CNN’s Kaitlan Collins Flat-Out Says ‘Trump’s Pressure Campaign Has Failed’ After Redistricting Bombshell

Tommy ChristopherDec 12th, 2025, 7:48 am

CNN anchor and senior White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins told viewers flat-out that President Donald Trump’s “pressure campaign has failed” after a redistricting law he supported went down in flames.

The Indiana State Senate voted down a redistricting plan Trump pushed hard to give Republicans more congressional seats, defeating it by a 31-19 margin — including a majority of Republicans.

On Thursday night’s edition of CNN’s The Source with Kaitlan Collins, the anchor opened her show with a blunt summation of the news and a call-out of Trump’s feigned indifference to the news:

KAITLAN COLLINS: Tonight, Indiana Republicans just handed President Trump one of his biggest defeats yet. Why they defied him, and how the President is responding tonight inside the Oval Office.

I’m Kaitlan Collins. And this is THE SOURCE.

As we come on the air tonight, there’s really no other way to put it. President Trump’s pressure campaign has failed.

In Indiana, a state that he won by nearly 20 points, last November, the President’s party just rejected his call to create two more Republican-friendly seats, in the U.S. House of Representatives. Two seats that could have helped the Republicans hold on to the majority in next year’s midterm elections.

But those hopes have been dashed, this evening. And when we look at the count here, it wasn’t even really that close. More Republicans actually voted against this than they did vote for it.

It’s just one of a slew of states that we’ve seen, across the country, where the President has tried to use his influence, which at times, as we know, can be vast, to protect the last two years of his presidency from a Democratic House. That means investigations, subpoenas, hearings, with his Cabinet up on Capitol Hill.

But despite his push for this to happen in Indiana tonight, this is what he said tonight in the Oval Office, in reaction to a rejection of what he had been urging Republicans there to do.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I wasn’t working on it very hard. Would have been nice, I think we would have picked up two seats, if we did that. You had one gentleman, the head of the Senate, I guess, Bray, whatever his name is, I heard he was against it. He’ll probably lose his next primary, whenever that is. I hope he does, because he’s done a tremendous disservice.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COLLINS: Rodric Bray, who the President was referencing there, he’s the state’s Senate Republican leader. But he’s not up for reelection, actually, until 2028.

Now, while the President wasn’t in Indianapolis, and as he downplayed his own efforts here, his presence and what he wanted the outcome of this to be, was certainly felt during the debate.