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The Lead with Jake Tapper

The Atlantic: National Parks Service Changed The Way It Prioritizes Projects To Expedite Trump's Requests; White House Faces Scrutiny Over Trump's Close Aide Natalie Harp; Teen Cancer Patient Seeks Hope In New Study; DHS Hasn't Proven Highly Touted Claim About Voter Fraud In Nevada; Angelique Kidjo Honored With Star On Walk Of Fame. Aired 5-6p ET

Aired August 21, 2026 - 17:00   ET

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

YALDA MOAIERY, IRANIAN PHOTOJOURNALIST: The very new version of the Islamic Republic is much, much more angry, much more tough. And I cannot remember 40 years ago very clearly, but when I'm hearing from my parents or the elderlies, this is even I remember 40 years ago very clearly, but when I'm hearing from my parents or the elderlies, this is even harder than that time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: And now she's a target herself, facing 15 years in prison.

Thanks so much to my panel. Thanks so much to all of you at home for watching. "The Lead" starts right now.

[17:00: 28]

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT: A win today for President Trump at the Supreme Court. The Lead starts right now.

The ballroom construction can go on for now at least. President Trump reacting just moments ago to that ruling today from the U.S. Supreme Court. Why it's not the final say? Plus, the defense rests in the case of Lindsay Clancy, the Massachusetts mother on trial for killing her three young kids. Should Clancy have taken the stand?

The rebuttal today from prosecutors ahead. And personal messages now public from Natalie Harp, Trump's executive assistant, writing, quote, "We shouldn't have to talk about work all the time," and quote, "You have the absolute right to cuss me out." The reported letters that raise even more questions about this aide's relationship with the president.

Welcome to The Lead. I'm Phil Mattingly in for Jake Tapper. We start in our Law and Justice Lead. The U.S. Supreme Court allowing the Trump administration to continue construction on the White House ballroom for now. The court froze a lower court ruling that said Trump needed approval from Congress before moving forward and it would have required construction to stop at midnight to tonight.

So by freezing the lower court ruling, the Supreme Court justices will now have more time to address the legality of the project itself. Trump took the ask for forgiveness, not permission approach, as he does often because this $400 million project has actually been underway for months and is reportedly already 65 percent complete. The administration's argument for the project include previous threats to Trump's life, national security needs and architectural values. Just moments ago, Trump was asked about the ruling and the potential cost of the ballroom.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're spending hundreds of millions of dollars on the ballroom and it's all from people like me and great companies that are putting it up. No taxpayer money for the ballroom at all.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: This ballroom is just one of many projects where President Trump is seeking to leave a heavy handed remark on the -- mark on the nation's capital. There's of course, the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, which has had, say, its own share of drama. The Presidential Walk of Fame, the Triumphal Arch, Sculpture Garden, Rose Garden, Oval Office, the Kennedy Center, Lafayette Square sidewalk and a public golf course. So how is President Trump getting so many expensive projects approved so fast?

The Atlantic's Michael Scherer obtained documents and interviews with five current or former National Park Service employees and reports the rapid approval system is, quote, "Thanks to a reorganization at the Interior Department led by Secretary Doug Burgum. Trump issued an executive order to make the District of Columbia safe and beautiful, justifying the creation of an NPS docket of White House priorities that is handled separately from other park projects and is prioritized both for funding and contracting resources."

And joining me now is Michael Scherer, staff writer for the Atlantic.

Michael, really appreciate you coming in. It's a great piece of and such a good window into, man, you got to read all the -- all the provisions and the EO's (ph).

MICHAEL SCHERER, STAFF WRITER, THE ATLANTIC: Right.

MATTINGLY: Because there's -- there was so much stuff buried in there where they could take advantage of gray areas, as they've clearly done here. The rapid approval system, how did it come to be and how is the Interior Department responded?

SCHERER: Yes. So I did a story in June that found -- reviewed other National Park Service documents showed about $800 million less was being spent at parks outside of D.C. and $100 million more in D.C. and it struck me at odd at the time because there was a gap there. Congressional funding has basically been level during that time. One of the things that's really dragging all of this down is that Doge came in and there was a huge reduction in contracting workforce. A lot of the contracting officers at the parks were moved up into the Interior Department.

And I got documents for this story that showed, you know, in one case, 133 projects were ready to go outside in the country but weren't being done. And so what's happened inside the Park Service is they've had to figure out what to do with the resources they have. And that's where these three lists come from. You have the White House priority list, you have the high priority list and the low priority list. And every park superintendent in the country is trying to get their projects off the low priority list because if it goes there, it's about 1,500 projects there.

It's not going to happen this year. Almost certainly they've got to get it, you know, up the chain.

MATTINGLY: You hear often from civil service employees, get creative is the message from our bosses politically --

SCHERER: Yes.

MATTINGLY: -- particularly the politicals. But this seems to be an excruciatingly difficult get creative moment, given personnel restraints, but also just trying to get onto a list that is prioritized or White House related seems to be the make or break here.

