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Trade War with Canada Intensifies as Trump Renames Lake Ontario; GOP Privately Worries About Trump Upcoming Midterm Convention; Jury Deliberations Underway in Linsay Clancy Trial; Inside the Rapidly Growing Doomsday Prepper Movement. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired August 28, 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: New reaction today to President Trump's executive order renaming Lake Ontario to Lake America as the U.S. and Canada are locked in a trade war. Canadian Prime Minister, the Canadian Prime Minister responding on social media that the lake's name is more than 400 years old, that Canadians will now and always call it Ontario.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: If you were watching Thursday night football, pre-season football last night, legendary broadcaster Al Michaels touched on the controversy, joking that he's not sure what the Great Lakes are called right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AL MICHALES, THURSDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL: Back we are now in Cleveland. That is Lake Erie. We think it is still called Lake Erie on the right.

We're not quite sure at this point. But we'll be by Lake something like Ontario or whatever it's going to be called by the time we get to Buffalo. Anyway, you know what I'm talking about.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Some of us do.

MICHAELS: Yes, right?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Read the news.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Read the news. Let's discuss with our political panel now.

Melik Abdul is a Republican strategist. Joel Payne is a Democratic strategist. Gentlemen, thank you so much for being with us.

Melik, first to you. I mean, clearly, it's sort of tongue-in-cheek. But for the president, is this the right way to approach these important negotiations?

Does it really give the United States a leg up in these trade discussions to start naming things differently?

MELIK ABDUL, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: There's no advantage to this. And everybody knows it. I don't care what Republicans may say.

We would much rather have Donald Trump focused on what Susie Wiles said at the beginning of the year, the economy. So Donald Trump, instead of talking about this Gulf of Ontario, and people should understand, Ontario was named after the lake. The lake was not named after Ontario.

And I think maybe people believe that. But what Donald Trump should be talking about is the economy. The 97 percent of people who received tax cuts.

Their tax returns are up 11 percent over last year. The 38 million Americans who received no taxes on their Social Security. The 11 million Americans who received no tax on their tips.

That's what every Republican, despite what they may say, would want Donald Trump focused on. And this is a distraction that no one needs, especially as we head into the midterms.

KEILAR: So you think it's time and energy that could be better spent? I wonder, Joel, what you think about Democrats who are kind of getting in on this trolling. Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker posted this. It's an image of Chicago's Trump Tower. And he said it's going to be renamed to, I don't, do we have it? Let's put it up, show the people.

There it is, OK. He said it's going to be renamed Natalie Tower after Trump's ever-present, of course, executive assistant, which is, you know, Democrats have been liking to focus on that as they're jabbing the president lately. I wonder what you think.

Is that a good use of time, energy, political skills, things that we learn to and not to do in preschool? I don't know, what do you think?

PAYNE: Well, I'm encouraged that my brother Melik here was trying to correct the record, talking about what Ontario was named after.

ABDUL: Thank you,

JOEL PAYNE, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: I don't think that that matters. I'm not sure if that message is going to make it to the White House.

KEILAR: It's nice to know, though.

PAYNE: It is very nice to know. To your question, look, I think that the president is playing, I think, a very silly game with a very serious issue. It kind of reminds me of something Kamala Harris said at the DNC two years ago, where she said, Donald Trump, in many ways, is an unserious man, but his election could portend very serious things.

And this is an example of it.

[14:35:00]

Like, this is something that I think he and his team feel like they can exploit for fun and for laughs and gags. And it's very serious to people in places like Maine and Michigan and the Dakotas and Kansas, where Canada is a very serious trading partner. I started my career working for Debbie Stabenow in Michigan.

The people of Michigan really count on the relationship across the border with the people of Canada for consistency. And, you know, there's a lot of shared culture and a lot of shared experience there. And it's very disheartening that the president and his team don't see how this is negatively impacting the lived experience of millions of Americans, not just Democrats, by the way, Republicans.

And I think that's a thing they're going to have to take into account this November.

KEILAR: Our conversation here keeps touching on football and also whether time is well spent. Because when you are campaigning or doing something, you really want to have people's attention in the best way that you can. And the GOP's first ever midterm convention, Melik, next month in Dallas, is going to be directly competing with the opening NFL games of the season.

That's pretty tough to do. So Republicans, they're a little concerned about how concerned should they be.

ABDUL: Yes, so I'm not really sure why they chose this specific date. It really is a timing issue. I don't think that whether or not the game is the same -- the day is the same as an NFL, the season start, I don't think that's going to impact what happens in November.

