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The Source with Kaitlan Collins
DHS Using Unverified Figures To Attack Election Officials; President Trump Attends FIFA World Cup Reception In NYC Ahead Of Final; President Trump's Teleprompter Operator Investigated For Insider Trading. Aired 9-10p ET
Aired July 17, 2026 - 21:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
WILL RIPLEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): On China's tightly-controlled social media, censors are allowing comments like these: The U.S. military's premier escort warships -- long regarded as a source of pride -- have now become designated targets for Chinese missiles. They are nothing more than targets sitting in the desert, waiting to be hit.
Will Ripley. CNN. Taipei.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN KING, CNN HOST: And the news continues. "THE SOURCE WITH KAITLAN COLLINS" starts now.
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN HOST: On the heels of the President's speech on election fraud, the Department of Homeland Security is now threatening election officials?
I'm Kaitlan Collins. And this is THE SOURCE.
So, about last night, quote: The White House promised a bombshell, and they delivered a dud.
That's the reaction from one of the nation's most prominent experts on election law and security about President Trump's primetime address to the nation.
That was the address, where the President laid out what he claimed was an effort to build confidence in U.S. elections, but he spent most of the night making exaggerated, distorted, or flat-out fabricated claims that seemed to do just the opposite.
What was billed by the White House as, quote, Shocking, instead to be a lot of information that's already public, though it seemed to be repackaged for the occasion.
The declassified intelligence that the President made public also does not back up his most outlandish claims. But for the President, that might not be the point. His pledge, as he put it, to help states, quote, Fix and patch known technical vulnerabilities before the midterm elections, this fall, came less than a week after he gutted the independent bipartisan board that was established by Congress to do just that. And shortly before, his Homeland Security Secretary, today, threatened this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARKWAYNE MULLIN, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: The states have to do their part.
I will tell you, if the states that choose not to participate with the SAVE program and they choose not to participate in securing the elections, we will make sure that we make those states a priority to look at who voted in their states and hold them, the election officials, accountable.
If the election officials, once we gave them the information they need, to secure their elections, and they chose not to, then those individuals can also be held accountable, by fines, by penalties, and even, depending on how far it goes, prison time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Sources say that the Secretary's comments about non-citizens voting are based on figures that his own agency has acknowledged aren't fully vetted.
Take, for example, this claim.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MULLIN: We've identified 250,000 non-citizens registered to vote in California, and Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Nevada.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: The Secretary's comments came after the President handed down an order from the Department of Homeland Security, last night, related to that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I've also ordered DHS to notify every state about non-citizens on their voter rolls and direct them to remove all ineligible voters from the lists immediately.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: We're going to hear from a top Republican election official in just a moment on whether or not that's something that officials already do.
But it's telling that of all the President's claims that he made last night, the one the administration followed up on today is based on unverified data. Even Secretary Mullin's letter to Pennsylvania that asked to help ensure the accuracy of the numbers that they had. Now, while they're threatening local officials with prosecution, potentially. The administration has not said what consequences there will be for assertions the President made like this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: The People's Republic of China carried out what is believed to be the largest compromise of election data in history, resulting in China's illicit acquisition of 220 million U.S. voter files.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Notably, there were no allegations that any votes were changed or the outcomes impacted by any foreign nation in 2016, 2020, or 2024, or that any actual voting systems themselves were breached.
But all of this is coming, and the point that we make about there not being any stated consequences for China, as the Chinese leader Xi Jinping is set to visit the White House for a lavish state visit in just a couple of months from now.
[21:05:00]
The administration today did not answer when asked whether or not the President had planned any repercussions for China for what the President laid out there. And instead, the administration's efforts appear aimed at those at the state level, here in America, like my lead source tonight, who famously issued this warning in 2020 that was designed to shake Americans by the shoulders about what the President was saying then, about relentless and false claims of fraud.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GABRIEL STERLING, FORMER COO & CFO, GEORGIA SECRETARY OF STATE'S OFFICE: Mr. President, it looks like you likely lost the State of Georgia. We're investigating. There's always a possibility. I get it. And you have the rights to go through the courts. What you don't have the ability to do, and you need to step up and say this, is stop inspiring people to commit potential acts of violence. Someone's going to get hurt. Someone's going to get shot. Someone's going to get killed. And it's not right.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: And my lead source tonight is the former Chief Operating Officer for the Georgia Secretary of State's office, Republican, Gabriel Sterling.
And thank you so much for being here, sir.
I just think, from your experience, when you hear the Homeland Security Secretary threaten to prosecute local officials, if they don't take their recommendations on election security, what goes through your mind?
STERLING: Well, in large part, it's a distraction from the real everyday work that elections officials have to do. They already do a lot of this stuff to keep non-citizens off the rolls. They do list maintenance constantly, it's an everyday kind of thing.
