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The Lead with Jake Tapper

George Clooney In NYT Op-Ed: Biden Won't Win In November; Cook Report: Six States Move Toward Trump In Updated Ratings; 2020 Election Deniers To Attend RNC To Nominate Trump; Police Locate Suspect In Crossbow Triple Murder. Aired 4-5p ET

Aired July 10, 2024 - 16:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[16:00:01]

JESSICA DEAN, CNN HOST: There's only one way to know, Boris.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: There is -- there is. If I were his parents, I would just start having random people finger painting and claim that it was the mini Picasso and then just start mass-producing these paintings.

DEAN: Meantime mini Picasso is asleep for a nap.

SANCHEZ: Pay for his college education now. Yeah.

Hey, thank you so much for joining us this afternoon. You know who loves finger-painting -- the great Jake Tapper.

THE LEAD WITH JAKE TAPPER starts right now.

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JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Are any of these announcements from Democratic Party activists and members of Congress, any of it getting to the White House bunker?

THE LEAD starts right now.

The headline of the day comes from Hollywood heavyweight and major Democratic fundraiser George Clooney. He's saying he loves Joe Biden, but the Democratic Party needs a new nominee. And Mr. Clooney is far from alone. Who else is calling on Biden to step aside in the 2024 race while others sow fresh seeds of doubt?

Plus, brand new on THE LEAD, fraudulent electors from 2020 set to have real jobs as delegates in next week's Republican national convention. The new face or faces of the GOP ahead.

And new video of actor Alec Baldwin pulling a gun in a rehearsal. The evidence just unveiled as the criminal trial against him for involuntary manslaughter gets underway in New Mexico.

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TAPPER: Welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper. And we are starting in our 2024 lead as the floodgates against Joe Biden's continued candidacy appear to be opening a bit. The day began with the former speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, seeming to suggest that Biden should reconsider his decision to run for reelection and other lawmakers followed suit.

But the most damning, damning opinion shared today came from Academy Award-winning actor George Clooney, who emphatically called on President Biden to step aside in a "New York Times" op-ed titled, "I love Joe Biden, but we need a new nominee".

Clooney, who has led some of the Democratic Party's biggest fundraisers in American history, including for Biden on June 15th, writes in the op-ed, quote, I love Joe Biden as a senator, as a vice president, and as president. I consider him a friend and I believe in him. Believe in his character. Believe in his morals.

In the last four years, he's won many of the battles he's faced. But the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time. None of us can. It's devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fundraiser was not the Joe "big F-ing deal" Biden of 2010. He wasn't even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.

Clooney is talking about this L.A. mega fundraiser he hosted along with Julia Roberts for Biden last month that helped raise at least $28 million for Mr. Biden's reelection bid. This was the same event we should note that Republicans later circulated self phone video from that seem to show President Biden freezing on stage for about seven seconds before were being led off stage by former President Obama.

And the White House described the moment as merely the president taking in and applauding crowd for a few seconds. White House also slammed the video as being, quote, cheap fake.

Clooney then writes about Biden's debate performance, quote: Was he tired? Yes. A cold? Maybe.

But our party leaders need to stop telling us that 51 million people didn't see what we just saw, unquote.

Then, Mr. Clooney delivers the kicker, quote: We are not going to win in November with this president. On top of that, we won't win the House and we're going to lose the Senate. This isn't only my opinion, this is the opinion of every senator and Congress member and governor that I've spoken open with in private. Every single one irrespective of what he or she is saying publicly.

Most of our members of Congress are opting to wait and see if the dam breaks, Clooney says, but the dam has broken. We can put our heads in the sand and pray for a miracle in November, or we can speak the truth, unquote.

But George Clooney does not just call on the president to step aside. He then lays out a plan of what he thinks he should happen. Top Democrats, Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, Nancy Pelosi, and senators, representatives and other candidates who face losing in November need to ask this president to voluntarily step aside, he writes, adding that potential 2024 candidates should come forward.

Quote: Let's hear from Wes Moore and Kamala Harris and Gretchen Whitmer and Gavin Newsom and Andy Beshear and J.B. Pritzker and others. Let's agree that the candidates not attack one another, but in the short time we have, focus on what will make this country soar then we could go into the Democratic convention next month and figure it out. Would it be messy? Yes. Democracy is messy.

Clooney ends his op-ed with this statement, quote, Joe Biden is a hero. He saved democracy in 2020. We need him to do it again in 2024.

