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U.S. National Debt Hits Staggering $40 Trillion Milestone; Witnesses Testify To Davis' Conflicting Accounts Of Role In Tupac Shakur's Murder; Researchers: Moderna, Merck Vaccine Shows Promise In Melanoma Trial. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired August 20, 2026 - 07:30   ET

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

[07:30:00]

MATT EGAN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: So just since we started talking, we've added about $5 million to the national debt -- $285 million per hour, and almost $7 billion a day. And again, when you look at what this means per person, you're talking about $117,000 per person in the United States.

We look at the trend for the national debt going back to the start of the century. It was around $6 trillion in the year 2000. But look at this. It has just --

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Good gracious.

EGAN: -- skyrocketed since then. Why? Because of government spending. Because of tax cuts. Because of war after war after war.

Because in 2008, right around here, you had a once-in-a-century financial crisis. And then, in 2020, we had a once-in-a-century pandemic. You put it all together and yes, you get $40 trillion.

Now, it's also true that the U.S. economy is a lot bigger today than it was back --

SIDNER: Right.

EGAN: -- in 2000. That's why we like to look at debt to GDP. Now, even on that metric though things are moving in the wrong direction.

Back in 1966, the debt was about 40 percent of the economy. In 1996, 64 percent. But look at this. More than the entire --

SIDNER: Just insane.

EGAN: -- size of the economy. And it's projected to go higher and higher.

Now, one of the reasons the debt has gone up is because the United States has these aging demographics, right? Every single day you've got about 10,000 baby boomers retiring and that has forced the government to spend more on what? Social Security, right? So far, this fiscal year alone, $1.4 trillion in Social Security. Another $955 billion on Medicare.

But this is not just about aging demographics. Look at this net interest.

SIDNER: Wow

EGAN: This is essentially how much the government has to spend just to finance the mountain of debt. Nine hundred thirty-one billion dollars just this fiscal year. On track to suppress a trillion dollars.

And what's really notable is look at this. We're spending more to finance the debt than on the national defense, right? More money going to the creditors than on Stealth bombers, on the war, on military paychecks.

Why does this matter? Look, this is important because investors -- they're starting to get a little bit more concerned about the national debt. We've seen bond prices sell off and that has driven up treasury rates. And that's critical because treasuries -- they are the benchmark for the cost of borrowing across the economy. So the higher treasury rates go, the more expensive it is to get a

mortgage, and mortgages are already really expensive. The more expensive it is to get small business loans and car loans as well. And, of course, the more expensive it is for the government itself to borrow.

So look, bottom line, this is clearly a mess. There's a lot of finger- pointing going on. I think the truth is there's a lot of blame to go around, right? This has gone up under Republicans, under Democrats, during good times, during bad times. This is a look at $40 trillion. What does it equal?

SIDNER: That's --

EGAN: This is the economy of China, Germany, Japan, the U.K. and India combined.

But look, this is such a big mess that it's not something that any one party is going to be able to solve. They're going to have to come together. It's going to need bipartisan compromise.

SIDNER: It is the hardest thing to get on something this big in Congress. My goodness. I was just telling John I remember back in the '90s when we were watching this actually tick down during one of the president's -- President Clinton --

EGAN: Under Clinton.

SIDNER: Yeah. It -- we were literally watching that live clock tick down and now we're seeing it jump to these astronomical numbers. There is a lot to dig into here.

Thank you so much, Matt Egan.

EGAN: Thanks, Sara.

SIDNER: I do appreciate it -- John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. With us now, Axios senior contributor Margaret Talev, and Axios political reporter Stef Kight.

You know, Stef, as Matt said there, everyone is to blame for the size of the debt right now. I will say this though. Republicans, in particular -- they seem to hate deficits and the national debt except when they control the government here.

So how much of a problem is it for them right now?

STEF KIGHT, POLITICAL REPORTER, AXIOS (via Webex by Cisco): Yeah. I mean, we see this storyline play out over and over again where when Republicans are in the minority they talk about needing to make serious cuts and take real action to lower the national debt. And then when they're in power, we see the debt continue to grow, if not by an even faster -- at an even faster pace.

And, you know, of course, there are the handful of conservatives in the House and the Senate who have continued to push for cuts to spending -- to government spending. But, of course, they are always overruled by the rest of the Republicans and by President Trump in the White House who clearly does not care so much about the national debt when he is in the White House.

And I do think it's interesting. When we look at the beginning of this term of this administration, there was so much emphasis on DOGE, on limiting government spending, on taking serious actions to cut back on how much the federal government spends and wastes. And we have seen that conversation shift away and we don't hear a lot of that same fervor from Republicans these days.

