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Michigan Senate Race Too Close to Call; Rep. Miller Refuses to Drop Election Bid. Aired 6-6:30a ET
Aired August 05, 2026 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[06:00:05]
AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: Today in the group chat, the Senate race in Michigan down to the wire. Can moderate Democrats stop the socialist surge?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT): You're seeing the transformation of the Democratic Party.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: And dangerously low. That's the stark warning about the military stockpile and the key defense system that has nearly depleted.
And an immigrant held at an ICE detention facility in New Jersey has died. That facility, plagued with allegations of inhumane conditions. Now, his family is demanding answers.
And the House Ethics Committee has opened an investigation into Congressman Max Miller after abuse allegations. But he is not backing down.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MAX MILLER (R-OH): No one has told me to get off the ballot, and that's because they know I can win this seat and see this through.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. HALEY STEVE (D-MI), MICHIGAN SENATORIAL CANDIDATE: We knew that this was going to be a close race, and that's exactly what we've got.
ABDUL EL-SAYED (D), MICHIGAN SENATORIAL CANDIDATE: I wish I could tell you that I was declaring victory right about now. Turns out it takes a long time to count some votes in Michigan.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: And all eyes are on Michigan as results are still coming in from last night's Senate primary. Good morning, everybody. I'm Audie Cornish, and here is where we begin: that Senate race.
Votes are still being counted. The race is still very close. Abdul El- Sayed is winning 6 in 10 election day and early in-person votes.
Congresswoman Haley Stevens winning nearly most of the same mail in votes. And those are still coming in.
And then the big focus is Wayne County. It's the home of Detroit, notoriously slow at counting. And Stevens is winning that count by only a slight majority.
Her lead has shrunk over time because of new ballots coming in for El- Sayed from cities including Detroit and Dearborn.
Now, both Stevens and El-Sayed addressed their supporters late last night and have both already turned their attention to the Republican nominee, Mike Rogers.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EL-SAYED: I know you're listening, Mike. We are coming for you. This is a guy who has never seen a check from a corporation he did not want to corrupt himself with.
STEVENS: They want to keep the U.S. Senate red. So, Mike Rogers can keep rubber stamping Donald Trump'ss ridiculous agenda. Higher prices, a thousand manufacturing jobs lost, nationwide, corruption and abuses of power galore
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: Today in the group chat, Betsy Klein, CNN's senior White House reporter; Oye Owolewa, D.C.'s representative in the House; Terry Schilling, president of the American Principles Project; and Antjuan Seawright, Democratic strategist. Full table today.
We don't have a winner. So, when there's no winner, reporters got to talk about something else. We're going to talk about what makes a winner, which is money, endorsement and enthusiasm. Right?
So, first of all, we have the enthusiasm. It's too early to call, but we know that more than 1.2 billion [SIC] ballots -- million ballots have been counted so far. And that's more than any non-presidential Democratic primary in Michigan going back to 1998. So, we know the turnout is there.
Also, in terms of money, this was the most expensive Democratic primary ever, with more than $60 million in outside money going to Haley Stevens.
But here's what some voters had to say when we asked them about the issue of money.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't want somebody in somebody else's pocket that they have to agree to what they want to. You know, too many people like that in politics.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Overall change. And people who had an independent view and thought process of what's right for the voters, not what's right for corporate PACs.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: Betsy, can I go to you? There's been this kind of divide with money. Democrats actually aren't raising as much as Republicans, but the money they are getting, they're fighting over because of where it comes from. Give me the state of play through this, the lens of the Senate race.
BETSY KLEIN, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, in this particular race, money was a giant factor, particularly for Haley Stevens. She received a significant amount of outside money from AIPAC, the Israel- aligned group. And that became very controversial in this race.
[06:06:07]
But when we look at what we can extrapolate from these results, the answer is really not much. This says a lot about what is happening in Michigan. It does not say a lot about what is happening
in the party, writ large, and I think we need to listen to the voters of Michigan.
We can learn a lot about what that's going to mean for them in 2020 -- November of 2026. They're going up against Mike Rogers, a very formidable candidate. It's going to be very interesting.