[16:05:02]

Now, following the publication of this op-ed from Clooney, fellow filmmaker and actor, another prominent Democrat, Rob Reiner, echoed Clooney sentiment posting on X: Democracy is facing an existential threat, we need someone younger to fight back. Joe Biden must step aside.

All of this as Speaker Nancy Pelosi had some interesting comments about Biden's candidacy, saying this on "Morning Joe"

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): It's up to the president to decide if he is going to run. We're all encouraging him to make that decision. I want him to do whatever he decides to do and that's -- that's the way it is.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Now, what's interesting is, of course, Speaker Pelosi knows that Biden has already made his decision and announced his decision, saying that he is staying in the race. She knows that.

Remember, he declared it publicly just last Friday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, let me say this clearly as I can -- I'm staying in the race. I'll beat Donald Trump. I will beat him again in 2020.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Your ears did not deceive you there. That's President Biden trying to assure folks concerned about his cognitive skills by saying that he's going to beat Donald Trump and win in 2020. 2020.

But back to Pelosi, her continued discussion about this being a decision that President Biden needs to make is quite telling. She issued -- her office issued this statement after her remarks this morning saying, quote, Speaker Pelosi fully supports whatever President Biden decides to do. We must turn our attention to why this race is so important. Donald Trump would be a disaster for our country and our democracy, unquote.

This all comes after Michael Bennet of Colorado became the very first senator to publicly warn that Biden cannot win the election.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MICHAEL BENNET (D-CO): Donald Trump is on track I think to win this election, and maybe win it by a landslide and take with him the Senate and the House. And so, for me, this isn't a question about polling. It's not a question about politics. It's a moral question about the future of our country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: And that appearance on CNN came after Dana Bash reported that yesterday, at a meeting of Senate Democrats, Senators Bennet and Senator Tester of Montana and Brown of Ohio, all privately said that Biden is going to lose.

Now, they all stopped short of calling on Biden to drop out but that isn't stopping other elected Democrats. This afternoon, Congressman Pat Ryan from a swing district in New York became the eighth House Democrat to publicly call on Biden to step aside.

But -- but the White House says they're done talking about this. Aides to President Biden tells CNN they are no longer interested in discussing Biden's debate fiasco, or any questions about his wherewithal, questions from Democratic elected officials, questions from George Clooney, questions from voters, questions from you -- they're done.

The White House says there are simply no outstanding questions about whether President Biden staying in the race. He is, and nothing will change that.

This as some Democrats still are coming to the president's defense.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. SHONTEL BROWN (D-OH): I am 100 percent confident that yes, we have the best ticket.

SEN. ALEX PADILLA (D-CA): We have 117 days to work hard to ensure the Biden-Harris ticket is reelected for another four years, and that we defeat Donald Trump because of the dangers that represents.

SEN. JOHN FETTERMAN (D-PA): I'm showing up with brass knuckles and I'm all in on Joe Biden and I'm going to make my views very, very clear on that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: We're going to start our coverage today with CNN's Kayla Tausche at the White House as the White House struggles to face these new signs of doubt.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KAYLA TAUSCHE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): With world leaders at hand, President Biden, eager to get back to business as usual.

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Stronger supply chains, stronger economy, stronger military, and a stronger nation.

TAUSCHE: And the White House wants to move on from speculation about the president's political future.

KARINE JEAN-PIERRE, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I think that he is more determined than ever to continue to get the job done.

TAUSCHE: But for Democrats, a continued domino effect, George Clooney joined by filmmaker Rob Reiner, calling on Biden to step aside. And House Speaker emerita Nancy Pelosi, noncommittal.

PELOSI: It's up to the president to decide if he is going to run. We're all encouraging him to make that decision because time is running short.

TAUSCHE: And Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal said he supports Biden, but as deeply concerned about him winning.

SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D-CT): He can do it but there will be a question mark for some time.

TAUSCHE: Biden's inner circle racing to answer those questions. An adviser to the president said a few close to him are concerned enough to pierce Biden's firm position. Only family could do that, and only with hard data.

The adviser telling CNN of his wife and sister, Jill and Valerie won't let him go down in flames.

[16:10:01]

Since the debate, CNN's poll of polls shows Trump leading Biden by five points. The first time this year the candidates are separated by a margin of more than three points.

And some donors in Chicago and Florida are having second thoughts about private fundraisers they were planning, but for Biden, it's full steam ahead, for now.

