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Intel Reveals Vulnerabilities in U.S. Elections; Flash Flooding Emergency in Texas; Taco Bell Linked to Outbreak; "Today" Co-Host Returns after Intruder Scare. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired July 17, 2026 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00]

SAMANTHA DELOUYA, CNN BUSINESS WRITER: Just this year alone. So that really illustrates how expensive it's gotten.

And, you know, Zillow has the data. So, last year, fixer upper homes sold for 7.3 percent less than, you know, comparable homes. This year that gap has widened to 14 percent discount. And, you know, compare that to before the pandemic, when listings with key words like TLC or fixer actually were more likely to sell. So, that really shows that it doesn't really pencil out anymore for Americans.

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Oh, too bad. All right. Well, we got to make adjustments in whatever way we can.

All right, Samantha Delouya, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

All right, new hour of the CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, this hour we continue to follow this breaking news. New emergency warnings in parts of Texas today after catastrophic floods swept across the state. Already two people are confirmed dead, more than 200 have needed rescuing so far. We're getting a look at some of the destruction in a new way this morning. We're going to bring that to you.

And Taco Bell is responding today after lettuce sold at some of its restaurants has now been linked to the outbreak of a parasite that has been causing serious stomach problems.

And officers rescue a grandmother who had been locked inside a Tesla in sweltering temps. How she's doing today.

Sara and John are out today. I'm Kate Bolduan, with Fredricka Whitfield. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

WHITFIELD: All right, this morning, mounting pushback to President Trump's primetime claims that there are deep vulnerabilities in U.S. election systems. The problem so serious, he says, that election outcomes could be manipulated. But the bombshell proof, he said, that would come from newly declassified documents actually never materialized. He claimed the documents would back up allegations that China carried out an influence campaign in the 2020 election. He also claimed that more non-citizens are on voter rolls than previously known. CNN analysis has found both of these claims to be false. Still, the president says our election systems are falling short.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Every American deserves to know that when they cast their vote, that vote will be counted accurately in a system, and that is to make that system secure. One where cheating and interference are not just difficult, but virtually impossible. Unfortunately, the system we have today falls catastrophically short of that standard.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: Twenty-four Democratic governors are now accusing the president of trying to undermine elections with this speech. Notable as we are just 16 weeks now from midterms that will determine which party controls the House and Senate.

CNN's senior White House reporter Betsy Klein is with me now from the White House.

So, Betsy, what is the White House saying this morning, especially since there is so much criticism?

BETSY KLEIN, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Well, President Trump is already touting rave reviews for this address, but we saw him deliver this rare primetime speech, speaking directly to the American public, as he is raising alarm bells about the possibility of future election vulnerabilities and making a push for the SAVE America Act. That is the sweeping election overhaul, voter I.D. legislation that's currently stalled in Congress.

But to do that, the president making unfounded and hyperbolic claims. He is largely pointing to previously known declassified intelligence assessment from back during his own administration in 2021.

Now, the White House did post hundreds of pages of newly declassified documents to its website. But just to take you through some of the president's claims. He took squarely aim at China for illegally acquiring 220 million voter files and working, he said, to undermine his administration, as well as the 2020 election, that he lost.

Now, that intelligence report says that China considered the possibility of meddling in the U.S. election, but ultimately chose not to wield that influence. He also claimed that 278,000 non-citizens are on state voter rolls. He, in doing that, was pointing to data that has been well documented to inflate those numbers.

And then the president, taking aim at what he is describing as the deep state inside his government that he says is suppressing, actively suppressing information about Chinese meddling in elections for both him and the American people.

Listen. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Yet those responsible for sounding the alarm instead kept the information secret and hidden. They did not disclose to me as president or to anyone else, and to the best of our knowledge, they did not inform Congress.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[09:05:09]

KLEIN: Now, none of this newly declassified information supports the claim that any U.S. election results were manipulated in a way that could have changed the outcome of any election. But election law experts, Democrats, all now raising concerns that President Trump is already sowing doubt ahead of those midterm elections in November.

Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: Betsy Klein, at the White House, thank you so much.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: All right, joining me right now is CNN chief political analyst, former senior adviser to President Obama, David Axelrod, and CNN's senior political commentator and former Trump campaign adviser David Urban.

For the purposes of this discussion, boys, we're going to be Urban and Axe today, just to keep it easy.

Urban, does this do anything, what you heard last night, to help any Republican candidate?

DAVID URBAN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Listen, I like the first five minutes of the speech. I thought the president was outlining the many successes that they've had, the administration has had to date. I'd like to have seen that stretch much longer.

