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Hamas Hostage Rescued; Potential Election Chaos in Georgia?; Latino Group Accuses Texas Attorney General of Voter Intimidation. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired August 27, 2024 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:57]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: The legal war is over -- the legal war over the election is already under way, and it's being fought from Texas to Georgia, as members of a Latino civil rights group say their homes were targeted by the Texas attorney general in voter fraud raids, while, in Georgia, a lawsuit aims to block new GOP-backed election certification rules.

And the Israeli military rescues a hostage held by Hamas in a complex operation,the father of 11 now reunited with his family, but Israel claims 108 more hostages living and dead are still being held in Gaza, as hopes for a cease-fire deal are fading.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: And like it or not, A.I. is coming to your iPhone. The latest on Apple's plans and how the new technology could change how you use your device.

We're following these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

KEILAR: Election rule changes in a key battleground state, raids on private homes in Texas, and new security threats to election officials and voting technology companies all raising fresh concerns with the election just 10 weeks away.

We start in Texas, where a Latino civil rights group is calling on the Justice Department to open an investigation into Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who oversaw a series of home searches by law enforcement targeting Latino voting activists. So far, no charges have been filed since the searches were carried out last week in three counties.

The attorney general's office says they were all tied to allegations of voter fraud. The League of United Latin American Citizens, or LULAC, claims that it was a direct attempt to suppress the Latino vote.

CNN's Jessica Schneider is kicking off our coverage on this.

Jess, what can you tell us about these raids?

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brianna, our team in Texas is learning of at least six different searches last week.

And several members of this Latino organization LULAC, they're saying that their homes were searched, their electronic devices, other personal items were also confiscated.

So, now LULAC, that Latino group, is telling the Justice Department this in a letter, saying: "We believe that this conduct constitutes a direct attempt to suppress the Latino vote through intimidation and harassment, in violation of the Voting Rights Act and other federal civil rights law."

So they're right now asking the DOJ to open an investigation. The DOJ is responding by telling our team they have received this letter from LULAC, but they're not commenting any further. So our team in Texas also talked to an 87-year-old woman who said armed officers from Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton's office showed up at her house last week before the sun was even up and searched it for hours. Here she is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LIDIA MARTINEZ, MEMBER, LEAGUE OF UNITED LATIN AMERICAN CITIZENS: At one point, they had me outside in front of all my neighbors while they searched the living room, and they never let me get dressed. And it was just very embarrassing, intimidating, harassment.

They searched everything in my house.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHNEIDER: Now, we're not hearing much from the attorney general's office at this point.

But it does appear to be an effort from the attorney general, Ken Paxton, to investigate what he's saying is alleged voter fraud. So he sent out a notice last week with allegations that some groups might be illegally registering noncitizens to vote in that state.

But in that release, the only examples that Paxton's office gave is that they have noticed groups sitting outside the Department of Motor Vehicles in various location registering people to vote. Of course, that's quite common. And so far, we really haven't seen any proof from Paxton's office about a specific effort to register people who aren't citizens.

So, again, Brianna, this is why this Latino group is asking DOJ to step in and investigate. And this is all kind of part of what we're seeing, a ramping up a flurry of potentially false allegations and confusion as we head into the 2024 election in just about two months.

[13:05:08]

KEILAR: All right, this is just the beginning of this story, I think.

Jessica Schneider, thank you for that -- Boris. SANCHEZ: CNN is also learning that voting companies and election

officials across the country are bracing for a new round of threats for this year's election.

Many voting companies, which were scarred by false claims of fraud during the 2020 election, are beefing up security and cracking down on disinformation.

CNN's Marshall Cohen joins us now with his new reporting.

Marshall, you spoke with some of the folks at these companies and officials. What did they share with you?

MARSHALL COHEN, CNN REPORTER: Boris, they said that nothing is ever going to be the same after 2020. They were smeared. They were the target of conspiracy theories.

People showed up at their offices with rifles and all kinds of dangerous threats, death threats. Just yesterday, a guy was charged by the Justice Department for threatening election workers in Colorado and Arizona.

So, with all that backdrop, they are trying to have a better outcome this year. They are trying to be proactive. They're going on offense against disinformation. A lot of these voting technology companies, as we know, with Dominion and others, they sued FOX News and Rudy Giuliani and a bunch of the Trump allies.

They got -- some of them got a big payday already, but they're hoping also to deter people this year. They're sending a warning shot, Boris. If you lie about us again, if you put these crazy conspiracy theories out in the ether, we will come after you again.

But it's not just that. Another company, even a bigger company called ES&S that provides election equipment to more than 1,000 counties,they forced all of their employees to undergo social media scrubs.