CORNISH: In what way? Just Trump's support? Does he have a lot of money? What is it about Mike Rogers that means that they've got to have someone, quote, unquote, "electable"?
KLEIN: I think that he has a lot of appeal to independent voters. I would be interested for everyone's take.
CORNISH: Oh, yes. That's how you feel, too?
ANTJUAN SEAWRIGHT, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Well, keep in mind, he only lost to Elissa Slotkin by, like, less than 100,000 votes. So, it's going to be a battleground race in Michigan.
I agree with you mostly on what you said about Michigan is a reflection of Michigan. The same way I thought that New York races were a reflection in New York. But there is something to extrapolate from the race last night in Michigan.
One, black voters and working-class voters are not bought into this idea that some white -- majority white pundits, pollsters and posters on x are trying to define what this narrative -- narrative within the Democratic Party. Black voters are still the core.
And when we talk about working-class voters in a place like Michigan, we should include black working-class voters. CORNISH: Yes, which we mentioned yesterday, because Haley Stevens was
seen at some churches. And there were black leaders who were endorsing her. And I think that has often been a wild card, right?
SEAWRIGHT: So -- so that's, like, No. 1.
No. 2. Yes, we're having growing pains and different conversations within the party, but that does not mean the reality that a battleground race is much different than a primary race.
And we're going to have to consolidate some thinking, and some personalities and egos if we want to get to 218 in the House and the majority in the Senate. Otherwise, we are going to lose.
CORNISH: OK. I don't know who you're talking about in terms of personality and egos, but I do want to play for you senator Bernie Sanders.
SEAWRIGHT: Prime example.
CORNISH: I didn't say it. Wherever this race ends up --
SEAWRIGHT: I said it. I'm saying it. Antjuan Seawright, Democrat strategist, is saying it.
CORNISH: -- he says it's going to be a change in the Democratic Party. The reason why I want to play this is because Sanders has backed nearly 90 candidates across federal and state and local races. He's had a lot of wins.
We did not put them all up there. We didn't even put up the 40 wins. But for someone who's not in the Democratic Party, he's making a lot of inroads.
Antjuan, wait a second. Let the man speak. Here's Senator Sanders.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT): Is you're seeing the transformation of the Democratic Party. It's not only ideology that we disagree with the Democratic leadership about; it's how you do politics.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is the rise of the DSA good for your party?
SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): Look, we are a big tent party, and being a big tent party is a strength, not a weakness.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: The last time I heard someone saying, We're a big tent party, and these folks maybe don't seem electable, but actually, they're fine, there was a guy named Donald Trump.
TERRY SCHILLING, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN PRINCIPLES PROJECT: Yes. No. Look, I think you have the rise of left-wing populism going on right now. And I think it's primarily driven by the -- CORNISH: Overall populism. Yes.
SCHILLING: Overall populism. And I think America is either going to get a situation where there's some optimism in the American people and turning things around, or they're going to get socialism.
I think people are losing hope. I think these young people, if you look at Abdul El-Sayed, he overperformed with young people by 25 points in Michigan.
That is another way of saying the young people are the people that don't have assets right now. They don't have property. They don't own things. They want to be part of that. They don't have a mortgage for a home anymore. They have a mortgage of student loan debt, and they want something different.
And I think what these young people are telling us is that they don't trust the Democratic establishment to represent their best interests. They actually think that the Democratic establishment will sell them out to private equity as soon as they possibly can.
CORNISH: Here's what Senator John Fetterman has to say, because he's, needless to say, on the flip side of a kind of political conversation, where Bernie Sanders might be. He was talking with Jon Stewart about this, and here he is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JON STEWART, COMEDY CENTRAL, "THE WEEKLY SHOW": You could agree with them 90 percent. But Israel is the red line.
SEN. JOHN FETTERMAN (D-PA): Absolutely. Israel for me, like, I can't ever turn my back to Israel.
STEWART: You're saying that these candidates may have great ideas for our economy. They may want to do the exact same thing you want to do in terms of getting money out of politics. But if they don't agree with you on Israel, you don't want them in your party?
FETTERMAN: What I'm saying is, like, if you are a DSA member, if you are a member of a specific political party, run under your own banner, the DSA are colonizing, colonizing the Democratic Party. So just be Democrats. If you're going to run under the Democratic Party for that. Why have a DSA Party?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: Member of DSA Party. Please. I didn't expect you to have to answer a colonizer argument.
