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CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip

Polls Close In Minnesota, Wisconsin As Democrats Battle Over Party's Future; Tight Race In Wisconsin's Democratic Governor Primary Featuring Democratic Socialist; Results Coming In For Governor Race Involving MyPillow Mike Lindell; Trump Floats National Emergency Declaration To Restrict Voting; New York Times Reports A Shoulder Fired Missile Threat Warning Led To A Swap Of Air Force One Jets During Trump's NATO Summit Attendance. Aired 10-11p ET

Aired August 11, 2026 - 22:00   ET

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

[22:00:00]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR (voice over): Tonight, the results are in. Who has the upper hand in the fight for the left, the establishment or the surging socialists?

FRANCESCA HONG (D), WISCONSIN GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE: And I'm not going to cancel Thanksgiving.

BERMAN: Also --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You have the right to declare a national security emergency for elections, and you don't even need the Senate.

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: Let me just say, the strangest thing just happened.

BERMAN: -- a potential constitutional crisis is brewing involving America's votes.

And less than 24 hours into his new job, one of the first items for Todd Blanche on the White House to-do list, throw the cleared vandal back into the deep end.

Live at the table, Adam Mockler, Jason Rantz, Amanda Litman, Caroline Downey, and Kmele Foster.

Americans with different perspectives aren't talking to each other, but here, they do.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN (on camera): All right, good evening, everyone. I'm John Berman, in for Abby Phillip.

And we do have breaking news tonight. The next big fights for the future of the Democratic Party are unfolding in two key battleground states, and the races are tight right now. In Wisconsin, Democratic Socialist Francesca Hong is looking to win her party's nomination for governor, but she will have to get past the more moderate candidate, David Crowley, who has retiring Governor Tony Evers his endorsement. And Minnesota's Senate primary is pitting establishment-backed Congresswoman Angie Craig against the progressive lieutenant governor, Peggy Flanagan.

Let's get right to CNN Chief National Correspondent John King tracking the results at the magic wall. The polls have been closed for about an hour in Wisconsin, and things are tight, John.

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Things are tight, John. 15 percent of the vote in, not as quite as in -- I'm in Minnesota at the moment, then I'll get you to Wisconsin. But you said the Minnesota race first, that's a more of a six-point race there, but still only 15 percent, so we'll see how that one goes. Peggy Flanagan is the more liberal progressive candidate, the lieutenant governor, against Angie Craig, the more moderate establishment candidate. So, that's one place we see that playing out.

But you mentioned Wisconsin. Let's come over here, and let's look at the governor's primary here. This is a much, much tighter race. So this looks very much like the Michigan Senate primary, the Stevens-El- Sayed race. We have David Crowley, the former Milwaukee County executive, at 41 percent, and Francesca Hong the progressive candidate, this race at 40 percent. So, this is a very close race, 5,655 votes.

We're up to about 60 percent of the vote now, John, as you watch it play out. And so let's just go through a little bit of the counties that matter here. David Crowley's base is Milwaukee. That is where he is from, and you see him leading here, but not by a ton, right? He's leading there, but it's 45 to 44 if you round those numbers up right there.

So, a very competitive race in the largest county in the state. This is the largest population center. It's also the anchor, if you will, of the Democratic base in the state of Wisconsin. Just sliding over, in November, John, you know this as well as I do, we talk a lot about Waukesha. It's the swing suburban county just outside of Milwaukee. It leans a little bit more conservative. Just check this because there are a lot of, you know, Democrats here in the close-in suburbs, and this is where David Crowley is running it up a little bit. This is the third-largest county by population.

But then I'm going to skip over a little bit to where you have the darker blue spot here. This is Dane County, and this is the progressive base of the state of Wisconsin. This is Dane County, Madison, the University of Wisconsin. This is where Francesca Hong calls home, and she is winning here by about four or five points there.

Again, neither candidate blowing it out, if you will, in their home area which is affecting their math a little bit. Just come back out to the statewide total and look. We're at 60 percent right now, and we've got a one-point race. And John, again, what did we have in Michigan when you had this family feud in the Democratic Party? A very close race. What do we have in Wisconsin? Another as battleground state as they come, this is the Democratic primary, and at the moment as we count, an incredibly close race. So, this divide in the party is real, and it is essentially down the middle.

BERMAN: So, John, what about the rurals? One thing I've learned from you over the years is you have a lot of these counties with not much population, but if one candidate is able to run up the score in all of them, it can make a difference. And I see a lot of gray, as in a lot of votes not reported yet in some of these counties.

KING: Yes. So, you see up here, the gray means no votes, and so we're waiting and waiting and waiting. So, you're absolutely right. In this case here, so let's go, this is a less rural area. You go to Marathon County where you have Wausau, right? You're up in these -- the extremities of the county, but you have Francesca. Look how close that is, even here, this 39-39, right? It's a matter of a few votes. But then you start moving into the more rural counties, and we do see in the counties where we have results David Crowley, it's 43 percent in here. A little bit of a lead there, but not a ton.

But back to your point, right?

[22:05:00]

So, you look at this and you say, oh, it's 135-92. That's not much, right? It's not much now. The question is it much when we get to the end of the night? If it's that close and you start wandering through, it's what I always call, you know, Donald Trump's greatest secret, is that he runs it up by so much in rural America that it helps him offset getting thumped, you know, in the cities and even in the close- in suburbs.

