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Spectacle in the Sky: Rare Eclipse Dazzles Millions; Key Takeaways from Tuesday's Primaries; Crowley Boosts Dem Establishment with WI Primary Win; ICE Plans to Buy Up to $20 Million of Electrical Shock Gloves; Judge Orders Recess After Lindsay Clancy Breaks Down in Court 3-3:30p ET

Aired August 12, 2026 - 15:00   ET

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

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[15:00:42]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Solar Spectacle: Europe is dazzled by a total solar eclipse. We'll take you there and show you the extraordinary sight that move some people to tears.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: And back in the United States, the establishment strikes back. Democratic moderates scoring wins in Tuesday's primaries, dealing a setback to the party's left-wing. We'll look at whether the progressives surge may have stalled.

And signs of hope and despair. A woman pulled alive from the rubble left by the Colombian earthquake after she was trapped for 36 hours. Though we're learning that aid has been slowed to get to the epicenter of the disaster.

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

KEILAR: I'm Brianna Keilar alongside Boris Sanchez here in Washington, D.C. And for the last couple of hours, we have been watching something amazing, just a spectacular show in the skies from Iceland to Spain to Norway and Paris. A rare total eclipse has been wowing millions of people in its path. The moon crossing in front of the Sun plunging onlookers into a magical moment of darkness.

SANCHEZ: That was the sound of people cheering in Spain as totality was happening above them. For a lot of folks, this was truly a once- in-a-lifetime experience an eclipse like this has not happened in Spain in a hundred and twenty years. In the U.K. scientists say what just happened a short time ago will not happen again until the year 2090. Let's take you live to Paris where the peak of totality happened just minutes ago. Saskya Vandoorne is there.

Saskya, what was it like?

SASKYA VANDOORNE, CNN PARIS BUREAU CHIEF: Boris, it was incredible sensational. It's one of those moments you're just never going to forget. And it is sad that it's over now people are already clearing out. But it really was just a collective moment an event that we all witnessed together and it was so refreshing not to see people looking down at their phones but looking up, looking at this eclipse with, of course, their certified glasses.

I've seen many things in Paris. I've seen the French team win the World Cup. I've seen at the Olympic Games here. But seeing a sight like that, it just really stays with you. And -- and there are many people here who are watching the eclipse for the very first time. And so, I am joined by Matthew (ph) and Zhang (ph). This was your first eclipse. How does it feel?

ZHANG: It was amazing, a very unique moment, and I think I will never forget in my entire life.

MATTHEW: Me too. Very spectacular. It was just crazy to see the Sun disappear all of a sudden, and then the night was here in Paris with all the scary Parisian, unique moments. I'm so happy to be here alive today with the -- this beautiful person as well.

VANDOORNE: And is it what you expected? Did you think you would still have that much light from only 10 percent of the Sun?

ZHANG: For me, I expected something like really dreamy images, that the Moon -- we can really see the light of the moon coming out from the reflect of the Sun. But actually, it was like just, so, you know, some nails (ph).

MATTHEW: Yes, maybe just like a croissant. And perhaps, after all these years, France has finally conquered the world with a croissant in the sky. Very unique and spectacular. Thank you, Paris, and thank you, France.

VANDOORNE: I love that. A croissant in the sky. Brilliant. Well, thank you so much, guys.

And the next eclipse, I'll be 90, so I probably won't be able to witness it, but I'm sure these guys will be here and able to look at it. Boris and Brianna.

KEILAR: Oh, you're going to be there. Come on, Saskya. But from the croissant to the meat pie, let's go to Isa Soares, who watched the spectacle at Land's End in Cornwall. Isa, tell us about your experience.

ISA SOARES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It was so incredibly moving. I've -- honestly, I -- like I said to you earlier, Brianna and Boris, I've never been part of a solar eclipse.

[15:10:03]

And last time there was a solar eclipse here, it was in 1999, and it was so cloudy, it was so cold that so many people were disappointed quite frankly, a typical English weather.

This time around, future beautiful clear skies, picture perfect. It was warm, and people were just in total woe -- awe as I -- as I was, really taking -- it really took my breath away. And it moved me, and more than I thought it would. And it's -- and that's the stayed with me because, even (INAUDIBLE) my cameraman, Will, to just pan the shot, people have stayed here. You've had families staying on. We've had couples cuddling, just families staying and watching and taking -- looking out as the sun sets and it's just taking in this moment. It is incredibly moving, incredibly magical to know that you've been part of the most wonder of a show of nature, and you won't be able to see it until 2090.

So, for what -- a brief 20, 30 minutes that we saw that and the movie (ph) -- even though it was so tantalizing close, right, to a solar eclipse, it was the moment, the -- what it created in us. And for that brief moment in time, the realization that we are so much more than what we are on Earth and the phones we carry with us. That's what I'm taking away for today.

