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Grand Prix Racing Takes Over D.C. Streets For America's 250th; Vance Holds Rally In Ohio To Tout White House Economic Agenda; Trump Departs White House To Rally For South Carolina Senator, Darline Graham; U.S., Canada Race To Reach Deal Ahead Of Midnight Tariff Deadline; Trump Vows To Crush Iran Financially; Supreme Court Temporarily Allows White House Ballroom Construction To Continue; Analysis Finds 150-Plus Polymarket Accounts May Have Bet On Military Secrets; Defense Rests In Lindsay Clancy Triple-Murder Trial. Aired 2- 2:30p ET

Aired August 21, 2026 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:00]

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: -- after the first week in September for them to get all of this out of there. A two-month disruption in major traffic patterns. A lot of people in D.C. are unhappy about this, but a lot of people are jacked. It's going to be kind of a cool, you know.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": I mean, it'll look pretty great when you see these amazing vehicles going through, again, close to the Capitol, the Washington Monument. I think the backdrop is going to be unlike any other.

TODD: Absolutely.

SANCHEZ: Brian's going to be covering it this weekend.

TODD: We'll do.

SANCHEZ: It's going to be very exciting. Brian Todd, thank you so much for that report.

TODD: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: A new hour of "CNN News Central" starts right now.

ERICA HILL, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": On the road again. The president and vice president hitting the campaign trail today to talk up the administration's policies. So will that message win over voters?

Plus, possible insider trading, how more than 100 prediction market accounts may have traded on top secret U.S. military intelligence. And protests and vandalism in dozens of states. Why many -- why so many are protesting these A.I.-powered surveillance cameras?

We're following these major developing stories and many more, all coming in right here to "CNN News Central." SANCHEZ: The White House is blazing the campaign trail today ahead of the critical upcoming midterm elections. And just moments ago, Vice President J.D. Vance spoke at a steel factory in his Ohio hometown, one where his grandfather worked for 40 years.

He's there to support Republican candidates on the ballot and to tout the Trump administration's economic agenda.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

J.D. VANCE, (R) VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: We got a lot of work to do, but we're making progress on all the things that matter the most. On the affordability question, we know that under Joe Biden, the cost of a median price home nearly doubled.

Now, for the first time in over five years, rents are falling for the first time. We got a lot of work to do, but we're finally seeing that American dream of homeownership become accessible again to our young people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Soon, President Trump will hit the campaign trail himself, holding a rally for Senator Darline Graham. These campaign rallies are happening as Republicans face a challenging task to hold on to power in the upcoming November elections.

The president's approval ratings are low and dropping amid the war with Iran, rising gas prices and affordability concerns. This week, the national debt also passed $40 trillion for the first time in U.S. history.

Let's discuss with Henrietta Treyz. She's the Director of Economic Policy for Veda Partners. Henrietta, thank you so much for being with us.

So, higher gas prices because of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the limiting of the export of fuel there, it's cutting into overall spending and includes some reporting from Walmart. They put out that they had the slowest sales growth since the earliest month of the pandemic. How do you read those numbers? What do they indicate about who is being impacted the most and how?

HENRIETTA TREYZ, DIRECTOR OF ECONOMIC POLICY, VEDA PARTNERS: You know, it's amazing. It's really some of Trump's own voters who are starting to feel the pain the worst. It is across low-income voters. It is across folks who need to pay now 40 percent more just to fill up their truck or their car to go to work, $2 across various states more expensive diesel, which is how we get all of our food, your Amazon packages, whatever it may be.

So the economic malaise that is expressed in the University of Michigan Index and others is really starting to hit with Trump's own voters. A lot of that is compounding from the tariffs, obviously the war with Iran, and it just it just keeps coming. So the administration is going to have to cherry pick its data if they want to sell good news in South Carolina or in Texas, where the president is going next week.

SANCHEZ: You mentioned tariffs. Walmart and others have now claimed billions in tariff refunds. Does that mean that we're going to see lower prices at some of these retailers?

TREYZ: Not yet. It hasn't happened. I do think that they are preparing for some very tough questioning from Democrats if and when they take over control of the House or the Senate next year. One of the big questions is going to be, OK, so Walmart, Apple, Google, whomever, you got an exclusion from these tariffs or you got a refund for these tariffs. Did you return any of those costs to consumers? Did you lower the price of an iPhone? Did you lower the price of back to school goods like a backpack or what have you?