But, David Crowley, if you look at the rural areas where we do have votes tends to have an advantage. This is more suburban down here when you get close to the border, the Illinois border and all that, but a little bit of an advantage.

I do think, you make that point, I was looking at Minnesota just a while ago also as well. As we get through the night, if it stays as close as it is, we'll be going through these tiny rural counties where, again, you know, winning by 20 votes here and 40 votes there, sometimes in the end, that math matters.

BERMAN: All right. Just take me back quickly to Minnesota again. That's where you started. What's the margin there and how much remaining?

KING: Right. Number one, because we were on the governor's race, I just want to show you Amy Klobuchar, the senator who decided to run for governor when Governor Walz said he would not run for re-election. She is overwhelmingly winning there. On the Republican side, this is a fascinating race at the moment, but, so far, only 18 percent, but the best-known nationally candidate here is the MyPillow guy and the Trump election denier, Mike Lindell. He is running well behind at the moment.

But the race you were talking about here, let's come over to the Senate Democratic race here, this one here, again, not as close at the moment. Only 15 percent, so we need to be cautious. But Peggy Flanagan, the lieutenant governor, the more progressive candidate, is leading in this race by a healthy margin percentage-wise at the moment. We will see as it holds up as we get more votes.

And, John, again, you know the history here very well. This is a blue state, but it's one Republicans are always intrigued by, in part because of, especially in the Trump years his support in rural America. Democrats think they will hold this seat in November, but in a volatile year like this, just for a quick look here, then move over, we do know on the Republican side, a name familiar to many of our viewers, Michele Tafoya, the veteran sports journalist, NBC -- not NBC football, but football sideline reporter is -- will be the Republican nominee in that race there.

So, Republicans have a candidate who they think is a strong candidate as we now wait to see who the Democratic nominee will be. John?

BERMAN: All right. We'll let you go back to surfing towns and counties in Wisconsin, John, because that one is a real nail-biter. Please shout if you see a big dump of votes come in and get counted there, because we are fascinated there.

And before we open it up to the table here, we do invite you at home to join the debate. Head to cnn.com/abby to weigh in. We're going to get some of your comments on throughout the show.

And to everyone here, let me just apologize to you. I can't read the screen, the vote counts on the screen far away from me, so I will glance down at my computer from time to time to get the numbers here. About 5,000 votes in Wisconsin separating these two candidates, and Francesca Hong, the Democratic socialist, the progressive, who was getting a lot of news coverage the last few days, she is trailing now. What does that tell you?

ADAM MOCKLER, YOUTUBE HOST, THE ADAM MOCKLER SHOW: I think the split in this primary tells us there's a very healthy debate happening within the Democratic Party about the direction that it should go. We know one thing, the Democrats are very sick of the establishment. If you look at some polling, establishment Democrats poll at the same rate as Republicans. The Republican Party is uniquely unpopular, and so are establishment Democrats.

So, I see this reductive analysis where people say Democrats are turning into communists and socialists. No. We're looking for change agents that can present something different, and even the Michigan Senate race proves that there is a split amongst the party. Abdul El- Sayed is an explicit capitalist. He's a capitalist, and he ran against a capitalist, and it was a very competitive race. So, I reject this idea that the Democratic Party is being taken over by socialism, and I think that there is a very healthy conversation happening.

KMELE FOSTER, EDITOR-AT-LARGE, TANGLE: I wonder why you describe it as healthy. I mean, some of these candidates who describe themselves as progressive, some of them who are much more DSA-adjacent, have been pretty explicit about the contempt that they have for a lot of establishment Democrats. They talk about them the way you would expect them to talk about Republicans, and some of the things that they're running away from when they abandon their previously held positions. And by previously held, I mean, in many instances, a matter of weeks or months ago, as opposed to just a matter of days.

MOCKLER: When I think of healthy, I think of the Michigan Senate race, where Haley Stevens immediately got all of the way behind Abdul El- Sayed and is now hitting the trail with him and talking about building a coalition of her voters and his voters.

Of course, in primaries, it's going to get a bit nasty. There's going to be a lot of contempt. Trump had contempt for the entire Republican apparatus in 2016. But I would say that the direction we're going is good. It's a good conversation to be having. What type of candidates are we looking for? And maybe the establishment can learn a thing or two from them.

BERMAN: Just 3,100 votes now separating these two candidates, Hong still trailing. This kind of divide healthy, or is this kind of divide a real divide?

CAROLINE DOWNEY, COLUMNIST, NATIONAL REVIEW: Well, I would agree with you that on the inside I don't think Democratic heavyweights are describing it as a healthy discernment about the direction of the party. It's an insurgency. It's a takeover. It is changing the fundamental constitution of this party as we know it if they succeed. And it looks like Hong is underperforming in some progressive counties, which could be a bad omen.

But, you know, look, I think what happens in the Midwest, and the Midwest is an interesting case.

[22:10:00]

You know, Tony Evers, he was a teacher. He was a relatively tame Democrat by all standards. I think what happened was she didn't offer a compelling conversion story for her radical past. And I think a lot of moderate Democrats in Wisconsin looked at the record and said, you know, I don't know if we should allow candidates in the Democratic Party to have had a defund the police phase.