And I look back, and just recently, there was a -- Harmeet Dhillon did a letter to all the chief elections officers in the country, and the Idaho Attorney General sent back to him, basically -- or sent back to him, the A.G. Harmeet Dhillon, saying that, You know, maybe first thing you can do to help us as a state run free and fair elections? Stop threatening your friends.
COLLINS: I mean, on that front, I think a lot of people think of the Democratic secretaries of state and the battles that they've had with the administration.
But also, a lot of Republican secretaries of state have been pushing back on them on that very front because, they're not comfortable sharing that information with them either.
STERLING: Well, sometimes it's not a question of comfort; it's a question of law. I mean, most states have laws to defend this. And also, there's federal laws around privacy as well that different departments can't get it for different reasons.
If there's an actual investigation they're doing and they come with a subpoena, obviously everybody can work with you on that. But just simply asking for it, I think they're now zero for 16 in all the cases, Republican and Democrat alike, trying to get this information.
COLLINS: Yes, and on top of that, you know, it makes me think about when we've heard what they've said to local officials before. The commission chair in Fulton County in Georgia said, before the FBI went and seized those voting -- that voting material, that he got a call saying he, the Secretary of State, and you were at risk of imminent arrest by federal agents.
I think that might make people think, you should take what Markwayne Mullin is saying seriously.
STERLING: Or with a grain of salt because, I -- no one ever came to beat the Secretary's door down, or Commissioner Pitts' (ph) door down, or my door down.
I mean, this work is done every day. We're about a little over a 100 days away from Election Day. In Georgia, we're going to start voting, I think, in 82 days for early voting. No mass changes can get done.
The president in power inevitably loses midterm elections, loses the seats. That's happened one time in my life where the incumbent president didn't lose seats, and that was in 2002, post 9/11. So, that's the political reality we're dealing with. And I think there's -- they're trying to lay a foundation of saying the reason that we're losing is because we didn't get to do all these things we talked about.
Because, I think we were expecting more from this press conference last night. Because there was a big build up, There was going to be a big thing out there, prosecutions. And I just don't see it from where they're going to be coming. Because, there really was no new information on this. Almost everything they discussed, outside of some of the non-citizen things, were in the March 2021 intelligence findings.
COLLINS: Yes, I mean the White House said, If you listened with an open ear or had an open eye, maybe was the phrasing, that people would be shocked by what they heard last night. Were you shocked by anything?
STERLING: I was shocked that there was nothing new. I mean, it's -- the reality of this was almost all the stuff have been listed previously.
On the non-citizen thing, what I heard was the things they didn't say. They said there are these people on the rolls, and there may very well be some of those non-citizens on the rolls. What they didn't say was that they voted. The Chinese may have had a plan to do something, but they didn't execute it. This is stuff we already knew from 2021 and 2022, and the lookback to the 2020 elections.
So, there's always going to be influence campaigns from foreign entities and foreign nations. That's been there for a while. We've known this. I mean, Russia, China, Iran are all of our enemies, North Korea in some cases, Venezuela in some cases.
[21:10:00]
But there's nothing new here to make me think that there's something really fundamentally wrong with our election machinery. 2020 was a free and fair election. It had the same kind of problems in every other election. 2022 was free and fair and more secure than 2020. 2024 is more secure than 2022, and 2026 will be more secure than 2024.
COLLINS: Do you think the President is just laying the groundwork in case Republicans do lose in November?
STERLING: That seems -- that seems like the most likely thing that's happening here. And he's been telling his base that this is coming, the big bombshell is coming. And I've heard people say this before: It's tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, which just never seems to come.
And at some point, I would think people start getting frustrated that people aren't getting arrested, things aren't happening because, the evidence just isn't there. Because this has been the most examined, poked, and prodded election in the history of mankind.
And they've had 18 months of being back in office, and they were in office the first time when the election occurred. So, they won the elections when they were not in power. I mean, the Obama administration ran one election, and the Biden administration was over -- the other election when it was running, and somehow those are the elections that Trump won. When he was in charge of the federal government, that was the one that he lost. So, it just seems amazing to me that this continues to be happening. It's six years later, Kaitlan, and I am sitting here, on your show, still talking about some of the same things we were talking about six years ago.
COLLINS: I mean, when you delivered that address, and I mean, I remember the day that you came out and said and offered that warning and said someone's going to get killed. I mean, obviously, it was -- it was accurate.
When you said that, did you ever think that you would still be talking about it on the heels of the -- right before the 2026 midterms?
STERLING: No. Nobody would think that because it's not a normal kind of thing to happen.
I mean, it's sad and it's unfortunate because I know the elections officials across this country work their tails off and do really important work all the time, with limited resources, in this pressure cooker environment, and it's made their lives a lot more difficult. But they've risen to the challenge every single time we've had free and fair elections.
