon and oil prices will drop like a rock so i hope you're enjoying it but what's happening is something that everyone's talking about enjoying what we're talking war right now In Ukraine, President Zelensky says he feels betrayed as new restrictions on Starlink satellite speed blind Kyiv's drones and air defenses on the battlefield. Access is gradually being restored, but Ukrainians believe the Trump administration, along with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, are using the satellite system to pressure Ukraine into striking a deal with Russia. I thought you asked President Zelensky not to do that. And Zelensky is not a good guy for us to deal with. Biden gave him hundreds of billions of dollars, billions and billions of dollars. Have you lost faith in him? Well, I think they're going to end up with a settlement of some kind. They're not going to do it with him. He doesn't want to settle. He says he wants to settle, but he isn't. No, I'm not a big fan of Zelensky. President Trump and Zelensky have had a rocky relationship for most of President Trump's second administration. And it goes back to at least that Oval Office meeting right after President Trump retook the office when he famously told Zelensky he, quote, didn't have the cards before Zelensky's delegation was asked to leave the White House. That rockiness continued today. It's painful when President Trump chooses one side, not not our side. But we are OK that he's in the middle. But if you're in the middle, you have to stay in the middle, not on the wrong side. I think his advisers are wrong. I don't know who who is pushing him not to the right side. This is not right side of history. Zelensky referring to the deal that President Trump stuck with stuck with Vladimir Putin to buy Russian diesel. Meantime, President Trump's new White House press secretary, Katie Zachariah, spent the day doing cable news interviews two days after a short and widely panned first press briefing. On Tuesday, Zachariah gave a briefing lasting about 14 minutes, taking three questions instead of the usual 30 to 60 minutes. A large chunk of the time was spent discussing political rallies, which are not typically discussed at the podium. But one of the key points of contention for the day actually came after when reporters asked where Zachariah, who said she was a lawyer, passed the bar exam. That is the test you need to pass to be legally considered an attorney. Tonight, Zachariah admitted she has a degree in law, but failed the bar exam and never retook it. And let's be fair here. Being an attorney is not required to speak to the press, but she's claimed to be one on several occasions, even though now she says she didn't. You said you consulted with many people, and they advised you that it was okay to call yourself a lawyer but not an attorney, correct? Correct. Okay, there's a report out tonight that showed 15 social media posts where you identify yourself as an attorney. I think they were retweets, and I corrected the record and said that there's not endorsing the title. They were retweets of a title that had been given. You know, look, that is a very tough room. Zachariah criticized the media's reaction to her first briefing, but she apparently seemed to like the idea of being portrayed on Saturday Night Live. So I'm just going to say it. Saturday Night Live, you know they're going to be coming. You know this Saturday they're probably going to be doing something. Who would you like to have play you on Saturday Night Live? I know it's coming, yes. I think, who would I like to have play me? Maybe a Scarlett Johansson type character. I could see that. Yeah. She's on there a lot. Yeah, I could see that. And let me just point really quickly that the first interview she did was not with Sean Hannity, but with Jack Posobiec of Real America's Voice. Posobiec was one of the lead instigators of the pizza gate theory, which ended in somebody opening fire in a crowded pizza shop in northwest D.C. Of course, he has very, very easy access to the White House these days. By the way, when you talk about Saturday Night Live, though, it doesn't always end well because Alabama Senator Katie Britt got the Scarlett Johansson treatment after one of former President Biden's State of the Union speeches. And how did she describe Britt again? A wife, a mother, and the craziest bitch in the Target parking lot. Britt, by the way, did seem to laugh that off. But the one thing we all have that allows Scarlett Johansson to prove such brutal interpretation of lawmakers is, of course, the First Amendment, which protects free speech. And free speech has been a major topic this week. Yesterday, we told you about that viral shouting match between Republican Congressman Andy Harris of Maryland and a student reporter. Harris accused her of breaking Maryland's two-party consent law by recording him in a public forum. but being in a public place the law does not apply there and it was the students constitutionally protected right to record him harris's maryland colleague