[07:35:00]

BERMAN: And Margaret, in the communications business we would say there's something of an optics problem here, too. Because as the national debt crossed the $40 trillion threshold, President Trump was outside talking about spending on home improvements -- listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm fixing that too. We're fixing the White House, too. But we got rid of the asphalt here and this is granite. It's called a flawless granite. It's -- we get the best stuff. This was all black asphalt that was in terrible shape. The grass was in terrible shape. This has all been redone. It's all been top-soiled.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Now, President Trump has shown that he has remarkable political instincts over the last 10-12 years on some things. But this, Margaret -- what do you think about his continued emphasis on this sort of spending and home improvement and beautification around D.C.? MARGARET TALEV, SENIOR CONTRIBUTOR, AXIOS, DIRECTOR, INSTITUTE FOR DEMOCRACY, JOURNALISM AND CITIZENSHIP, SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY (via Webex by Cisco): If you're going to do the granite it should definitely be the flawless granite, you know.

I -- look, John, there are so many different ways to look at this but one is that since President Trump first ran a decade ago for office for the first time the national debt has actually doubled. And bringing the debt under control was one of his campaign commitments way back when.

And we're starting to hear the term "debt spiral" more and more. And like, I'm not totally trying to alarm anyone at 7:30 in the morning but the idea with the debt spiral is that at a certain point your borrowing costs become so much that you're spending more and more taxpayer money to pay the borrowing costs.

It does increase things like -- it does increase not just the government's tab but how much consumers pay when they have to borrow money, and many Americans borrow money, so something like nine in 10 Americans. The Pierson Foundation told us earlier this year about nine in 10 Americans think debt is a real serious problem for the country and it's really going to hurt them.

Most Americans think that cutting spending is the only answer. Like, that's the way to get it done. And the reality is at this track because of, you know, bipartisan spending, you may actually have to cut spending and raise taxes.

At the same time, we're looking at polling and focus groups about how Americans are feeling about --

BERMAN: Um-hum.

TALEV: -- the president's various construction projects, the fights over signs, and that sort of thing. About two-thirds of Americans in that recent Washington Post/IPSOS poll disagree with his focus on construction projects. So there is a mismatch right now politically.

BERMAN: Yeah. I'm sure Congress will make those tough political decisions. If there's one thing they're known for its difficult political decisions.

I want to put this both to -- I want to play some sound from Jason Kelce doing a television commercial. And this is actually, I think, right up both of your alleys here because you're at Axios. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JASON KELCE, FORMER NFL PLAYER: Ah, (peeing). AI data centers waste millions of gallons of water. That's why Liquid Death and Garage Beer have decided to team up. We want your pee to cool these data centers.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go ahead and have another Garage Beer or Liquid Death sparkling energy, then send you pee to the AI data center of your choice.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: All right. So a) it's a funny ad. B) it's Jason Kelce who is an international celebrity. But c), it's attacking data centers. It's using the wild unpopularity of data centers in a commercial for water.

And Stef, I'll just put this to you because Axios -- one of the things you guys do every day is focus on the issues surrounding AI and the political implications. In the last few day you've had some really stunning reporting on just how wildly unpopular data centers are and the political kryptonite it is becoming in races around the country.

KIGHT: Yeah. It's becoming one of the sort of late-breaking issues that every single candidate on the ballot is going to have to deal with this year. And we're seeing candidates in both parties and politicians in both parties having to adjust how they talk about AI and how they talk about data centers.

And there is this difference between how we talk about it here in D.C. How policymakers and decision makers talk about AI and the competitiveness with China and needing to be at the forefront of this innovation versus what we're seeing from constituents and people who live across the country in these communities who are much more concerned about having to pay more for their electricity bills. About wasted water at these plants. About noise pollution and other issues that -- the way that some of these data centers actually impact communities.

And so members of Congress are going to have to grapple with this and candidates are going to have to figure a way to navigate this issue moving forward.

BERMAN: The alarm bell is going off in both parties right now. I'm not sure I've seen anything quite like this on a single issue this close to an actual election.

Margaret Talev, Stef Kight, great to see both of you. You guys both do great work and Axios goes great work covering this as well. Thank you -- Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: In the race for the Georgia governor's mansion, Republican nominee Rick Jackson has pitched himself as an immigration hardliner, promising that immigrants who break the law will leave, in his words, "deported or departed."

[07:40:03]

But before politics, he was the founder of a massive health care empire and CNN has learned one of his companies was accused in a class-action lawsuit of actually trafficking immigrant nurses.