And these are local elections, and these are intended by the Constitution to be run by the states. It says time, place, and manner. A federal government pushing in on elections. As a conservative Republican, I don't want the federal government telling my states or my localities how to run elections. That's not the role. Because what will happen one day, if we set the foundation here, and the Democrat president comes in, they will come in and do the same kind of thing in the future.
We have to defend federalism. We have to defend the institutions. We have to defend the Constitution.
COLLINS: Do you worry that Trump's not going to accept the election results if it doesn't bode well for him or for his party?
STERLING: I'm sure that he will. I mean, listen, this is the guy who, when he lost the Emmy, said it was rigged. So, I mean, there's never a time when he's lost something where he hasn't said it wasn't fair. So, I anticipate that, and the likelihood is that my team, that Republican Party, will lose seats just because that's the nature of history right now. And this is the kind of foundational thing I believe will be happening.
I don't believe the Feds are going to come in and take over elections and put troops on the streets and they're not going to have a midterm election. I think a lot of people on the left are losing their minds over that, and that's not rational either.
What everybody else has to do, put their head down, do the work they're supposed to do. Republicans, work on getting your voters out. Democrats, work on getting your voters out.
And elections officials, do the important blocking and tackling of recruiting poll workers, training poll workers, doing the testing on your equipment, and making sure you run a really free, fair election, to where every legal person who wants to vote can vote, and no illegal voters are allowed to vote.
Occasionally, some things are going to slip through because human beings are involved in the process. But we work, as elections officials, every single year, every single cycle, to make things just a little bit better than it was the cycle before.
COLLINS: Yes, and we've seen when people who do that, they get prosecuted.
Gabe Sterling, it is great to have you here, and thank you for joining us, given your experience and your expertise.
STERLING: Well, thank you. You have a great night. And also, Go Dawgs.
COLLINS: Come on. Don't do that to me. Roll Tide.
STERLING: Had to be done.
COLLINS: Also joining me tonight is David Becker, the Founder and Executive Director of The Center for Election Innovation & Research, a non-profit that seeks to build confidence in elections.
And thank you, sir, for being here.
You served for seven years as a senior trial attorney at the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, overseeing voting rights enforcement in several states. When you hear Secretary Mullin's threat today, what goes through your mind?
DAVID BECKER, EXEC. DIR. & FOUNDER, THE CENTER FOR ELECTION INNOVATION & RESEARCH: Well, I think it's not really based on the law. The DOJ has brought over 30 cases against states, trying to seize voter registration data, sensitive information, driver's license numbers, Social Security numbers, dates of birth, the holy trinity of identity theft. That's not -- they're not entitled to by law.
They're trying to seize that information. And to date, they have lost all 16 of those cases that have been -- that have been heard by the courts. The 16th just happened today. And of those 16 courts, seven of those judges were Trump-appointed judges. Over half of them, Republican-appointed judges.
And yet today he says, If you don't do what the courts have unanimously said you are not required to do, you are going to be somehow subject to prosecution?
[21:15:00]
We have heard bullying and intimidation of election officials for years now, and certainly for the 18 months of this administration. There's not a week that goes by that someone in the administration doesn't promise that the evidence of the election theft is coming soon, that there's going to be prosecutions coming soon. And election officials were worried at first. But now, I talk to election officials all over the country, Republicans, Democrats, and all the states. I don't think anyone's worried anymore.
It gives me no pleasure to say this as a former DOJ lawyer, but no one's shaking in their boots about a DOJ that's zero and 16 in the courts, and has lost every case that has come before the courts because these are not well-thought-out cases. They're not well- litigated by the lawyers who have come into the DOJ replacing the vast experience that departed.
So, they can keep trying to intimidate, but it actually smells of desperation and panic because, they don't actually have any substance to these claims. Election officials aren't being intimidated. We're seeing that in the primaries.
The primaries are going very well. We're seeing very high turnout, in some cases, record turnout, by these public servants, Republicans and Democrats who are doing the important work that Gabriel Sterling just mentioned, of just getting -- facilitating democracy, making sure eligible voters can cast a ballot and they can be -- they can be confident in the results.
COLLINS: How many of them were Trump-appointed judges that they lost before, did you say?
BECKER: I think the number is now seven out of 16.
COLLINS: Wow.
BECKER: And nine out of the 16 are Republican appointees in the 16 cases that were -- that were decided. The last one being Connecticut just today.
COLLINS: I mean, that's stunning because obviously that's always the argument they say, Well, it's the certain judge that it's before, liberal judge, Obama-appointed judge, Biden-appointed judge.
And I mean, these are the President's own appointees that they are going before, and they're not buying it.
BECKER: It's incredible. I mean, again, during the entirety of the Department of Justice, the Civil Rights Division, which has existed for decades and decades, I don't know that they've lost 16 cases in the entirety of the history of the Civil Rights Division in the trial courts. But in 18 months they've lost 16 cases just on this one issue.