SANCHEZ: Wow.

COHEN: They wanted to make sure that no one had any posts that could be uncovered by Internet sleuths and weaponized after the election by the losing team or the losing party.

And that same company, Boris, they actually also told their employees -- they had a training session before Thanksgiving last year. Here's how you talk to your family members and your friends when they ask you about the 2020 election.

But, of course, it's not just about disinformation. There are physical dangers as well. As you mentioned, they have beefed up their physical security for their employees. I was told by a Dominion official that some people have actually quit over just the trauma from last time around. They don't want to go through the abuse again.

And there's another company that I spoke to that said that they're actually going to be providing panic buttons, wearable panic buttons, like Life Alert, you press the button, it calls 911, to perhaps as many as 1500 election workers in five key states for this November.

They're afraid that people upset by what they have heard, the lies, the smears, they may turn this into a physical confrontation, so wearable panic buttons for election workers. We have sunk very far, but they're trying, trying to be proactive and make sure that this year goes better the last time.

SANCHEZ: Yes, we remember some of those scenes outside of elections offices. Things could get hairy. Glad that they're being proactive.

Marshall, thank you so much. Appreciate the reporting -- Brianna.

KEILAR: In Georgia, Democrats are suing to block controversial new rules that they say could cause chaos there after the election in November.

The rules allow election officials to conduct a -- quote -- "reasonable inquiry" before they certify the election results. And it would allow county Election Board members to investigate ballot counts. Former President Trump has praised the Republican members of Georgia's Election Board who passed the rules, sparking concerns in a battleground state at the center of his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

CNN legal analyst and former U.S. attorney Michael Moore is with us now. He's a partner at Moore Hall in Atlanta.

Michael, first, what questions or concerns do these rule changes raise for you?

MICHAEL MOORE, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, I'm glad to be with you.

I mean, I think this is a pretty clear effort by the Republicans to have had a planned strategy to have people appointed to the State Election Board to implement these types of changes. And, essentially, what the changes mean is that the Election Board can do its own inquiry, can delay certifying the election results, can have county officials delay certifying election results.

And that has not been the law of the state of Georgia. So, if you think about it, a small little board got together, mostly Republicans, and implemented these new rules to essentially change what was the statute and the requirement.

And so this lawsuit is about having a court declare at this time that, in fact, you can't do that and that the duties of the election officials are set out by statute, that they are in fact required to be performed, and that, if there's going to be an election challenge, it's not to be decided by handpicked operatives of one political party or another, but rather to be decided in the courts.

And so this has sort of been a way, I think you have seen, that these very recent changes to sort of get around the bad days in court that Donald Trump had back in the last election, having lost, what, 60-some odd lawsuits.

[13:10:06]

So, now he'd rather have handpicked people by -- and Republican- appointed people make those decisions and delay certification. Certainly, that's important in this state, as we saw that it's the -- vote totals were so close in the last presidential election.

KEILAR: Well, so, Michael, let's entertain some hypotheticals, right?

What if, come the election in November, the board actually sees a real issue with the vote? It could be one that favors Democrats, could be one that favors Republicans. Or, conversely, what if they investigate a so-called issue that actually has no basis in fact?

MOORE: Well, Georgia law allows a vote -- voting irregularity or an election irregularity to be challenged. And, in fact, that's called for. We have seen it from both parties, frankly. But that's done in court.

So what happens is, the election results would be certified and the lawsuit is saying, look, the law requires these elections officials to perform their duties. And that duty, that ministerial duty, is simply to certify these votes to assume, to assimilate the ballots, to count the ballots, to certify a total.

Then, if there wishes to be a recount, if a candidate wishes to challenge an election, to file a lawsuit because of some irregularity, he or she can do that. That avenue is never foreclosed. This is simply a way to continue the practice and the legal practice in Georgia of making sure that our courts are the ones in a neutral -- by a neutral arbiter to decide election challenges and that those decisions are not decided by a handpicked group of political appointees.

KEILAR: Yes.

MOORE: And it's also to make sure that the state does not cause a delay, frankly, in certifying election results, so that there's not a delay in reporting those results when those are transmitted up to Congress.

KEILAR: So, I wonder, Michael, does the lawsuit have legs? Trump praised the GOP members of the State Election Board who adopted this, for instance, after he sought almost 12,000 votes in the state of Georgia that didn't exist to try to overcome his loss there.

Is that going to weigh on this court? Will the court weigh that?

MOORE: You know, I think -- I think, for those of us who watch it, probably the fact that Trump is praising this is something that sets off an alarm bell.