SANCHEZ: No doubt about that. Isa Soares, live for us in Land's End in Cornwall in the U.K.

Finally, CNN Clarissa Ward watched it all as the Sun was setting in Spain, in Mallorca.

Clarissa, some nearly spiritual moments on that hillside where you were.

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It really was a very, very profound and beautiful moment. And afterwards, as the Sun finally set, there was another cheer from the crowd, and then people got up and kind of went their ways, basically, said goodbye to each other. And I think everybody carrying this sense with them of, like, we need to be kind to each other. We need to be full of wonder. We need to be full of awe and reverence.

And now, everyone's kind of making their way back through the scrub to try to get back to the main road and back to their homes and hotels. You can probably see, if we just pan over here, it's got a lot of boats, including some pretty epic-looking boats. They are now all also making their way back to the ports. A lot of people who were able to choosing to watch this spectacular moment from the sea.

All those, as I've mentioned before, eclipse experts that I spoke to said that, actually, you're a little bit robbed when you're at sea because you don't feel just how the Earth responds to that moment of totality. The cicadas went quiet. There's no bird song. The ground starts to cool. You can feel your energy just drop.

And then, moments later, or 93 seconds later, the Sun starts to come back up again. The cicadas start to chirp again. The ground starts to heat up again, and you feel the energy coming back up through you again.

So, really an extraordinary and beautiful moment that I don't think anybody here will forget. And a lot of people seeing it for the first time saying, okay, now we are so into this. We want to make sure that we watch every single total eclipse that we possibly can. As you've mentioned before, it's supposed to be in Egypt. It's going to be a really long one, so that's exciting. And I -- I think, despite the fact that, honestly, it was boiling hot,

it was like 95 degrees here, there isn't infrastructure here to facilitate all these people coming and watching from this spot. There's no bathrooms. There's no one selling water. And yet, I didn't hear anyone complaining about any of it because there was just such genuine excitement to be witnessing a unique moment in the universe.

And as you heard from Saskya and you heard from Isa, just putting your phone down, putting the nonsense away, and looking up and being in awe. What a beautiful privilege to witness. Thank you, guys, for letting me be part of it.

KEILAR: Oh, thank you for taking us along for the ride there from Mallorca. And team coverage, right? 2027, Egypt, August 2nd. We'll -- we'll be there with you, right?

WARD: You know it. (INAUDIBLE), are you listening?

KEILAR: All right, we're on the record with that. Clarissa, thank you seriously so much. That was so much fun to do with you.

And now, here in the U.S., a surprise, a runoff, and a growing call for Democrats to unite. Another primary day is in the books, with the midterms less than three months away.

SANCHEZ: And topping the list of key takeaways, establishment Democrats pulling off a big upset in the Wisconsin governor's race. Moderate David Crowley narrowly defeating Francesca Hong and cooling off what's been a hot summer for Democratic socialists.

Next door in Minnesota, though, progressive candidate Peggy Flanagan defeated centrist Angie Craig in the Democratic Senate primary.

And in the special election in South Carolina, to see which Republican will replace the late Senator Lindsey Graham on the ballot this fall, his sister Darline Graham is advancing to a runoff against Congressman Ralph Norman.

We're joined now by Chuck Todd, host of the Chuck ToddCast.

Chuck, great to see you, as always. Just wondering ...

CHUCK TODD, HOST, "THE CHUCK TODDCAST": Nice to see you.

SANCHEZ: ... what were your key takeaways from last night? What most stood out to you?

C. TODD: Well, look, what happened in Wisconsin is, is gigantic. It's one of the -- I can't think of another non-presidential primary. We've had some interesting upsets during presidential primary seasons multiple times, whether it's Santorum in Iowa, the famous Hillary Clinton comeback, things like that.

But we've never seen something like this, especially when you think about the circumstances of David Crowley. He had dropped out of the race to rally around another candidate, then she has -- you know, has to drop out due to scandal. He gets back in, right?

I mean, it is -- it is, I -- I hope somebody does a nice little 40- to 45-minute documentary on this because it's a truly remarkable 21 days. But, in some ways, we've been learning the same lessons over and over on both sides of this argument inside the Democratic Party.

For progressives, they keep running into an urban wall, right? Whether -- I mean, we saw it in Michigan. Abdul El-Sayed barely hang on -- hung on, but he struggled with African-American voters and working- class Democrats in the Detroit area.

Last night, with Francesca Hong, she came up short. And again, what was it? African-American voters, in particular, in Milwaukee. And this is a pattern we've seen. You know, progressives have not been able to really break 50 percent in some -- and many, of these places. They win when there's fracture -- fracturing with the establishment. We've seen that in a few primaries. If they have a closed primary, that can be helpful to them.