This isn't like getting a nose ring. This isn't like dyeing your hair. These were people who were advocating to gut the most essential function of government, which is protecting the citizenry against criminals, and she is on the record saying she supports that, and she hasn't offered an explanation as to why she changed her mind.

BERMAN: Francesca Hong, she may end up winning here. She is vastly underrunning her polls. Is this a case of Democratic voters in Wisconsin getting nervous, do you think?

AMANDA LITMAN, CO-FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT, RUN FOR SOMETHING: No, I think this is a case of primary polling being extremely broken. I also think that this is one of these races, much like within Michigan, where there was a lot of late money spent, ugly, dark money spent, particularly attacking or reaching low information voters who are less likely to answer polls.

So, I think we have a combination of a broken polling system and the way that money is being spent in the final couple weeks of the race that we really have to fix before 2028. Because if we don't get this together, we are going to be way underwater when it comes to figuring out where the water is in 2028.

JASON RANTZ, SEATTLE RED RADIO HOST: Polling, when it's good, we all celebrate it, but the reality is it's not always that good.

LITMAN: Rarely that good.

RANTZ: And it's oftentimes really bad. The issue here that I think is going to become an issue for the Democrats is that you've got the progressive base or the socialist base of the Democratic Party kind of taking control of the infrastructure of Democrats to get some of their candidates elected. They're coming out and they're saying, we're not going to vote for anyone other than the one that shares some of our very far to the left --

LITMAN: Are they saying that for the general?

RANTZ: They are saying that for the general because they're saying right now, the reason why they're going with Hong, or the reason why they've been going with some of these folks, is that they're not part of the establishment, and they are deeply anti-establishment.

You look at some of the smaller House races that will determine, you know, where this country heads. You go to Washington's 3rd Congressional District, you have Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, who's more of a moderate Democrat. She's in trouble right now and lost this primary because of a challenger to the far left coming out and saying, yes, I'm not endorsing her even though she just beat me. I'm sticking with either not voting or maybe even voting for the chaos factor, voting for the Republican --

BERMAN: I will say Republicans don't necessarily try to have this both ways, though, right? Because in Michigan, I've heard you suggest that you're not going to have the establishment Democrats voting for Abdul El-Sayed, but now you're saying you're not going to have the progressive candidates vote for David Crowley to be able to win the Wisconsin primary.

RANTZ: Yes. I mean, they're saying that. I think you're --

BERMAN: Are you wish casting here?

RANTZ: No, I mean, wish casting is I hope Hong wins tonight because that's very good news for the Republicans. I do think that, you know, state-by-state it's going to be a little bit different, and a Republican doesn't want to go up against Crowley versus Hong. He has an easier chance at moving those moderate voters because he's going after the moderate voters. The problem is that you have a smaller group of progressives who win in a lot of these elections because they're low turnout elections and they're very organized and they turn out. That's what we saw in New York.

BERMAN: Do you think Democrats stared themselves in the face here in Wisconsin?

FOSTER: I'm not so sure about that. I am thinking though about the point you were just making a moment ago with respect to Hong kind of running away from all of these positions that she's held only just a matter of moments ago. And the fact that if you have to move this much during the primary, in the general election, you're going to find yourself in a much more intense scramble trying to find ways to be safe, because the Democrats are not going to hit you as hard as your Republican opponents are going to in the general election.

LITMAN: Do you think --

RANTZ: Well, and the Democrats -- just real quickly, the Democrats, I think, put themselves in a really difficult position by saying, We're going to be completely united behind every single Democrat who runs, because now you give the opportunity to media outlets and Republicans to define you by the people you're now backing. And so now you ask the question, if Hong wins, well, do you support getting rid of Thanksgiving? You're putting that on the plate for every conversation.

LITMAN: You know, at the same time, though, Republicans are going to have to defend a Republican nominee who's been an election denier, who's protecting pedophiles, who is wanting to raise taxes.

MOCKLER: Well, Mike Lindell and Tom Tiffany.

LITMAN: But the other choice at this point. Plus, let's talk about Max Miller in Ohio, where they're going to have to defend a guy that broke his toddler's collarbone, not even talking about Trump, who has done any number of --

BERMAN: He does deny that. He does deny it.

LITMAN: Allegedly broke his toddler's collarbone.

RANTZ: And to be clear, Republicans have pushed back against Max Miller pretty --

LITMAN: The RNC said they were --

RANTZ: The Republicans who have come out and been asked have said he should drop out. This is a little bit different than some of the cases, because now --

(CROSSTALKS)

BERMAN: Except for kind of the biggest Republican in America, right? The president has not said he should drop out. And he did drop out. And the Republican, you know, spending committees are going to spend money on his campaign. RANTZ: Yes, but they're going to still spend money. I'm just saying there's a little bit of a difference because we are dealing with a legal case. It is a divorce. That does muddy the waters a little bit. From his perspective, and I think he's a scumbag, I think he should have dropped out, but also I don't know if people look at the divorce --

BERMAN: Would you vote for him if you lived in that district?

RANTZ: I would not. I would not vote for the Democrat. I just would not vote in that particular race.

MOCKLER: Can I just point out, people are pointing out that the Democrats are running from their old positions, but doesn't that prove that the base is much less radical than people claim?

