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High-Stakes Michigan Primary; Miller Claims He's Being Lied About; FAA Investigating Incident with Marine One; Part of SpaceX Rocket to Hit Moon. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired August 05, 2026 - 08:30   ET

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

[08:30:00]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: In to CNN, just a few minutes in, the race for Michigan's Democratic Senate primary, we have just learned, is getting even closer, even tighter at this hour. We have those new numbers, and that's ahead.

Also, a rollover crash ends in a wild brawl on a busy highway. So, how did this insanity end? Details on that, ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SIDNER: All right, new numbers coming in right now, as we speak, as votes are being counted in Michigan's most populous county. The Democratic primary Senate race is getting even closer, with moderate Congresswoman Haley Stevens behind but gaining a bit. It is a race that could help decide who ultimately controls Congress.

[08:35:00]

Let's look at this really tight battle. Progressive Abdul El-Sayed has a narrow lead, but the race at this point is still unresolved. Nobody is getting called the winner yet. Whoever wins, though, will take on Republican Mike Rogers in November.

CNN's Harry Enten here now to run the numbers.

All right, where is the outstanding vote and how large is the out -- because that's the key, because she's, even though these numbers look really tight --

HARRY ENTEN, CNN CHIEF DATA ANALYST: Right. OK. So, let's sort of set the stage for you here, right. You mentioned, Sara, the race is getting even tighter. When Johnny B. was on at the top of the hour, the difference between them in terms of vote total was about 19,000. Now we're going to zoom in very tight here. How much is Abdul El-Sayed ahead by now? A little bit less than 15,000. So, we've had the gap close -- we've had the gap closed by 4,000 votes. So, what we see is Haley Stevens absolutely getting this race tighter.

Now, more than that, you, right now, see that the race is just a point. In fact, when you go down to decimal points, we're actually a race that is tighter than a point. Now, why is that? What is going on? What is tightening this race?

Well, come with me. We're going to go down to southeast Michigan. We're going to go to Wayne County, of course, where Detroit is. And Haley Stevens has been doing quite well in Wayne County, right? She leads right now over Abdul El-Sayed by about 17,000 votes, or about six percentage points. That gap has been widening. More than that, it has been widening as the vote has come in. Right now we have 88 percent of the estimated vote reporting. When Johnny B. was with you at the top of the hour, that was closer to about 84 percent of the vote that was in.

So, as more votes have been counted in Wayne County, we see that Haley Stevens has closed that race. And there is definitely, as you can tell, there is still vote remaining in Wayne County. And that is a big reason why we have not projected that race just quite yet.

SIDNER: Trends that you're seeing here?

ENTEN: Trends that we're seeing here. Well, you know what, the magic wall has some fun little tools that you can sort of use. And one of my favorite tools that I love to use is this one. And what we see here, you can see that this is the vote over time in Wayne County as it's been basically steady in terms of Haley Stevens having a lead.

Now, if we zoom out, however, to the greater state of Michigan, and let's see if I can get that tool, there we go, take a look here. This is where it gets really fun, where you see that at the beginning of the night, Abdul El-Sayed had a very clear lead. He has held on to that lead, but it has shrunk, it has shrunk, it has shrunk. And now what we're talking about is a race that is, simply put, too -- it's just too tight for anyone to project it.

Reasonable folks, at this hour, we're talking about a race that is less than a point as it has gotten tighter and tighter and tighter. And we still have potentially tens of thousands of votes still outstanding to count.

SIDNER: This makes it nail-biting for the candidates, exciting for those watching.

ENTEN: Yes.

SIDNER: For us watching. But when you see two lines actually touching each other, you know it's close.

ENTEN: Correct. That's exactly right. The two lines, which have been apart all night --

SIDNER: Yes. Yes.

ENTEN: Are actually touching. Though Abdul El-Sayed still has the advantage at this particular point. And we shouldn't lose sight of that.

SIDNER: Has a little -- by a little less than a point.

ENTEN: By a little bit less than a point. Only a little bit less than 15,000 votes.

SIDNER: All right, Harry Enten, it's always good to see you. Thank you so much.

ENTEN: Nice to see you as well.

SIDNER: I know you didn't get much sleep. I'm glad you --

ENTEN: No, I got a one hour and 20 minutes. I fell asleep on my couch.

SIDNER: Not enough.

ENTEN: Not enough.

SIDNER: Not enough. Go to bed.

ENTEN: I'm going.

SIDNER: Let's now -- let's now go to Jeff Zeleny, who is very much awake, live this morning in Detroit.

Give us some sense of the feeling there and what it sort of feels like to be in the middle of this while it is so incredibly tight, and whether or not you think people see a path for Haley, as the polls were showing, very much so, that El-Sayed was going to be the clear winner. That's not what happened during the vote.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Sars, good morning.