And if any previous administration -- I worked for three attorneys general, two Republicans and one Democrat -- if we had lost even one case, there would have been a very serious review of this from career and political lawyers to try to determine whether these should be -- continue to be pursued.
It is impossible to process the idea that the nation's law firm, the American people's law firm, this is not the President's law firm, could lose 16 cases of the same type in a row, and continue to pursue the other cases, and then threaten prosecution of our public servants who are running elections if they don't do what the DOJ demands, which courts are continually telling the DOJ, You have no right to demand.
COLLINS: When you -- I mean, obviously Gabe Sterling agrees with you. He says, Take it with a grain of salt because they didn't follow through on their threats.
When you heard the President's speech last night, what is it that you are on the lookout for, that you're saying people should be warned about before November?
BECKER: Well, they set this up. They said, This is going to be a big deal, this is going to be a bombshell. They set the date of this speech. This is not artificially set. No one demanded that they give this speech on July 16th.
And finally, after all of the years of claims of election theft, they have controlled the entire federal government for 18 months. They set the intelligence community, the FBI, the DOJ, and the DHS to go out and turn over every rock to try to prove the President's lies about the 2020 election theft for 18 months.
And after 18 months, this was the result. And it was all stuff we'd heard before. Some of it was largely debunked. And it actually confirmed that the 2020 election wasn't stolen at all. The President's own staff confirmed they have no evidence that there was anything that changed the outcome of the 2020 election.
It was -- it was remarkable in that not only in what it lacked, but what it demonstrated. It demonstrated the exact opposite of what the President might have intended.
And I'm sure if you talk to Republicans today, many of them don't want to talk about this speech anymore. It's really telling that the people who want to keep talking about the speech are Democrats. That doesn't -- that shouldn't give the White House confidence in what they achieved last night.
It was -- it was -- I can tell you, I felt the same way about the speech as I felt after the Fulton County warrant was executed, when I first thought, Oh, I wonder if they found something new that justified this kind of warrant. And then the affidavit that supported the warrant was released, a week later, and all of it was debunked, rehashed conspiracy theories that Republicans and Democrats had proven untrue years and years before. Same here that occurred last night.
[21:20:00]
COLLINS: David Becker, thank you for joining us tonight.
BECKER: Thank you, Kaitlan.
COLLINS: Up next. The President is in New York ahead of Sunday's World Cup final, for a FIFA reception, and within minutes brought up that infamous red card call that he made.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Like, probably the most unforgettable is when they gave that gentleman -- is it a red card? And I was forced to call Gianni and just make a recommendation. I said, Gianni, I'd like to make a recommendation. Let the guy in the game.
No, I didn't say that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[21:25:00]
COLLINS: Ahead of President Trump's appearance at the World Cup final between Spain and Argentina, this Sunday, he attended a FIFA reception in New York City tonight, alongside FIFA's President Gianni Infantino.
That's the same person that the President called up, just a couple of weeks ago, asking to review a U.S. player's red card ban. Following that extraordinary intervention, FIFA cited an obscure rule and allowed the American player to play against Belgium just a few days later.
It's a moment the President considers a highlight of the tournament.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: This has been a tournament like no other, filled with fierce competition, unforgettable moments, yet unforgettable moments like, probably the most unforgettable is when they gave that gentleman -- is it a red card? And I was forced to call Gianni and just make a recommendation. I said, Gianni, I'd like to make a recommendation. Let the guy in the game.
No, I didn't say that.
(LAUGHTER)
TRUMP: I said, I'd like to wage a complaint, and actually, I didn't -- I had no idea what was going to happen. But you know, it's so much better the way it worked out because there's no controversy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: It didn't end well for Team USA. Balogun ended up playing, but they lost to Belgium, four to one.
My political and legal sources are here with me tonight.
I mean, Mayor de Blasio, watching this moment with the President, and Gianni Infantino standing right over his shoulder, as Trump is bringing up one of the most sensitive moments of the entire World Cup, and he's like, Is it called a red card? What's it called?
I just wonder what you made of that whole moment. BILL DE BLASIO, (D) FORMER NEW YORK CITY MAYOR: The sad thing is, Gianni Infantino, for soccer fans all over the world, really embarrassed the entire football, as they say, world, by seeming to just do whatever Trump wanted. And obviously gave him the FIFA Peace Prize before that. And this is actually one of the times when the entire world comes together and plays a game that's truly the international sport. So, I'm amazed of all the things Infantino did that he did that.
But Trump, is it surprising he would think he could get his way? I think Infantino sent him that signal a long time ago.
COLLINS: Yes.
I mean, Mayor Landrieu, when you -- Gianni Infantino is in the Oval Office all the time. He has an extremely close relationship with the President and has courted him. He says, the plan is for Trump to present the trophy to the winner after the game on Sunday. I mean, if that ends up being Spain, it could be kind of awkward, given what Trump has said about Spain and its leadership in recent months.
