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Trump Claims Intel Reveals Vulnerabilities In U.S. Elections; Trump Urges Congress To Pass SAVE America Act Voting Overhaul; DHS Chief Urges Four States To Review Voter Rolls For Non-citizens; At Least Two Dead From Flooding In Texas Hill Country; Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey" Hits Theaters This Weekend. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired July 17, 2026 - 13:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:32:37]

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Some new developments following President Trump's primetime address last night where he again raised claims about vulnerabilities in the U.S. election system, many of them unfounded, but many of them that have been known for years to this point.

Now Homeland Security Secretary, Markwayne Mullin says he's taking action to support election security and, today, singling out four states for a review of their voter rolls.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARKWAYNE MULLIN, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: Department of Homeland Security, we've identified 250,000 non-citizens registered to vote in just four states. Mind you, we have 46 other states and just four states. We've identified 250,000 non-citizens registered to vote in California and Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Nevada.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JIMENEZ: So let's talk about all this. CNN's Marshall Cohen is here with our fact check. So Marshall, I just want to start with Secretary Mullin's claim. We were just listening to him a few moments ago there. Just that 250,000 number, tell me about that.

MARSHALL COHEN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: That's a big number, right?

JIMENEZ: Yeah.

COHEN: Sounds very scary. Where did it come from? Well, our team last night was going through all these documents that the White House declassified and it says that the Department of Homeland Security curated that number, 250,000 supposed undocumented immigrants in this country who are on the voter rolls. It came from commercial databases that track this stuff.

Historically, not so reliable, lots of false positives. The experts, election security experts, election officials have been really very suspicious of that number, partially because there's more accurate data already out there. Get this, 28,000 non-citizens on the voter rolls when they look at the government database, not this commercial stuff that anybody could buy, but government databases say only 28,000 non-citizens on the rolls.

Sounds like a lot, but how many voters overall did they look at? 68 million -- 68 million. So it's a very small figure. And of course, the most important thing, I probably should have led with this, Omar, the number one most important thing is that none of the documents released yesterday contained evidence that any of those people actually were voting en masse in a widespread fashion that could taint the election.

[13:35:00]

It's one thing to be possibly registered, it's a different thing, a lot tougher to actually vote.

JIMENEZ: And you know, one of the things that kept coming up also is the voting machines as well. President Trump keeps bringing them up. What did we learn on that front?

COHEN: Well, with regards to the voting machines, the president made the case that new intelligence documents released by his administration yesterday show that there are far more vulnerabilities than previously known, previously disclosed to Congress, previously disclosed to the president and the public. That was their claim.

And it is true that for many years, the intelligence community, election officials, outside experts have said that there are definitely some elements of our system that could be vulnerable to foreign hack, cyber attack, et cetera. But there are so many safeguards built into the election process to either catch that when it happens. And also, first of all, voting machines typically aren't connected to the Internet in the first place.

I was just in Charleston, South Carolina a few weeks ago examining their machines up close. The actual machines and the tabulators, they're not connected to the Internet. If China wanted to hack in, they'd have to be on the ground to do it. And of course, I've got to say, again, none of the documents last night contained any evidence that these vulnerabilities or weaknesses in the system have ever been exploited by a foreign adversary to change votes or tip an election.

JIMENEZ: And there's two different buckets here because, yes, there's one bucket where, yes, it has not changed the results of elections, but then there's also the bucket of the threats and vulnerabilities that have been documented in many cases for years, especially from China. And we heard from the president essentially saying that China is interfering with U.S. elections. What do we know on that front?

COHEN: China, you heard a lot about it last night. I mean, you hear from the president a lot. He's got a lot of complaints about China. Last night specifically about what he claimed was a serious effort by China to interfere with and undermine our elections. Now, number one, this is, again, about the voter rolls and possible Chinese attempts to obtain voter rolls. We're not talking about changing results. We're not talking about changing the winners or losers of races. But the intelligence documents that came out yesterday did indicate that China has obtained millions of records about voter rolls, American voters, when they register. That's the voter roll, which sounds pretty scary, and we don't want China to have all that information. Who knows what they could do with it?

