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Abdul El-Sayed Narrowly Wins Michigan Democratic Senate Primary; Former Rep. Perriello Wins Democratic Primary in Virginia's 5th District; Trump, Pirro Have Tense Meeting Over Reflecting Pool Damage Case; Mother Addresses Death of Son Detained at Immigration Facility; Police Respond After Perez Hilton Apparently Livestreams Self-Harm. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired August 05, 2026 - 14:30   ET

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

[14:30:00]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Today, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is weighing in after another big win for progressives. Mamdani praising Abdul El-Sayed after he clinched Michigan's Democratic Senate primary. He said that El-Sayed is the type of candidate who could change the party.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR ZOHRAN MAMDANI, (D) NEW YORK CITY: I think the message of money out of politics, money in your pocket, Medicare for all is one that even New Yorkers can relate to.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Also today, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, one of El-Sayed's most prominent supporters and an early one, hailed the win as, quote, "The most extraordinary victory that I can think of in modern American politics."

Larry Sabato is with us now. He's the director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. All right, Larry, you were watching as we all were last night. What are your main takeaways from last night, particularly this Senate primary race in Michigan?

LARRY SABATO, DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR POLITICS, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA: I think my takeaway is a little different than some others who saw it as a clear cut choice between victory and defeat. That simply isn't true. And it's a long way from the voting in the general election.

Clearly, El-Sayed has a lot of repair work to do. Half of the party voted against him and a lot of them seem to be strongly opposed to him. And that includes, no matter what they say publicly, the leadership of the Democratic Party in Washington, and they control a lot of the money.

I'm sure they'll come around, but his bigger task is to get a slice of the Trump vote. Doesn't have to be very big, but he needs a slice of the Trump vote, as well as consolidating Democrats who clearly have been split and winning a solid majority of the independents. That's not easy to do, although I must say he is very talented.

What people have said about him is completely true. He's a generational talent, but he has to win first.

KEILAR: Yes, and so when you look at where he did very well, right, enclaves that are college towns, liberal enclaves, when you look at maybe where he didn't do as well, some of the more rural parts of Michigan, what did you think about that? What's the lesson to learn from that?

SABATO: Well, he's obviously very well educated, highly articulate. He knows exactly what he wants to say and he says it well. And that used to be a formula for a winning candidacy.

But we're in the Trump era. I don't think I have to need -- I don't think I need to get into the details. I think everybody knows what I mean.

And the split today is between white, blue collar workers and highly educated, college educated whites, male and female. And then the various ethnic groups and minority groups fit in in other ways. But by and large, that's the split.

And he sweeps those who have a lot of education and are well, well learned about politics. But he doesn't do so well with the white, blue collars. And he's got to change that quickly.

He can't change the way he comes across necessarily. He's going to have to do it with issues.

KEILAR: Can Democrats win control of the Senate without Michigan? That certainly is a tall order that Al-Sayed has ahead of him come November.

SABATO: Well, sure. We asked that about every state. We just said it a couple of weeks ago about Maine, right? Can Democrats win the Senate without Maine? The answer is yes, but with difficulty.

The same answer for Michigan. The answer is yes, but with difficulty. If you don't win the easy states and Maine and Michigan, while they're certainly not easy, are a lot easier than the Trump states, the Trump states that voted for Trump by 10 points or more.

Somehow you have to make it up with those very big Trump states and it can be done. And the Democrats have a lot of strong candidates this year in an environment that is very anti-Trump and anti-Republican. But sometimes that's not enough.

And we can all think of midterms where the Democrats have taken over the House but have been unable to win back the Senate. I'm not saying it has to be that way this year, but boy, this is no sure thing. And the Democrats are doing what they can, but they're not always necessarily picking the most likely winners.

[14:35:00] KEILAR: So you're down in Virginia's 5th District and former Congressman Tom Perriello actually won the primary there last night. He previously held the seat for a term in 2008. I covered him during his loss in 2010 during that wave that Republicans took back over the House after Obamacare. And it's been held by Republicans ever since.

What are you watching for as he's squaring off against the Republican there, John McGuire?

