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Donald Trump Hints He May Not Agree to Presidential Debate with Vice President Kamala Harris; Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO) Interviewed on His Joining New Bipartisan Task Force Investigating Assassination Attempt on Donald Trump. Special Counsel Jack Smith Fights to Revive Classified Documents Case Against Trump; Trump Lawyers Accuse Fani Willis of "Racial Animus" Toward Trump; Voting Companies, Officials Brace for 2024 Elections. Aired 8-8:30a ET.

Aired August 27, 2024 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:04]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: A terrible president, that's what Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said about Donald Trump just months before he did an about face and endorsed the Trump campaign. This hour, we speak with RFK Jr.'s sister, Kerry Kennedy, who says she's outraged by her brother's decision to embrace Donald Trump.

Voting companies and election officials still dealing with the fallout from the 2020 election lies. They are bracing for Election Day in November. What they're doing to try to prepare.

And potentially record high temperatures and humidity expected to smother the Midwest this week. The heat so dangerous some schools are being forced to close just days into the new year.

I'm Sara Sidner with John Berman. Kate Bolduan is out. CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

This morning, CNN's new reporting on the debate about Donald Trump and Kamala Harris boils down to one simple question -- why, why did Donald Trump just tell voters once again that he may not show up to a debate he already agreed to? Listen to Trump's latest if.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I shouldn't say this, because if there's a debate, it would be nice to surprise her with that one.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: So is he skipping or is he bluffing? Because the new reporting from CNN's Alayna Treene this morning is Donald Trump's team recognizes, they do need to have a debate with Harris. Alayna Treene joins us now with the very latest. You are talking to the folks around him saying, yes, we know we need to have this debate. So what is happening with him sort of couching that he may or may not do this?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: Well, look, I also will say that the former president himself really does want to debate. Donald Trump wants to debate himself. He thinks he has an obligation to do so. So keep that in mind around all of these discussions and the questions over the debate, over the debate. What it really boils down to, Sara, is each candidate is jockeying for the rules to be better for themselves and give them an edge in this debate. That's part of what we're seeing play out right now.

And granted, the big picture here is that they both recognize that the stakes are so high for this debate. They saw, and we remember just a couple of months ago that June 27th CNN debate was a huge change for President Joe Biden. It was hugely important for him and what really set off a series of events that led him to end his campaign. So they recognize how this debate could be one of the final defining moments of this entire election cycle.

And so that's why we're seeing so much of this discussion over the roles. Despite it seeming like a process question, there's a lot of important factors here. So I'm going to break down what exactly they are kind of bickering over, which is whether or not microphones will be shut off during the debate. So it's interesting because in the leadup to that first debate with Joe Biden in June, the Trump campaign actually did not want the microphones to be shut off at any point. However, that was something that the Biden campaign had pushed for, and ultimately the debate had that the microphones throw off when a candidate was finished speaking.

Now, now that were looking ahead to this September 10th debate with ABC news, the Harris campaign is saying, look, we did not agree to those rules. We want the microphones to be on for the duration of this event. And the Trump campaign is now saying, well, actually those were the rules that we agreed to and you have to stick to them even though, of course, those are the roles that they agreed to with the Biden campaign. I'll just say, again, I recognize we are getting into the weeds of this, but the important thing is what this means.

And I will say from the Trump campaign side, and we saw this in the leadup to that June debate. They recognize that having the microphones beyond and allowing Donald Trump to be able to interrupt Kamala Harris, that could be really dicey, because they really want to avoid him coming off as aggressive, as him looking like a bully, and having the microphones be shut off at certain points helps him avoid that. In many cases, I do think that they actually think Donald Trump's tone, his tenor, his rhetoric, his overall demeanor is more important than the actual substance. And so that's where a lot of this this is coming from, Sara.

SIDNER: It certainly helped him in the debate with Joe Biden to have those microphones turned off. Alayna Treene. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. John?

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, new this morning, members of the bipartisan congressional task force graded to investigate the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, they visited the site where the shooting happened. They toured the grounds with local law enforcement and said getting to the truth may be a slow process. Those are their words. With us now is the top Democrat on the task force, Congressman Jason Crow of Colorado. Congressman, thank you so much for being with us. You were there. What did you see? What did being there show you?

REP. JASON CROW, (D-CO): Well, good morning, John. Our task force stood up over the last couple of weeks.

[08:05:00]

We have all of our members now. We have all of our staff. We started to receive document productions from the Secret Service and the FBI. We've now held two briefings with the Secret Service and the FBI. And I learned in the Army Rangers during my deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan is you can look at maps all you want and look at imagery all you want. But there's really no substitute for being on the ground and seeing firsthand the distances where the buildings are in relation to each other, the actual geography on the grounds. So that's what we saw, and that helped his visualize things.