Polls at this point are absolutely meaningless. And as it turns out, they were fairly meaningless in the final days of this race because the outcome, as Harry was just talking about there, is remarkably close and all eyes on this nationalized contest are right here in Wayne County in Detroit.

Over the course of the morning, as Harry was saying there, this has narrowed even more. We're about 14,000 or so votes are separating the two candidates. So, Democrats here believe that there is still a path to victory for Haley Stevens.

Now, she was very clear last evening that she will unite and come together and talked as much about Mike Rogers, the Republican nominee, in her short speech last night, as she did her own opponent. But just a few moments ago, we caught up with Abdul El-Sayed here in Detroit, and this is what he had to say about the narrowness of this race.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ABDUL EL-SAYED (D), Michigan SENATE CANDIDATE: Look, we all understand the responsibility of beating Mike Rogers and Donald Trump. And the things that unite us are so much bigger than the things that divide us. And I think we need to start tapping into those things. And so, for all the folks who might have supported my opponent, this is a big tent.

[08:40:04]

We're doing the work to defeat him and then also just to get money out of politics, put money in your pocket, pass Medicare for all.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENY: Now, both of these candidates have said they would support the other depending on the outcome here. The question, though, Sara, is about these Democratic voters and the supporters here. Will they unify regardless of the outcome here now?

The El-Sayed campaign, they are acting as though they are the winners here. But again, this race has not been called. So, it's unclear if he will deliver a speech today. Also unclear if Haley Stevens will. They are looking at the same numbers that we are. And the reality here is that the clock is ticking between now and in November. But in many of these close elections, particularly here in Wayne County, we have to wait for all of these votes to be counted.

But the Stevens campaign sees some hope in these mail-in votes. They did very well on mail in votes that were coming in later yesterday. So, we shall all take a deep breath and watch as the votes are counted and coming in.

SIDNER: Yes.

ZELENY: But there is no doubt this race is much narrower than expected. I asked Abdul El-Sayed about that. He said it was humbling and he said that the polls in the final days obviously were not right. That's why they kept working.

The Stevens campaign also was expecting not this close of a finish here. So, again, we shall see how these votes proceed. But there's -- one thing is clear, Mike Rogers is the Republican nominee. The unknown is, will Democrats unify regardless of who is ultimately declared the winner.

Sara.

SIDNER: That's right with, right now, at this hour, just under -- this says one percent, but it's actually just under one percent the difference in this race.

ZELENY: Under.

SIDNER: You and I have been in Wayne County, you know, in Detroit, seeing how they count the ballots. This takes a while, but we will see. We could have it this morning. We will see what happens in the end.

Jeff Zeleny, thank you so much for all your great reporting overnight and for us this morning.

John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, this morning, Republican Max Miller says he is still running for re-election despite allegations of domestic abuse from his ex-wife. She and two other women have accused him of abusive behavior. Now, in an exclusive interview with CNN's Jake Tapper, Miller denied these allegations.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MAX MILLER (R-OH): For no second am I going to sit here and continue to be debased by false and baseless allegations and be pushed out of a seat I have worked so hard to represent and done a terrific job for our community.

I've been a good legislator. All they're trying to do is create rumor mills without evidence. It's all hearsay.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: With us now, Elie Honig, CNN senior legal analyst, former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.

And, Elie, I want to kind of talk about the legal side here. And one example is something that Max Miller said right there at the end of the soundbite. He said these allegations are all hearsay. What about that?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: John, that -- yes, that's not what hearsay is. Hearsay is when a Person A testifies about something they heard or learned from Person B. However, if Person A, in this case Max Miller's ex-wife or other accusers say, I saw him do this, this happened to me, I was in the room, I witnessed it, that is not hearsay, that is direct evidence.

BERMAN: As Jake pointed out during the interview, the congressman was saying things, in that case, simply not applicable.

I want to play a little more of what Max Miller said, because it gets to the legal side of this.

Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MAX MILLER (R-OH): These are incredibly serious criminal accusations. And if these accusations were true, I would be in jail.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Now, I should just correct myself there, that wasn't part of the interview. That was part of his video statement the other day. But it is something that the congressman has been saying. He's been saying, if this were true, I'd be in jail. Is it that simple, Elie?