But listen, the speech was, I think, fell short of everybody's, you know, very critical, pre-analysis of saying the president was going to relitigate the election and say that he -- that he really won. And what he really talked about was, he gave a speech that Axe's former boss could have given. He said, hey, listen, we want to harden our election systems against foreign interference. We want to help states make it -- make it, you know, make their system safer. We want to fix these vulnerabilities in our system. I think that speech could have been given by any president.

Now, what's going to be interesting, Kate, is what's going to happen prospectively moving forward, how that's going to play out. I think that the speech the president gave was fine. When Equifax breached -- you know, the Chinese breached Equifax and had 180 million people's data taken, yours, mine, Axe's, others, you know, it was huge news for weeks and weeks. Yet when 200 and, you know, 50 million plus Americans data files are taken, you know, it really didn't make a blip on the radar. So, I'm not quite sure that everybody's critique of the president yesterday, in advance of the speech, was warranted. I think he gave a pretty, you know, banal policy speech, saying, we're going to do all these things prospectively.

I'd have like to see it front loaded on all the accomplishments and talk about that a lot more than the election integrity stuff.

BOLDUAN: Yes. I mean the distinction, especially when it comes to this China stuff is, there is a difference and a distinction between influence operations and interference and changing tabulations, which is when you compare the -- what the president has claimed in the past, that's where people are saying like this falls short.

Axe, what's your take? Is this a speech Obama would have given?

DAVID AXELROD, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, no, it wouldn't be a speech he would -- he would give. First of all, he wouldn't have gotten the time to give it, as Trump did not, on several of the networks because the first five minutes that Dave liked was a political speech. And the rest of it was a big nothing burger wrapped in a brioche bun. I mean, if you tuned in and you thought you were going to hear evidence of vote tampering or elections being -- by, you know, by fraud, you would be sorely disappointed by that speech. But it was a lot of hot rhetoric. It wasn't benign. It wasn't, as Dave describes it, it was an effort to tell people that their election system was (AUDIO GAP) and untrustworthy. And that is -- that's really disturbing. And it -- you have to ask yourself two (AUDIO GAP) he wanted -- he wants to pass the SAVE America Act. But you worry about whether this is a prelude to something else. Some (AUDIO GAP) in the election system on the basis of false claims that we can't rely on the election system.

We have the (AUDIO GAP). I mean it's not perfect, of course, but we have an election system that before Donald Trump started selling it was (AUDIO GAP) world (ph). The 2020 election was the most scrutinized election in the history of the world. And no (AUDIO GAP) massive fraud or anything that would have tipped the election has been uncovered and none was shared last night. So, what is the point of this.

The last point I want to make, Kate, is, if the president is concerned about the things that Dave mentions, if he's concerned about influence campaigns and malign foreign actors playing in our elections, then why did he slash the cybersecurity and infrastructure -- program that was designed to fight those things? Why did he cut programs in the Justice Department and the FBI that were meant to do the same? He's actually weakened our defenses against the very things that he's complaining about.

[09:10:05]

BOLDUAN: Yes, that's definitely the point that Ben Ginsburg, which we all know so well, was making this morning is, when you talk about vulnerabilities, if you're calling them out when it comes to China, you're in charge of it now to make sure that it doesn't happen.

But, Axe, you've got to be careful. You're starting to make Trump's speech sound tasty from your perspective. If you're wrapping it in a brioche bun at 9:00 in the morning, you got to be careful. You got to be super careful here.

AXELROD: Yes, there's a nothing burger -- a nothing -- a nothing burger isn't very satisfying. Nothing burgers are not satisfying.

BOLDUAN: Urban, let me ask you --

URBAN: Listen, Kate, here's -- yes, I was going to say, the one thing we'll wait and see is, you know, the president made some allegations about some people keeping things from the presidential daily brief. If that proves to be true, if information was withheld from the president about some of these tactics, then that that's going to be big news. So, we'll wait and see what plays out about that.

BOLDUAN: And that's the -- that was the question kind of going in. If there was -- if there was problems, if things have happened, why have there not been charges or why have this -- why -- and they said wait for the -- wait for the documents to be declassified. So, we will stand by to stand by.

But I want to get one more thing in. Different topic, related, because there was a question if he was going to -- who was going to run his prompter last night, because the White House teleprompter operator is under investigation after Kalshi flagged bets that he made to the federal government and says that he used insider knowledge from the speeches to win around $100,000 betting on what Trump would say in speeches.