And that's something that the Walmarts of the world would do well to get in front of because the Democrats are coming for them at the various committees and jurisdiction across the House from my conversations with leadership there. So it definitely would make sense for them to get some money back flowing. I think it's interesting on the earnings call that they highlighted that is something they want to do, but we haven't actually seen yet.

A lot of intense focus on ongoing negotiations over a trade deal between the United States and Canada. And just after midnight, some 50 percent tariffs are going to be placed on roughly $20 billion worth of Canadian imports unless President Trump postpones them further or that deal is finalized. Are you expecting that we're going to see that happen or a delay? If not, what could that deal look like?

[14:05:00]

TREYZ: No, I do not expect to see those tariffs go on. The president's chance to put those on was really last Wednesday. We still haven't seen text of the deal and yet the tariffs are not on. So I'm expecting that they will not go on tonight at midnight either.

Frankly, just the jurisdiction, the Section 338 tariff authority that he was trying to use is going to come under severe legal scrutiny just like the 301s or the 232s or the IEEPA tariffs that got repealed by the Supreme Court earlier this year.

The 338 authority is really a huge flag for everybody in the trade universe and the legal universe to say, hey, these are probably not coming. Plus, talk about shooting yourself in the foot. I mean, this hits the farmers, the manufacturing sector. You've got a motorcycle. If you're the Detroit big three, you're going to get slammed by a 50 percent tariff. It's going to cost you jobs in the United States, across states that the Republican Party, quite frankly, can't afford to lose.

Michigan, Ohio, states where there are big Senate races that the administration needs to hold on to in November.

SANCHEZ: We talked about the factors influencing energy prices, namely the ongoing war with Iran. President Trump is promising to crush Tehran economically. Can he do it without some of the backing that Tehran has in Beijing and in Moscow? Does it not need to be an all-out effort with the countries that are supporting Iran if these sanctions were to really work and create leverage for the U.S. in these negotiations?

TREYZ: Boris, that's exactly right. You need to go after China. And as we all know, the president has reached a detente with China. He very much wants President Xi to come to the United States on September 24th, have a big state meeting, a state dinner and all the pomp and circumstance that goes along with that. If you're going to try to strangle Iran, you must defer to China. You must go after them directly.

And that risks derailing the September 24th meeting that we know from our conversations the administration very much wants to see. So the thing that I would say for the American public is that gas prices right now are $4.10, likely to be $4.11 by tomorrow per gallon. That's probably the low end of where we're going to be for the next couple of weeks, if not months.

We've been at sort of a stagnant ground here. So that's the direction of travel and the president's blockades, the bombing. The past six months of military action has not proven effective at breaking Iran, just as 47 years of sanctions haven't.

So we'll find out what Secretary Bessent plans to do about this Monday when he holds his press briefing to explain what his sanctions are going to be. But as you point out, targeting China is going to be a huge problem that would impact everything you buy at Walmart, Target, Dollar General, Home Depot, Lowe's. I mean, that's the tradeoff.

SANCHEZ: Yeah. Henrietta Treyz, appreciate the expertise. Thanks for joining us.

TREYZ: Thanks for having me.

SANCHEZ: Of course. Erica?

HILL: So President Trump is set to take his message to South Carolina today, where he's looking to shore up support for Senator Darline Graham. The president, of course, endorsed her. She is the sister of his close ally, the late Senator Lindsey Graham. She replaced him, of course, when he passed, running now in this special election.

The race, though, is really yet another major test for the president's political pull as Graham has struggled under the spotlight. CNN's Alayna Treene joining us now from the White House. The president has not wavered in his support for Darline Graham over objections from some Republicans.

He's also had a few losses, as we've seen at this point. What is the plan here for him to push Graham over the finish line?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Well, you're exactly right, Erica. I mean, the president hasn't wavered. His team and I've spoken with some of the president's political advisers. They're still all in on Darline Graham, particularly because this is a weighty endorsement. And the president really did go to aggressive lengths to get behind her after the passing of Lindsey Graham, of course, one of the president's closest former allies.

And so there's a lot that has been going on behind the scenes now, particularly after, as you mentioned, that shaky debate on Tuesday, which we also saw the same night that Darline Graham had fumbled a bit in that debate. The president also saw three of his endorsed candidates and other primaries lose those races. And so there's a lot on the line as people are questioning the weight of his endorsement moving forward.

Now, we have some reporting that the president has called up old rivals to try and push them to line up behind Graham. And he's also called some of Graham's former challengers, those who did not make it to the runoff between, you know, Graham and Congressman Ralph Norman, those two have made it to the runoff. The other two candidates, though, President Donald Trump called and tried to press her into getting behind Graham.