But what the president didn't emphasize yesterday is that a lot of that data is publicly available. The states sell a lot of that data. It's available to anyone who wants to buy it. You don't have to be some sophisticated Chinese hacker to get it. Omar?

COHEN: Well, Marshall Cohen, I appreciate you and the team going through the documents that you did in real time, really, as the president began speaking. And I appreciate you being here after a late night. Good to see you.

COHEN: Of course.

JIMENEZ: Brianna?

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": All right, let's stay on this China angle for a moment because President Trump has not always been critical of President Xi. In fact, over the years, we've heard him repeatedly praise his Chinese counterpart, including recently.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: President Xi has promised me that he's not sending any weapons to Iran. That's a beautiful promise. I take him at his word. I appreciate it.

I just got back from China. President Xi, good man. Good man. And I'll get killed for saying that. They'll say, oh, he called President Xi a good man. Well, we had an amazing time.

I think we're the most respected country in the world right now, by far the most respected. President Xi told me, I was talking about, he's a friend of mine.

I'm a big fan of President Xi. A lot of people say, oh, well, you know, I watched a couple of people critical of the fact that TikTok, TikTok, it's so bad, it's so dangerous, it's so horrible, they're spreading all these rumors. And the numbers came out yesterday. You know who's number one on TikTok? I am.

(LAUGH)

TRUMP: I'm number one on TikTok.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Let's discuss this with Marc Short, former chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence and now the Board Chair of Advancing American Freedom

And Marc, many critical observers of the president's speech last night point out that there were some logical lapses and primary among them the fact that it's not like he's really been that tough on China, at least rhetorically.

MARC SHORT, FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF TO VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE: No, I think that's exactly right, Brianna. I think the reality is that allegations of foreign interference are very serious. And I think that typically Russia, Iran and China have been culprits trying and attempting to do that. And so we need to take that seriously.

And I support the president's aim for voter I.D. and proof of citizenship for registration. But to throw out the accusation that this has really been China since 2020, it's harder than to reconcile that the second Trump administration has been so soft on China, particularly relative to the first Trump administration record.

[13:40:00]

You had the clip on TikTok, but it goes beyond appeasing China on TikTok despite the law of the land that required them to divest and this administration not enforcing that. It goes to the reality that he's also listed all sorts of export controls on sensitive chips being sent to China. He has not stood with Taiwan, which has been a principal position of American presidents to stand with Taiwan.

He's been very ambivalent about that and has certainly, you know, exercises even some cases, larger tariffs on our trading partners in South Korea and Japan than China. And so the record of the administration, despite that rhetoric, has actually been quite soft.

KEILAR: So you support the SAVE America Act then?

SHORT: Absolutely.

KEILAR: There are enough Republicans who do not, that it's obviously in danger of not getting through Congress. That appears to be its lot right now. Is there some -- and that's primarily over that citizenship for registration piece because of some of the onerous things that it could create besides just checking on people's citizenship. Is there some cognitive dissonance in his speech considering what he has done to the very protections of elections when it comes to certain agencies that actually do the kind of thing that he's saying needs to be done? And yet he's his administration has gutted them, CISA, for instance.

SHORT: Well, look, I think that I do support the SAVE Act. It's hard for me to see how this actually advances that because I think, frankly, you're in many ways, by complaining that Republicans aren't getting this done, you're going to depress Republican turnout because a lot of voters are going to say, why aren't you doing what the president wants? So that's not going to help you achieve that goal in the end.

But I think that there's also been, you know, a reality that when the president is undermining confidence in saying what he did last night, more or less saying it's a banana republic, third world nation. I think that that is also doing some of the work of China, Russia and Iran, who in many cases are just looking to sow discord and basically have Americans lack confidence in our election integrity. And I think that it's important to have some of these safeguards in place. But that's different than saying actually the results have been changed.

And I think what you saw in the 2020 election that the president has great concern over is many states did their own recounts, including Georgia did three separate recounts, including by hand ballots, checking everyone. In Wisconsin, the president paid $3 million, the campaign did to force a recount and the recount showed actually a net gain for Biden votes.

And so, yes, we should be on guard. We should be protective. But that's different than allegations that have not been proven.