But, in reality, the judges that hear these cases set those things aside and they set their -- any political leanings one way to the side, and ten base their decisions on the facts and the law. And in this case, I think it's pretty clear that all they're asking for, all the plaintiffs are asking for in this case is for a court to declare that the Election Board and county elections officials have to follow the law and that they can't somehow use this new rule as a way to circumvent their legal responsibility.

So, they can't use the new rule just to impose delay for the sake of gaining one side or the other some political advantage or disadvantage. And so they really -- as far as the legs on the lawsuit, I think that it's a pretty clear case.

There will be a question, I think, whether or not a judge may say, well, it's not right. You haven't -- there's been no challenge. There's been no rule implemented or effectuation of the rule in the counting of the votes.

But nobody forgets really that we are this close to an election. And I don't think there's an appetite, frankly, to have sort of the scramble of lawsuits that we saw the last time. And I also think that this is a good check, frankly, on a court looking at a politically appointed body to decide if those rules actually fit the laws of the state.

And the court is going to be concerned with what the law of the state is, not just what one political party or the other may want to have done.

KEILAR: Yes, some may not have an appetite for lawsuits, but some may. We have seen that before.

(LAUGHTER)

KEILAR: Michael Moore, thank you so much.

MOORE: We saw it be a buffet. We saw it be a buffet of lawsuits, right, so yes.

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: A buffet, a smorgasbord, if you will.

Michael, great to have you. Thank you so much.

(LAUGHTER)

KEILAR: And still ahead: A hostage abducted by Hamas nearly a year ago has been rescued by the Israeli military. What more we're learning about the operation and what this means for the 108 hostages still being held in Gaza.

Plus, a former national security adviser speaking out about his time in the Trump White House. Hear what H.R. McMaster had to say when asked if he'd work for the former president again.

And a program that would have granted legal status to hundreds of thousands of migrants married to U.S. citizens is now on hold. We will have details about that coming up.

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[13:18:58]

KEILAR: It's being called a miraculous rescue.

Today, Israeli special forces saved 52-year-old hostage Qaid Farhan Alkadi, who had been held by Hamas. And he's now recovering in a hospital surrounded by family, a big family, at that. He has 11 children.

The IDF says they were able to pinpoint Alkadi's location from a successful piece of intelligence. They tracked him down in an underground tunnel in Southern Gaza. He had been held captive by Hamas for 326 days, abducted during those ruthless October 7 raids.

CNN's Jeremy Diamond is following all of these developments live for us from Tel Aviv.

What can you tell us about this operation, Jeremy?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I just spoke with two Israeli military officials, who tell me that Israeli special forces were combing a network of tunnels in Southern Gaza when they found Alkadi.

They say that they found him alone without his captors. Now, these Israeli officials insist that they were -- the special forces were acting on intelligence that hostages may be in the area. And that is indeed how these Shayetet 13, effectively Israel's Navy SEALs, found Alkadi in one of these tunnel networks.

[13:20:13]

And what's so notable about that is that this is the first time that Israeli troops have actually rescued an Israeli hostage from within that vast tunnel network beneath the Gaza Strip.

And the seven other hostages who have been rescued so far by the Israeli military were all being held above ground. And so that is notable in and of itself. The -- we know that Alkadi was then airlifted to a hospital in Southern Israel, the Soroka Hospital, where he was finally reunited with his family members.

Several of his brothers said that they had started to lose hope that he might even emerge from the Gaza Strip alive. And then they received a phone call early today telling them to get to that hospital because their brother was indeed arriving. And it appears, according to medical officials at the hospital, that he is indeed in good condition, although he certainly has lost weight since he was taken captive by Hamas 326 days ago.

One thing that we should note is that these Israeli military operations to get these hostages out of Gaza alive are extraordinarily rare. And there is an understanding in Israeli society that the majority of the hostages who remain will only get out if there is a cease-fire deal and a hostage release deal, not through these rare military operations.

And Alkadi, as he spoke with the Israeli prime minister tonight from his hospital bed, he thanked him for getting him out, and he reminded him that there are still more hostages waiting to get home. The Israeli prime minister promised him that they will return everyone without exception -- Brianna.

KEILAR: It's amazing to see him and to see him so happy and to know that he's reunited with his family.

Jeremy, thank you so much for that report -- Boris.

SANCHEZ: Let's get some perspective on these developments. We're joined now by Mark Esper. He's a CNN global affairs analyst, former defense secretary in the Trump administration. He serves on the board and as a strategic adviser for some aerospace and defense-related companies.