But the reason that Donald Trump is there in Texas is because now Texas is one of those states where Republicans are looking at, as far as the Senate is concerned. That's why Donald Trump is having it there. And because the RNC has tons of money, Donald Trump, his PAC has tons of money, unlike the DNC, they can't actually have a convention anywhere because they're about $18 million in the hole.

So this is an advantage for Donald Trump to get out the vote in November.

PAYNE: I'll just add this. Tactically, I actually want to give Republicans some credit for some outside-the-box thinking. I actually think it's a good idea to try to find more ways to create attention with the public, a very disengaged public.

And particularly for Republicans right now, where the only way they have a chance, this November, is if their base shows up. And I think that this is a bet on being able to turn out their base. The problem is, what are you giving them to show up for?

I mean, Donald Trump and Republicans have not delivered on the things that the base of the Republican Party wants them to deliver on. And he wants to put that on display. I suppose it is somewhat helpful that not as many of them will be watching on the days where the rest of us will be watching football.

But tactically, I understand it. Strategically, it's a miss. And if you talk to Republicans, both on and off the record, I think they would agree with that.

SANCHEZ: So, Joel, do you think Democrats not having a midterm convention? There were discussions about that earlier this year. Ultimately, they opted not to.

Do you think it's a missed opportunity to not have one?

PAYNE: I think it's always a missed opportunity to not try to grab people's attention. It may not look like a midterm convention. It may look like something else.

But Democrats need to get kind of beyond what the conventional wisdom tells us to do. And we need to be creative. And we need to think outside the box.

ABDUL: They ain't got no money to do it. If they wanted to.

PAYNE: Well, we'll take donations.

KEILAR: You're going to share there? All right, speaking of Texas, Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, she lost, obviously, the Democratic nomination for Senate in the state. She was talking to our Laura Coates last night.

And this is what she said about the man she lost to, James Tallarico.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LAURA COATES, CNN ANCHOR: Will you campaign with him?

REP. JASMINE CROCKETT (D-TX): I will be campaigning down-ballot. I think that --

COATES: What matters most?

CROCKETT: Because when we're looking at a state like Texas, we've tried this, where we've got one amazing candidate that's running at the top of the ticket. Beto is a very good example of this. Raising all the money, doing all the things, running around the entire state, but it's not enough.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Is she making an excuse? Does she really have a point? What do you think?

PAYNE: I have a deep respect for Congresswoman Crockett and for her very real, not just feelings, but probably what she experienced and whether or not it was directly from James Tallarico, it might have been from Tallarico's supporters. I think what my hope would be as a Democrat is that cooler heads can prevail here, that somebody can maybe bring the two parties together. I remember when this fight was going on and a thing that I would say a lot is, Tallarico, Crockett, and for that matter, other Democrats in the state like Colin Allred, who are all competitive around that time, the Democrats of Texas would be better served if all those folks left this cycle intact politically.

I think still, I would say that right now, Democrats should be focused on all of those entities, all of those parties being intact politically and being united in this moment. It's been encouraging to see that Democrats could get united in Michigan, where Haley Stephens has been a rock star for Abdul El-Sayed since she lost that primary. It'd be nice if, you know, Congresswoman Crockett could mimic that, but I don't want to scurry past what her very real beefs and frustrations were experienced in that primary.

ABDUL: She doesn't have any. What real beefs does she have? Because she lost the primary.

Much like you said, what happened in Michigan, that Stephens, she lost. She ended up endorsing the candidate there.

[14:40:00]

Jasmine Crockett, she doesn't have a real constituency. Yes, she lost by maybe about seven or eight points or something, but she does it -- she's not going to bring the Black vote to Tallarico. Tallarico is going to get over 80 percent of the black vote. This is all about her turnout model.

PAYNE: I don't really agree with that. I think she does have a very real constituency. And it is Black voters, but it's also very engaged Democrats.

ABDUL: I'll say they're not going to vote Republican.

PAYNE: It is to James Tallarico's benefit if he can pull Congresswoman Crockett into the fold.

ABDUL: But how do you do that when Crockett, instead of saying --

(CROSSTALK)

PAYNE: I think that there's politics. You got to do the work.

ABDUL: Well, how do you do that when Crockett instead of saying, I'm going to actually run it from the top all the way down to the bottom, she's not doing that.

PAYNE: The onus is on him to do that. And I have faith that he still has an opportunity to do that.

ABDUL: Oh, yes. I think he does. He just probably won't have that.