CNN's Steve Contorno has this new reporting and he's joining us now. Steve, what are you learning?

STEVE CONTORNO, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Well Kate, Jackson was relatively unknown before entering this race for governor of Georgia and one of the ways he introduced himself was by pushing putting his wealth into ads that introduced himself to Georgia voters as an immigration hardliner.

But we found that at the same time he was running in this primary he was -- a company he owns, named Avante Healthcare, was in the middle of a class-action lawsuit where it was accused by foreign nurses brought to the United States of violating trafficking laws.

And these nurses said that when they arrived in the U.S., brought here by Avante Healthcare, that they were trapped in multiyear contracts that made it almost impossible to take time off. And when they tried to leave, they were told that they would have to pay fines up to tens of thousands of dollars and that they would have ICE contacted.

Now, Avante denies wrongdoing then and in a statement now to us, but they did settle and 5,200 people qualified for this class-action lawsuit and a piece of this $3 million settlement.

What's also interesting is that the rhetoric between Jackson is quite different on immigration from his company. Take a look at this ad that ran all throughout the spring.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICK JACKSON CAMPAIGN AD: I don't care if your Muslim or Mongolian. You don't have the right to force your culture on our country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CONTORNO: But look at what Avante says to its own foreign workforce. They say, "You don't have to choose between the culture you came from and the one you're adapting to. Finding harmony between the two creates a well-rounded, multicultural identity that enhances both your personal and professional life."

Now I should also point out that a 2020 lawsuit brought by Avante tried to -- against the Trump administration -- tried to get four nurses into the country much faster. And they are also supporting a lawsuit that is trying to get a $100,000 fee that Trump has tacked onto certain visas taken away for foreign nurses as well. And that obviously comes as Jackson is promising to be a partner with the Trump administration on immigration.

Now we brought all of this to the Jackson campaign, and this is the statement we got back. "Avante nurses came to America legally, waiting several years, learned Spanish, paid taxes, and saved lives. Avante entered into the settlement to avoid the cost of litigation, allowing the company to focus entirely on connecting the U.S. health care system with qualified nurses."

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Steve Contorno, great reporting. Thank you so much -- Sara.

SIDNER: All right. Thank you, Kate. Happening today, more testimony expected in the murder trial of Duane "Keffe D" Davis, the man accused of orchestrating the 1996 killing of Tupac Shakur.

We heard different versions of who Davis said killed Tupac. A former FBI agent testified that in 1998, David blamed Compton police, who he said were working for Suge Knight, for Tupac's death.

But a former LAPD detective gave a different account from the defendant. He testified that Davis described his own crew carrying out the attack.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DARYN DUPREE, WITNESS, FORMER LAPD DETECTIVE: Mr. Davis had the gun at first. But they came up on the passenger side of Suge Knight and Mr. Shakur's vehicle, so he couldn't shot across the driver. So he handed the gun to Dre in the backseat -- Deandrae Smith. He was afraid to shoot. Mr. Anderson grabbed the gun and shot across Mr. Smith into Mr. Knight's car that Tupak Shakur was in with Mr. Knight.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: So which Keffe D story will the jury believe?

Joining me now is CNN legal analyst and criminal defense attorney Joey Jackson. You've talked a lot about this because now we're hearing these two

different versions of what he told police around -- you know, a couple of years after the murder. It really muddies the waters about the believability of Duane Davis, the defendant.

But doesn't that fit right into this defense that he was just talking smack, if you will, and he's not to be believed even after he confessed his role in Tupak's murder to police?

JOEY JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY, FORMER PROSECUTOR: Yes, Sara, it really does. And just so by way of context, what happens is that the first time he told the story -- this would have been in 1998 -- about a year and 10 months after the July 1996, right? Excuse me, September 1996 killing.

[07:45:00]

What ends up happening is he knows nothing, wasn't involved. Says, in fact, that this police officer did it. And that's his narrative at that point.

Now fast-forward 10 years later, Sara, when he's interviewed by this LAPD detective -- you just showed the clip -- and what does he say? Now he changes the story. His crew is involved. He turned it into the -- he took the gun. He put it to the backseat.

Why is all this significant? Because the whole case of the prosecution is based on and predicated upon his own statements -- that is, Keffe D. And in the event that you're basing it upon someone's own statements, should those statements not at least be consistent?

Did he tell Keffe D the story in 1998? I did it. I was involved. In 2008, I did it, I was involved -- no. So you're now having to parse through the inconsistencies of statements.