BIDEN: That every NATO member is committed to doing their part to keep the alliance strong.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TAUSCHE (on camera): Biden aides point to an aggressive travel schedule in the coming weeks. He's set to go to Michigan on Friday, Nevada next week, as well as an aggressive fundraising schedule with events planned in Texas and Colorado and two in California, as proof that he is not going anywhere. And in response to those comments from George Clooney, Jake, a campaign official who attended that Los Angeles fundraiser tells me that George Clooney left three hours before the president.

So, clearly, the gloves are off -- Jake.

TAPPER: But what does that mean that George Clooney left three hours -- what's the point?

TAUSCHE: The point of that is to suggest that Biden stamina is better than Clooney's and Clooney didn't have, you know, eyes on the entire event. That's the response to the Clooney op-ed.

TAPPER: Okay. Kayla Tausche, thanks so much. Appreciate it.

Karen Finney --

KAREN FINNEY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yeah.

TAPPER: Okay.

FINNEY: I love to talk about this.

TAPPER: I will -- I know it's your favorite topic. I -- look, it just seems like every day is going to be like this with people saying he should drop out, people that are Democratic Party stalwart.

George Clooney gets nothing out of this. I mean, what does he, what does he gain? The only reason to do this is because he feels like he needs to convey this.

FINNEY: Yeah.

TAPPER: How does this end?

FINNEY: So, let's just stipulate to the facts that this is not good. This is bad. Let's just say the (INAUDIBLE), right?

TAPPER: OK, thank you.

FINNEY: But member -- here's part of what I thinks happening this week, with members in town, obviously, they're getting together, they're having these conversations and I think that's important, right? I think it's important. I think what you're hearing from leaders is they're trying to say what they're hearing from their members.

But I -- the thing that I think we have to remember is that if Joe Biden decides to change his mind and not continue to -- in this race, it's not going to be an op-ed in the New York Times, it's not going to be donors. Its going to be a conversation that he has with his family.

And part of what I feel like were also hearing people trying to do is to create a bridge that would allow him -- that acknowledges and honors him and to see if perhaps that creates the space for him to make that decision. I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon. I think the White House strategy is. Let's get through this week.

Let's have a good day tomorrow. Let's focus on the RNC next weekend, and keep turning the page. I think that's their strategy, so I'm not sure how this ends to be perfectly honest.

TAPPER: Jonathan, CNN has some new reporting that organizers for at least one fundraiser that was supposed to take place during next month's Democratic Convention in Chicago are not going to move forward with that event, citing disagreement of how to proceed, given the continued erosion of support for Biden.

I mean, we are -- first of all, let's just acknowledge that what were seeing right now in terms of the public opposition is just the tip of the iceberg, right? It's there's a lot more of people just not comfortable. They don't want to be mean. They don't want to draw fire. But for every George Clooney and Damon Lindelof and Michael Bennet, there are dozens more.

How serious an issue is it that the money might actually dry up?

JONATHAN TAMARI, CONGRESS REPORTER, BLOOMBERG GOVERNMENT: It's certainly a major issue because we've seen that one of the major advantages President Biden thought he was going to have was a big fundraising advantage over Donald Trump in that has actually reversed itself in recent months. So he's already trailing. He's got this major weight on him, the debate did not go the way they wanted. And now he's trailing in the money game.

So, it's a major issue. As you point out, it's the tip of the iceberg. I think when you see Nancy Pelosi say the things she said, she knows what she's doing. She knows what she's saying and I think she has more latitude to say what she's saying that a lot of other leaders do because she has the weight of being a leader in the Democratic Party, but she's not a formal leader, which she has to hold a caucus together. And I think she's saying things that people like Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer can't really say.

TAPPER: Can't really say, yeah.

And, Matt, we're also hearing a change in tone from Democratic lawmakers. And again, a lot of these are stalwart Democrats, there's nothing -- they have nothing against Joe Biden. They love Joe Biden. Here's Richard Blumenthal from Connecticut.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D-CT): I am deeply concerned about Joe Biden winning this November, because it is an existential threat to the country if Donald Trump wins. So I think that we have to reach a conclusion as soon as possible. And I think Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee, has my support.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[16:15:01] TAPPER: So I think it was Ben Smith from "Semafor" who said like listening to politicians, he was talking about Pelosi, but listening to politicians is like Kremlinology during the '80s, were like, you're really trying to understand what he's saying because -- I mean, that -- what that is, is if I may, break out my Blumenthal to English dictionary, he is saying, I don't think Joe Biden can win. I'm worried that he won't be able to and we need to give him the space.

Right? That's what he said, yeah.