[22:15:04]

I mean, Tom Tiffany doesn't have to run from anything because Tom Tiffany is an election denier, and the entire Republican base is full of election deniers.

The fact that Francesca Hong had to drop the defund the police stuff kind of disproves the idea that the Democratic voter base is very radical.

(CROSSTALKS)

BERMAN: I would take this opportunity because it's a perfect transition. You just made great T.V. there.

More next, including the MyPillow guy, Mike Lindell, running for governor in Minnesota.

Plus, there are fears tonight that a constitutional crisis could be looming as the president teases the possibility of declaring a national emergency to take over elections.

This is CNN's special live coverage.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:20:00]

BERMAN: All right. We're watching primary races in Wisconsin and Minnesota, where battles between the progressive left and the establishment are playing out.

Let's bring back in CNN Chief National Correspondent John King at the magic wall. John, where are you? You're in Minnesota. Let's start with the Minnesota gubernatorial race on the Republican side.

KING: So, here's one, John. One of the questions throughout this primary season is, you know, has Trump lost his clout? Where does Trump have appeal? Where does the Trump endorsement work? Maybe where does it not? At the moment, we're looking at the state of Minnesota and the Trump ally, Mike Lindell, many of you know him for the MyPillow brand. Many of you know him from after 2020 when he was part of the Trump election denial team in quite a loud way, he's the Trump favorite in this Minnesota governor's race, and with 21 percent of the vote in he's losing quite substantially, 12,300 votes by the math, but 12 points, 13 points if you look at the percentages, and the map is beginning to fill in. So, that's one.

And late in the primary season -- early in the primary season, John, as you'll remember, Trump was having a pretty good run. Later in the primary season, we've seen a little bit of that falling off a little bit. But in case -- we haven't called this race yet, but we're looking at the Republican primary here in the Minnesota governor's race.

And on the Democratic side, this one is all set. And Amy Klobuchar the Democratic senator who decided to run for governor when Governor Walz decided not to run for reelect, she's the, going to be the favorite in this race no matter what. But she ran away with the Democratic primary for governor.

Let's come back to the Senate primary here. And you've been in this position I'm in on election nights, and so you know at 21 percent, the first thing you say is, let's be cautious, and let's count votes, and let more votes come in. The other thing you say is, I've been looking at this since it's been like 12 or 15 percent, and the percentage has stayed pretty steady.

That doesn't guarantee it stays that way throughout the night. It's just one of the things you watch when you're counting votes, and the lieutenant governor, the more progressive candidate, Peggy Flanagan, at the moment 52 percent to 45 percent over Angie Craig for the Senate Democratic nomination here. Republican nomination is settled. That's the sports journalist, former sports journalist Michele Tafoya.

So, this is a big race for the Democrats, and this is another one of the Democratic divides, if you will, between the progressive candidate and the establishment candidate, the progressive candidate with a healthy lead at the moment.

Let's pop over to Wisconsin. Here, we're looking at the governor's race. And, John, I think we were in the 50s last time we spoke about this at the top of the hour. We're up to two-thirds of the vote right now, 66 percent, and we have a fiercely competitive Democratic primary to be the Democratic candidate for governor in one of America's premier battleground states.

David Crowley the favorite of the Democratic establishment at 41 percent, Francesca Hong, the Democratic socialist insurgent candidate in this race at 40 percent, 2,224 votes separating the candidates right now as we get to two-thirds of the vote.

So, you're looking now, number one, let's just check Dane County is her base of support, 83 percent of the vote in. One of the things you look for at this point is, right, who can stretch -- you know, who can stretch or who's got the, who's has still opportunities out there in a lot of places, 83 percent in here. She did build a healthy lead in her home base of Dane County. Let's just come over to Mr. Crowley is from here, Milwaukee County. It's more competitive here, but, again, about 84 percent of the vote in.

So, let's just come back out a little bit and let's just take a peek. I'm not trying to make people dizzy at home with that. I just want to bring this up. So, you bring this up, the circles tell you where are the outstanding votes, and the size of the circle, the larger the circle, the more votes still outstanding.

So, a lot of votes still outstanding, that's Dane County, the darker blue circle there. Again, that's Francesca Hong's base. Fair amount though here too, in Milwaukee, in the suburbs, and then you stretch up out here. That doesn't -- you know, it tells me there are a lot of votes outstanding and it tells me they're reasonably split, maybe a slight advantage of Crowley at the moment among the places that we're still out, John.

So, what that tells you, and then you come back to this, is, wow this is an incredibly tight race and we're going to be at this a while.

BERMAN: I mean, we're literally measuring size of circles right now to determine how much vote is left and who might be best advantaged there.

KING: You use every tool in the box, and sometimes even after you use every tool in the box, you say, we're going to be here a while.

BERMAN: We're going to be here a while. John King, get a drink of water. We'll come back to you in a little bit when there is more vote in. Oh, I will tell you, actually, you know what, John? Just because it just happened, we're on T.V.

KING: There you go.

BERMAN: It's now 575 votes separating the two candidates. Do you know where that came from?

KING: I do not. I can search around and surf for it as it came in. But it was the five -- so, let's see. Well, I can tell you this. Yes, I can tell you that. It was at 83 percent we checked a minute ago, and it's at Dane County. It doesn't mean that's where they all came from. But we did get more votes in her home base there, and she closed the gap without a doubt. And so you come, you just see -- like I can tell you if that circle's any smaller, and she come up maybe a little bit, but, no.

