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GOP Rep Max Miller Speaks To CNN, Denies Abuse Allegations; Rep. Max Miller Denies Abuse Claims, Won't Drop Reelection Bid; Sources: U.S. Munitions Stockpiles "Dangerously Low" Aired 1130-12p ET

Aired August 05, 2026 - 11:30   ET

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

[11:30:00]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: "Stairs after he became enraged when she resisted his attempts to touch her, according to three people who were there and many more who heard about the incident in the aftermath." Now, you deny that, but the woman in question told Mother Jones reporter Abby Vasoulis just days ago that it happened and was, quote, "one of the more traumatic nights of her life."

REP. MAX MILLER (R-OH): I would love --

TAPPER: Now Hold on.

MILLER: -- for that individual to go on the record because that --

TAPPER: Hold on, because I'm not done with the list of women that have accused you of violence. Then there is former White House press secretary.

MILLER: I know, but that's 13 years old.

TAPPER: Okay, you were young. Then there's a former White House press secretary, Stephanie Grisham, who was your ex-girlfriend. She accused you of being abusive and having a violent streak. She wrote in her book, quote, "I could do nothing right by him. I would wake up every morning shaking with anxiety about his mood that day. I had seen his temper before and it had scared me," unquote.

She has recently filed a temporary restraining order against you in a defamation case. And now there are these claims from your ex-wife, Emily Moreno. And I guess the question is, are all three of these women who don't know each other, are all three of them lying?

MILLER: Yes. It's very easy. And I can tell you why. Every single time, and people have asked me, you know, what are you going to do?

Are you going to drop out of this race? Are you going to resign? You know, are you going to get out before the deadline? And my answer to you, Jake, is no. And I can tell you why. In 2016, when President Donald J. Trump faced the most extreme allegations in the world that hit him day after day after day. And people in the media are very much like yourself and others, said that he would have no shot at winning, that he should not be the President of the United States. But guess what? He stayed in, and he was resilient.

And what the American people can see is that they can see that somebody is fighting who is resilient. And that is a quality that the American people cherish.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER: So you see there, Pamela and Wolf. He is very much trying to follow the Trump playbook, which in 2016 and since we've seen is deny all allegations, attack the accusers and change the subject, and persevere. And he is trying to do that. It does not look like he's going to drop out.

And so, we'll have to see. Ultimately, this may be left up to the voters of Ohio's 7th congressional district.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: We'll see what happens, Jake. You also spoke with Miller about his two-year-old daughter. In court documents, she said she did not feel safe at Miller's home. How did he respond?

TAPPER: He gave some kind of contradictory answers in terms of what his two-and-a-half-year-old daughter, who really is- it's really sad and tragic that she's caught up in all this. But in terms of what she's capable of saying, I want you to take a listen to two clips we have here.

One is him talking about what the daughter supposedly said about his ex-wife. And then I had a question for him based on something else he had said about what his ex-wife claims the daughter had said to her. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

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 mommies, and I do not feel safe.

TAPPER: 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.

TAPPER: You just told me that she had said that she was scared to go to mommy's house.

MILLER: She is, and I have video of it.

TAPPER: But now you're saying that she's not capable of saying daddy kill you. I mean, it seems like she's either able to say one, but not the other. That doesn't make sense.

MILLER: Jake, to be very direct, this is incredibly disturbing. I am not going to my child to say, " Daddy, kill you."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER: I think what the ex-wife was saying, Emily Moreno, was that the daughter had said that she was afraid that daddy would kill her mother. But in any case, you see there, Wolf and Pamela, an explanation that doesn't really make sense in terms of what the daughter is or is not capable of saying at age two and a half.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, I think that was important that you pointed that out. You know, you mentioned, Jake, that he's following Trump's playbook here. Overnight, President Trump said he felt, quote, badly for Miller, and this comes after the president called him earlier this week. What is Miller saying about Trump's role in all of this?

TAPPER: Well, he says he spoke with President Trump, and even though there are lots of allies who reportedly Trump allies who want Trump to call for Congressman Miller to step aside because they're worried that he's not going to be able to win reelection in what is a Republican district, but not one that a Democrat can't win given the right circumstances.

And -- well, I'll let him describe the call that they had apparently on Monday morning. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER: You spoke with the president yesterday. Did he tell you what he is telling aides privately that he does not think you can win?

[11:35:05]

MILLER: Look, the conversation I had with him yesterday at 9:00 a.m. and I've gotten a million phone calls about this, and this is what's so troubling. Look, he called me, and he said, Max, he said, Maxie, it's going to be a tough race. And he said, I don't know if you're going to be able to, you know, pull this one out.