So as we go through our hearings, as we do our interviews in the months ahead, we'll be able to better understand how everything happened.

BERMAN: What about the sight lines to the podium itself? What did you see there?

CROW: Yes. Well, looking at the lines of sight, I mean, as a former Army Ranger, that's one of the things that I'm trained to look, looking at in my prior life. It does appear as though the perimeter was not secure in the way that it should have been. There were several sight lines that weren't covered. So we have a lot of questions. We're certainly coming out of this trip with a lot more questions than answers, which is I think what we all expected.

BERMAN: What is the biggest question?

CROW: The biggest question for me is, who ultimately was in charge? Why wasn't there good communication and command and control? As a former military person, nothing happens unless people are talking to one another and whether there's a clear line of authority in command and control. And from what I've seen so far, I'm not seeing that level of clarity in seeing that delineated in the way that I think it should have been.

BERMAN: So this is a bipartisan congressional committee, as you noted there, that's investigating this, and we're seeing pictures of you right now, members of both parties there on site touring. There are a couple Republicans, at least, who want to do their own investigation, Cory Mills among them. Cory Mills was on with Kate Bolduan a couple of weeks ago and suggested, and I'm paraphrasing here, that he's not even convinced that there weren't some there in protection who somehow either wanted this to happen or let this happen. What do you think about rhetoric like that?

CROW: Well, listen John, there's 435 members of Congress. They come from all over. They have all sorts of backgrounds and different motivations. But something very, very significant happened last month in the House of Representatives, and that is when this committee was created, when this task force was formed, every single voting member of the House of Representatives that day, 416 members, every single Democrat, every single Republican voted to create this task force and to empower this task force with investigative authority, to take all the authority from all the different committees and to resettle it in this task force and to give us subpoena power. So the entire House of Representatives empowered this body with doing the investigation.

We have the resources, we have the investigative staff, we have the subpoena authority, and we have the bipartisan will to do this the right way, because this is too serious of an effort for us to do otherwise. America deserves to have their confidence restored that our elected officials, that are candidates will be secure. And right now, people don't have that competence. So we're going to endeavor to do this right and thoroughly, to do it quickly, and to get this done the way that it should be.

BERMAN: So what Congressman Mills has going on, would you say that's helpful or not helpful?

CROW: Well, I don't know what other people are doing. Like I just said, this is the effort that Congress has created to focus the investigation, to give the resources, to give the authority. And this has to be done in a bipartisan way, and it will be done.

BERMAN: I do respect the fact that you're here speaking to us this morning as a member, a leader, the Democratic leader of this bipartisan task force. I'm going to shift a little bit in politics but stay on the theme of bipartisanship. You just came from the Democratic convention. You spoke at the Democratic convention. One of the themes there seemed to be about helping your neighbor, reaching out. Why do you think that's so important? And what evidence have you seen that voters are hungry for that?

CROW: Well, I'm glad you're actually making this transition, because another important goal of this task force, other than our primary goal of submitting a complete and thorough report to Congress by December 13th is both Chairman Mike Kelly, the chairman of the committee, whose hometown is Butler, Pennsylvania, we are working hand in glove, and we have agreed another important task of this committee is to show America that we can have a campaign, we can settle debates an even have tough, fierce debates at times in the political arena. But we can also come together to do important things, because America has to learn how to disagree again. We are not each other's enemy. We can have tough, fierce debates, which we will, and at the same time come together to do an important effort like this task force.

[08:10:08]

So I believe very firmly, and I learned that in the Army. My military unit came from all over this country, from the north, the south, east to west, urban, rural, every different background. We came together, we focused on our mission, what we had in common, and we got it done. That is the spirit that we're working to instill here.

BERMAN: All right, Congressman Jason Crow, we do appreciate you being with us this morning. Thanks so much for your help.

CROW: Thank you.

BERMAN: Sara?

SIDNER: All right, Special Counsel Jack Smith making an aggressive attempt to bring back the classified documents case against Donald Trump after it was thrown out of court. Will that work?

And this morning, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy promising a response, retaliation for the latest attacks by Russia in Ukraine.

And tragedy the in Texas, a young man drowns while saving a teenage girl just minutes after he was baptized in that same lake.