Again, if you're looking -- what happened in the last two hours does not guarantee what's going to happen as you keep counting votes. But if you look at this map right now, there are more places, more light blue circles, which is where Crowley is leading right now.

[22:25:03]

So, if you're in the Crowley campaign, you say, huh? The other thing you might say though is, you know, that's a population center, that's a population center. So, this one, this is just 500 -- that's 613 votes. It just moved a little tiny bit more.

Guess what? I've been through a lot of Wisconsins and a lot of Michigans and a lot of Pennsylvanias in my life, and this is how it goes.

BERMAN: 594 now, John.

KING: Yes.

BERMAN: Go get that drink of water quickly because we're going to have to come back to you soon at the rate we're going.

KING: All right.

BERMAN: The bottom line, though --

KING: I might need a beer.

BERMAN: You know, we're not looking, whatever you want.

This is close. I mean, this is -- we're looking at 594 votes in. We're really analyzing the size of the circles. A, this is exciting in terms of watching this come in, something this close, but, B, this is -- I mean, this is a party divided, 514 votes now.

LITMAN: I think it is a party divided, but it is a party doing what a healthy primary process does, which is decide who we are and what we believe. I also think we're seeing in some of these races across the country, you know, we haven't covered it at all, but in Connecticut, a 70-something member of Congress lost to a 41-year-old challenger, not on ideological lines, but on a frustration with the establishment, in particular, with age.

So, I do think a big part of the through line we're seeing both in Wisconsin and Michigan and a bunch of these primaries is a frustration with the status quo. And if Crowley comes out ahead, he's going to have to be able to channel that irritation and that rage that people are feeling, even if his policies maybe don't carry it forward.

RANTZ: I don't know if it's as healthy when you win by like 0.1 percent. I think that develops a bigger problem of trying to bring over the other side that's going to be very upset, more so upset that they lost by the skin of their teeth.

Hong, I think, if I'm her camp right now, looking at some of these numbers, looking at traditionally how organized socialists are and folks who are further to the left, she's probably in a good spot. It's still incredibly tight. I wouldn't place any bets at this point. But going into this, I thought Hong was going to win, and I still hold that position.

That's not good for the Democratic Party. It's not. There's a reason why Republicans actually want her to win and put money into that race. It's because now Wisconsin is winnable in a way that before it wasn't.

And it's the same exact thing with Michigan. Democrats are privately saying El-Sayed's not going to win there. And every single Democrat who's all about the united -- being united in the party will now have to talk specifically to Hong and to El-Sayed and all these other candidates who have been running.

MOCKLER: If Tom Tiffany's close, a race were this close, he would probably be denying the results and saying that it wasn't even a fair election. You can say that this isn't good for the Democratic Party, but the Republican Party is a party of election denial. They undermine American democracy. They hate the fundamentals of American democracy.

Do you condemn Tom Tiffany for trying to overturn the 2020 election results?

RANTZ: I don't think he should have done it. I also don't think Pramila Jayapal should have or Senator Barbara Boxer on the left because the Democrats did precisely what it is you're accusing Tim --

MOCKLER: They lost a court case to overturn electors?

RANTZ: Yes. Well, no, they tried to get in the way of stopping --

MOCKLER: Oh, okay, so they didn't do that.

RANTZ: No, they did. You're arguing they want the legal case.

DOWNEY: I think what we really need to pay attention to is the demographic breakdown of this race. Does the working class go out for Francesca Hong or not? That's supposed to be the mantra of the Democratic socialists, right? It's the working class, the low income, it's the minority voters. Let's wait and see.

I have a feeling she's going to eke it out. It's a nail-biter, yes. I think she's going to win this thing on a narrow margin, to your point, because of Madison. Madison, where she's from, which is deep blue, college town, elites. It's not going to be because of the bedrock of the country, and I would just like to see her explain those results when they ultimately happen, which they might.

BERMAN: 681 vote margin now. He's expanded from the mid-500s to 687, 681 now.

If jobs are being lost every month, if wage growth is being outpaced by inflation, what is the most effective Democratic message to emerge from the primaries to beat Republicans in the fall?

FOSTER: I mean, one would hope that you have a coherent economic message that can actually resonate with voters, that you can talk to them successfully about the various ways in which the Republican Party is failing you.

Again, these primaries are largely about this kind of interparty squabbling, and not so much about the failures of Republicans or the failures of Donald Trump. There's sort of broad agreement on that amongst -- among Democrats, so they're barely talking about it at all.

And I think to your point, Adam, I can appreciate why you want to point to the dysfunction on the right. There is a tremendous amount of it.

MOCKLER: It's embedded in the party.

FOSTER: It is so easy in terms of a target. And, certainly, with respect to the top, Donald Trump is part of the -- is not part of, he's the fundamental reason for the derangement on the right.

So, what does the Republican Party look like after Donald Trump is faded from the scene? That is an important question. I don't know that it's a party that looks less healthy than it looks right now. So, this might be the moment for those concerns.