jamie raskin a Democrat of course weighed in on that today. You are not allowed to. We are in a two-party state you are not allowed to. Do you know the law? I'm not a lawyer. Are you? You're a doctor. Yeah, actually I'm a legislator. Yeah, I actually, I actually know the law. Well, first of all, a press event is a public event. You have no reasonable expectation of privacy there so that two-party consent law doesn't apply. It applies when two people are in a conversation with each other on the phone or in person and one is taping the other, but this is a public event and he invited them there. Needless to say the reaction from Andy Harris after that town hall, uh, quite varied over the last couple of days. Let's talk about that and more with Stephen Newcomb from the Washington Sun, who's up late with me tonight once again on the final five. Welcome back to the show. Good to see you Thanks for having me, Jim. Okay, we've seen this video and we can look at it from a couple different angles. I think those of us in the media, those of us who have been through that conversation with people before about what's public and what's private and when you can record and when you can't, we've been down that path before. I think what was striking was just in that moment, it wasn't like he was lashing out at somebody from CNN or MSNBC This was a reporter from the State House News Service Yeah, it's a student reporter from an organization that covers Congress. It covers Annapolis, the State House in Maryland as well for the University of Maryland So, yeah, and then sort of, you know, relatively inexperienced reporter who really stood her ground really well, knew the setting and the law much more authoritatively than it turns out the congressman does So, yeah, I mean, it's pretty outstanding that this was a student that happened to be on the receiving end of this. Have we learned any reason why he targeted her and what his objections were to her presence there? I mean, not beyond sort of what's on video. We know that it seems like he didn't like the question about the war in Iran. I think that his objection, at least publicly, what he says in that video is that he was not giving her consent to record the sort of press scrum that he had going on. It wasn't a press conference, it was probably a press scrum because he did not give consent. I don't know if it was because he didn't like the question, but obviously some folks stepped in and tried to tell the Congressman that this is a public setting, this is not a private setting. Maryland's law only applies to private conversations. And eventually, Congressman Harris just stormed out. Yeah, and this is something that, you know, I personally, we had to learn the difference because when the station moved from D.C. into Maryland, when we were doing all these interviews out of Maryland, I mean, that opened up a whole new slew of considerations that we have to undergo when we embark on interviews and we do interviews with people. Look, considering the setting, considering this was happening out in Queen Anne's County, this is an area that, you know, it's the Republican district in Maryland right now. Andy Harris has been popular among voters there. He's popular among national Republicans as chairman of the Freedom Caucus. Have you picked up on any any any backlash, anything that any sort of fallout for him? Or is this just sort of another day in covering politics in twenty twenty six? Well, yeah, being it's my it's my my hometown district. So I know a little bit about the area. I think that, you know, Congressman Harris, he's he's an eight term incumbent. It is Maryland's only Republican district. I think he's safe this election year. I think the interaction sort of underscores just the environment. I mean, again, this is an eight-term incumbent who has done countless town halls, countless debates, countless events. For the reaction to be different this time around in this election, I think it sort of just shows how the environment politically for Republicans is just drastically different than it even was may be under Trump 1.0 in this midterm season. And I'm glad you mentioned that about his availability for these sort of forums, because he did a debate. He had candidate forums before. He's not somebody who's necessarily ducked these opportunities. So there have been sufficient opportunities for him to go before the voters, before the public, before the media. He's not somebody who's been ducking cameras like we've seen other politicians do throughout the years. Welcome back. Republicans are going back to a political message that worked for them in 2024, for putting transgender issues front and center in campaign ads. This time, Democrats aren't all responding the same way. Let's talk about that with Tyler Hack from the Christopher Street Project. Back up late with me tonight here on The Final Five. Tyler, thanks for joining us tonight. Jim, so good to be with you. Thanks for having me. We appreciate it. Look, Republicans spent a lot of money and a lot of