SABATO: A lot of politics today is just territory, and this is red territory. And the Republican incumbent who would have lost in those districts that were eliminated by four Republican members of the seven-member Virginia Supreme Court, they're gone, and now what's left are the old districts. And this district that I'm in, the 5th District, which is the John McGuire-Tom Perriello district, is clearly Republican.

That's not to say that Perriello can't win it. He's a terrific campaigner. He also had those two years of incumbency.

But he needs a lot of luck and a big blue wave. That's really the only way he can win this. Why is he running?

Because I think there are some opportunities for Democrats to reestablish those new districts, and they would be for either 2028 or after 2030. So he's looking to the future. I will say one thing, Brianna.

I noticed that the Republican Congressman McGuire in this district is taking after Donald Trump. The very first thing he did last night was to call Tom Perriello a communist. I know him, and I know his family.

Just a little hint, he's not a communist, in case you were wondering.

KEILAR: Yes, he has a long record, and so we can be clear on that. He is not. Larry Sabato, thank you so much for your insights.

We really appreciate it.

SABATO: Thank you, Brianna.

KEILAR: Still to come, President Trump's reflecting pool renovations turning into a full-blown feud between him and his handpicked prosecutor in D.C., Jeanine Pirro. The intense White House meeting that took place this week, and what comes next in this bizarre legal saga.

[14:40:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN HOST: CNN is learning new details about a tense meeting between U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro and President Trump over the botched renovation of the D.C. Reflecting Pool and Pirro's decision to drop charges against those accused of vandalism. Now, sources tell us the president laid into Pirro for telling the court that the damage was caused by shoddy workmanship, but we're also told Pirro pushed back and came armed with boxes of evidence backing up her assertion that vandals were not responsible. Now, Trump didn't ask for Pirro's resignation, nor did he fire her after that contentious meeting, but he did say this when asked about it last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, I just think she's totally wrong. They did a beautiful job. There were a couple of little things, but that was not a big deal.

And everybody saw the vandalism. All you have to do is look at the tape. If you look at the tape, plus we have a witness or two witnesses that saw the vandalism.

So certainly when there was vandalism, it was actually, in my opinion, it was major vandalism, and I told her I was not happy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JIMENEZ: Let's talk about this with Elie Honig, CNN's senior legal analyst and former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. Good to see you, Elie. So Pirro herself made the call to drop the case, but in court, Pirro's prosecutors said they believed they'd been misled by the Interior Department until recent days.

Did they need to say all that in order to dismiss the case?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, sorry. This one is squarely on Jeanine Pirro and her prosecutors. This is your job. This is your responsibility when you work for the Justice Department.

You're given massive power, massive authority. You can take away an individual's liberty, and it's your job, therefore, to get your facts straight before you charge a case. And an important detail here, Omar, prosecutors had as long as five years to charge this case from when the alleged conduct happened in mid-June of this year.

The statute of limitations gave them five years. I'm not saying you should take five years, but they certainly could have taken more than the two weeks they took to investigate this case. It's their fault.

If there is information out there that they didn't get from the Department of the Interior or anywhere else, I'm sorry, you bear that burden as a prosecutor. You bear that fault.

JIMENEZ: And, you know, look, now Pirro's job is reportedly in jeopardy. At the very least, the president has weighed firing Pirro at points, as sources tell CNN. Can you just talk a little bit more broadly about how Pirro has run the D.C. U.S. Attorney's Office?

HONIG: Well, the president certainly has the authority to fire a U.S. attorney if he wants to. Jeanne Pirro has done a disastrous job running the D.C. U.S. Attorney's Office. This is obviously one of the most important U.S. Attorney's Offices in the country. They get a lot of the high-profile cases, a lot of the political cases. But we've seen time and again grand juries reject proposed indictments

from prosecutors. That is something that rarely happens at all, but it's becoming commonplace in D.C. As one example, Jeanne Pirro tried to indict Senator Mark Kelly, Senator Elissa Slotkin, and other lawmakers. That was rejected by the grand jury. There's actually been reporting that was a unanimous rejection by the grand jury.

We've seen other efforts to indict protesters, anti-ICE protesters, which were rejected by grand juries and, in some cases, trial juries. And now we've seen this embarrassment of the Reflecting Pool indictment blow up in their face.

And we're seeing federal judges notice this and call it out across the country, really, but most pointedly in D.C.