HONIG: No, not at all, John. And that's because prosecutors have a burden of proof. They have to prove a case before they charge it beyond a reasonable doubt. That's the highest burden of proof in our legal system. So, I can tell you, it happens all the time as a prosecutor, that you look at a case and you say, well, I don't know if this happened or even sometimes I believe this did happen, however, I don't have proof at that highest level, proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

Now, in this case, we know there were police reports filed. We know there was some prosecutorial examination of this, but we don't know exactly what prosecutors looked at. We don't know exactly what evidence they had in front of them. We don't know whether they were examining an isolated incident or a series of incidents. So, it simply does not follow, legally or logically, to say, well, I'm not in prison, therefore I'm factually innocent. There's a lot of room between somebody being in prison and something not having happened at all.

BERMAN: Now, Elie, as I said, there are other women besides his ex- wife who have come forward with allegations.

[08:45:01]

One of them is Stephanie Grisham, who was White House communications director during the first Trump administration. She wrote an op-ed and she's written a book where she said there was some abusive behavior in that relationship. Now just within the last few days -- again, Miller has denied that. But just within the last few days, Grisham has had attorneys put together a restraining order for Miller here. Explain to me what's going on here.

HONIG: Yes. So, first of all, John, prosecutors, or investigators, would be well within their rights to take a look at whether there are one allegation or multiple allegations from multiple different people, including from multiple different people, as appears to be the case here, who have not met one another. Stephanie Grisham is going into court, something that people do, and they ask for a restraining order, which would mean ordinarily no contact, no phone contact, no email contact, certainly no physical contact within a certain perimeter. And what you have to do there is make a showing that this person poses some sort of danger to you. I know Stephanie Grisham and her lawyer have also raised the possibility of a defamation suit. In that instance, somebody would have to show that the speaker here, Max Miller, made a statement that was false, that was damaging and made that statement knowing that it was false. So, I think there's a lot more to come on the legal front with respect to Stephanie Grisham and Representative Miller and perhaps others.

BERMAN: Elie Honig, thank you for coming on and explaining this, because I think people watched that really long just riveting interview with Jake Tapper that Max Miller did, have a lot of questions about some of the things he said on the legal side. So, thank you for clarifying some of that. We appreciate it.

All right, we have much more. We're getting breaking news out of Michigan. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:51:03] SIDNER: All right, we're getting to that point where it's back to school season starting for kids across the country. One barber shop owner in Tennessee making sure that the kids look good when they get to school. Shawn Moses offers free haircuts to all K through 12 students at his shop each back-to-back school seasons. Something he has done for 30 years now. He says the tradition goes deeper than just giving the kids a fresh look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHAWN MOSES, OWNER, A CUT ABOVE THE REST NEIGHBORHOOD BARBERSHOPS: Look good, feel good, you act good, you do good. They come back and tell me, Shawn, pastor, they, my child's grade went up. And they said, because of Pastor Shawn. Because one of the barbers gave me a good word and gave me a good haircut or bought some shoes for me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: Moses says the free cuts also help families as costs continue to climb for families.

John, look good, feel good, do good, be good. You're all of those things. And now you are going to take us to a big race.

BERMAN: I appreciate that.

The breaking news. We are watching this race get tighter in Michigan. The Democratic Senate primary there, Abdul El-Sayed against Haley Stevens. You can see right here, Abdul El-Sayed's lead is now just under 15,000 votes. Not even an hour ago, that lead was 19,000 votes. So, you can see the margin getting ever tighter.

Right now there's 96 percent of the vote in. That seems like a lot. Where is there still vote to count? Again, I can take this down and we can look at every county where there's less than 90 percent of the vote reported. But there's only one. There's only one county. And it is Wayne County. This is the most populous county in the state where you can see now there is 88 percent of the vote in and reported. Before it was about 84, 85. So, we have seen more vote there. And you can see, Haley Stevens is leading in Wayne County, and she is expanding her lead. That that is how she is eating into Abdul El- Sayed's lead statewide.

You can see right now, she's got a 17,000 vote lead in Wayne County. Before it was about 14,000. How much vote is left here? This is really the one place where there is substantial vote left. How much vote is left in Wayne County? We think a lot of it's mail-in, absentee count, which they have. They have those votes. They just have to count them.

"The New York Times" is reporting there could be more than 10,000, 17,000. Is it enough to close the statewide gap here? Is it enough to close this 15,000-vote gap? Just not sure. But at this point, the race, we just -- it's too early to project. And Haley Stevens is narrowing that gap. So, stay tuned as we get more votes in.

Sara. SIDNER: Yes, I mean that being the most populous county, of course,

and it takes a while. You've been in these counts. We've sat there and watched them. I've been sitting there watching it happen. Takes a minute, but we might know by the end of the show.

BERMAN: We could know by the end of the show.

SIDNER: Could know by the end of the show.

All right, this morning, the FAA investigating an air traffic safety incident involving President Trump's Marine One helicopter and a passenger jet that was taking off at the same time.

Let's get right to CNN aviation correspondent Pete Muntean.