MATT GORMAN, FORMER SENIOR ADVISER, TIM SCOTT PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN: It sounds almost like when Tony Soprano and his family knew they're being recorded by the fed, how they would talk about crime, like allude to certain things, but I actually say, no, that's true.

And what the Biden team -- I'll say this. They're smart. They're creating these moments that are just far enough in the future. They can point to so obviously they had Stephanopoulos interview, when they thought the dam was breaking little bit, they could point to that. Let's see how he does. Then it was a news conference just this last hour, they announced this new interview with NBC Monday.

So they keep being able to be able to point to things being like buying a little time and hopefully things will ease a little bit if I were them.

FINNEY: Can I just say though, I need to say this to my Democrats? If Joe Biden stays in, if somebody else at the top of the ticket, we have to -- part of winning is believing that you can win. So I want them to cut the crap of, oh, my God, we may be can't win. We're not going to win if they keep that up. We have to believe that we can defeat Donald Trump.

And I'm so tired of this mealy mouth, I'm not sure, defeat frankly his MAGA allies in Congress as well.

GORMAN: You know who they should take the playbook from is Donald Trump Republicans in October of 2016, it was a lot worse. You had a lot more people openly, no Tony Soprano, Kremlinology saying that he needs to drop out. Different circumstance, I get it. But the party's support and look what happened.

TAPPER: Yeah.

TAMARI: I would just say the counterpoints while you're laying out about the Biden team spacing out his events a lot of the criticism has been spaced out. We thought there was going to be more of a tidal wave this week that didn't happen. It looked like maybe Biden had tamp down the revolt on the Hill, but then you hear Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill come out, Senator Bennet, today, Nancy Pelosi, then later Congressman Pat Ryan. They're also keeping this discussion alive.

After Pelosi made her comments this morning, all the lawmakers on the Hill were getting asked new questions about this topic. So every time it looks like maybe Biden has tamped it down, somebody else is kind of adding a little more fuel to the fire. TAPPER: Yeah, thanks one and all for being here. Really appreciate it.

No matter if it's Joe Biden or another nominee for the Democrats, a November election will likely come down to a handful of battleground states. How the political winds are shifting in those states since the CNN presidential debate.

Plus, calls for election integrity, quote/unquote, written into the Republican Party platform backed up by fraudulent electors set to serve as delegates at next week's convention. The new reporting showing who's on that list. That's coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:21:19]

TAPPER: We're back with our 2024 lead.

With 118 days until the November election, a new political forecast shows the polling and the politics moving away from Joe Biden. The nonpartisan, highly respected "Cook Political Report" shows several battlegrounds and moving towards Donald Trump. Frontline states such as Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada. Cook moves each one from toss up to lean Republican.

To other states, Minnesota, New Hampshire, maybe we call them second tier battlegrounds, move them from likely Democratic to lean Democratic. That's along with Nebraska's second congressional district, which includes Omaha, Nebraska, and Maine. Do it according to congressional district.

With us now is the publisher and editor-in-chief of the "Cook Political Report", Amy Walter.

Amy, so good to see you.

So before the CNN debate, all these states you had labeled a toss-up or likely Democratic now post-debate, they've all moved towards Trump.

AMY WALTER, PUBLISHER AND EDITOR IN CHIEF, COOK POLITICAL REPORTER: Yeah.

TAPPER: Tell us why. What happened?

WALTER: Yeah, sure.

So even before the debate, Jake, those three states that we moved from toss-up, meaning it's 50-50, could go either way, they were really states where Trump was ahead by a decent margin. But the theory of the case that we all heard before the debate was, hey, once this election gets engaged, once Joe Biden makes the argument about what the stakes of this election are, those voters that right now are sitting on the sidelines, they're going to get re-engaged. They're going to get behind Joe Biden and we're going to be able to move ahead in those states.

Obviously, that is not happening.

TAPPER: Right. Well, they thought they were going to -- put us -- the questions were Joe Biden's competency and his ability to they do his job because of his age.

WALTER: That's right, yeah.

TAPPER: And he was going to be able to set those aside.

WALTER: He was going to be able to set those aside and make a case against Donald Trump and to make the stakes of the election really, really very clear. And those stakes being of course, that Donald Trump is the bigger threat to America in 2024.

We should be talking much more about him than we should be talking about me, and inflation. Now, what we're talking about, we're not even talking about inflation or immigration. We're just talking about age and acuity.

TAPPER: So can you expect -- can you explain for everyone at home how the "Cook Political Report" makes his calculus?