political capital back on 2024. I remember that ad full well where it was Kamala is for they, them, Trump is for you. clearly they believe it works so why wouldn't they go back to that when we look at like the Texas senate race this year yeah republicans have a plan for transgender kids bathrooms because they don't have a plan for your grocery bill republicans are spending millions to convince americans that the biggest threat to their paycheck is someone else's pronouns and democrats have to reject that message because Republicans are just looking for anyone to point to to distract from their own failures, and we can't fall for it. I actually heard that line used in an ad in the Virginia governor's race last time around where they were trying to promote Winsome Sears, who lost decisively to Abigail Spanberger. Governor Spanberger is somebody that you look at as confronting the issue without throwing anyone under the bus. Where did she differ in how national Democrats confronted this. Yeah, that's right. So Abigail Spanberger actually responded. She went on the air and she said, I'm a mom, I'm a former public safety officer. I care about kids' safety, and I'm not going to let Republicans dictate this conversation. And Republicans spent the majority of their media budget in that campaign attacking Abigail Spanberger on transgender issues. And instead of fleeing, she actually reframed the conversation around kid safety. And I know that sometimes when we hear Democrats talk about kid safety, we get a little wary about maybe they're throwing trans folks under the bus. But I do believe that the way that we take back public opinion on this issue is by reframing the issue and saying that Democrats are the ones who actually care about your kids' safety. Republicans, from distracting from their failed economic message to covering up the Epstein files, are certainly not the ones to do it. I know there are many different prongs to this issue, and we've talked quite a bit about the idea of biological sex in competitive sports, but there's also the broader issue of transgender rights. Is it possible for somebody to say, I support transgender rights, but then say, On the other hand, I think we need to do something about the high school sports, the collegiate sports issue. Sure. And it's possible for someone to say, I think that there should be a body, whether it's a school board or some athletic association, talking about these issues. But I don't believe it's the job of the government to do it. When we're talking about electing folks to Congress, to state legislatures, their job should not be bathroom patrol or pronoun police. Their job should be actually delivering for all Americans. And I think it's entirely fair to say that we want fairness and equity in all aspects of our lives, but it's not the job of an elected official to stand in front of a bathroom and decide who gets to go where. You know, it was interesting. A couple of years ago, and it's hard to believe, I think, gosh, this was almost 10 years ago in North Carolina, there was a bathroom bill on the ballot, which the Republican governor pushed and backed. And there was so much public outcry from that that that governor lost reelection to Roy Cooper, who was the attorney general, who now may very well be the next senator from North Carolina. But times on that issue, it just illustrates how times have changed. Why has this become such a divisive issue when in the grand scheme of things, this is about people letting people live their true, authentic lives? Yeah, I mean, LGBTQ plus equality has come and gone in waves for many decades now. I come from a line of ancestors who fought in the Stonewall riots and were beat up in the Stonewall riots and folks who have fought for our rights, not only when it's easy, but also when it's hard. And it's certainly not the easiest moment to be doing this work. But I think that we need a shift in American public opinion. But we're also seeing something where Republicans have spent the last four years in particular hammering this message, catastrophizing about what will happen if trans folks come into your communities and come into these schools. And the reality is most people haven't seen trans folks infiltrate their communities and take opportunities away from other folks. And the reality is that what they've been catastrophizing about for years has just not materialized. And I do believe we're at a turning point. And if our Democratic leaders can address these issues head on, then we can actually move along and get back to a place where we're talking about what rights that we can protect, not what rights we're taking away. Tyler Hack joining me tonight on The Final Five. Tyler, always appreciate it. Good to see you again. Yeah, thank you, Jim. And we're back after this here on The Final Five. A little technical glitch there. We're going to have that full interview with Stephen Newcomb tomorrow coming up here on The Final Five. In the meantime, let's get to the third block and we start tonight with this