KEILAR: So you were there in the Capitol on January 6th, right?

SHORT: Absolutely. Yeah.

KEILAR: You went through that with Vice President Pence. I mean, you know what's at stake when you talk about raising questions about election integrity that inspire people to do the wrong thing. And I wonder if as you were listening to what the president was saying, you had any worry about how some of his supporters might take it.

SHORT: Look, I think January 6th was incredibly tragic day. I believe that we're not going to experience that again, Brianna. But at the same time, yeah, I think there are concerns that we should -- it's not to have a disconnect to say we should be doing everything we can to make American elections as secure as possible without spreading falsehoods about what happened in 2020. I think that's pretty simple.

KEILAR: Marc, thank you so much. It's great to have you.

SHORT: Thanks for having me.

KEILAR: Appreciate it. And still ahead, the acting Navy Secretary weighs in on this low Blue Angels flyover. We'll tell you what he's saying.

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[13:48:00

JIMENEZ: I want to get you updated on the repeat disaster playing out in the Texas Hill Country. The governor says at least 230 people have been rescued from torrential rains that are inundating the same region where flooding killed nearly 140 people last summer. Among the rescues, a chopper lifting a family and their dogs to safety in Uvalde. That's not far from Kerr County, the epicenter of last year's devastation.

CNN's Ed Lavandera is there with the latest.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR U.S. NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Some 24 hours ago, where we are standing here over the Guadalupe River, this area was completely flooded from that far bank that you see there in the distance all the way to this side to the far southern bank of the river as well. These floodwaters rose quickly. They rose dramatically. Some residents have told us, in some places, they came up as fast as within 30 minutes.

And it also reached levels that we didn't even see last year during those devastating floodings on this same river, where nearly 140 people were killed by those floodwaters. In some areas, the flood levels of this rainstorm reached higher levels than last summer. But the good news is that many people have been telling us is that they thought the sirens, the warnings, the alerts about the weather situation and the flooding risk went out much better than last summer.

And then also add to that, that residents have been telling us that they also took it much more seriously. They endured and they lived through the tragedy and the horror of last year. They took it much more seriously.

So campgrounds, for example, along the river, where so many people lost their lives last summer, were cleared out in time before these floodwaters could wreak havoc and become much more deadly. But with all of that, we are told so far at least two people have lost their lives. And this was very widespread.

It wasn't just here along the Guadalupe River, but about an hour north of where we are in the town of Fredericksburg. That area as well affected.

[13:50:00]

South of where we are, Uvalde is a town that was also hard hit. Many people lost their homes in these floodwaters as well.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSE MALDONADO, UVALDE FLOODING SURVIVOR: Honestly, I'm upset, mad, because I could have -- I felt like I could have maybe saved it, done more. I mean, first, it is my, you could say, first home that I bought last year, Christmas. And now, what to figure out to do is the next thing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAVANDERA: So that cleanup effort continues today. The good news is, is that the rainstorms seem to have moved a little bit further north, and that's giving this area a chance for these creeks and tributaries and rivers to recede. And that, we have seen that dramatically here over the course of yesterday evening and into this Friday.

Ed Lavandera, CNN, Kerrville, Texas.

KEILAR: Now an update to a video that we showed you yesterday of the Blue Angels, one of the airplanes in the group flying super low over a crowded beach in Florida. The Navy launched an internal safety review afterward, and now the Acting Secretary of the Navy is responding to that. He says in a new social media post, quote, "Flight debrief complete, no reprimands, no firings, no problem. That's the sound of freedom."

CNN has reached out to the Blue Angels for additional comment.

Now still ahead, one of the most anticipated films of the year sets sail on its maiden voyage. Will "The Odyssey" meet filmgoers' expectations and its lofty box office goals? We'll discuss next.

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[13:56:13]

KEILAR: The epic blockbuster of the summer --

JIMENEZ: Oh, yeah.

KEILAR: -- has arrived. Christopher Nolan's adaptation of "The Odyssey" hitting screens, riding a wave of anticipation. In fact, IMAX put tickets on sale for select 70mm showings a full year in advance.

JIMENEZ: Yeah.