WALTER: Yeah, sure. So really what we're looking at is a whole host of factors, lot of it's at polling, lot of it is the performance in those states that the candidates have had or the parties have had in previous years. And some of it, too, is being able to understand what's going on in those states, who the people that we talked to, what are they saying about what's going on here.

And as I said, it was clear even before the debate that Arizona, Nevada and Georgia, were going to be really hard --

TAPPER: Right.

WALTER: -- for Biden to get. It's hard for me to now keep them in a category that says, boy, these things -- this is, these are so close that I can't put my thumb on the scale one way or the other about who's favored.

Now, to be clear, it doesn't mean we're saying Trump wins those, Biden loses those in those -

(CROSSTALK)

TAPPER: You say this is what looks like right now, right now.

WALTER: Exactly.

TAPPER: And one of the things that people at home can understand about polling is that it matters less necessarily where the polls are right now as what are the trend lines.

WALTER: That's right.

TAPPER: Where are they headed?

WALTER: That's right.

TAPPER: We're almost weeks away. It's almost two weeks since the CNN debate and every day, there's another story. I mean, the Clooney fundraiser was June 15th.

WALTER: Right.

TAPPER: And it's -- what is it, July 10th?

WALTER: Yeah. And we're now talking about --

TAPPER: And George Clooney says he should step aside and that Donald Trump, he -- that we all saw at the debate was the one he saw in Los Angeles, it's tough to imagine this getting better for Biden.

[16:25:01]

WALTER: That's what I mean. It's one thing. And, Jake, you and I worked together in 2012. We saw that debate where Obama really had a terrible debate. There's no other way to say it.

But what came out of that was, boy, this is a guy who looks like he wasn't taking it seriously. He was sort of aloof and frustrated. That was a political problem.

TAPPER: Yeah.

WALTER: You can solve a political problem. This is a problem that is much more challenging because I just don't think that in the next four months, anybody in the media is going to say, oh, well, we should move on from focusing on the physical and mental health of the president of the United States.

TAPPER: Yeah, one member of Congress said to me a House Democrat said to me, even if this was an anomaly --

WALTER: Yeah.

TAPPER: -- it doesn't get better from people go who are experiencing things like this.

WALTER: Well, and all of these people are now on the record, Jake, how many people have come on, either your show or we've seen them quoted Democrats saying we'd like the president to step aside.

So, now, forget about even the media's coverage of this. Every single ad from now through November is going to be Donald Trump's campaign saying, even members of his own party think you shouldn't do the job.

TAPPER: Yeah. Amy Walter, always good to have you here.

WALTER: Good to see you.

TAPEPR: You're not here enough. We need you here more. All right, decided. The Republican National Committee is weighing in on a slate of 2020 fraudulent electors. They're set to serve as 2024 delegates at its convention next week in Milwaukee. New CNN reporting is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:30:41]

TAPPER: We have some brand new CNN reporting for you just into our 2024 lead. Fraudulent 2020 electors and election deniers from seven battleground states are going to head to Milwaukee next week to serve as RNC delegates and committeeman and officially back Trump as their 2024 nominee.

CNN's Sara Murray helped break the story.

And, Sara, several of these names face criminal charges for their alleged roles in trying to overturn the 2020 election.

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Jake. It's an interesting roster and we looked again at these seven states that were hotly contested in the wake of 2020. And what happens is the state Republican parties there get to choose who they are sending to Milwaukee to represent the state parties and a number of cases, they have chosen people who are election deniers, who were fake electors in some cases, people who are facing criminal charges.

So, here's snapshot of some of the folks you can expect to see in Milwaukee. One of them is Arizona State Senator Jake Hoffman. He's been charged as being part of the fake elector plot in Arizona. He's pleaded not guilty.

He told CNN: The American people are awake to the perverse weaponization of government at the hands of power hungry Democrats. So, certainly, not backing away from his feelings how about his criminal charges.

In Michigan, we have Matthew DePerno. Now, this is someone who is a failed candidate for attorney general. He's now actually running for Michigan Supreme Court. He's also been charged in an alleged plot to seize voting machines.

He has denied any wrongdoing and in a text to me he said: Now is a good time to point out that not only are so-called election deniers, what a dumb term he says, staying involved, we are planning on winning.

And then we have Georgia -- from Georgia, there's Amy Kramer who the Republicans --

TAPPER: Oh, sure.

MURRAY: -- they're choosing to be their incoming national committee woman, she helped organize the January 6 rally on the national mall. She's not facing any criminal charges. She told CNN: I look forward to working with my fellow colleagues at the RNC to secure our elections and make sure Donald J. Trump is elected president in November.