I think for Democrats, on the other hand, this movement that the progressives and the DSA-adjacent candidates have built is something that has been growing over many, many campaign cycles. It began with Bernie Sanders, and it began with the sour grapes feeling that many of his supporters felt after losing close election after close election, feeling as though the party was actively working against them, because it was, and even now it's still doing that.

[22:30:02]

If they're losing these elections by very close margins, I do think that that is an issue for Democrats that they'll continue to have to contend with.

BERMAN: And they're not Democrats. Kmele, he brought up President Trump, which does provide us with a T.V. segway here, so I'm going to seize that opportunity.

The President says he might declare a national emergency to take over the nation's elections and redistrict voting. And legal experts say we may be headed toward a constitutional crisis. This is CNN Special Live Coverage.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:35:04]

BERMAN: All right, the breaking news.

We are following these results as they come in from Wisconsin, this razor-thin margin in the gubernatorial primary, Democratic primary. Right now, David Crowley, oh, and it just shrunk. He has a lead of 2600 votes over Francesca Hong, seen as the progressive candidate, Democratic Socialist.

This is with 74 percent reporting. The lead is 2600 votes. It was down to as low as about 500 over the last few minutes, has been high as 3000, swinging up and down.

But right now it is so close, still with about 25 percent of the vote to be counted. We will follow this all night long. This is seen as such a key race in the battle between the progressive wing of the Democratic Party and those seen as more establishment.

So back to that in just a moment.

In the meantime, fears of a constitutional and perhaps moral crisis as President Trump is not ruling out nationalizing elections. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WAYNE ALLYN ROOT, "AMERICA'S TOP 10 COUNTDOWN" HOST, AND CONSERVATIVE COMMENTATOR: If they never get the Save America Act done, you have the right to declare a national security emergency for elections. They can't challenge it. It can only be overturned by a two-thirds vote of both houses of Congress.

So if you do this in the next month, we will get photo I.D., proof of citizenship, and a limit to mail-in ballots, and you don't even need the Senate, Trump.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (on the phone): Let me just say that stranger things have happened. Okay? I'll leave it at that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Stranger things have happened is just the latest comment showing how Trump feels about control over elections.

In February, pro-Trump activists in coordination with the White House reportedly circulated an executive order that would declare a national emergency over dubious claims that China interfered in 2020. In March, Trump ordered the Postal Service not to deliver mail-in ballots for states that refuse to hand over voter rolls. Federal courts have blocked the order, but the administration is appealing that to the Supreme Court.

And earlier this year, of course, the FBI seized election materials in Atlanta and Puerto Rico, which also raised concerns about the midterms. Now, if that wasn't clear, this is what the President said in February.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP (on the phone): The Republicans should say, we want to take over. We should take over the voting in at least many, 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting. And then we have states that are so crooked, and they're counting votes.

We have states that I won that show I didn't win. Now, you're going to see something in Georgia where they were able to get with a court order the ballots.

You're going to see some interesting things come out. But, you know, like the 2020 election, I won that election by so much.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Did not win the 2020 election. All right, we're back. So when the President doesn't seem to explicitly rule out declaring some kind of national security emergency for the 2026 election, how concerned are Democrats or should voters be about some kind of shenanigans before, during or after November 3rd?

ADAM MOCKLER, LIBERAL COMMENTATOR, AND YOUTUBE HOST, "THE ADAM MOCKLER SHOW": You know where my mind goes?

If you're trying to seize ballot boxes and potentially declare a national emergency, then you're not winning in the first place. Trump's authoritarianism is confirmation that he is unpopular. He has lied to the American people by starting a war that we can't get out of, by spiking gas prices, unemployment is up, wage growth is not matching inflation, and he has to face that fact.

Rather than doing that, he's hiding behind these authoritarian moves. I'm a young dude, and I've spent all of my formative years growing up in an America where I see the President of the United States undermining the most important institutions that we have, a free and fair election.

This means a lot to me. I like free and fair elections a lot. I like peaceful transfers of power.

Every chance that Donald Trump gets, he tries to rig the midterms, undermine elections that he loses. It is disgusting and it's indefensible. Honestly, it's indefensible.

CAROLINE DOWNEY, COLUMNIST, "NATIONAL REVIEW", AND SENIOR FELLOW, INDEPENDENT WOMEN'S FORUM: From a small C conservative perspective, it is one thing to want robust voter I.D. to ensure integrity of elections. That is objectively a good, admirable goal. But it's another thing to want to nationalize elections.

That is just a bad idea today, as it was when Democrats tried to do it in 2021 under Joe Biden. It was called For the People Act, and they genuinely wanted to streamline voting processes and bring it all up to the federal level.

And there's a reason why our constitution really makes that difficult to do. It's because this is properly the domain of the states. Now, I'm not disputing that some states are kind of bad at managing their own elections.

There's been issues with mishaps and fraud and things like that. But I wouldn't say that that's a good enough of a reason to make the federal government take it over, because the problem with politics, it could become a partisan football and it could be weaponized the next time the opposing party is in power.

FOSTER: Will become a partisan football. And also the federal government tends to make plenty of mistakes all on its own. I don't want to nationalize elections because I don't want to centralize the error prone tendencies of government in general.