KEILAR: The hype for those tickets, so big that people put them up for resale in some cases for hundreds of dollars. The film is now projected to make $100 million in its opening weekend, which would make it Nolan's biggest debut since "The Dark Knight Rises."

JIMENEZ: And fair to say the hype is off the charts here. Stacked cast also driving buzz for the film. We're talking Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Tom Holland, Zendaya, Robert Pattinson, Charlize Theron. The list goes on and on.

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: Zendaya?

JIMENEZ: Zendaya, yes. I said Zendaya.

KEILAR: Did you say Zendaya?

JIMENEZ: Don't worry, I mean, we can say Zendaya twice.

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: Oh, we got to say it twice. That's very important, sorry.

(CROSSTALK)

JIMENEZ: Of course. Of course. Yeah. So let's talk about all of this with Awards Editor for Ankler Media, Katey Rich. Katey, good to see you. All right. Look, as we were talking about tickets for some screenings of "The Odyssey," they went on sale a year in advance.

The AMC IMAX 70mm in New York, you can't even get tickets for weeks like now. Why is there so much buzz around this epic hitting theaters? KATEY RICH, AWARDS EDITOR, ANKLER MEDIA: Well, I will say, I think they added 3 a.m. screenings in 70mm IMAX in New York.

JIMENEZ: Yeah.

RICH: So if you're willing to stay up all night.

(LAUGH)

(CROSSTALK)

JIMENEZ: No, they're sold out. I tried, I tried. They're sold out.

(LAUGH)

RICH: You might have to wait a while for that one then. I mean, there is nobody making movies like Christopher Nolan. We saw it with "Oppenheimer" three years ago. That was an R-rated three-hour biopic and that was a huge hit. "The Odyssey" is an action movie. It's literally one of the oldest stories that we have with so many of the big stars, as you mentioned.

And he's got this brand name where people say, I will turn up for anything that you make. And when it's a movie that's this big, you're going to get the Nolan diehards and anybody who just wants to see a big summer movie spectacle, which by all accounts is exactly what "The Odyssey" is going to be.

KEILAR: OK. A headline from The Atlantic reads, your Odyssey might be cropped. Talk to us about how Christopher Nolan shot this film and why so few audiences might actually get the chance to watch it in all of its visual glory.

RICH: Well, he shot it entirely on IMAX cameras, which no one has ever done before. If you watch some of the behind-the-scenes videos about the effort they went into to shoot with these cameras, which are famously noisy, they had to build, what they call, a blimp to surround it so it wouldn't drown out the actors. It's really a process.

But the result is that you get this huge, beautiful image that really is best on IMAX screens. And as you were saying, the IMAX showings are the ones that are selling out in advance. And if you're seeing it on a more standard theater, you're going to see the movie. It's going to be cropped in a way that makes sense.

It's not going to be, you know, like the old days of pan and scan on TV where it doesn't really make any sense. But to get all the information of all these places that they shot all around the world, you are going to want to see it in this big IMAX format, which is why people are, you know, camping out, buying tickets years in advance to make sure that they get to see it the way it was intended.

JIMENEZ: Yeah, that's -- hey, that's what I'm trying to say right now.

(CROSSTALK) KEILAR: That's why Omar is obsessed.

JIMENEZ: That's why it's so hard to see it right now. You know, when I -- when you look at this film, obviously Christopher Nolan's last one, "Oppenheimer," was sort of a blend of commercial success, but also it saw a lot of success on the awards circuit as well.

You look at this cast, Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Zendaya --

KEILAR: Zendaya.

JIMENEZ: Make sure you say Zendaya.

KEILAR: Zendaya.

(LAUGH)

JIMENEZ: -- and many others. A lot of folks in this movie. Is there that same type of buzz for this movie, especially among the actors?

RICH: I think there absolutely is. It is very hard to win Best Picture with your two movies in a row. Only two directors in history have ever done it, and not in the last 60 years. So that is a high bar to climb for the film itself.

But look, you've got Matt Damon, who's been a massive movie star for such a long time. He has won an Oscar, but for writing the screenplay for "Good Bull Hunting," you might remember, alongside Ben Affleck.