SANCHEZ: A very engaged conversation. Melik Abdul, Joel Payne, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks so much for being with us.

Still to come, we're awaiting a verdict in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial, 12 jurors deliberating over her fate, and a case that's drawn national attention. An update on what's happening in the courtroom when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:45:00]

KEILAR: We are following brand new developments in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial. Moments ago, CNN learning that a psychiatrist who testified as a prosecution witness is no longer employed at a Delaware Children's Hospital. A hospital spokesperson saying Dr. Avram Mack resigned on Monday. Dr. Mack testified that Clancy was not psychotic when she killed her three young kids back in 2023. He faced a combative cross-examination from Clancy's attorney Kevin Reddington. In the meantime, jury deliberations continue.

Earlier, jurors asked to see prescription pill bottles and a knife that had been submitted into evidence. Joining us now is jury consultant Alan Tuerkheimer. Alan, thank you so much for being with us.

We're at a really critical juncture here in this trial. What questions do you have about this resignation?

ALAN TUERKHEIMER, JURY CONSULTANT: Well, it's interesting that that happened. I'm not sure. Nobody knows exactly why that happened and what the timing is.

But certainly there was some issue that somebody thought that the testimony had some implication on something. And maybe he felt his work moving forward was going to be presented in a way or compromise in some way or just couldn't do his job. There's just a lot of stress around this trial.

There's all eyes are on this trial. And it takes a lot to get up and testify. And it sounded like a pretty brutal cross-examination as well.

KEILAR: Yes, it certainly got a lot of attention. This morning, the jury asked to see prescription pill bottles. They also wanted to see the knife that Clancy used to cut her wrists and neck in her suicide attempt.

What questions could they have about that kind of evidence? Why would they want to see that?

TUERKHEIMER: I think there could be one juror, could be several of them. This is just a time now for the jury to come up with an overarching case story. They've seen all this five weeks of trial, 80 witnesses, hundreds of pieces of evidence have been admitted.

So now they want to get a sense of what really took place. They have a story in their minds. And I guess for at least one or possibly more jurors, the knife and these pill bottles fill in certain gaps.

They might have a question about the medication she was on. That's obviously a pretty paramount consideration that the jury is considering. And the knife, they wanted to see it up close and personal. They probably wondered how big it was, how big it looked, what her wounds were when she slashed her throat and cut her wrists. So this is pretty typical. Jurors want to fill in the gaps.

There's things that maybe loose ends need to be connected. They don't always happen in a court of law. And so they're curious about it.

KEILAR: So jurors deliberated yesterday for three and a half hours right after closing arguments. You know, then they went home. Right.

They had a chance to sleep. Hopefully they got a good night's sleep. If they deliberate today and don't come to a decision, they'll have the weekend, right? What is that time away from the courtroom do for jurors? What do they think about?

TUERKHEIMER: It's probably good for their psychological mental health to get back in their routines. Now, of course, this is such a graphic, horrible case. They're not going to entirely remove themselves from it.

But I think it's good to decompress a little to get away from it. This is a lot. And even though they've been out for, what, seven, eight hours, they might not even be at the whole meat of the charges in this case.

Because if you think about it, all this information and they heard these witnesses, they heard the testimony. At the beginning, none of the jurors knew each other. And the judge told them, as judges instruct jurors, you can't talk about this case on a break or with anybody at any point.

So finally they get together. And it's usually pretty cathartic when jurors start deliberating, especially after a case like this. This isn't a generic patent case or a small fender bender.

So they have a lot to talk about, and they want to get it off their chest. And then the dynamics and a preview of deliberations really starts to emerge when they start talking.

KEILAR: What issues does it raise as deliberations stretch on? I mean, would you expect this to go longer than today? What does that mean as it starts to take up more days?

TUERKHEIMER: I think as there's more time. At this point, I don't think the time frame suggests that there's any discord or division or disagreement. A lot of times jurors, when they start deliberating, after they talk about the case or they say what they liked or didn't like, alliances form, personalities emerge.

And I think at this point, it's still at the point where they want to then take what they see about the case and then look at the law, look at the charges, and then start deciding and then starting to see whether or not there's consensus. But at this point, they go home for the weekend. That's not surprising.

[14:50:00] That doesn't mean there's anything suspicious going on with the jury. Of course, it is the weekend, and jurors do want the weekend for themselves. And so if they're close, they might try to deliberate late because it is always nice for jurors to be done with it and then have a weekend.