Both of them kind of took a while to make up their minds on this, which I think is pretty interesting. One of them, of course, is Rep. Russell Fry. The other is former Governor, Mark Sanford.

[14:10:00]

Our colleagues, Patrick Svitek and Dianne Gallagher, have a great story with some of this reporting. But they note that Fry was not immediately eager to get behind Graham and actually took a second call from President Donald Trump to get him to come out and support her.

And then Sanford actually just kind of made up his own mind and said, I'm going to go behind Norman in this race. And so there's a lot here, I think, to keep, you know, to keep an eye on, particularly I'm looking forward to seeing what's going to happen at this event today and whether or not the president tries to play off some of that, if that's a strategy that they actually try to deploy.

But through all of this, a big question remains whether or not the president's efforts will be enough for voters who are questioning whether, you know, Graham, someone who's not really had a political background, if her first time getting into politics should be in the U.S. Senate.

HILL: Yeah, there's also -- there are also a number of eyes on the president to see how he is handling the scrutiny over his very close aide, Natalie Harp. The Daily Beast, publishing now two letters which she wrote to the president expressing her devotion to him. Is the White House weighing in at all? It's been quite a week.

TREENE: It has. And there's been a lot of tension, of course, on this story. What's been so interesting, Erica, is that it's actually a story that, you know, I've talked to some -- many different White House officials this week about it, and they've acknowledged privately that some of the reaction from the president's own allies and even people in that building behind me is part of what has kept this story alive. But what we've heard from the White House has really been the same statement that they've been circulating for a couple of days now. It's one we got on Tuesday. It's another we got today in light of the full letters, the letters that Harp had written back in 2023 being published in full.

The statement from Davis Ingle, one of the White House spokespeople, said that Harp is one of the most loyal and hardest working aides on President Trump's team. Now, I will say again, that is very different from what we've heard from some other officials earlier in the week who were very aggressive in their pushback and even really made some personal attacks against those who were talking about Harp.

And they've noted that perhaps that's not the right strategy, because that's keeping this alive and having people --

HILL: Yeah.

TREENE: -- talk about it more. So, interesting to see how they'll try to tamp this down moving forward.

HILL: Yeah, Alayna, appreciate it. Thank you.

Still ahead here, new signs of potential insider trading on war markets. The new report looking at the prediction markets with some alarming experts and lawmakers -- experts and lawmakers on Capitol Hill, they're a little worried about this. We'll dive into that report.

Plus, the defense resting in the triple-murder trial of Lindsay Clancy after hearing from a forensic psychiatrist who testified in the 2006 trial of Andrea Yates. We'll take a closer look at that case and how it could actually be key in defending for this mother, defending her from serving prison time.

And the growing outrage across the country over flock cameras. CNN talks about so-called mass vigilante. That and much more ahead on "CNN News Central."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:17:24]

HILL: Breaking News, another win for President Trump and his controversial ballroom construction project at the White House. CNN's Kevin Liptak joining us now with the very latest. So what did the Supreme Court say here?

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Right, and this is a victory, albeit a temporary one. Remember, two lower courts had ruled that the president's construction of the ballroom was illegal because he hadn't gone to Congress and they had ordered it to stop, but they had been given this two-week grace period in order for the Supreme Court to intervene.

Now, the Supreme Court has said now that the construction can continue, but they did not rule on the legality of the project. They're simply allowing the construction to continue as they continue to deliberate. And so this is a victory, yes, for President Trump, but not one that is necessarily on the grounds of the case here, but one that will allow the construction to proceed.

And remember, in their filing last week, the White House had said that the ballroom project is 60 percent complete already, that they have a staff of 250 people working 20-hour days, seven days a week. That was part of the reasoning why they said this construction must continue. Now, the Supreme Court's saying that it can continue as it continues to weigh the legality of what the president is doing here.

HILL: All right, Kevin, appreciate the update there. Thank you. Boris?

SANCHEZ: A new report is uncovering possible insider trading involving secret military data. A non-profit analysis says more than 150 accounts on the prediction platform, Polymarket, may have used confidential military intelligence to bet on defense-related events.

CNN's Marshall Cohen has the details for us. So, Marshall, what more are you learning?