[22:39:52]

I would have to agree with virtually everything you said there. I mean, the reality is that the, again, I mentioned it earlier, but the hangover from Trump once he exit the stage is going to be very difficult for Republicans, for many Republican spokespersons who have found themselves nodding along in segments just like the one we were just watching there, to things that I don't think most of them actually believe completely in their hearts.

There are totally credible arguments to be made for things like voter I.D. that Democrats I think have been on the wrong side of for quite some time, but they are completely blowing the opportunity. When the President of the United States talks this way, you get the sense that he isn't really a man of his particular party. This isn't about the party.

If it was, you would tone this down. You would talk in a more responsible and disciplined way.

JASON RANTZ, SEATTLE RED RADIO HOST, AND AUTHOR, "WHAT'S KILLING AMERICA?": 100 percent. Because I come from a state that is 100 percent mail-in voting and every single time I hear the complaints about mail-in voting in particular and how there's a whole bunch of fraud that's going to swing elections, I say to myself, you're making it easier to convince a Republican not to vote whatsoever.

So even if there was cheating going on, they wouldn't have to because people aren't actually voting. At the same time, he brings up important issues that, to your point, the Democrats are just completely dismissing. We went from there's no fraud whatsoever, it's impossible in a perfect system, to well, there's not a ton of fraud.

I don't think there's been enough fraud to completely overturn an election, but this idea that a few thousand votes here or there doesn't matter, well, let's look to Wisconsin right now. Let's talk to Norm Coleman.

I mean, there have been plenty of cases in which they do matter and I don't care if it can swing an election. I want to make sure that we're getting that number to zero. And the Democrats have been saying that that no longer matters, that it's not that big enough of a deal.

I'm sorry, it is a big deal. And I think we would all be better, Republicans and Democrats, to know that we are literally doing everything we can to ensure that our system is as safe as humanly possible and it's not or it shouldn't be political.

BERMAN: Just two quick questions to throw into the table here. Number one, A, how seriously should you take it when he doesn't rule out nationalizing elections?

MOCKLER: It's not a serious issue.

RANTZ: You have to.

MOCKLER: You should not take this seriously.

BERMAN: And two, and two, I'll let you guys argue it out. The second question is, didn't Democrats run on threats to democracy in 2024 and lose?

MOCKLER: Of course.

RANTZ: That's a bad argument.

MOCKLER: The idea that we shouldn't take this seriously when Trump literally tried to overturn the 2020 election by having a mob enter the Capitol while they were certifying it. The fact that he had a fake elector scheme, where he had fake electors in seven different states. If you want to laugh at this.

RANTZ: You had Democratic electors who were actively saying they were not going to cast their vote for the winners of their state. What are you talking about? Washington said there was a case that went to the Supreme Court, and they had that overturned.

You had Democrats --

The fakeless elector case. The fakeless elector case. On top of that -- Give me one more second.

You had three states, Democrat-run states, that tried to take him off the ballot. So this idea --

MOCKLER: After he tried an insurrection?

RANTZ: What did the Supreme Court say? Could they legally do that? No. You had Democrats who were objecting to the certification of free elections.

MOCKLER: Your timeline is all confused right now.

RANTZ: George W. Bush happened first, and it was Barbara Boxer, and then --

BERMAN: I will put my two questions back on the table. How seriously do you take it, and is this something Democrats should focus on?

AMANDA LITMAN, CO-FOUNDER AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, RUN FOR SOMETHING: I think we should take it very seriously, and we should always zoom out. There is no mechanism for the federal government to take over the elections.

My organization, Run for Something, works with people running for state and local office. We've helped hundreds and hundreds of pro- democracy, pro-voter, local election administrators run for and win these offices.

They are the ones that decide where polling places are. They are the ones that certify the votes. We should not try and scare people here.

There is no mechanism for them to do it. And he is absolutely trying to undermine faith in the process. He is trying to undermine trust, and I completely agree with you.

He is not interested in the Republican Party winning power. I think he thrives when he is the "underdog," quote-unquote. I'm not sure he wants the Republican Party to win this fall, I think he wants to have a villain in Congress that he can go up against.

BERMAN: All right. The margin right now in Wisconsin, the gubernatorial primary there, is 2801 votes with 76 percent in. We are watching this very closely. We are watching results in Minnesota as well, and we do have more breaking news tonight.

The "New York Times" is reporting that the U.S. had intelligence of a surface-to-air missile threat against Air Force One, and that is why the President was taken off in secret. More next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[22:45:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: All right. Breaking tonight, a new twist and new reaction to the extraordinary ruse to remove President Trump from Air Force One after a threat from the Iranians.

By now you have heard about the secret switch through a catering truck to another plane, which left members, some of the administration, and the media on the original plane as a decoy. Now the "New York Times" reports that the U.S. had identified a threat of a surface-to-air missile against the plane, and that the Iranians knew where he was staying in Turkey. The President spoke about the transfer for the first time tonight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: It's only up to Secret Service. I just follow what they'd like to do. So I go by Secret Service and the military.

They wanted me to go on a different flight, a different plane, equal safety, but they wanted me to do it, so I do it. I do what they say.

REPORTER: Why was it too dangerous for you flying on Air Force One, but not too dangerous for the press?

TRUMP: Well, I don't know. I think, actually, the plane that I flew on was at greater risk. I think it was at greater risk, because that would be the plane, I think, that they would be more likely to go for.