And you know what, Jake? I reminded him of the same resilience that he had when people told him that he was going to struggle in 2016 and he became the 45th president of the United States. And I have the utmost confidence that my constituents back home know me.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER: So you see there, you hear there once again, appealing to President Trump by citing Trump as an example of somebody who fights through it and ultimately was victorious. I'm sure that appealed to President Trump. We should note the two men have a relationship that goes back to Max Miller's, Congressman Miller's time as a White House aide. It's also worth pointing out that President Trump has a long history,

whenever these allegations are made against allies, of siding with the Republican man against the allegations being made by the woman.

BROWN: All right, Jake Tapper, thank you so much. And you can watch the Lead with Jake Tapper weekdays at 5:00 p.m. Eastern here on CNN.

BLITZER: And up next, strained stockpiles. President Trump says more attacks on Iran are still on the table. But sources tell CNN the U.S. is running dangerously low on some of its most important missiles. We'll be right back.

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[11:41:24]

BROWN: We have new CNN reporting from our national security team about a serious warning from senior U.S. Military commanders. They say the Pentagon is running dangerously low on munition stockpiles. That's according to several sources who say the military has used up nearly 80 percent of interceptors for a key missile defense system.

Stockpiles before the Iran war were estimated at around 2,200 patriot interceptors and 452 THAAD anti-ballistic missiles. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is pushing back on this reporting.

So, I want to bring in CNN national security reporter Zachary Cohen in the Situation Room who broke this as part of a team. Zach, tell us more about this. What is the Pentagon doing about such a serious assessment and its potential impact on national security?

ZACHARY COHEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yes, Pam, we're told that this is a concern for senior U.S. Military commanders and one that they are actively having to consider not only as they weigh options for potentially escalating the conflict with Iran, but also how it impacts their ability to plan for the future in other parts of the world, including how they provide aid to various allies beyond the Gulf and that includes Taiwan, includes Ukraine. These are weapons that our closest allies, the U.S. closest allies, all rely on in part for their own self-defense.

And that's particularly true for these air defense systems. These high-end systems like the THAAD missile interceptors, the ones that we're told have been depleted by more than 80 percent since the Iran war started. That's comparing to the pre-war numbers where the U.S. had about 450 in its stockpile.

So 80 percent of those, we're told, have been gone. And these are systems that take interceptors that take about three years potentially to replenish fully the stockpile to the pre-war status. And that's a concern for these commanders as they look at the broad range of threats not only posed by Iran, but again, by a potential war in the future with China.

These are systems that are geared towards intercepting ballistic missiles, for example. These are really not replaceable by anything else the Pentagon has in its arsenal. And in addition to the THAAD interceptors, we're also told that the Pentagon is lacking and has used a lot of its Patriot missiles. Almost half of those patriot missiles, the 2,000 plus that you mentioned, that were in the stockpile before the war are also gone.

And so there is a lead time here issue. There is an issue with the lead time here where these missiles take a long time to produce. And the U.S. military has been using them at such a high rate that they haven't been able to replace them fast enough. And this is a broader concern that we know.

General Dan Caine has raised in recent meetings with the President when they've talked about options for possibly escalating the conflict. It's also one that goes back to the beginning of the war before the U.S. launched those initial strikes. This was a concern inside the Pentagon and one that Caine similarly raised before Trump ultimately decided to go forward with this conflict.

BROWN: And also, Zach, I mentioned that Secretary Hegseth is pushing back on this. What else is DoD saying?

COHEN: Yes, that's right. We actually reached out to the Pentagon and the White House well before we published this story. And the Pentagon responded with a statement on the record from chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell. He said, quote, "America's military is the most powerful in the world and has everything it needs to execute at the time and place of the President's choosing. Similarly, the White House says the U.S. military has more than enough munitions, ammo, and stockpiles to serve all of the President's strategic goals and beyond."

Notably, neither of them actually disputing the reporting itself. We know Pete Hegseth did post on Twitter saying something to the effect of this reporting is not true. We, of course, stand by what's in our story.

BROWN: Yes. All right, Zachary Cohen, thank you so much for bringing us the very latest on that front. Wolf?

BLITZER: And Pamela. Happening now. President Trump says the Strait of Hormuz will be reopened soon, or he'll launch a harsh new attack on Iran. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: The strait's going to be open very soon, or they're going to get hit very hard, and then the strait is going to be open. We've moving along very nicely. We'll find out. We'll know in 48 hours. Could happen. Tomorrow (inaudible).