MARSHALL COHEN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: You know, Boris, it seems like this insider trading stuff just keeps coming up, doesn't it? The context on this is important. War markets, like you're talking about, are illegal in the U.S., and all the trades that you mentioned occurred on Polymarket's international site. The important thing about this is that that site runs on block chain, so all the trades are actually public and trackable.

Even though that doesn't tell us who's actually doing the trading, the data is still incredibly valuable, and the folks at the non-partisan anti-corruption data collective did a deep dive.

[14:20:00]

They found more than 150 accounts that showed signs of potential insider trading on war markets including markets about Iran. They said many of these accounts placed huge long-shot bets and had a stunning win rate of 97 percent and all together they profited more than $8 million.

Now to be totally transparent here, I want to make clear that Polymarket is not accused of any wrongdoing. I spoke with a senior Polymarket official about these findings and they said they had already flagged dozens of those accounts to the Justice Department and said that they believe criminal investigations are underway. CNN has reached out to the DOJ for comment on that.

Now, Polymarket says it is investing heavily in internal surveillance to prevent insider trading like this. The company's founder and CEO, Shayne Coplan, actually brought that up yesterday at an event with the federal regulators here in Washington, D.C. Take a listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHAYNE COPLAN, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER & FOUNDER, POLYMARKET: We have someone here right now, who is ex-FBI, who works full-time at Polymarket. He has built custom proprietary surveillance software on Shein. I know this is live stream, so people are going to be upset to hear that, but you know we talked with our partners, Palantir, Chainalysis, and they're like, damn, you guys have this in-house? This is serious.

And we're grateful to have that, we can continue to invest more in it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COHEN: Looking at the big picture here, Boris, situations like these are exactly why so many policymakers are alarmed about prediction markets. There's a bipartisan coalition of 44 state attorney generals that are pushing hard for more regulation. There's an increasing number of both Democrats and Republicans in Congress who also want to rein in this booming industry.

SANCHEZ: Marshall Cohen, thank you so much for that report.

Coming up, the defense resting in a triple-murder trial of a mom accused of killing her three kids. Prosecutors now working to poke holes in the defense's case. The latest details from the Massachusetts courtroom, when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:26:42]

HILL: The defense rests in the Lindsay Clancy triple-murder trial after calling 10 witnesses, many testifying that Clancy's mental health and her attempts to get help in the months before she strangled her three young children to death. Clancy did not take the stand. Closing arguments are set to begin next week.

CNN's Brynn Gingras has been following these developments for us in the trial. So the prosecution now presenting rebuttal witnesses, Brynn.

BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN U.S. NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, that's right. They just got back from a lunch break, Erica, and they are starting one of three of what we're understanding in rebuttal witnesses.

But before that, before the defense actually rests, they probably called their strongest witness yet, and that was a forensic psychiatrist by the name of Philip Resnick. You might actually recognize his name. He has spent a career testifying in high-profile murder cases.

We're talking Jeffrey Dahmer, the Unabomber, Casey Anthony, Andrea Yates, of course, the last one being, drawing the most parallels to Lindsay Clancy. In fact, the defense, putting his entire 40-page resume in front of jurors as evidence, really kind of telling the jurors this is why you should pay attention to this witness. I mean, it was very obvious as you're watching the court trial go down.

And essentially, what this witness did for the defense was define the psychosis that he believes, and he said in court, that Lindsay Clancy was experiencing when she committed this act. I want you to hear a part of that testimony.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PHILLIP RESNICK, FORENSIC PSYCHIATRIST: She had what is known as a delusion of influence. That is, not only did she hear a command, but she felt that her body was taken over by an external force where she was in a dream state and did not have control of her own body. It was almost like she was a puppet and someone else was pulling the strings.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GINGRAS: And what you just heard there, we actually heard several different ways from that witness. When cross-examination happened, prosecution, again, hammering home, OK, so if she had these delusions, if she had these commands, how come it is not reflected in any single report by her medical doctor, psychiatrist, anybody, any therapist that she had met with previous to what happened in January 2023?

So, again, that has been the prosecution's sort of line of questioning that we have seen throughout this trial, and that continued. So, as I said, defense -- and as you said, Erica, defense has rested. We're now in the rebuttal part of this case, but getting closer to closing arguments and eventually the jury getting this case.

HILL: All right, Brynn, appreciate the update for us. Thank you.

GINGRAS: Yep.

HILL: Still ahead here, CNN learning North Korea has sent now thousands of additional troops to Russia as Moscow ramps up its attacks on Ukraine. New details on the NATO-style pact between the two countries. That's next.

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