OYE OWOLEWA, D.C. REPRESENTATIVE IN HOUSE: All right.
CORNISH: But can you try and tackle some of that? He's very specific there about what his problem is.
OWOLEWA: Yes, absolutely. I mean, No. 1, we're seeing a lot of messaging about the DSA, as if every member believes in everything under the DSA platform.
What interested me about the DSA was their fight for Medicare for all. Me being a pharmacist, I --
CORNISH: But hear what he said. Run under your own banner. Don't colonize the Democratic Party.
OWOLEWA: Well, I'm also a Democrat. I've been a Democrat my entire life. And part of the reason why I am a Democrat was because when my parents moved here in the 1970s, it was really a party that believed in immigrant rights. You know?
Although the Immigrant Reform Act was passed by Ronald Reagan, you saw a lot of Democrats also support and give a pathway to citizenship.
CORNISH: So, how does it feel when you hear Democrats rejecting the politics of the DSA, the politics you have right now, and saying, there's a lot of red lines for us here, and you guys are making a mess of things ahead of the general?
OWOLEWA: I think right now, people are making excuses of the fact that they're losing to economic populists.
When Donald Trump ran in 2016 and 2020, he ran a populist agenda, even though as the president, he's doing different things. And I believe right now, when you look at the economics of the situation, we're going backwards.
My parents moved to this country. The average income for a median- income family was 70,000. Today, that's $400,000 in economic power, $18,000 in -- in a lower class, which is now $150,000.
CORNISH: So, you're kind of going where Terry is talking about.
SEAWRIGHT: But -- but riddle me this. If -- if the belief is so strong in this narrative -- I'm not telling you that people are not suffering from an affordability crisis in America.
OWOLEWA: Sure.
SEAWRIGHT: Then why haven't these races panned out in a general election?
I could give two damns about primary elections, and I'm very passionate about this, because I'm a black man. I'm a Southern Democrat, and my party is not defined by these extreme voices that the media wants to project.
Why can't, if the -- if the message is so strong, and there's such a deep belief, then why historically have we not seen wins in terms of competitive general election season? We have to win in November. Primaries do not.
CORNISH: Let him answer that. Wait a minute, because I'm out of time.
OWOLEWA: I think the stack was decked [SIC] against Bernie Sanders. When you're talking about the superdelegates in 2016.
SEAWRIGHT: How?
OWOLEWA: The superdelegates. They were already given to Hillary Clinton before Bernie Sanders --
SEAWRIGHT: You can't say that, for two presidential cycles in a row, that the stack -- people voted.
OWOLEWA: Sure.
SEAWRIGHT: And they did not vote for Bernie Sanders in two presidential primaries, elections, including my home state of South Carolina, where 60 percent of the people who cast their vote were black voters.
OWOLEWA: Right. And Donald Trump won twice in the last 12 years. So, I think that we're seeing -- is going to see much different election results nowadays than we did years ago.
The rise of independent media. People listen to podcasts. I think that has increased young people voting. And I think that's going to make a difference.
SEAWRIGHT: I hope it happens in the general election.
CORNISH: We're going to back to this race. We're going to come back to this race in a little bit. As much as I'm sure Terry is enjoying this, because there is some pretty serious stuff going on in Congress.
That congressman in Ohio, Max Miller, who's facing a lot of abuse allegations from his ex-wife, spoke to CNN.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MAX MILLER (R-OH): So, if I really did those things, why wouldn't I be in prison? It's because it's an extreme fabrication of the truth.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: We're going to talk about why he is refusing to step down, despite warnings from even the president that it might be tough to win.
Plus, Jeanin Pirro's big box of evidence. Is that going to help her keep her job?
And this dire warning: a volcano in its, quote, "critical explosive phase." There are some evacuations going on right now in Guatemala.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:17:56]
CORNISH: Hey, we've got this news, just in moments ago. Congressman Chuck Edwards actually dropped his bid for reelection. And this is just days after the House Ethics Committee found that he violated rules around sexual harassment.