A lot of progress has been made. And they called me, and they said, please, let's talk.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: But today, Iranian state media says any potential agreement between Iran and Oman on the future of the critical waterway has no connection to its reopening. The retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton and the former deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh are here with me in The Situation Room.

Sabrina, let me start with you. A lot of doubt has been cast over this potential deal. How strong of a position does the U.S. have on against Iran if no deal comes through and President Trump resumes strikes?

SABRINA SINGH, FORMER DEPUTY PENTAGON PRESS SECRETARY: Well, we've heard this rhetoric from the president before. It's going to be soon. It's going to happen any day. Give it 48 hours.

What is happening right now is that Iran and Oman are actually negotiating how to open the strait, with potentially ships entering the northern side hugging the Iranian coast and exiting the southern side hugging the Omani coast.

Now, the problem with that is that even though the president says there's not going to be any types of tolls or fees, we still don't know that yet. There might be a 60-day period where either side does not charge some type of fee, but there's no guarantee that Iran won't do that in the future. And it does seem like Iran is going to exert much more control over the strait than it did before the war started.

BLITZER: You know, Colonel Leighton, as you heard, sources are telling CNN that the U.S. military is running very low on its stockpiles and it's actually used up nearly 80 percent of its key missile defense system. How much of a concern is that, and is the US now able to efficiently counter any threat from Iran?

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON, U.S. AIR FORCE (RET.): Well, Wolf, it is a significant concern. And one of the things to keep in mind is that when you look at the weapons stockpiles that we have right now, an 80 percent loss or a 50 percent loss of any one of these systems, which are very capable systems, really puts at risk not only our bases, but it also puts at risk the installations of our allies such as the Gulf states in on the Arabian side of the Persian Gulf. So, what this means is that we are not going to be able to properly defend those installations, whether they're in the Middle East or in Europe or in Asia. So that really, as Zach was mentioning in his reporting, that really points to the fact that there are going to be some significant shortfalls until about the year 2030, 2031, before all of this can be fixed.

BLITZER: Sabrina, the Israeli prime minister, as you know, Benjamin Netanyahu has been silent since President Trump announced he was canceling strikes on Iran this past weekend and was looking toward a potential deal. Is that a setback for Netanyahu and how is his silence significant in light of the upcoming general elections in Israel scheduled for October?

SINGH: It's definitely a political setback for Netanyahu. I mean, part of the reason why he came to Washington, D.C. was to lobby this president, this administration, and say we need to go harder, we need to keep hitting Iran. I don't think Netanyahu or anyone in his government has been shy about that being the approach. Realistically, I think the president is getting briefings from his

team and saying military strikes are not going to compel Iran to come back to the negotiating table. In fact, we had 14 days of consecutive strikes, and they never came back once.

So, I think right now what's on the table and what the president is looking at are the diplomatic off ramps and possibly the economic levers to really, really put pressure on Iran's economy.

BLITZER: Colonel Leighton, let me quickly pivot to Ukraine. President Zelenskyy has renewed his call to Ukraine's allies to provide it with more military hardware. They say it's required to down the incoming Russian missiles which are attacking civilian targets in Kyiv and elsewhere.

Is the U.S. stockpile issue, though, going to have a serious impact on the war, Iran's war with Russia?

LEIGHTON: I think it will. And one of the big problems that you have is, you know, when you talk to people from European Command, U.S. European Command, which is the theater that Ukraine is in, they will tell you that there are some significant shortages here. And those short that, you know, not only are broadly based in terms of the U.S. inventory writ large, but also very specific to Europe, really will have an impact on Ukraine's ability to defend itself. And that's a significant problem because in the last day or so, we've had 17 people killed in Kyiv because of Russian missile attacks.

The only weapon systems that can really effectively defend against those missiles include the Patriot and the THAAD missile systems. Those are the most effective, and those are the ones that Ukraine needs. And Zelenskyy has been asking for those for a long time.

BLITZER: So I assume there's a massive effort underway right now to rebuild a lot of those interceptors, those missiles.

[11:50:00]

SINGH: This is a problem that we even struggled with in the Biden administration. The defense industrial base is, is strained, and there are constraints when it comes to producing these missiles. I mean, some of them take 24 months to make. That's two years.

They're very costly. And so it takes a lot of time. And then I think just getting to what Cedric was talking about on these stockpiles that we're having problems with, that also gets to our deterrence. Part of what makes the United States strong on the world stage is our power to -- our ability to project power.

And when our stockpiles are dwindled, our adversaries are taking note of that. So if there were a conflict that arises in the Indo Pacific or with Russia, the U.S. military and the president is going to have to make some really tough choices on defending the homeland or potentially engaging in those conflicts.