president trump back to the white house today after several days campaigning for congressional republicans out west the president spent part of the day in the rose garden or what's left of it hosting a luncheon for law enforcement and firefighters during his remarks he discussed his personal habits saying he doesn't smoke doesn't drink or do drugs or if you don't take drugs or if you don't smoke there's no problem i have other problems i have some very severe problems but those are not one of them i don't want to add them to the list do you understand that i don't want to add them to the list because if i did i guarantee i wouldn't be here right now so it's three problems i don't have and it's really good now they're gonna the press is gonna say what problem does he have let's figure it out i probably set myself up for that one but he uh kind of did because during this week's campaign speeches out west the president discussed his health bragging about acing what that cognitive test he always talks about which based on the description is the Montreal Cognitive Assessment of course Montreal known for their cognitive assessments. It's designed to detect signs of dementia. But right after that, he commented on the health of people in the audience. Where's my doctors here and I travel with more doctors than any human being If people get sick in the audience, they don't, they leave them alone You know what they call them? Collateral damage. If that person right over there, a friend of mine, he looks like actually, he looks like he's ready to have a heart attack. If he actually had a heart attack, you know what my doctors would do? follow the president or presidents, they would leave him alone Who needs WebMD when you have Donald J. Trump, right? The president mocking whoever was sitting in the audience right there sort of contradicted something he said in another interview this week. Well, look, I have to make deals with people, so I don't go around calling them names. I'm a dealmaker. I've always been a very good dealmaker. I became very rich because of deals, so I don't go around mocking people, you know? Did you hear that? I don't go around mocking people. Here he is mocking a disabled reporter on the campaign trail 10 years ago, and that really was just the start of it. There was Lyin' Ted Cruz, Beautiful Ted, Texas Ted, Rob instead of Ron DeSantis, Ron DeSantis, Ron DeSantis, Tiny D, Crazy Hillary, Crooked Hillary, Hillary Rotten Clinton, Beautiful Hillary, Sleepy Joe, Crooked Joe, Joe Biden, Slow Joe, Auto Pen, there was Lyin' Kamala Harris, Comrade Kamala, Crazy Kamala, Kamala, leaking James Comey, lying James Comey. All right. Well, I can just run through all these other ones Shady James Comey, slimeball James Comey, slippery James Comey, shifty shift, little Adam shift, pencil neck, watermelon head, structural marvel, Marjorie Taylor Greene or just Marjorie Taylor Brown. There she is. OK, let's move on. Mamdani Bakami, little communist, my little communist, and of course, quote, president of the United States, Gavin Newsom. Those are all Trump's words. And I could go on. But coming up next in the final five instead, I'll have one more thing. We failed our kids once again, because once again in the United States of America, parents put their kids on a school bus this morning expecting they'd learn and then come home in time for dinner. But instead, they found out their kid's school was the site of yet another mass shooting. The children killed today in Bend, Oregon, were just five, eight and 11 years old. Think about that. The youngest, just five. So Ben joins that long list of American communities where the sanctity of a school was shattered by somebody with a gun. Police say the shooter was 16 years old, armed with a shotgun purchased by his mother. And by the way, he was shot and killed by apparently a good Samaritan, one of those good guys with a gun we've heard about in the past. And we need to be fair about something. Oregon has some of the stricter gun laws in the country. So I don't pretend tonight there is one law, one policy, one politician or one perfect answer that would end this. But I also refuse to believe the answer is nothing. And I think you do, too, because there's something deeply wrong with a country that can watch five year olds get murdered in their elementary school, grieve for them, lower the flags, offer the prayers, wash, rinse, and repeat, and then wait for the next town's name to become a hashtag. Look, we can argue about guns. We can argue about mental health. We can argue about parents, about security, schools, video games, laws, responsibility. We can argue about all of that. But there should be one thing left in America that should never be up for a debate. A five-year-old should be able to go to school and come home alive. And until we can promise our kids something that's so simply basic we have failed them and if past is precedent we'll fail them again that's your final five back at it again tomorrow at 11 30 your morning who's here at 4 a.m go to bed