We'll have all those stories and more coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:15:39]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Special counsel Jack Smith is fighting back, attempting to revive the classified documents case against Donald Trump. Judge Aileen Cannon's decision to dismiss the entire case in July because she said the prosecutor's office lacked constitutional authority according to Smith, was "novel and lacked merit."

CNN senior legal analyst, Elie Honig joins me now. Give us some sense of the history on the special counsels relationship because she said it lacked merit, and the case, the entire thing was thrown out.

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: So we've had special counsel here on the books as federal regulations for 25 years in the United States and other defendants like Donald Trump have made the same challenge that he made. Only Donald Trump is the first one to succeed.

The argument here, it's really important to understand, it has nothing to do with the actual criminal allegations against Donald Trump, nothing to do with classified documents.

SIDNER: Not the merits of the case?

HONIG: Yes, the argument is just special counsel itself is unconstitutional because Congress never passed a law saying specifically, there is this new job we're creating it's called special counsel.

However, all the prior challenges have failed, and I think this one ultimately will fail for Donald Trump because there are various other laws where Congress has said, okay, but the AG can still delegate as authorities, still has broad authority to hire and bring in other prosecutors to do his work.

And so, for that reason, I think this challenge by Donald Trump ultimately will fail. I do think Jack Smith will succeed in getting the case reinstated. SIDNER: So, if that happens, I mean, when you say the case will fail, fail at the appellate level, do you think it ends up eventually in the Supreme Court?

HONIG: Whoever loses at the appellate level will certainly ask the Supreme Court for to take the case. Of course, it's up to the Supreme Court whether they take any case.

This one to me screams out for them because it is a big constitutional question.

SIDNER: Right.

HONIG: And while I'm on the topic of making predictions, I think Jack Smith will win if it goes to the Supreme Court, even though it's a six-three court, even though they've given Donald Trump other favorable rulings, including in the immunity case. We know so how Clarence Thomas is going to vote because he wrote a sort of aside --

SIDNER: Right.

HONIG: -- saying he is in favor of Trump's position. I don't think he's going to be able to get the other conservatives, maybe Alito, maybe Gorsuch. I don't think there's going to be a majority to agree with Donald Trump here and throw this case out.

SIDNER: That's very interesting, all right, we're going to turn to another case, Georgia, a different brief from Donald Trump's team wanting to throw the case out. Trump's lawyers are accusing Fani Willis of racial animus towards him. What are the chances that this entire case gets tossed?

HONIG: I think Trump has a decent case on getting -- a decent chance on getting this case thrown out. And the focus of the brief that was filed last night, it's important to remember, it's not on the conflict of interests. Remember, the DA Fani Willis had this relationship with one of the lawyers. Did they intermingle their cash or not?

The focus here is on alleged prosecutorial misconduct by Fani Willis because you'll remember, she went in front of a church outside of court and made public statements blasting the defense lawyers, essentially accusing them of being racist and Donald Trump's claim here is that tainted the jury pool.

The people who are going to be my juror and the jurors for the other defendants here all saw that and that's going to incline them against us.

And I think Trump's got a real leg to stand on there wouldn't at all shock me if the Georgia Court of Appeals agrees and says prosecutorial misconduct, this case is out.

SIDNER: It is interesting. I mean, prosecutors generally, in your experience don't talk about cases, unless what? Because sometimes they do interviews.

HONIG: Yes, and we've all seen the press conferences, right?

SIDNER: Yes.

HONIG: When you talk about a case outside of a court as a prosecutor, you have to be really careful. At the Justice Department, not Fani Willis, but at the Justice Department, we try to keep within the four corners of the indictment.

And when you get beyond that, you get into dangerous territory and when you start assailing the motives and suggesting that the defendants or the defense lawyers are racist, you are in really dangerous territory.

The DA should know that. She's an accomplished prosecutor. She's been doing this for a long time. It's still astonishing to me that she would have done what she did and now there may be consequences.

SIDNER: We're doing a whole round robin of cases all over the place --

HONIG: Around the world, yes.

SIDNER: -- around the world.

The Supreme Court heard an emergency case where it upheld some restrictions in the Arizona case and struck down others. Can we expect SCOTUS to jump in to this more?

HONIG: Unfortunately, I think the answer is yes. Look, the term technically ended in July, but they're still there if needed, on an emergency basis.

And the Arizona case, you're talking about, Sara, is one of what I think will be several emergency appeals that make their way up to the Supreme Court.

[08:20:02]

And what I think is causing some people concern is the Supreme Court has said in the past, we try to stay out of election and voting- related cases if it's too close to an election and if it upsets the status quo. We don't want voters being taken by surprise as to what the rules are. Yet, they still did intervene to some extent in the Arizona case.