But it's very possible they'll go through the weekend without a verdict and then they'll start fresh on Monday, ready to go.

KEILAR: All right. Alan Tuerkheimer, great to get your perspective on this. Thank you so much -- Boris.

SANCHEZ: Now to some of the other headlines we're watching this hour. The Food and Drug Administration has approved four updated COVID vaccines. Two are from Moderna, one from Novavax and one from Pfizer and BioNTech.

People age 65 and older will have access to all four, as will younger patients with underlying conditions. The CDC has yet to make a recommendation for the shots, but experts do expect they will be widely available starting in September.

Also, evacuation orders are in place for homes in the Big Sur region of California, where fire crews are battling two wildfires along the Pacific coastline. The Plaskett fire erupted in steep terrain near Highway 1 on Wednesday. Officials closed a portion of the road as firefighters scrambled to keep the flames from running through the canyons. About 40 miles to the north, officials closed another section of the scenic highway where the Timber Fire has been burning since August 8th.

Fire danger in California is elevated because of gusty winds and lightning from the remnants of a tropical storm offshore.

And police in Miami Beach say officers sprang into action to rescue a woman who became trapped underneath an SUV after the car hit her e- scooter. This is footage from the incident.

They say the officers worked together to lift the car up, eventually freeing her. She suffered non-life-threatening injuries. Fortunately, the Jeep's driver has been sighted in this crash.

Still to come, more Americans are preparing for the worst. We're going to take you inside the growing Doomsday Prepper movement in the U.S. when we come back. Stay with us.

[14:55:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: An estimated 20 million Americans now identify as so-called doomsday preppers. Once considered a fringe subculture, the number of people preparing for a complete breakdown in society has grown significantly from go bags to bunkers. CNN's Nick Paton Walsh takes us inside this literally underground world that's the subject of this week's "THE WHOLE STORY WITH ANDERSON COOPER." Here's a preview.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: What was the cost to buy the abandoned silo itself?

LARRY HALL, SURVIVAL CONDO OWNER AND DEVELOPER: $300,000.

WALSH: That's a bargain, right?

HALL: Oh yes.

WALSH (voice-over): There is no denying the engineering feat owner and creator Larry Hall has achieved here over years of detailed planning.

HALL: OK, this blue box that you see is a volcanic ash scrubber. We have enough diesel fuel to run these for two and a half years. It just takes care of itself.

The computers that control everything.

This is what we call the pet park. People get the feeling that, you know, they're outdoors.

I have a lot of people, ultra high net worth individuals that come in here. And a lot of them, when they first contact me, want to build their own private bunker. And I say, well that's good, but why don't you come and look at what I've built.

And then we found out that they value having other adults to bounce ideas off of as opposed to having just their family locked in a smaller facility that they were exclusive to. So now you're in a bunker. Now you've got other adults.

What do you think? What's going on?

WALSH: So even billionaires need other people.

HALL: Yes, they did. And they really appreciate it.

WALSH: So long as it's other billionaires.

HALL: You only have a couple of people I would put in the billionaire category. Other people are just successful, self-made professionals.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: Nick Payton-Walsh joins us now. Nick, what are these doomsday preppers most afraid of right now?

WALSH (on camera): It's really --

SANCHEZ: That's unfortunate. I wish we could have prepped for his live shot going down. If only we'd had some kind of --

There, he's back. Nick, sorry about that. Please go on.

WALSH: Am I back? The end of time's gone past us, Boris, and we're back together again.

SANCHEZ: We are, Nick, yes.

WALSH: So had you been in that nuclear-prepared silo, you probably would have had the live shot absolutely fine. Sorry, forgive me where I am. But what was extraordinary to see there was the level of money people were willing to spend at that level just to keep things afloat for themselves, down to a small prisoner cell if a particular billionaire got lippy or had drank too much during a time in their own bar session, down to a sniper tower, all sorts of extraordinary things.

That kind of makes you understand, if you have the capacity to spend money on these kind of incidents, that you're willing to do it, and what you can indeed buy, biological nuclear scrubbers for the air that you breathe. But you have to bear in mind, if the power goes down, if the unexpected happens, then you are potentially screwed. Outside of that, we spend a lot of time, too, looking at basic survival techniques.

If you or I are dropped on a sliver of beach in Mexico with nothing, how can you survive with simply your bare hands? And that came down to old fire-lighting techniques, which you may both think we know, but we don't, and I certainly did not, and found incredibly hard to try and even accomplish at that particular moment we had. I got bitten alive by a bugs ...

END