This was a wide-open primary. In fact, the turnout, the -- this is the largest Democratic primary turnout in Wisconsin history, I think, when you look back on it. I -- I couldn't find a higher one, certainly this century, and I struggled to find one overnight at the tail end of that one.

So, you had a lot of things that -- that made it harder for progressives, that sort of gave, you know, was sort of extra hurdles. Open primary was an extra hurdle. A large African-American constituency is an extra hurdle. And it's -- it's -- in some ways, it's the same challenges progressives have to go from, say, an important faction of the Democratic Party to become, say, the leading faction of the Democratic Party.

KEILAR: Yes, and I mean, notably, Francesca Hong spent the final weeks of her campaign just being peppered about a 2020 tweet where ...

C. TODD: Yes.

KEILAR: ... she advocated for canceling Thanksgiving. In an interview just the other day, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tried to distance herself from what she called woke one. What are we seeing here ...

C. TODD: Right.

KEILAR: ... and how do you think voters are going to approach this?

C. TODD: Well, look, if you're, you know, take -- you know, if you're Mamdani or AOC, how do you separate yourself from Hong? You say, hey, when you're talking about issues that the voters themselves care about and agree with you on, like cost of living and -- and, you know, we -- we need to figure out how to make things more affordable and more accessible, you can find a wider audience.

It's -- you know, this has happened on the right too. When Trump is focused, or when the MAGA movement is focused, on cost issues or on, you know, say it, law and order issues, they can have a wider audience. When it starts to get into the weird cultural stuff that is just out of the mainstream, whether it's Christian nationalism on the right or these, like, woke dorm room debates about the history of Thanksgiving, you know, it just -- voters go, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You know, I -- I was willing to listen about, you know, Medicare for all, but what -- what are you talking about with Thanksgiving?

Now, look, it is worth noting, you know, you want to talk about all the what-ifs in this race. What if Francesca Hong never goes on that national media tour? Now, there was a reason she had to. She had a money crunch. They were -- you know, they don't -- she didn't have sort of the big outside spending. She didn't have a big -- the only way many progressives can raise money is by going on mainstream media or on going and trying to use those clips to go viral to raise money from a national fundraising base.

But then, you know, in order to go viral, you kind of have to have your sort of odd cultural positions debated on air. And I do think that made it even easier for Crowley to get in -- to get an audience in Wisconsin.

KEILAR: Yes, a very interesting race to watch, and love getting your insights. Chuck Todd, as always, thank you so much.

C. TODD: I wish I was there for the eclipse and I ...

KEILAR: I know.

SANCHEZ: Yes, next time.

C. TODD: ... I want in on this Egypt thing.

KEILAR: Yeah, great.

SANCHEZ: Yes. Is it ...

C. TODD: I want in on this.

KEILAR: You want in on the team coverage?

C. TODD: So, if you guys are covering from Egypt, let me in, you know?

KEILAR: All right. It's just -- August -- August 2nd ...

C. TODD: Yes.

KEILAR: ... 2027, it's going to be six minutes of totality.

C. TODD: You got it.

KEILAR: All right, we're really ...

C. TODD: We -- we're all going to want to break from the presidential primary season anyway. It's a perfect time.

[15:15:07]

SANCHEZ: Yeah.

C. TODD: A totally clips to that to focus on this. Let's do it.

KEILAR: Yes.

C. TODD: Count me in.

KEILAR: Total -- we'll call it a total eclipse -- total eclipse of politics, and Chuck Todd will join us.

C. TODD: Yes.

KEILAR: It'll be perfect. Chuck, thank you so much.

C. TODD: Bye, guys.

KEILAR: So, still ahead, a new tool for ICE agents is sparking alarm from civil rights advocates. Thousands of ICE officers could soon be outfitted with gloves that deliver painful electric shocks.

SANCHEZ: Plus, protests growing near the U.S. southern border as bulldozers clear land in Big Bend National Park, but the Trump administration is moving ahead with the project despite bipartisan opposition.

And a mental health counselor takes the stand in the trial of Lindsay Clancy, the mother accused of killing her three kids. We'll bring you the latest from court.

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[15:20:15]

KEILAR: CNN has learned that ICE is planning to arm its agents with an unusual tool, gloves that deliver electrical shock.

SANCHEZ: Yes, ICE plans to spend some $10- to $20 million dollars to buy them. This is worrying activists, though the manufacturer says the gloves could actually be used to de-escalate some encounters. CNN's Brian Todd joins us now.

Brian, what are you learning about this?

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, guys, you know, of course, ICE going from some tactics that they previously used that were extremely controversial to yet another tactic that is probably going to be very controversial in and of itself. As Brianna and Boris mentioned, the ICE is planning to spend between $10- and $20 million dollars to purchase these gloves. They should be delivered in March of next year, so there's still a ways away from using them.