I just want to, for people who haven't been paying attention to that, I just want to remind them what he has said lately.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Spain has been very bad.
Spain is a terrible partner in NATO. They don't participate. They don't pay. I don't want anything to do with Spain. Cut off all trade with Spain, please.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: What happens if they win on Sunday?
MITCH LANDRIEU, CO-CHAIR, AMERICAN BRIDGE 21ST CENTURY, (D) FORMER NEW ORLEANS MAYOR, SENIOR ADVISER, 2024 HARRIS PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN: Listen, first of all, the World Cup has been incredible. It's been spectacular to watch. It's been a great joy. It's got to give people a great sense of possibility when people from all over the world come together and enjoy themselves. I was in Georgia, in the neighborhood where the games were taking place, and I was able to watch the fans operate. It was just beautiful.
Everything Donald Trump touches turns to dirt. Whether he's at the Knicks game or he messes around with FIFA, he thinks it's perfume and it's just a pile of crap. And just for him to think to himself that the best thing about FIFA was that he got involved in it tells you about how delusionary this guy is. He's just a lost ball in high weeds, and he just keeps doing it over and over again. I mean, it's kind of a clown show, to be honest with you.
COLLINS: Delusionary and a high -- a lost ball in high weeds. Is that what you said?
LANDRIEU: Yes, that's exactly what I said. You can quote me--
(CROSSTALK)
COLLINS: Delusionary. That sounds like something my dad would say.
Governor Sununu, what do you --I mean, just looking at all of this from your perspective. Obviously, the President is going to get involved in this. I don't think that's surprising to anyone because he did get the Peace Prize from FIFA as they were announcing the World Cup, where everything was going to be playing. What did you make of what you heard today?
CHRIS SUNUNU, (R) FORMER NEW HAMPSHIRE GOVERNOR, PRESIDENT & CEO, AIRLINES FOR AMERICA: Well, I can tell you one thing. I'm rooting for Spain. I just want to see the moment, right? That'll be the highlight of the game, the awkward moment of handing the trophy, it'll probably be hilarious. And by the way, what is the FIFA Peace Prize? I don't quite get that one either. I'm not quite figuring that one out.
[21:30:00]
So, look, I mean, yes, anytime you have sports and politics mix, it's always just a little bit fun, silly. No one really takes it very seriously. Obviously, that was kind of a light-hearted press conference. The President was making some jokes there and everything. So, yes, America didn't win. I think that's what I've been focusing on. We got our doors blown off. That kind of stunk. At this point, I'm just looking for something fun to watch, at the end of the final.
COLLINS: So, you are rooting for Spain?
SUNUNU: I am now. I am now. I'm a big Messi fan, but I am now because, to your point, I think it'll be a hilariously awkward moment, and I'm dying to see what happens.
COLLINS: Yes, he might not give them the trophy. I mean--
SUNUNU: He'll--
COLLINS: --I don't know. We'll see.
SUNUNU: He'll take it home. He'll take it back to the White House to put in the ballroom.
COLLINS: I'm kidding about that, for anyone who's watching.
Elie, as we've looked in this, one thing that stood out me today, if you live in New York or anywhere in this area, you know walking outside, there has been intense wildfire smoke coming from these Canadian fires.
The President today went off on it and was threatening to -- was threatening Canada's tariffs and trade deal over this, saying that, We are being unnecessarily invaded by filthy, polluted, and unhealthy air. Trump called it willful negligence and said he was going to be calling up the Prime Minister, and it was going to be added to the tariffs they are paying.
Legally, I mean, some New Yorkers might agree with that. Can that happen?
ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Yes--
COLLINS: What do you--
HONIG: I mean, as somebody who currently smells like a campfire, from walking outside for a few days, I appreciate where he's coming from.
COLLINS: I was wondering who that was.
HONIG: It's actually not crazy. Now, you can't impose a tariff like this through a tweet. However, Congress holds the tariff power, and Congress has delegated, over the years, some of that tariff power to the President.
Now, he used the wrong statute when he tried to do the global tariffs. That's why he lost in the Supreme Court. He used this emergency statute that does not apply.
But there's about a half dozen others, including one for disruption of commerce. So, if you can argue that this smoke has caused people to not come here on vacation, has caused stores to close down, who knows, maybe interferes with the World Cup final? There could be a basis for a tariff. Now, I don't believe he's really going to do it, but it's not the craziest thing, legally.
COLLINS: Who are you rooting for on Sunday?
HONIG: I want Spain to win because I'm bitter that Argentina beat England. My family is an England family, and that was heartbreaking. Vengeance.
COLLINS: And Mayor de Blasio?