BLITZER: That's a good point. It could escalate. We'll see what happens. Sabrina Singh and Colonel Leighton, thanks to both of you very much for joining us. Pamela?

BROWN: All right, Wolf. Well, coming up, tracking, tricking people with fake identities and dangerous code planted in public projects. What we know about more AI models going rogue.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:55:40]

BROWN: Happening now, North Carolina, Republican Congressman Chuck Edwards is abandoning his re-election bid after an ethics panel found, quote, "substantial evidence" that the congressman repeatedly made unwanted advances toward two female staffers. Edwards making this announcement on social media early this morning saying he will complete his current term.

A salmonella scare has Chipotle pulling jalapenos from some of its restaurants. The popular chain said the move was out of an abundance of caution. The Minnesota Health Department confirmed it was investigating a Salmonella outbreak tied to several Mexican style fast casual restaurants that included Chipotle.

And over in Australia, a car trying to avoid hitting another car ends up flying, flying into the side of a bus. According to the city council there, the car went airborne after hitting a median and hit the out-of-service bus.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hello. Are you okay? Just wait. Just wait.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: The bus driver rushed to the driver of the car helping her out of her vehicle and to a nearby seat. The driver was driving, taken to the hospital and treated for shock. You can imagine what that must have been like for her. Officials say the driver of the other vehicle was fined by police. Wolf?

BLITZER: Amazing. All right, new this morning, Britain's AI Security Institute says that Anthropic's most advanced artificial intelligence model used fake identities to deceive real people and tried to plant malicious code during a test. It's the latest example of an AI model going rogue. And another chapter in our Situation Room series, decoding AI.

Let's go to CNN AI correspondent Hadas Gold. Hadas, what more can you tell us about this?

HADAS GOLD, CNN AI CORRESPONDENT: Yes, this is another stunning incident of an AI model essentially engaging in unsanctioned activity during testing. But in this case, it wasn't necessarily that they were hacking into something else, is that they were trying to use social engineering to trick real humans into doing something on their behalf.

So, this, as you noted, was the U.K. Government's AI Security Institute. It running these cybersecurity tests, as we've seen a lot of these institutes do on these models. They were specifically focusing on models from OpenAI and Anthropic. And they found that in 122 of these tests there were 19 unsanctioned actions, almost all of them except for two coming from Anthropic models.

Now, in these tests, the typical safeguards are removed from the AI models, and in this case they were given some Internet access. So it's not like those other cases where they weren't supposed to have Internet access, and they got access to the Internet somehow. So you have to keep that in mind.

But what was stunning about what these models did is that in one instance, an Anthropic Mythos model tried to put malicious code into an online repository of open-source code. It's called GitHub. You can kind of think of it like the Wikipedia of software code. And it has human reviewers, just like Wikipedia has human editors reviewing the submissions that people make.

And in this case, the AI agent tried to trick the human reviewers into putting malicious code onto GitHub. After their actions were challenged, they modified their history and tried to create a new identity, or considered creating a new identity to continue. And then even further, as part of this case, the agent tried to contact real people directly, tried to write them emails, sending them messages and files, trying to persuade them to run this malicious code.

It was unsuccessful. There was no real-world harm. But it's one of the first times we're seeing an AI agent trying to social engineer people. This is what the U.K. Government Institute on AI said.

They say, "This is the first time AISI has seen deception of this severity that was targeted at a real person unprompted in the real world."

So, keep that in mind. The Security Institute, when they were testing these models, they did not tell them to go do this. They just gave them a CyberSecurity test. The AI agent decided on its own that the best way to complete this task was to try to trick a real human reviewer into doing something for them. So you can imagine, you know, just translate that out into what could happen in the real world.

Now, Anthropic did say in a comment that these models were tested under deliberately permissive conditions that are not representative of any of our production models. They wanted went on to say that no evidence here of an escape from a secure environment. But as you noted, it's the latest string in several strings that we're seeing of AI agents with these super advanced capabilities escaping their environments or doing things that they were not supposed to do. And this is a really big moment both in AI and cybersecurity. Guys.

[12:00:20]

BLITZER: Hadas Gold reporting for us, thank you very much.

And to our viewers, thanks very much for joining us this morning. You can always keep up with us on social media at Wolf Blitzer and at Pamela Brown, CNN.

BROWN: And we'll see you back here tomorrow morning and every Weekday morning at 10:00 Eastern. Inside Politics Today with our friend and colleague Manu Raju, starts now.