And by the way, last point, if you consider the context in which he made the statement where he gave that admission, what we didn't show was that this same LAPD detective said oh, and by the way, when he told us that, he was facing the prospect of a lifetime jail sentence in federal court for a drug conviction. So that's why he was playing ball with us.

What else is he going to say, the defense will say, and that's going to be so important as to whether the jury buys the first story, the second story, or no story at all because you need corroboration. There needs to be some independent witness that puts him there and, to date, the prosecutors have not done that.

SIDNER: We will see what happens. I know you're watching it closely, Joey Jackson. Thank you.

Full coverage of the trial starts at 11:00 Eastern. You can scan that QR code on the screen or watch it on cnn.com/tupaktrial -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: There's a lot of energy and talk about the results of a largescale medical study of a skin cancer vaccine. The drugs companies Moderna and Merck are reporting promising results from a personalized mRNA cancer vaccine trial. This focuses specifically on melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer.

According to the company data, researchers found the combination of Moderna's experimental mRNA vaccine and Merck's immunotherapy drug -- which you're probably heard of before -- Keytruda -- significantly reduced the risk of cancer returning or spreading.

The company says that the key to this vaccine is it specifically is tailored for each patient using the unique mutations of each tumor to then help the patient's immune system to recognize and attack the cancer cells.

The trial involved more than 1,100 patients with high-risk melanoma who already had their tumors removed.

Let's talk about what this really means though. Joining me right now is Dr. Celine Gounder, infectious disease specialist, epidemiologist, and very relevant to this discussion as a melanoma survivor. It's really good to see you.

DR. CELINE GOUNDER, INFECTIOUS DISEASE SPECIALIST AND EPIDEMIOLOGIST, EDITOR-AT-LARGE FOR PUBLIC HEALTH, KFF HEALTH NEWS: Great to see you, Kate.

BOLDUAN: What do you think of this when -- with what we know so far?

GOUNDER: Well, it's very exciting. And I think one of the people -- one of the things people don't realize is your immune system is actually a really important check against cancer. It surveils your body for cancer. It fights it off. It contains it.

One of the things cancers do is that they tell the immune system to stand down.

BOLDUAN: Um-hum.

GOUNDER: So the Keytruda is actually telling the immune system to stand up again, while the mRNA vaccine -- they're tailored very specifically to your melanoma, your cancer, and that is teaching the body -- the immune system this is what the cancer looks like. So the combination of the two is what is fighting off the cancer.

BOLDUAN: And that's what's different this time. There was a lot of talk and if people hear mRNA, they know that this really came about, if you will, with the development of the COVID-19 vaccines. But the basis of what became COVID vaccines was this new type of way of coming about and going about making a vaccine, which was mRNA. And that's what's different here and this is why this seems significant to so many.

GOUNDER: That's right. And I think a lot of people hear mRNA vaccine. A lot of people are still very upset with what happened during the pandemic. A lot of people have ideas that mRNA is going to change your DNA -- which, by the way, it does not. The mRNA vaccines -- if you remember your grade school biology, you have the cell, the cytoplasm, the nucleus in the middle. Your DNA is protected in the nucleus. The mRNA doesn't get in there.

But it is very exciting that we're able to use this technology --

BOLDUAN: Um-hum.

GOUNDER: -- for so many different applications.

But it's sort of like saying peptides. You have peptides that are GLP- 1s for -- like Ozempic.

BOLDUAN: Um-hum.

GOUNDER: You know, the weight loss drugs. You have other peptides that are gray market peptides. Similarly, mRNA vaccine can mean so many different things.

BOLDUAN: I think that's an important clarification because when people are -- you know, they are uncomfortable -- they have a lot of feelings when they hear a lot of different words.

When people also hear the word "vaccine" they think prevention.

GOUNDER: Um-hum.

BOLDUAN: Doe this get to it all, preventing someone from getting cancer in the first place? GOUNDER: It does not. And so a vaccine is really you're teaching the immune system to fight something off. So it could be in the context of prevention, but it could also be in the context of a cancer.

And what they're doing is they are tailoring the mRNA vaccine. So they take a sample of the cancer. They sequence it. And so based on that they can create the mRNA vaccine which teaches it -- teaches your immune system to fight very specifically --

[07:50:05]

BOLDUAN: Um-hum.

GOUNDER: -- the cancer involved in your case.

BOLDUAN: On what this -- on this largescale trial the companies announced kind of the broad outlines of it. I kept, like, reading through all the reporting and I'm, like, waiting for me detail. They haven't put out a lot of the detailed results of kind of specifically the survival rates or recurrence rates of cancer. Saying though -- the way they put it is that patients lived longer without any recurrence and had fewer incidences of their cancer spreading.