Now, in a post on social media, the North Carolina Republican writes in part, quote, "After much prayer and reflection, I've decided to withdraw from my reelection campaign. I will complete my current term."
Meanwhile, Congressman Max Miller also not backing down even as more accusations of abuse are coming to light.
The Ohio Republican sat down for an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper on Tuesday, where he denied all allegations against him.
Now, his former father-in-law, Ohio Senator Bernie Moreno, is pressuring him to abandon the race and to leave Congress. And Miller says he's not going.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MILLER: I am going to be successful in this November, because my constituents know who I am. And they also know who my ex-father-in-law is. And they also know who my ex-wife is.
And that's why you've seen people aren't running from me. My numbers and fundraising are strong. You know, Speaker Mike Johnson, everyone else, they're standing behind me. No one has told me to get off the ballot.
And that's because they know I can win this seat and see this through. And that's what we're going to do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: OK. Group chat is back. I wanted to talk about this, because we saw Chuck Edwards drop out. Right? A lot of pressure around him.
Meanwhile, when Trump was asked about this, just to comment on Miller, he said, "I hope he's able to work it out. I feel badly for him."
Senator Thune on Tuesday was asked about Miller, and he says, "It's just a sad, unfortunate case. It's a family matter." Didn't have any more observations beyond that.
What's going on? The reluctance here as this plays out so publicly, so viscerally, and a child's involved?
KLEIN: Exactly. All of the above. But President Trump is also close with both Max Miller, who worked on his 2016 campaign and worked in his White House. And he is close with Bernie Moreno, the senator from Ohio, his former father-in-law.
So, it's putting him in a very tough spot. He is very reluctant to get publicly involved.
[06:20:06]
However, one, it is great that Max Miller was willing to show he is willing to answer tough questions from our colleague Jake Tapper, who really pressed him; I think did a good job of that. There are a lot of ways that this interview did not go well for him. For instance --
CORNISH: Can I play an example, very briefly?
KLEIN: Please.
CORNISH: Because then your characterization will make more sense.
KLEIN: Yes.
CORNISH: So, he was asked about the allegation of claims that his child may have made about him. This has come up from his ex-wife. And Jake asked him about it. Here's how it started.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MILLER: I then played Lauren Fox three separate audio videos, three separate audio videos of my daughter saying, I do not want to go to Mommy's. I do not want Mommy's, and I do not feel safe.
JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Your ex-wife stated to police that your child told her, in the days leading up to the discovery of the injury, quote, "Daddy kill you."
MILLER: She can't string together sentences like that. She's two and a half years old.
-- investigations.
TAPPER: You just told me that she had said that she was scared to go to Mommy's House. She asked --
MILLER: She did, and I have video of it.
TAPPER: And now you're saying that she's not capable of saying, "Daddy kill you"? I mean, it seems like she's either --
MILLER: Because Daddy --
TAPPER: -- able to say one but not the other. That doesn't make sense.
MILLER: Jake -- Jake, to be very direct, this is incredibly disturbing. I am not going to my child to say, "Daddy kill you."
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: It was a lot of that.
KLEIN: Right. It was him vehemently denying these allegations time and time again. He said, if he did those things, he would be in prison.
He suggested that his father-in-law was concerned that he would, quote, "expose a deeply personal, embarrassing matter to the senator." He described himself as a punching bag.
He named his minor daughter. He said that all three women who have made these allegations are lying.
CORNISH: We should say the past that Jake brought up was an allegation stemming from his college years. And then later on, in the first Trump administration.
And right now, he and Stephanie Grisham are in court back and forth over defamation and bringing those allegations up again.
KLEIN: And it's incredibly messy. It's unfortunate. You know, he -- he justified staying in the race by saying that he wanted his daughter to see that he's not a quitter.
But the reality is that one day, his daughter is going to read and watch all of this. And it's just a deeply unfortunate.
SEAWRIGHT: He's sick, and he needs help. That interview was an audition for an audience of one. And that's Donald Trump, because he needs affirmation or confirmation to stay in the race and to punch through.
He made reference to Donald Trump, because we've seen Donald Trump push through strong allegations in an environment where Democrats are taught and sanctioned to believe -- believe women. And we've seen a lot of people lose their office and drop reelection bids for a whole lot less. It's like-- that's like framing.