And so, get ready for a whole spate of these lawsuits. I think you're going to see challenges happening between now and November.

It's not how we want our electoral system to play out in the courts, but the Supreme Court has made clear they are going to get involved at times and I don't think that's great for where we are as a democracy, but it's the Supreme Court, they're going to do what they're going to do.

SIDNER: That's right and the lawsuits are going to come as we get closer and closer to November. I mean, things could get really wild. We are going to be watching all of this happen and we're so close to the time when people are going to actually be voting for the 2024 presidential election.

HONIG: If you see me on air on election day, that's not a good sign.

SIDNER: Oh, Elie, why do you have to be a Debbie Downer?

HONIG: It means there's some kind of chaos in the court, we don't want that.

SIDNER: Something went wrong. All right, Elie Honig, thank you so much, appreciate it.

Outraged Democrats in Texas, demanding a federal investigation after the state's Republican AG ordered raids that the Democrats say are targeted to them.

And, why Mariah Carey is saying her heart is broken.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:25:45]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: New this morning, voting companies and election officials still scarred by the fallout of the 2020 election lies, are now bracing for November.

Many voting companies have increased physical security and they are pushing a crack down on disinformation.

CNN's Marshall Cohen is here with the latest on this. Marshall, what are you learning?

MARSHALL COHEN, CNN REPORTER: Hey John, good morning.

Well, that avalanche of disinformation from 2020 changed the game forever for these voting technology companies and election officials who are trying to avoid that outcome this year. They want things to go better in this presidential cycle.

Look, I spoke to a senior official at Dominion Voting Systems who was the face, really, that company was the poster child of the lies and the smears in 2020 and they summed up the state of play in pretty stark terms. I want to read this for you, John.

That official told me that, "We are still completely mired in disinformation. This disinformation and misinformation is something we've never had to deal with at this scale, going into an election."

Okay, so what are they doing about it? Well, you've heard about the massive defamation lawsuits they've filed against Fox News and Rudy Giuliani and other Trump allies. Yes, they could get a very big payday from those lawsuits and they've gotten nearly $800 million last year from Fox, but they're also hoping that that will be a deterrent factor that maybe this time around if people know that you might have to pay millions, they won't spread the lies.

Also, John, another company and it's actually larger than Dominion called ES&S. They instituted a new policy this year to scrub all of their employees' social media. They wanted to make sure that their staff didn't have any political posts or endorsements that were on Twitter or Facebook that could be weaponized later on by internet sleuths who want to use that to attack the companies, attack the voting administrators.

Also, I found this really interesting -- this company ES&S, which is one of the largest election equipment makers in the country, they held a training session for their employees before Thanksgiving last year. Here's what you do when your friends and family inundate you with questions about the 2020 election.

So, disinformation on the national scale, John, but also it really hits home and they're trying to have a better outcome this year.

BERMAN: What about the election workers themselves, Marshall, what's being done to help keep them safe?

COHEN: Well, everybody is aware of the increased threat environment. Just yesterday, the Justice Department announced new charges against a man in Colorado who was threatening to kill election workers in that state and also in the battleground state of Arizona.

So, the companies have boosted their spending on physical security, not cybersecurity here, John, physical security for employees. Some of whom that I spoke with are still terrified and traumatized by what happened four years ago.

Additionally, I spoke to one company that is providing wearable panic buttons to election officials. They say that they're going to be sending out 1,500 panic buttons to officials in five different states. You can wear this technology. You press the button, 911 gets called. They are hoping that they can deploy that if anybody gets too rowdy or upset at their polling places this fall. Hopefully they don't have to use it.

And also, John, some of these companies have even brought in the big guns, DHS, Department of Homeland Security to look at their own cyber protection. They don't want their employees to get hacked or spear phishing attempts.

They know that everyone is trying to get in on the action for this election, including bad actors. And, they want things to go better this year. It's just 70 days away -- John.

BERMAN: Look, I'm glad they're being careful, but wearable panic buttons. What a sad commentary on the power of lies. Marshall Cohen, thanks so much for being with us, appreciate it -- Sara.

SIDNER: All right, this morning, a Latino civil rights group, the oldest in the nation is calling on the Justice Department to launch an investigation into Texas' Attorney General Ken Paxton. This is after Paxton's office launched a series of raids on the homes of voting activists and a Democratic candidate running for the Texas State House.

The league of United Latin American Citizens says the raids in three counties are a "direct attempt" to suppress the Latino vote. One long- time member says she was still in her nightgown when her home was raided early in the morning.

[08:30:14]