REPORTER: Were you worried about a shoulder-fired missile?

TRUMP: I don't worry about anything, to be honest. Whatever it is. You know my attitude? Whatever.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: All right. The new reporting, again, is the shoulder-fired missile threat.

[22:49:54] The new reporting also from CNN is that Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent were actually on the plane that the President left from, so there were still some pretty high- value targets, along with media and other members of the administration, on the Air Force One -- the original Air Force One jet.

Jason, we were here last night processing this news as it all came in. It sort of had a day to settle in. Any new thoughts here, A, about the Iranian threat, or B, again, about this lingering question of leaving so many people on a plane not deemed safe enough for the President?

RANTZ: Okay, but that's separate from-there's some language that I heard today talking about an imminent threat, which is not bared out by the reporting. It was a serious threat that they obviously believed could have resulted in an attack, or what seems more likely, given who was actually on the plane, that they just didn't want to risk anything.

The timeline of when we learned what information was coming in and what was done with that information matters. The reason why I push back a little bit on the imminent threat part is if it was an imminent threat, they would not have had him publicly walk up the stairwell to Air Force One and do any of that. They just would not have done that.

We're also making assumptions that people on the plane didn't know. My guess is Marco Rubio probably did know.

BERMAN: Well, 100 percent the reporters didn't know. I'm not making any assumptions.

RANTZ: Well, no, I don't know if that's true. Susan Page today came out and said that she held on to that for 25 minutes.

BERMAN: That's a long time ago.

RANTZ: But that's my point, is that she held on to that information and didn't reveal it. She apparently was the only one who knew about that. We don't know if everyone on that plane, one person, might have been told similar to what happened with Bill Clinton and just choosing to abide by the promise not to release that information, which Susan Page did for 25 years.

MOCKLER: I just want to zoom out for a second. We've been told repeatedly that Iran's military was destroyed entirely. Their missile capacity and their ability to pose any threat has been destroyed. That's very clearly not true.

RANTZ: But this is a service that's held by one person. That's a huge difference.

MOCKLER: It kind of proves that this Iran war has made all of us less safe. And this is one of those rare instances where Donald Trump is now experiencing the consequences of his actions. He can spike prices and be insulated, he can cut health care and be insulated. But this Iran war is making us all less safe, and it was under the

guise of making America more safe. They are currently holding the Strait of Hormuz hostage, the entire oil flow hostage, while Trump has no way out of this.

RANTZ: This has been an Iranian threat specifically against Trump for a very long time, now the American people are suffering.

DOWNEY: I would say two things can be true at the same time.

Operation Epic Fury was an incredible tactical success, and it doesn't get enough credit for what those planes were able to achieve. It did severely degrade the nuclear facilities to an immense degree, and we also degraded a lot of their other armaments. There is some remaining, I'm not disputing that.

And I do think it only takes one maniac in the regime to launch this sort of thing and to attempt to assassinate the President. And I think what that shows is the perils of early on the communication of, were we going for regime change or weren't we?

BERMAN: It's the perils of -- Kmele, I've been seeing your face, and you were agreeing and disagreeing with everyone who was speaking simultaneously, so I'm just trying to decode what the face was.

FOSTER: No, this is my proclivity. I don't have a particular team, so I just try to see what makes sense and go with that.

No, look, I'm inclined to agree that the real story here isn't so much the security concerns and precautions that were taken. It seems eminently reasonable to me for Secret Service to make the decision that they made. It also seems reasonable to me for the people who travel in the press corps with the President of the United States on Air Force One in the Middle East to understand that there is a degree of risk that you accept when you travel in the motorcade, as I've had in the past.

So that, I think, just stands there. But the thing that we ought to be talking about is the conflict that the United States of America entered into voluntarily that has, in fact, increased the level of risk associated with the presidency. But for the country as a whole, we've seen cyber attacks on our infrastructure here in the United States to a degree that we had not before.

We know that our military arsenal has been depleted severely in ways that all of our adversaries are looking at and kind of smacking their lips, wondering how can we further exacerbate these problems for the United States of America.

All of this is downstream from an imprudent decision that the President of the United States made. However successful the kind of tactical decisions were, broadly, with respect to the campaign, he knew that the munitions were limited, that they were in short supply in shows, again, voluntarily without anything suggesting we needed to do it right then, that this was the course of action he was going to take. And it seems like a bad call in retrospect. LITMAN: All of that and bad politics.

In particular, Trump was able to win young men, young voters in 2024 because he said no more foreign wars, no new foreign wars. And they believed him. To break a promise to voters that you may have won once, but you did not win forever is so damaging to the long-term credibility of the Republican Party in a way that I don't know how you come back from.

BERMAN: All right, friends. I want to thank you all for being here.

I also want to tell you that the margin separating the two candidates in Wisconsin is now 320 votes.

320 votes, 78 percent reporting. We're going to have much more on this coming up. I think this is going to be a long night.

[22:55:04]

In the meantime, though, a quick programming note. Tomorrow, watch as darkness descends on countries around the globe. This is planned, by the way, this is an eclipse.

Boris Sanchez and Brianna Keilar join them for special live coverage of the total solar eclipse Wednesday at 1 o'clock Eastern on CNN and the CNN app.

No need to be alarmed. 290 votes separate the candidates. Back in a moment.

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