This -- I'm starting to feel like, as I'm thinking about this, and all of the things you can make money on, on these prediction markets, either -- either David can grab this. Is it -- is this like cannot put the toothpaste back in the tube type of a moment? Like, even -- if this guy is making money placing these bets, that's super dangerous. You're like break -- you're like telling the world what the president's going to say before he says it.

AXELROD: Kate, this is going on (INAUDIBLE).

URBAN: Yes, listen, Kate, he was dismissed immediately.

(CROSS TALK)

BOLDUAN: I told -- this is totally my fault. I said both of you take it. Let's see if we can do it fast. David Axelrod, go.

AXELROD: This is epidemic. I mean we've seen all these mistakes (ph) made around presidential decisions. He himself, of course, has been trading stocks on -- around decisions that has made. But there is a sense of looseness around this government. And people are profiteering off of inside information (ph). And there has to be a message from the top. Yes, the guy was fired, but there are all kinds of other examples of this. And it does speak to the larger societal problem that these -- this betting on events is rampant. And an invitation to (AUDIO GAP).

BOLDUAN: Yes. Yes, Urban, final word.

URBAN: Yes, Kate. Kate. Yes, Kate, real quickly, I would say that not just -- look, it's tragic. This Gabe (ph) should have been fired. He shouldn't have been doing it. Very stupid move, obviously. But we see this also taking place on a daily basis in the Congress, right? Insider trading is not prohibited by congressional members or their staffs. And that's absolutely abhorrent. And the American people just shake their head as staff and members get richer and richer off of -- off of, you know, if you know you're going to have a hearing on a big pharmaceutical stock and you short or, you know, go long before that, that's -- it's incredibly, it's incredibly bad. And it's corrosive to our democracy. It needs to stop immediately.

BOLDUAN: Yes, we were -- just had a Democratic member on who said that's -- basically that's exactly what needs to be -- need to make moves on. But this feels like a discussion like term limits. We all say they should happen and then Congress says, what, I've got something else to do.

It's good to see you guys. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it.

URBAN: Yes, we'll they're -- because they're getting rich, Kate. They're getting rich. That's why.

BOLDUAN: I -- that's my point, David.

It's good to see you both.

Fred.

WHITFIELD: All right, breaking this morning, nearly 2,800 people are under a flash flood emergency just issued for Sonora in west Texas. Heavy rains moving that way after devastating the south central part of the state with catastrophic flooding. At least two people were killed this week in the same areas where more than 100 people died in last year's terrible floods.

Emergency crews have carried out hundreds of rescues, including this one in Kerr County, where a family was taken to safety from the rising flood waters.

CNN's Ed Lavandera is in Kerr County, Texas, for us this morning.

So, how are things looking today, Ed?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the good part of this morning has been we've gotten a respite from the rain for much of the morning as that storm system has really moved a little bit further north into west central Texas. And that is giving the rivers and tributaries and creeks all around Kerrville, where we are, a chance to come down.

This is the Guadalupe River. It's surreal to think that it was just over a year ago we were here reporting on that devastating flooding that killed nearly 140 people. This area, 24 hours ago, was completely under water as the Guadalupe River rose dramatically in some places, higher than levels that was seen last year.

[09:15:04]

And it would have spread the entire bank, from bank to bank here of the Guadalupe River Basin. It is still running pretty quickly, but you can see this bridge that we're on was completely under water yesterday. But, you know, now the waters are receding.

But clearly people here in this region, Fredricka, have been dealing with the memories and the nightmares of what they endured last year. And as they're dealing with this crisis now, what happened last year is still very much front of mind.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHIEF JEREL HALEY, KERRVILLE, TEXAS POLICE DEPARTMENT: You know, our community grieves, and we grieve hard. We are still reeling from what happened a year ago. Those are not easily forgotten memories. And to have this happen again so suddenly is literally quite devastating for a lot of us in -- as first responders, as employees of the city of Kerrville, and as members of this community.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAVANDERA: You know, Fredricka, it's also a good opportunity to remind people that one of the young girls that died in the Camp Mystic flooding still has not been found. And this is the same river where she was lost and the same river where so many people have watched it rise dramatically again in the last 24 hours.

Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: Oh, it is incredible. And to see this happen again like this.

All right, Ed Lavandera, thank you so much. Keep us posted. Appreciate it.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Taco Bell responding this morning after shredded lettuce sold there is now linked to the multistate outbreak of that serious stomach illness. What to look out for. What you need to know.

And "Today" show anchor Craig Melvin back on set after some very scary moments yesterday. How police say an intruder managed to make it backstage and go at him.