DE BLASIO: I'm with Spain because Pedro Sanchez has stood up to Donald Trump. So, we got to give him some props here. And I hope--
COLLINS: All right.
DE BLASIO: --I hope Sanchez accepts the trophy from Trump, so Trump has to go through that.
COLLINS: Mayor Landrieu, what's your -- what's your bet? I got to get your take too.
LANDRIEU: Argentina, come on.
COLLINS: OK.
LANDRIEU: Absolutely.
COLLINS: So, we got one Argentina, three rooting for Spain. Don't worry because my apparent sports experts are coming back in just a couple of moments for us.
You've got to see our behind-the-scenes this week of the major stories at the White House, from questioning Trump in the Oval Office, talking to his Border Czar. That's coming up, right after a quick break.
[21:35:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: This week. From questioning the President about why he's still bombing Iran. To asking the Border Czar why ICE agents weren't wearing body cameras in Maine and Texas. And also, talking to one of the previously highest-ranking intelligence officials about his primetime address. This is our look behind the scenes in Washington.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TRUMP: And this is what they've done for 47 years. The difference is nobody negotiated like I do.
ON SCREEN TEXT: Monday, July 13.
TRUMP: As we count down to the Freedom 250 Grand Prix, this will be like no other race ever.
COLLINS: Jay (ph), we're going.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're going.
COLLINS: Mr. President.
Mr. President. You noted the United States is bombing Iran again. I mean, you've been bombing Iran for months now. Is this just the new normal for the American people?
TRUMP: No. Well, you know, we were in Vietnam for 19 years. We're here for four months.
They have a little capability, but they don't have any capability for us.
We had a deal with them two days ago, and then they said, Oh, we can't make that deal. We have to negotiate it further.
They're stone cold crazy. They are crazy. And we're not going to put it up.
COLLINS: But you said the U.S. will get reimbursed. You--
TRUMP: Yes, I want to be reimbursed--
COLLINS: Who's going to reimburse the U.S.?
TRUMP: We are going to be reimbursed for protection. We're protecting--
COLLINS: By whom?
TRUMP: By the countries that we're helping.
COLLINS: Thank you, Mr. President.
The United States has been using force against Iran. It hasn't gotten the results that the President wanted in terms of a nuclear deal. Why do you think doing it now will be different?
SEN. ROGER MARSHALL (R-KS): I feel like we've given them every chance possible.
COLLINS: Is this a forever war?
MARSHALL: Not yet, and it's not going to be. I will guarantee you that this will not be a--
COLLINS: How do you guarantee that?
MARSHALL: --be a forever war. I think that at some point in time, the bombing has to stop.
ON SCREEN TEXT: Tuesday, July 14.
TRUMP: I was called by different people, different countries. The Gulf States are going to invest a tremendous amount of money into the United States, and that was very satisfactory to me.
COLLINS: Hi, Mr. Homan. I know it's hot, but will you take a few questions from us, please?
TOM HOMAN, BORDER CZAR: For you.
COLLINS: Why were the ICE agents not wearing body cameras in Houston or in Maine during these two incidents?
HOMAN: Good question. When the Democrats shut down the Department of Homeland Security, I was up on the Hill as part of the negotiating team to reopen the government. And they wanted body cameras.
Since the Big Beautiful Bill passed, now the reconciliation bill, the body cameras have been ordered.
COLLINS: What is the state of distribution right now?
HOMAN: That's a question for ICE. I talked to the ICE Director last night. There's a schedule for distribution.
COLLINS: But don't you see that to be extremely urgent, given right now--
HOMAN: It is urgent. We're -- they're moving as quick as they possibly -- soon as they had funding they bought them.
COLLINS: --we do not have video of these situations beyond witnesses?
HOMAN: As soon as they had funding they bought them.
COLLINS: But it's been two months since April.
HOMAN: If the Democrats wouldn't have shut down the government, it would have been a lot quicker.
COLLINS: Thank you, Mr. Homan.
[21:40:00]
This was a huge issue that came up after what happened in Minneapolis. Was a key question about what it is from the perspective of these ICE agents and the need to have these body cameras.
After two fatal shootings by ICE in the span of two weeks, there are key questions still unanswered tonight.
Do you know if there is anything else that maybe hasn't become public?
MAYOR LIAM LAFOUNTAIN, BIDDEFORD, MAINE: I believe there is footage that's been circulating in the media around several buildings that have cams.
That would not be an issue if there were body cams.
COLLINS: In this moment, what is this like for your city?
LAFOUNTAIN: It's somber. We don't know all the circumstances. But for what seems unnecessary. And we want answers.
ON SCREEN TEXT: Wednesday, July 15.
COLLINS: I think some people might look at this bombing and say, Is this going to work this time?
SEN. CORY BOOKER (D-NJ): From Vietnam to Afghanistan, we've seen presidents just continue to double down on disastrous decisions.