OK, so, I -- we were listening to a little bit of the audio of this. Give us some sense of just how dangerous or not this was.

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, clearly something went wrong here because there's been this major crackdown on helicopters and commercial flights sharing D.C. airspace ever since last year's tragic midair collision of an Army Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines regional jet that killed 67 people.

Typically, whenever the president's helicopters are taking off and landing at the White House, that halts all commercial flights at nearby Reagan National Airport for at least a few minutes. And now the FAA is saying this incident is under investigation.

Here is the new video from independent journalist Dave Statter (ph), where you see a commercial flight take off and then Marine One come into frame. What's clear from this and from flight tracking is that the proximity was not really close enough to officially constitute a near collision, at least in the FAA's terms.

[08:55:08]

But commercial flights were about a mile and a half from Marine One. But the air traffic control audio brings up some really big questions here. And the controller in the Reagan National Airport tower says he's having a hard time hearing the helicopter pilots over the radio. And I want you to listen now to the apparent confusion when the presidential pilots say they are lifting off from the White House. Here it is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARINE ONE: Tower, just want to make sure you copy. Marine One three minutes to lift.

Tower, do you copy, Marine One, three minutes to lift.

TOWER: Last calling, broken and unreadable.

TOWER: Marine One, you said you're proceeding as briefed?

MARINE ONE: National Tower, that's Marine One, proceeding as briefed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MUNTEAN: So, right now, a bit of a mystery of how this communications breakdown occurred. It would not be the first such case since that midair collision last January. Last spring, there was a flyover of Arlington Cemetery where four Air Force trainer jets got too close to flights that were taking off from Reagan National Airport. There was also the case of a helicopter landing at the Pentagon that lost communications with the Reagan National tower. Members of Congress were very keen on the details of those two incidents, but National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy just said in a rare statement, just last month, that not near enough has been done by Congress to overhaul air safety rules since that awful mid-air collision.

Sara.

SIDNER: That is disappointing to hear. We all love going into D.C., into Reagan because it's so close. But too many close calls here. Things must be done. I know you will stay on it, Pete Muntean, as you always do, as a reporter and as a pilot. Do appreciate you.

Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: So, after floating around in space for nearly a year, a chunk of this, we're showing you, SpaceX rocket is believed to have just crashed into the moon, traveling at seven times the speed of sound. We're waiting on confirmation of the impact from NASA and from SpaceX.

But what this comes from is the Falcon Nine rocket that launched in January last year. By design, the upper section of the rocket is left floating in space afterward. Space junk that typically falls back to earth and burns up in the atmosphere upon reentry. That didn't happen here, clearly, and is suspected to have now created may be a new 65 foot crater in the moon.

Joining me right now is CNN aviation and aerospace analyst Miles O'Brien.

Miles, there's no danger to earth, so check one for that's a good thing. Assuming that NASA confirms this impact --

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN AVIATION AND AEROSPACE ANALYST: Right. Yes.

BOLDUAN: This is just wild and fascinating that a piece of space junk just took out a piece of the moon.

O'BRIEN: Yes. Let's get the chicken little out of the way. That's important. But this is not by any means unprecedented. As a matter of fact, during the Apollo days, the upper stages to the Saturn rockets frequently plowed into the moon. And at that time, scientists used seismographs to determine what impact it had on the moon itself. So, this happens.

And the reason that this particular upper stage is headed to the moon is that the entire rocket was headed in that direction to put two commercial landers in proximity to try to land. One of them succeeded.

And unless you add a little extra fuel to nudge it into a solar orbit, this is the direction that upper stage was headed. And that's what we're going to see at 2:35 a.m. Eastern Time tomorrow morning.

BOLDUAN: Pete Muntean and I were talking a little earlier, and he was saying that this crater that it we assume created -- it created could offer some new insight, actually, in helpful data itself for scientists as they're planning and hope to build up, you know, operations on the moon someday and return moon flights, you know, to return astronauts to the moon. What could they learn from this?

O'BRIEN: Well, Kate, it's all about the plume. So, it's going to plow in faster than a speeding bullet, create this crater 15 feet deep or so. And first of all, this gives people who study the craters on the moon, and there are plenty of those we know, an opportunity to calibrate their models so they can understand -- they know exactly the mass and speed and everything about this upper stage, and can test what they know about meteoroid impacts on the moon against this known velocity and known mass.

The plume itself will be potentially visible as it rises above the edge of the moon. Of course, the moon is going to be too bright for us to see the impact itself. But this big plume will rise above against the darkness of space. And if you have a really good telescope, and certainly the scientific telescopes, will be able to look at it and see how high it rises.

[09:00:03]

And this could have a lot of impact on, if you will, on decisions about building lunar bases in the future and