And also, wild video coming out of China. The side of a mountain comes crashing down on apartment buildings.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:21:04]

BOLDUAN: So, Taco Bell is responding this morning after sources say lettuce supplied by Taylor Farms and sold at some Taco Bell restaurants have been linked to the outbreak of that parasite causing serious stomach issues. The CDC is warning that contaminated lettuce was sent to Taco Bells in Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio and West Virginia.

Joining me now for the latest is CNN's Jacqueline Howard.

And it's been a huge question of why have they not been able to find the source of this. But there's some progress now. What are you learning?

JACQUELINE HOWARD, CNN HEALTH REPORTER: That's right, Kate.

So, according to the CDC, more than 1,600 cyclosporiasis cases have been linked back to the shredded iceberg lettuce that was provided at some Taco Bell locations. And like you said, Kate, these are locations based in five states Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and West Virginia. And 94 of the people who've gotten sick have been hospitalized.

Now, Taco Bell has provided a statement in response to this outbreak. In the statement Taco Bell says, quote, "based on ongoing conversations with public health officials and out of an abundance of caution, Taco Bell has taken immediate action to voluntarily remove potentially impacted lettuce from a supplier in select states. The affected ingredient from our supplier is being indefinitely removed from our supply chain nationwide and will be replaced within 24 hours in select states," end quote.

And, Kate, the FDA is working directly with the supplier to determine if that iceberg lettuce has been sent to other places. So, this is an ongoing investigation. And outside of the outbreak tied to the lettuce, which is centered in the Midwest, across the country, several states have reported increases in cyclosporiasis cases. So those separate cases are also currently being investigated as well, Kate. So, there's still more questions to answer as this outbreak continues.

BOLDUAN: Yes. I was going to say, important progress, but still not over yet. My goodness.

It's good to see you. Thank you, Jacqueline, for staying on top of this for us.

Fred.

WHITFIELD: All right, Kate, this morning, Craig Melvin is back on set again co-hosting NBC's "Today" show after having a disturbing encounter with an intruder yesterday. Police say a man managed to slip past security at Rockefeller Plaza and gain access to an unauthorized area near the "Today" show studio. The man, identified as Andrew Truelove, then allegedly lunged at Craig Melvin and shouted a racial slur. He was subdued and arrested and is facing multiple charges.

CNN's Brynn Gingras is following this for us.

I mean, this was a close call. Quite scary.

BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Close call. Extremely disturbing. Very scary. Good news is, no one was hurt. And actually, Craig Melvin, this morning on the "Today" show, mentioned that. So, let's hear from him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CRAIG MELVIN, CO-HOST, "TODAY" SHOW: An intruder made his way into an unauthorized area here in Studio 1A. Thankfully, he was apprehended quickly. He was placed under arrest. We are cooperating fully with the NYPD as they investigate the matter. And we are just very happy that everyone is safe.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Absolutely, yes.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. Of course. We want to make sure that you're safe.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GINGRAS: Yes, it actually was the help of Craig Melvin that alerted police they -- after this encounter happened, what we're told by sources, in a stairwell inside 30 Rockefeller Center. Still investigating, looking through security cameras and even the body cameras of police of how he possibly even gained that sort of access. But as you heard, or as we mentioned, sources say racial slurs were hurled at him in addition to this trespassing.

So, the charges that Andrew Truelove, he's 41 years old, is facing right now is burglary, menacing, criminal trespassing and harassment, all in relation to a hate crime because of those racial slurs. And our sources are telling us he was actually looking possibly for Al Roker and then encountered Craig Melvin. So, still working out all of that.

[09:25:00]

Truelove still needs to be arraigned.

WHITFIELD: Wow.

GINGRAS: But again, this is so scary.

WHITFIELD: Yes.

GINGRAS: Especially everything that the "Today" show team has gone through with Savannah's mother and the abduction earlier this year.

Security has been boosted at 30 Rock, but they're, of course, looking at their security measures, making sure that there's no holes in there.

WHITFIELD: Yes, how did he slip in. Indeed.

GINGRAS: Yes.

WHITFIELD: All right, keep us posted.

GINGRAS: Yes.

WHITFIELD: All right, Brynn Gingras, thank you.

All right, Kate.

BOLDUAN: So, the family of the Texas man shot and killed by an ICE agent is speaking out now after an FBI affidavit claimed there was -- claims that drugs were found inside the man's car. His family says the substance was salt.

And a grandmother in Washington state trapped inside a Tesla in so- called pet safe mode in sweltering temperatures. How police came to the rescue.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:30:05]

WHITFIELD: This morning, an update on the investigation into the fatal ICE shooting of a Houston man.