This is a moment in America where we need to say, enough is enough. This President is failing in this endeavor.
Every day he persists in this disastrous policy, people all across our country and in that theater are hurting.
ON SCREEN TEXT: Thursday, July 16.
COLLINS: Regarding the President's speech tonight. He's been in office over 540 days now. If what he says tonight is backed up by evidence, why hasn't anyone been charged?
KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: He hasn't revealed it yet. He hasn't declassified the documents yet. And you will see what he says tonight, and then we'll move forward appropriately from there.
COLLINS: So, will charges follow tonight from the Justice Department?
LEAVITT: I don't speak on behalf of the Justice Department, Kaitlan, you know that.
Rachel?
COLLINS: But if it's backed up by evidence, will there be charges?
LEAVITT: You'll have to ask the Justice Department. I don't charge people. I just speak on behalf of the President.
COLLINS: The President is going to be talking about election integrity tonight. There's not a lot of evidence to back up what the President has been arguing for six years.
How are we doing?
We are expecting the President to declassify documents that he plans to talk about in his address tonight, related to allegations of foreign meddling.
We'll be monitoring what the President says tonight, as we always do, but aren't taking it live, given the President has a well-documented history of saying blatantly false things about elections.
TRUMP: Every American deserves to know that when they cast their vote, that vote will be counted accurately.
Unfortunately, the system we have today falls catastrophically short.
You have to trust your country because, if there can be no trust, there can be no greatness.
COLLINS: As someone who worked at the highest levels of the intelligence community, what's your response?
SUE GORDON, FMR. PRINCIPAL DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: I think this was a dangerous speech about an incredibly important topic.
In a way, Kaitlan, it does the work of our adversaries for us. See, they don't have to interfere; they just have to convince us to not trust our democracy.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COLLINS: Up next. The President's social media platform is going to start doing something that is unprecedented in the next few weeks. What that is and why it's raising concerns? Right after this.
[21:45:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: After earning more than $2 billion, last year, a billion of that in cryptocurrency gains, President Trump's next lucrative venture is taking shape. That's because next month, his social media platform, Truth Social, is going to start selling Wall Street firms quicker access to his market-moving posts, which could allow traders to pocket massive profits and also boost the media company's revenue. Now, this comes as a CNN investigation reveals that the President has also posted about specific companies on Truth Social, just days after he bought their stocks. One of the companies includes the tech giant NVIDIA because, last April, the President touted its plans to build AI supercomputers in the United States. What he didn't disclose there, to Americans at the time, was that days earlier he had purchased between $200,000 and $500,000 worth of its stock.
The White House has strongly denied that the President has ever used his office for financial gain, noting that his stock trades are made by outside financial managers.
Inside the White House, though, the President's longtime teleprompter operator is now under investigation for potential insider trading. That's because sources say White House employee Gabe Perez made trades on the prediction site Kalshi. The trades were on so-called Mention markets, where users place bets on words and phrases that public figures, like President Trump, might say in speeches or at events. Obviously, you can see why the teleprompter operator would know that. Perez made more than $90,000 in profits from these trades.
And the White House says when President Trump found out, he wasn't happy about it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LEAVITT: I'm aware of the report. The President is too. I spoke with him about it. He believes it's deeply unfortunate and, frankly, a disgrace. And the individual that was cited in that report is complying with the CFTC, but has been put on paid administrative leave.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Leavitt later clarified she meant unpaid administrative leave.
I'll also note tonight, CNN has a partnership with Kalshi and uses its data to cover major events. But editorial employees here at CNN, like myself, are not allowed to trade on those prediction markets.
I want to bring in my legal and political sources. They're back here with me.
Governor Sununu. Just on the CNN investigation in and of itself, do you think any president, not just President Trump, should post online and tout moves of companies that they hold stock in?
SUNUNU: No, obviously not.
And again, it's not just President Trump. Understand. This goes to what is quietly, I think, the biggest issue of 2026. Nobody in America trusts anybody in Washington. Whether it's insider trading going on that is clearly going on, on Capitol Hill, whether it's folks trying to use their office to make money, whatever it might be, it's absolutely rampant. [21:50:00]
And all -- you don't get any large-scale reform legislation coming forward, you don't get any large-scale rule changes coming forward, which shocks the American people, takes them off, and basically keeps them home on Election Day. So, it's bad all around, and I think the Capitol Hill has -- Capitol Hill has a huge opportunity to once and for all put the end to all this.
This Kalshi stuff, this Polymarket stuff, it's all friggin' scams. It absolutely is, and I -- and as bad as that story is about the teleprompter guy, I hope it tells America, Please understand, all these flexible markets out there can be manipulated. Somebody is manipulating it to some extent. Do they provide news sources and all that and opportunities? I guess so. But at the end of the day, if you're an American citizen betting on those garbage markets, you're probably getting scammed one way or the other.