[14:45:00]

JIMENEZ: You know, to that point, the former Olympian, David Hearn, who was accused here, is asking a judge to order the DOJ to turn over what would potentially be embarrassing information about how they pursued this case, accusing him of vandalizing the Reflecting Pool. His attorneys are also asking the judge to bar prosecutors from being able to refile it in the future.

What do you make of those efforts? Where do you see those efforts going?

HONIG: Right, so there's two things that David Hearn's defense team is trying to do here. One, they're trying to ensure that this case ends up getting dismissed with prejudice, meaning it cannot come back. And the reason that would happen is if you can show, as a defense team, that the prosecution did something in bad faith, something improper, that it wasn't just an inadvertent screw-up.

So they're trying to get this case dismissed for all time. The second thing they're clearly doing, Omar, is they're setting the stage to put in a claim for damages because everyone's very focused on the slush fund that Todd Blanche set up. But even without the slush fund, if somebody believes that they've been wronged by the federal government, you can put in a claim through something called the Federal Tort Claims Act.

And clearly, someone in David Hearn's position, that's what the law is for. If you are falsely indicted and then the government withdraws the indictment, dismisses it on its own a couple weeks later, that's a classic textbook case of someone who would be entitled to put in a claim. And so it seems his attorneys are trying to gather evidence so that they can put in that claim and argue that he's been damaged and that the federal government should pay.

Wouldn't surprise me at all if they eventually make just such a motion.

JIMENEZ: And, Elie, you know, I want to go back to what you were talking about in terms of the due diligence around what the U.S. Attorney's Office should be doing. Because our reporting showed that Pirro privately blamed Interior Secretary Burgum's staff for failing to arm her with the evidence before she presented that case. What is that verification process supposed to be like if you are getting information from what should be another department within the U.S. government?

HONIG: So there's a reason that federal prosecutors are obsessive about their investigations. It's the biggest part of the job. Everyone always thinks of federal prosecutors in court doing trials.

That is a big part of the job. But you spend the vast bulk of your time investigating. And so you will find information relevant to a case in all sorts of sources.

You always want to talk to the local cops. You want to talk to any other agencies. You want to talk to civilian witnesses.

And so it's your job to make sure you've gone through all of that evidence. And clearly, obviously, this case involved alleged vandalism at a national park. You would obviously go to the Department of the Interior, whoever the relevant officer or agent is, and say, OK, we're bringing this case.

Give us everything you have. Here's our allegation. Is there anything that you know in your records that would undermine this?

What do you have about the pool's installation? What do you know about this person? What do you know about the National Park Service's employees who were witnesses?

So that's your job as the federal prosecutor. For Jeanine Pirro to try to save her hide by pointing at Doug Burgum, whatever one may think of Doug Burgum, that's not -- his job is to give the information he's asked for.

And the Interior's job is to give the information they're asked for. But if you're going to sign an indictment, as Jeanine Pirro did, you better make sure you have your ducks in a row.

JIMENEZ: Eli Honig, always appreciate the analysis. Good to see you -- Brianna.

KEILAR: The mother of an immigrant who died while being held at a controversial immigration detention facility is speaking to CNN. ICE says 39-year-old Edwin Giovanni Lopez-Cornejo experienced a medical emergency over the weekend at the Delaney Hall Detention Center in Newark, New Jersey. An official cause of death is not yet known, but his death is sparking calls for an independent investigation and closure of the facility.

Earlier this year, accusations of inhumane conditions there triggered violent clashes between police and protesters. CNN's Maria Santana is outside of Delaney Hall right now. And Maria, you just spoke to Cornejo's mother?

MARIA SANTANA, CNN ESPANOL ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right, Brianna. It was a heartbreaking interview with Maria Cornejo, the mother of Edwin Lopez-Cornejo, the 39-year-old immigrant that spent six weeks at this detention center in Delaney Hall. And his mom told me that she doesn't think that she will ever be able to get over the pain of losing her son.

She described him as a hard-working man. He worked in construction, as a devoted father to his 12-year-old daughter and a loving son who came to the United States from El Salvador 20 years ago when he was just 19 years old, fleeing gang violence and dreaming of making a better life for himself and his family here in the United States. Now, she told us that on the morning of June 18th, in the early morning hours, he was walking to work when a few blocks from their home he was stopped by ICE agents.