And again, this is just a snapshot of the folks Zach Cohen and I found that are going to be attending the convention again, election deniers, fake electors, and the like.

TAPPER: Sara, stay with me. Let's bring in Zach Cohen and Phil Mattingly.

How does the RNC responding to this, Zach?

ZACHARY COHEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Jake, we ask the RNC a lot of detailed questions about these individuals and they only noted that state-level Republicans are the ones that are responsible for picking these state delegations, and that they are going to represent their state parties like any other state would.

But, look, this is really a shift for the Republican Party. We saw in the aftermath of January 6, the attack on the U.S. Capitol, right? That they tried to distance themselves a little bit from those 2020 election claims and from the violence that happened. Obviously, as time has gone on, it has become sort of a centerpiece of not just Donald Trump's campaign for president, but the Republican Party's sort of mantra as it goes into 2024.

You look at this roster of individuals, they're pretty unapologetic about their roles as fake electors or in their other various efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

And look, Adam Kinzinger, a former Republican congressman, called election denialism of the price of entry to be a Republican now. So that's what it speaks to where he sees the party that he's no longer a part of today.

TAPPER: Yeah. Phil, is this essentially an hour, just the face of the Republican Party standing by electoral fraud, like these fake electors and denying the reality as has been adjudicated, multiple courts, multiple election boards, et cetera, of the election in 2020?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I don't -- I mean, I can elaborate.

TAPPER: Please?

MATTINGLY: But, quickly, yes. I think what this underscores more than anything else and we've seen it. You see it in the Republican platform, you see what's happened over the course of the last several months and Republican primary process as well. The Republican Party is more Donald Trump's party than it has ever been. We were all there in 2016 in Cleveland were there was actually still a floor fight that was taking place about whether or not Donald Trump would become the nominee in the lead-up to the actual election, so many Republicans running away from him.

Even in '20, Republicans weren't totally sure where things were going to go. Everything about this party now is, does Trump approved? If the answer is yes, then we supported Republican state tariffs. Not anymore. They loved tariffs. It's central to their platform right now.

We're going to modify or tried to moderate on abortion. Okay, we're all in on that. Let's do that as well.

Everything that Trump points to when says its important is where Republicans feel like -- to Adam Kinzinger's point, they have to be, and no issue is more central than this issue. In fact, just yesterday, Donald Trump, on having a rally in Doral, Florida, talking once again about January -- individuals were charged for January 6 who he is pledging to pardon or get out of prison if he takes office.

TAPPER: Sara, what's the process to become a delegate?

MURRAY: So these are people who are chosen by these really grassroots activists.

[16:35:03]

You know, the state Republican Parties, they have their own conventions. They choose who they want to be their delegates, their alternates, their national committeemen and women.

So, again, these grassroots roots individuals have really become very Trumpy wings of these Republican Party as they've been fueled by Steve Bannon and his right-wing podcast and others, you know, trying to get the sort of Trump election denier folks to get involved, make sure you're picking the people who are going to represent you to the Republican National Committee at the convention, and that kind of thing.

And I think that that's part of why we're seeing this. We've also just seen sort the spread of election denialism, of belief that there was some kind of fraud in the 2020 election, again, no evidence to back that up, spread throughout the Republican Party. And I think that this is a reflection of that.

TAPPER: And what exactly the Republicans mean? When they say they election integrity as part of the Republican Party platform, what do they mean by election integrity?

MATTINGLY: That they need to mollify Donald Trump's belief that the 2020 election was stolen. I think the best example of this when it comes to how elections are run, how votes are cast is vote by mail. Mail-in voting that the former president attacked and vilified for months and months and months after the election --

TAPPER: Even though he used it.

MATTINGLY: Even though he used it himself personally.

TAPPER: Right.

MATTINGLY: And also, Republicans were a dominant force in using that practice in the elections leading up to Donald Trump taking power, he recognized after people told him repeatedly, including his frontline Senate candidates like David McCormack in Pennsylvania, we have to have this to win, you can't keep killing this off.

And so Trump eventually got behind it after it was reframed to him, re-message to him, and the RNC killed one of their programs for vote by mail and then brought back and other program to vote by mail with a new name. They have to make him happy and sometimes that risks electoral deficits and they're trying to work around it.

So what they're saying is we want to have voter ID. We want to have same-day voting. We want to have more stringent registration requirements. It doesn't change the fact that there was no fraud or no widespread fraud and certainly didn't change the electoral votes back in 2020. But that's what Trump cares about.