Sir, thank you so much for being with us.

First, I just want to get your reaction to the circumstances in which this hostage was rescued. He's obviously the first to be removed from an underground tunnel alive. And, apparently, there were no captors around him. He was by himself.

MARK ESPER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Yes, first of all, it's good news that he was recovered.

And as your reporter said, it's both rare and I would add risky in these types of operations. The fact that he was found alone suggests to me that maybe his captors just rushed out because they knew the IDF team was coming in and they just wanted to leave him behind.

What I think is interesting about the story, though, is that he's one of several Arab Muslims who were captured by Hamas and kept now for over 320 some days. I find that quite interesting. But I think the fact that the IDF is continuing these operations provides some reassurance to the Israeli people that the government is still looking and trying to rescue hostages, which is a -- which is a good sign.

SANCHEZ: Now, the Israeli military says that they were acting on intelligence that hostages were being held in that network of tunnels. Can you walk us through the process of what it's like to collect and then verify that kind of information before weighing the conditions necessary to launch an operation?

ESPER: Yes, I'm sure it's composed of many sources of intelligence, whether it's signals intelligence, maybe some human intelligence, other tactical considerations on the ground.

But then they have to go into the tunnels, which is a very dangerous aspect of urban warfare, where you're going underground. It's dark. You're likely to lose communications in the myriad of tunnels going on, lose contact with one another.

The defender in this case, Hamas, has the advantage of knowing their way around. Maybe they set up traps and ambushes. So it's a very tricky operation. And you have to do this at a time where you want to need to be on guard against the enemy, make sure that you don't kill the hostage you're trying to rescue in the process. So, it's a very tricky operation and I'm glad to see the IDF continue

it. But the other important point here, Boris, is that there's 108 hostages still being held by Hamas. And, tragically, the view is that 40 of them are deceased. So, really, Hamas is holding on to bodies that the Israeli people want back.

And there's really probably around 60-some hostages remaining. And so rescuing all of them is going to be quite difficult. So, obviously, the best way forward to release the hostages is through some type of deal.

SANCHEZ: And on that point, Secretary, the CIA director, Bill Burns, left Cairo where negotiations were still under way this weekend for a cease-fire and hostage release deal. He was there, I believe, until yesterday.

A final agreement has not yet been presented. How confident are you that we will see one?

[13:25:02]

ESPER: Not at all. I haven't been from the beginning because I think the sides are too far apart.

Hamas is going to fight and resist until the last innocent civilian is killed. They want to maintain and preserve their power. And so unless all of their demands are met, which the most outstanding one, of course, right now is making sure Israel does not have a presence along the Philadelphi Corridor, which is the corridor between Gaza and Egypt on the southern border, which is the main trafficking route by which they get munitions in, they get arms, they get building materials so forth and so on.

They're not going to concede because -- the Israelis are going to continue to demand that, because, otherwise, Hamas will be able to stay in power and sustain themselves. That's just one of two or three critical items that I think will continue to put both sides far apart in this negotiation process.

SANCHEZ: Secretary, while we have you, I wanted to get your reaction to comments that were made by retired Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster. He served as national security adviser in the Trump administration.

He came out and effectively said that he would turn down an offer to potentially work in a second Trump administration. You have shared some of his concerns over what the dynamic was like in the first Trump administration.

Would you consider a role in a second Trump bid at the White House?

ESPER: No. And that would never be offered to me.

Look, I -- what H.R. has outlined in both his writings and his comments makes sense to me. It sounds eerily familiar, although I would quite say that what he experienced in 2017 in the first year of the Trump administration is still different than and more benign in some ways than what I experienced in years three and four.

As I wrote in my memoir, when Trump beat impeachment in January or February 2020, he felt energized and renewed. And that's when he brought in fresh troops and real loyalists and tried to start going through the departments and pressing loyalty tests for people in the departments.

So, it was a completely different ball game by year four, not to diminish the trials and tribulations that H.R. wrestled with. But my concern is that year one of a second Trump administration will look like year four of the first one, which is why it concerns me a good deal that he might get elected.

SANCHEZ: Secretary Mark Esper, always great to get your perspective. Thanks for being with us.

ESPER: Thank you, Boris.

SANCHEZ: Of course.

Still to come: a federal judge blocking the Biden administration from granting legal status to undocumented immigrants married to U.S. citizens. We're going to talk about what's next for the hundreds of thousands hoping to benefit from this program.

Plus, Apple promising its next iPhone is going to change the future of smartphones. And while the company is being mysterious about it, we know that one of the key features is going to be artificial intelligence -- the details straight ahead.

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