What are you looking for when they do put out more data? What is statistically significant here?

GOUNDER: Well, what we're going to see is they're going to follow these patients for a few more years --

BOLDUAN: Yeah.

GOUNDER: -- to see, you know, how the survival differs in the two groups.

You know, I think it -- some of this is subjective, you know.

BOLDUAN: Um-hum.

GOUNDER: Is living an extra year going to be significant to you and what are you willing to go through for that? So there is some subjectivity here.

But do we see a significant skewing of the curve, so to speak? And is that, given the cost, you know, an mRNA vaccine that is tailored to you is not a cheap thing to make.

BOLDUAN: (INAUDIBLE).

GOUNDER: And so to scale this up, you know, for everybody, I think we need to really see a bang for the buck to do this.

BOLDUAN: Yeah, but, you know, progress for progress can be seen, especially when it --

GOUNDER: Exciting.

BOLDUAN: -- comes with such a deadly cancer like melanoma. It's very significant.

It's good to see you.

GOUNDER: Good to see you.

BOLDUAN: Really good to see you. Thanks -- John.

BERMAN: A grandmother goes missing in Las Vegas and now her family is getting strange texts.

And we just spoke about AI data centers becoming political kryptonite -- voters saying they hate them. But how will they feel about AI movies or at least AI actors? The newest version of the late Val Kilmer.

(COMMERCIAL)

[07:55:55]

BOLDUAN: In Massachusetts, an 18-year-old found himself buried up to his chest in several feet of sand. Stuck there for more than an hour. Witnesses say he was building a sandcastle and digging a hole when it caved in on him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DOTTY COLEMAN, WITNESS: When Zac came to get up out of the hole that he had made for the moat, it just started falling in on him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Rescue crews were called, of course. It took about 25 people to dig him out. He was transported to a local hospital. He's said to be doing OK.

Now, family in New York says that their grandmother is missing in Las Vegas. Alisa Goods is 63 years old and went to Vegas to visit a friend. The family says she disappeared after taking a bus to a nearby CVS. On top of searching for her and worrying for her, her family tells local news that they are now getting strange messages and phone calls from her phone asking for money and Bitcoin.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You're talking to Alisa, Alisa.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. Where you at right now?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm home doing nothing. Are you going to send the money now?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Authorities have not publicly said if they believe Goods was abducted; only saying that her missing persons case is still active.

And a daring rescue in northwest Montana. A man plunged 120 feet from an overlook into a creek in Glacier National Park.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE).

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: One hundred twenty feet. His family says he was standing on an overlook when the ground gave way beneath him. Two rescue choppers were called in. He was airlifted to safety. We are told he was on a ventilator for two days and suffered cracked ribs and a broken elbow. But I have to say lucky to be alive -- John.

BERMAN: For a fall like that.

All right. We're getting a new look at scenes from an upcoming film starring an actor who did not participate. Val Kilmer passed away more than a year ago, yet an AI version of him is a big part of the upcoming film "As Deep as the Grave."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

Clip from First Line Films "As Deep as the Grave."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So they just released this seven-minute clip. Kilmer's family did approve of using AI to create the digital version of him for the film.

With us now is CNN tech reporter Clare Duffy.

I mean, you know, look, it's a new frontier I guess in filmmaking. And the question is, is it a good frontier?

CLARE DUFFY, CNN TECH REPORTER: Oh yeah, it's pretty wild to see you. And, you know, this really is the first film that we are seeing a major actor having their AI likeness used to create a whole character for a movie like this. And remember, Val Kilmer did agree to participate in this project prior to getting sick and unfortunately passing away, and so that is sort of the line that they are drawing here is because he agreed to participate, they wanted to continue to include him in this film.

John and Coerte Voorhees there behind this film -- they sort of talked about how they are trying to use this as a model for how AI can ethically be used in Hollywood at a time when there is a lot of anxiety among human actors, human consumers about what this is going to mean for the art that we all consume.

Take a listen to what they said on that point.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JOHN VOORHEES, PRODUCER, "AS DEEP AS THE GRAVE": We were working on this project years ago and with years later, now that we have the family's support to do this, we do actually believe we can demonstrate something that is the right way to ethically portray a character in AI.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DUFFY: Now, I also talked to his daughter, Mercedes Kilmer, just a few months ago about the family's decision to participate in this project. And I asked her whether she would agree to allow the AI likeness of Val Kilmer to be used in future films by other filmmakers.