Here is a -- a demo video that the manufacturer, Compliant Technologies LLC, put out showing how the company says this can de- escalate confrontations. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, if I was back here and I'm working with Wyatt (ph) and he started to struggle with me, I would say, Wyatt.

WYATT: (Expletive) ...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now, if you take a look at Wyatt (ph), he's got no burn signatures. Nothing happened to his skin. He's perfectly fine, but that fight ended in less than three seconds.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

B. TODD: And that is a big claim from the company, that they can de- escalate situations like that in three seconds or less.

Here are some details about this device. It's called the CTG 5 G.L.O.V.E. And G.L.O.V.E. is an acronym for Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter. According to Compliant Technologies and the user manual. The gloves can deliver a maximum voltage of up to 380 volts. The manual says no more than two gloves should be used on a person at one time, that they should not be used for more than 15 seconds in many instances. The user's manual says gloves have to come into direct contact with the skin and that they are not effective through clothing or hair. So, that's an important feature there.

Company officials and distributors, as we mentioned there, they say that they can end a struggle or a confrontation in maybe three seconds or less. And the company warns that gloves should not be used on high- risk individuals like pregnant women, elderly people, small children and severely disabled people. It's not clear right now how many gloves are going to be purchased, how much each set of gloves is going to cost, and exactly when officers are going to start using them.

But, guys, we did hear that they're going to deliver these in March of next year.

KEILAR: All right, but -- so, one of the things that we've seen with some of the interactions is, I mean, first off, you can't always tell if someone's pregnant.

B. TODD: That's a good point.

KEILAR: Right?

B. TODD: Right.

KEILAR: So, let's be clear. Especially in cold weather, when people ...

B. TODD: Yep.

KEILAR: ... are all rugged up with coats, we've seen how sometimes elderly people are treated. You can't always tell if someone's disabled.

B. TODD: That's absolutely correct.

KEILAR: Right? You can't. There's all of these questions. What are critics saying about their concerns here?

B. TODD: Critics and proponents are kind of weighing in here. This is from John Peters. He is president of the Institute for the Prevention of In-Custody Deaths. He's been studying the use of these gloves. Here's what he says, quote, "If the officer is getting any type of resistance from the person, this is certainly an effective tool for smaller officers or weaker officers or older officers. I think it has a great advantage because, he says, it can produce faster takedowns and shortened confrontations."

But this is from Jenn Rolnick Borchetta. She is the Deputy Project Director on Policing for the American Civil Liberties Union. Here's a quote from her, quote, "I spent the last year showing this country they are too quick to use force. They now will be able to deploy electric shocks with the slight push of a button that maybe nobody else can see them do. Introducing gloves that can so easily be used to deliver terrible pain in encounters is a recipe for harm to the public."

The Department of Homeland Security and Compliant Technologies LLC did not respond to CNN's request for comment on the use of these devices. But you raise some great points. If a woman is in her first trimester of pregnancy, a lot of the time you can't tell she's pregnant, so if a confrontation happens and this is used on her, that could be devastating.

KEILAR: Yes, that Wyatt (ph) gentleman appeared to be laughing at the end, but I suspect ...

B. TODD: He was ...

KEILAR: ... someone in a sort of a real-life encounter might not be ...

SANCHEZ: Yes.

B. TODD: Absolutely.

KEILAR: ... having a chuckle there. Brian Todd, thanks so much.

B. TODD: Sure.

KEILAR: Ahead on CNN NEWS CENTRAL, we have some breaking news in the trial of Lindsay Clancy, the mother accused of murdering her three children. Stay with us for that.

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[15:28:56]

SANCHEZ: A judge has just paused testimony in the triple murder trial of Massachusetts mom Lindsay Clancy. Attorneys are focusing on the mental health treatment and medications that she received weeks before she killed her three young kids.

KEILAR: Prosecutors alleged that Clancy acted intentionally when she strangled the children and then attempted suicide. The defense argues she is not criminally responsible because she was suffering from postpartum psychosis and extreme mental illness. CNN's Jean Casarez is with us now.

And Jean, court just had to take a quick break. Tell us why.

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Court just came to a very abrupt halt in -- because the medical examiner Barbara Olson was on the stand testifying about five-year-old Cora's ligature furrows in her neck. This is obviously part of the autopsy testimony. Lindsay Clancy started sobbing and then she actually yelled out words in court, take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And what -- what about ...

LINDSAY CLANCY, SUSPECT OF MURDERING HER CHILDREN: I can't do this.

JUDGE WILLIAM SULLIVAN: All right. Counsel, could ...

CLANCY: (INAUDIBLE) ...

SULLIVAN: (INAUDIBLE) take a break this time, all right?

[15:30:05]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Court, all rise. Jurors, close your notebooks, place on the chairs, please.