TAPPER: Zach, where do the investigations stand for those who are still facing criminal charges?

COHEN: Jake, we had five states open criminal investigations around the fake electors and the attempt to overturn the 2020 election results. But those investigations case-by-case, even the ones that brought indictments, have sort of petered out in recent months. We saw in Nevada, they indicted all the fake electors from that state that case was dismissed because of a venue issue.

We saw in Michigan, the prosecutors are having trouble making their case to why this case should go to trial, a judge is raising questions about that, and obviously the case in Georgia where Donald Trump himself is indicted alongside several of the fake electors and people who oversaw that plot. That's kind of up in the air in limbo as Fani Willis might still get disqualified.

So, really no real accountability in terms of the criminal justice system for those efforts to overturn the 2020 election. And that's probably why you're seeing some of these same names, same people being embolden to be officially part of the Republican Party. And there will be on the delay, there will be delegates at the convention.

TAPPER: Very interesting. Thanks, one and all for being here. Appreciate it, great reporting.

We're also following a deadly attack just outside London today, the wife and two daughters of BBC journalist were killed, and investigators say a crossbow was used in the attack. A CNN team is live at the scene, next.

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[16:42:21]

TAPPER: In our world lead, a horrible story of mass murder involving a very old-fashioned murder weapon, a crossbow.

CNN's Nic Robertson is in a small town outside London where police have been hunting for a suspect in the killings of three women.

Nic, what can you tell us? How have they found the suspect? NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: They have a few hours ago and the cemetery right behind me here. I'm just going to ask Alex if you can pan down the road a bit, Alex, as well. And this is a cemetery where it's found.

But if you look down this street here, this is just a leafy suburban area. The north of London. I can see a cat or a fox just wandering through the -- through the lawn grass there.

This is where the suspect lived, where he is alleged to have perpetrated the murders is about 45 minutes away. So it's been 24 hours since those murders took place. And the police were called to the house there where the wife and daughters of the BBC journalist, his wife, Carol, 61-years-old, is old daughter Hanna, 28, his younger daughter, Louise, 25, please were called to the house because screams were heard and when the medical and emergency services got there, they were still alive, but unfortunately, very quickly died.

Now there were CCTV video of that house and the neighborhood, and someone was seen there carrying a crossbow, putting that crossbow into a vehicle close to the house. And that's what led the police to this neighborhood where were in the north of London where they believe he lived, and lead them to the cemetery here where when they found him, police say he was injured, he came out of the cemetery on a -- on a -- on a stretcher and now the police saying no shots were fired, but there were very, very heavily armed police involved in this search here.

This is not something the British public is used to, triple murder, and then add on top of that the use of a crossbow, just as you can imagine, Jake, utterly unheard of.

TAPPER: And this was the family of the daughters and wife of BBC journalist who specializes in racing. What do police know about the suspect?

ROBERTSON: Yeah, they're not saying a lot of what they are saying though it gives us a little bit of insight about how this could have happened, how the suspect could have got inside a house with three women and overpowered them and injured them such that they were screaming and then by the time medical services got there, they all have unfortunately perished. The police say that he knew the family.

And the other detail that's interesting here is that this -- the suspect here, the alleged killer, Kyle Clifford, 26-years-old and actually served in the British military, not for a long time, 2019 to 2020, in the household cavalry.

[16:45:12]

That's a unit, as you know, Jake base in the center of London here. The top echelons of which get to do the royal guard duties around the palaces in London. But that, that picture that it paints here is somebody of the same age as John Hunt's daughters and somebody with at least it seems at least three -- two or three years of military training. TAPPER: All right. Nic Robertson in Enfield, England, thank you so much, what a horrible story. This hour, President Biden on the move, finishing up a day at the NATO summit and making his way across town back to the White House.

Coming up a former presidential candidate who once said Joe Biden could learn from his mistakes. Could that message apply now?

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[16:50:04]

TAPPER: In our health lead, "Dr. Sanjay Gupta on Call", a regular feature where you get your medical questions, get answered.

This week's topic is weight loss drugs. As we touched on yesterday with Sanjay, new study shows that some weight loss medications are more effective than others. We asked you to submit your questions and we're going to answer a few of them. Well, I'm not going to.

Here's CNN's chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta. He's going to answer some of them.

Sanjay, first question comes from --

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: I'll do my best.

TAPPER: -- Mark in Fancy Gap, Virginia, what a great -- what a great name of the town. Fancy Gap.