And again, Washington can do something about that. They can do something about their own insider trading issues and re-instill some confidence back to the American people that the system isn't -- I don't like using the word rigged -- but the system doesn't kind of game it the haves and the have-nots. Everyone in D.C. has one set of rules, and we all have to live by another.
COLLINS: Yes.
Mayor Landrieu, how do you see this?
LANDRIEU: Well, first of all, I think I agree with what Chris said, but he took the focus off of Donald Trump by saying, Well, everybody does it.
We haven't had a president do anything near what Donald Trump has done, or to the extent that he does. And you know, when he ran, he said he was going to drain the swamp. He has become the swamp. I mean, he's been concentrating on bombs, ballrooms, and ballots, and everything is covered by chaos.
And the level of perceived corruption, the appearance of corruption, this issue of being involved in companies, you know, financially that he's regulating, and this is just stuff that we can see. Can you imagine the stuff that you can't see?
And so, corruption is really bad. Because, at the end of the day, what's really happening is it's driving up costs for American people, and this is the thing they want the President to concentrate on, which is why they're so ticked off about the nothing burger, last night. Because, they sense that he's out of control, he's lost focus, and he's not focusing on the things that most Americans want to focus on around the country, which is not the war in Iran, but it's their food, it's their gas prices, it's their housing prices, which he said he didn't give a patootie about. I won't say the word. But that is what people are frustrated about.
So, this whole election thing that he's talking about, he's not going to get beat because there's an election problem in Georgia. He's going to get beat because he's lost touch with the American people.
COLLINS: Elie, from a legal perspective. We've talked about how much money the President has made off crypto his first year in office. When it comes to this new plan for his platform, Truth Social, where he sometimes personally is posting to sell that access quicker to traders on Wall Street. Is that legal?
HONIG: I can hardly believe it's real. The prosecutor side of my brain is trying to come to grips with the fact that we are now apparently selling potential inside information to people who are willing to pay for it. So, let me be specific. Two problems.
First of all, two years ago the Supreme Court had a case where they said it is unconstitutional for any public official, high level or low, to block someone from social media. And the reason is, it violates the First Amendment because, that person then cannot see things that that official's posting, which interferes with the right to petition government, interferes with that person's right to engage in free speech, to post things.
If it's unconstitutional to stop someone from getting information, is it really that much different to say, Well, some people are going to get information earlier than others, right? That's -- it's a similar type idea.
The other thing is, it violates insider trading laws if you do something that you know will move a market. There's a case involving an influential financial writer who would write pieces, they would move markets. If you bet on that and then move a market on purpose? That violates the criminal laws.
COLLINS: I mean, how do you see this?
DE BLASIO: I think it's another thing that'll come back to bite Trump. Look, everything--
COLLINS: But why would it come back to bite him? How?
DE BLASIO: Because I think it's part of a pattern. All the things that he and his family are doing to enrich themselves, and then the ballroom, and the obsession with his own lost election in 2020.
You know, more and more, what's interesting to me is with the American people hurting the way they are economically, everything Trump is doing is increasingly about himself. There's really -- I mean, you think about. You must think any Republican consultant worth their salt would say, Mr. President, start talking about the price of gasoline, start talking about groceries, like Mitch said, and say we're going to get out of this war because it's hurting people at the kitchen table.
Instead, doubles down on the war and comes up with new ways to make money for himself and his family. I don't think it's disconnected from why his approval has gotten so shockingly low. It looks now like just a personal project, no semblance of what he ran on, no connection to the American people anymore.
COLLINS: I mean, but does that -- it doesn't seem to bother him.
DE BLASIO: Well, that's the amazing thing. I think this is a guy who is not going to be president again after this term, and is acting that way. He's just cashing out for his family at this point.
[21:55:00]
COLLINS: Mayor de Blasio. Mayor Landrieu. Governor Sununu. Elie Honig. Great to have all of you here tonight.
Up next. It is time for Source Code. We give you a number at the center of a news story. Can you guess what the story is? Tonight's Source Code is 19. And we're back in just a moment with the answer.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: Tonight's Source Code is 19. That's because 19 years ago, when soccer star Lionel Messi was photographed holding this baby. As it turns out, soccer greatness was actually holding soon-to-be soccer greatness. Because, that baby grew up to become Spain's teen sensation Lamine Yamal. Now, these two are going to be facing off again, this Sunday, at the World Cup final, when Argentina is set to play Spain.
[22:00:00]
Yamal's mom, who appears in those photos, had won a raffle to participate in the photoshoot with then 20-year-old Messi. Yamal's dad posted it on Instagram and said, quote, The beginning of two legends.
We're going to find out on Sunday, which legend gets to go home with the coveted cup.
What an amazing picture.
Thank you so much for joining us here tonight. Have a great weekend.
"CNN NEWSNIGHT" starts now.