They asked for his ID. He gave it to them. And he was just detained.

She said that the agents never explained to her or her son or the family why he was being detained, if he was the target of this operation, but that he was then brought here to Delaney Hall, where he spent six weeks. And she says he wasn't receiving his medications. He had diabetes.

He had high blood pressure. He suffered from seizures.

[14:50:00]

And he wasn't regularly receiving his medicine. Now, that is what the mom is saying. She's now saying also that the daughter is completely distraught, that she is having trouble sleeping, that she sighs at night, that she misses her father, who she used to spend every weekend with. He just spent his entire time with her, completely devoted to her.

ICE disputes what the family is saying. They say that they were giving him his medication, that he was brought to the hospital quickly, that they responded quickly when he went into a medical emergency on Saturday and died, they say, at the hospital. Now, the mom says that the only thing she heard from ICE or anyone here at this facility, she hasn't received a call from them or from DHS or from anyone.

What she heard about her son was when the hospital called her to tell her that he had already died. And she didn't even get the opportunity to see him at all and says that that is what really hurts her. And now this family is asking for a thorough, independent investigation because she says that as a mother, she has the right to know exactly what happened to her son -- Brianne.

KEILAR: Maria Santana, thank you so much for bringing that to us. We appreciate it -- Omar.

JIMENEZ: Now let's get you to some of the other headlines we're watching this hour, including new numbers showing private sector businesses are easing up on hiring. U.S. companies added roughly 44,000 jobs in July, a big drop from the previous month. The monthly gains, though, were actually the lowest since December -- according to ADP payroll data.

Most of the positions filled in July were in health care and education. The leisure and hospitality sectors lost jobs.

Also, Disney is teaming up with TikTok on what's being described as a first-of-its-kind deal. The new agreement is going to allow social media creators to make videos with famous characters from Disney brands like Marvel, Pixar, Star Wars. Content will then be shared across TikTok and the Disney Plus streaming app as the companies aim to engage more subscribers and the new feature is expected to roll out in the coming months.

And then authorities in Guatemala say the Fuego volcano eruption is easing, aptly named for this story, especially as it remains dangerous. It began spewing ash and lava on Monday, and officials say it's still in a critical explosive phase with lava flowing down the volcano's ravines. Hundreds of people in nearby communities are evacuating as clouds of ash spread up to 75 miles away.

The army has been going house to house, urging people to leave, but say that many are afraid looters are going to steal what little they have if they evacuate.

All right, so to come for us, an alarming social media video prompts a popular blogger's Instagram followers to call police. We're going to have new details on how all of this unfolded next. [14:55:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: New details after celebrity gossip blogger, Perez Hilton, appeared to harm himself during a TikTok live stream. Concerned viewers who saw the distressing video, called 9-1-1, which prompted Miami-Dade first responders to go to his Florida home last night. The sheriff's office tells CNN the individual found at that home is receiving treatment at a hospital.

CNN senior entertainment reporter Lisa Respers-France is with us now on this story. And, Lisa, we do want to warn viewers, this is disturbing, this story. What can you tell us?

LISA RESPERS FRANCE, CNN SENIOR ENTERTAINMENT REPORTER: Well, Brianna, people were extremely disturbed to see what appeared to be Perez Hilton self-harming during a live stream. And so there were a lot of calls into the police, into authorities to say that this was happening. And as you mentioned, they showed up.

And, you know, this has been very distressing to people, not just the fact that this happened, but also because people thought that his dark days were behind him. Back in April, he said that he ended up in the hospital for three weeks because he was taking medication on an empty stomach and that resulted in an ulcer and sepsis. And then a couple weeks after that, he had posted on social media, you know, about what had happened.

But also, he showed a post of him, a reel of him, you know, getting better because people were distressed to see him in the hospital and ailing. And he wanted his followers to know that he could walk again, that he was on the mend and he was doing so much better. So, you know, for this incident to happen, people have questions about what caused it and what is going on with his mental health -- Brianna.

KEILAR: This was obviously public, which is what prompted people to call 9-1-1 here. What are people ...

END