Anyway, Mark writes, quote, weight loss drugs sound appealing, but I've read they can come with significant muscle mass loss as you lose weight, unquote.

This is something a lot of people asked us about, Sanjay. What do we know about losing muscle mass while on these drugs?

GUPTA: Well, Fancy Gap Mark is correct on this. I mean, the way to really think about it is that fundamentally, these medications are working by making you eat less. So no matter what, when you lose weight like this, because you're eating less, you're going to lose a certain amount of muscle mass in addition to fat mass.

In fact, I'll show you this graphic and this may surprise people depending on what you expect. But about 61 percent of the weight that you lose, whether it's these medications or simply restricting your calories, is it going to come from fat? And about 39 percent from lean body mass, muscle mass. So just keep that in the back of the mind.

I think there's two messages here when you take these medications, you got to anticipate date what you're seeing on the screen, which means you got to do resistance training, maybe as much even more so than aerobic training. And also really think about your protein intake it, should be getting about one gram per kilogram of protein every day. So if you weighed 200 pounds, that means you should be getting about 100 grams of protein every day. You got to pay more attention to that when you're on these meds.

TAPPER: A lot of our viewers had the same question as this individual from Canada.

Is there sufficient long-term evidence that these drugs are safe for weight loss? Are there no long-term risks? What do we know, Sanjay?

GUPTA: Well, here's what I would tell you. Is that obviously you always want more data on things, but as much as we've come to learn about these drugs over the last couple of years, they've actually been around since 2005. So, we're starting to approach 20 years worth of data, more and more people take them more than ever, obviously now, compared to then.

But we do have an idea of the long-term risks and in general, they do appear to be safe if taken for the right reasons. The concerns we hear about are usually more short-term. These drugs slowed down how much your gut empties or how quickly your gut empties. So people do develop nausea, they do develop vomiting, you know, situations that are related specifically to that, constipation.

More rare side effects can occur as well where people will actually developed stomach paralysis and obstructions. But, thankfully, those are rare and you're getting more and more data.

One thing to keep in mind when you talk about side effects that's either big side effects in a small number of people, which makes it significant or smaller side effects in a large group of people. And that's why they're paying attention now to even rare side effects, given that millions and millions of people are taking these.

TAPPER: And, finally, Angela, in Delray Beach, Florida, brings up this issue of the compounded version of these drugs and asks, what are the risks of taking compounded drugs considering they are mostly coming from a handful of reputable and known compounding pharmacies? It's an interesting question.

But, Sanjay, first explain to folks what a compounding pharmacy is.

GUPTA: So, yeah, this is a pharmacy that basically can make versions of these medications when they're in shortage. So that's a really important policy point. When you have drugs that go into shortage, compounding pharmacies can help fill the short, the shortfall of those drugs.

Oftentimes, these are FDA approved a wholesalers that are providing the active ingredients to the compounding pharmacy, and then they compounded, they make the drug in these pharmacies. And now, they're not required to disclose safety and efficacy data, so we don't know really how effective are safe. They are as compared for to the brand name prescription drugs.

But as this question are asked, there are some very reputable compounding pharmacies. What is interesting, Jake, I'll show you something, the things that go into shortage when it comes to these drugs are not necessarily the drug itself. What's going into shortage typically are these pens.

I don't know if you've seen these pens, Jake, but this is the Ozempic pen that I'm holding over here and my left hand, this is a Mounjaro pen.

TAPPER: OK.

GUPTA: There's about 14 patented parts that go into this pen. And this pen, you know, you're just basically dial in your dose, you hit the button and you get the medication. It's really these pens that are the issue of the shortage. So when you get a compounded drug, you may be getting the active ingredient but now you get a vile, you got to draw it up in a syringe yourself and inject yourself.

And that's been one of the concerns if you're not getting the exact right amount, you could be under overdosing yourself but these medications.

[16:55:01]

So, you know, as a general rule, buyer beware, but the reality is that these drugs are probably going to be in shortage for a couple of more years even, Jake, talking to the manufacturers. So compounding pharmacies are going to continue to exist. And a lot of times the drugs are much cheaper, thousand dollars a month for the prescription drug, more than that sometimes, $250 to $500 for the compounded version.

But be careful, make sure they get a certificate of analysis and you do your due diligence.

TAPPER: All right. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, always good to have you on. Thank you so much.

We have some breaking news just in, Republicans are now adding a layer of scrutiny into questions about President Biden's health. The House Oversight Committee is now issuing subpoenas to people close to the president who Republicans are now demanding to hear from. That's next.

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