No. 2. I think the party of family values has a question to answer. Chuck Edwards, Cory Mills, Ken Paxton, Max Miller, Donald Trump, and others.
So, I'm not interested in Republicans coming on any program lecturing the country and Democrats about family values when they have their own right in front of them, that yet, the speaker of the House and his colleagues have refused to say, you know what? You need to step aside.
CORNISH: Well, one thing I want to say is we're going to have a member of the House Ethics Committee coming on later today. You can put some questions to him.
And two, some of the names you mentioned, obviously with President Trump, those things have been litigated in court, at least some of them. And in the meantime, you are right. There are people facing House ethics violations over sexual allegations.
What does the party of family values say?
SCHILLING: Well, look, first of all, I think voters would have a lot easier time going with the Democratic Party if they weren't so bad on every other cultural issue, like pornography for kids in schools and in libraries. All of that. The sex changes for kids. So, it all gets very weird.
So, they'd have an easier decision to make if there weren't policy ramifications for voting for Democrats.
But I will just say Max Miller in that clip, he's talking about his poll numbers. He's talking about his fundraising. He's not talking about his family. He's not talking about his daughter. She's two and a half.
And right now, she's being used back and forth as a pawn. He's getting very sad. It's a -- it's a distraction. These are very serious allegations.
And I know that, if this was someone that I was working for, that I was advising, I would strongly advise them to take a step back. Congress is going to be there in years to come.
CORNISH: That's not the advice. He's doing live streams.
OWOLEWA: It's crazy.
CORNISH: He's doing lengthy interviews. Like, he's really -- he's putting out so much information that his lawyer had to apologize for, including a photo, an inappropriate photo of his daughter. It's -- it's flood the zone, which we know is -- we've heard people, you know --
SEAWRIGHT: It's a strategy.
CORNISH: -- Steve Bannon talk about it. But it's not working. It's drowning him instead.
KLEIN: Yes. I'm also not seeing any Republican talking head on any cable or otherwise network going on to defend him. He is his own only ally right now.
[06:25:00]
SEAWRIGHT: Except, Betsy, they're not also telling him he should resign. Whereas on the Democratic side, when these things happen, it's this extreme pressure. You need to leave the race; you need to resign.
And the results are a little bit different from people within our own party and from the Republican Party.
CORNISH: Yes.
SEAWRIGHT: So sometimes, silence means consent.
CORNISH: Oye.
OWOLEWA: I 100 percent agree with you. I mean, we're still talking about Graham Platner months -- weeks after he left the race and still pinning him on other candidates that are running, who are also endorsed by Bernie Sanders.
And at the same time, you know, House Speaker Johnson -- Johnson says, I don't even -- I'm going to let it all play out. When it's on the other side, he wants to get people expelled from Congress.
I also want to mention, as well, that Max Miller is probably going through the five stages of separation from Donald Trump. First, it starts with, I feel bad for him and ends with, I don't really know him that well.
And I believe that he is trying to placate to President Trump, because he sees it as his only way of staying in Congress.
But as these conversations continue, as he continues to blunder through interviews, we see it for what it really is. And I do believe that not only it being an election cycle, but also seeing Chuck Edwards resign over, in my opinion --
CORNISH: Yes.
OWOLEWA: -- probably less damning information, it shows that, in 2026, people are not going to let this go.
CORNISH: Well, in the meantime, I do want to end on this. This is how Miller explained his custody battle. And I want to play it, because obviously, he is not here to defend himself. So, here's what he said to Jake Tapper.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MILLER: I have full-share parenting. I still have full medical parenting; half. I still have full half education.
If any of these things were true, Jake, a judge would have taken our baby girl out of my hands. What you have is a very sadly politically motivated scenario to where, you know, people want to see me go away.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: OK, we're going to talk more about this, as we said, with someone from the House Ethics Committee.
In the meantime, we're going to turn to defense and this issue of a stockpile warning. Right now, a key missile defense system is dangerously low. We're going to talk about what that means for military readiness for the U.S.
And then I want to say good morning to beautiful Orange Beach, Alabama.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:30:00]