[17:05:04]

SCHERER: Right. And there have been meetings where they say, well, if you want to get onto the high priority list, you got to swap something off from park onto low and swap something in.

You know, the other thing I should mention here, this is not just spending for monuments and parks and things like that in the D.C. region. Another part of the safe and beautiful executive order was the decision to hire about 450 more park police. And on that list of White House priorities are new Tasers, body armor, laptops, the Flock cameras they're going to be putting downtown, a training center. There's provisions for -- they want to buy a new Park Service helicopter in the D.C. region for $25 million. There's a boat they want to buy for the Park Service police up in -- up in Manhattan.

And so, I mean, it's not just locations that are the priorities of the president. It's the agenda items he has for what he wants to see in Washington.

MATTINGLY: On the agenda items, you know, the funding levels set by Congress are static. Are those agenda items and money is fungible, I will grant people that. But is that taking money away? Is the idea that, like, look, there's a -- there's one pot of money. If these are the priorities, whether it's personnel, whether it's boats, whether it's helicopters, that's millions of dollars that aren't going to other Park Service projects that were expected to be funded this year.

SCHERER: Yes, so that's a little complicated. There is a pot of money the Park Service has for recreation fees. If you pay to go to Yosemite Park, 20 percent of that goes to a national pot. Almost all of that money this year that was in that pot has gone to D.C. So in that way, money is coming out of other national parks and coming here.

Now, whether money that otherwise would have gone to the parks is then redirected to D.C. We won't know until the end of the fiscal year. Hasn't happened yet. They still have a month or so to spend this money and we're going to see what they do. But like I said, the real buffer here is not just the money.

They have the money. The Congress is giving them the money. If they don't have the resources to actually sign the contract to get the, you know, new bear proof dumpsters or air conditioning systems or to repair the embankment under the bridge at some national park in Utah.

MATTINGLY: Can I just -- having covered appropriations for many years, some people think that's crazy. I enjoy it deeply. One of the things I've been struck by from the jump January 20, 2025, is the degree to which the Trump administration and their team of people who served in the first term takes advantage of gray areas, takes advantage of maybe lazily written language in legislation to create things like this that help them deliver on what the president wants or what their agenda items are. Is this an example of that in your mind?

SCHERER: Yes, night and day. I mean, it's all the agencies are much smarter about executing on the president's priorities in the second term than the first. And it's interesting because consistent in the first and second terms, the appropriators, as you know, disregard what the White House asks for. They'll come to Congress and say, we want to cut this agency by 20 percent and throw all these things out and Congress will just ignore it and they'll, you know, push through an increase. But what has changed in the second term is that the administrators, the cabinet officials, people below that have figured out how to play with that money there -- and figure out how to challenge in court their ability to play with that money.

They have a whole legal theory that basically says the president has the ability to ignore the will of Congress in a lot of cases.

MATTINGLY: It's such a cornerstone of so much of what's happening here. You've been doing great work, not just on this story, which is on the Atlantic website right now. You should definitely read it, but on a number of different fronts.

Michael Shearer, really appreciate you coming in. Thank you.

SCHERER: Thank you.

MATTINGLY: Well, convicted election denier Tina Peters just months out of a Colorado prison. She's in D.C. and could have a plan that could have major implications on the upcoming midterms. But first, brand new video just in of Natalie Harp traveling with the president this evening to South Carolina. There she is getting in Marine One. What the White House is saying about intimate letters the executive assistant reportedly sent to President Trump, that's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:12:46] MATTINGLY: In the politics lead, moments ago the president's close aide, Natalie Harp, boarding Marine One, you see her right there, to travel with the president to South Carolina. Today we got a closer look at the depth of her devout loyalty to her boss from two letters she wrote to him in 2023, published in full for the first time by the Daily Beast. One seems to be an apology. It reads, quote, "I want things to always be right between us. I'm sorry I lost my focus.

You are all that matters to me. I don't want to ever let you down. Thank you for being my guardian and protector in this life." In the second, she writes of, quote, "starting to envy those whose only job seems to be to talk with you and look pretty." And asks, "Please, when I fail, will you tell me?

You have the absolute right to cuss me out, if need be, when I deserve it, because no one knows or cares about me more.

Now the notes were reportedly written during a golf trip the president took to Europe in May 2023 and are coming out amid new scrutiny on Trump and Harp's relationship after a comment from Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff earlier this week. CNN has not independently verified Harp wrote or sent the letters to Trump. A White House spokesman defended Harp, calling her, quote, "One of the most loyal and hardest working aides on President Trump's team."

Joining me now is former Trump White House communications director Alyssa Farah Griffin.

And Alyssa, there's a lot to unpack in these letters. I guess I would just ask, what stands out to you about them?

ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: A couple of things. So listen, first and foremost, the White House's PR handling of this made a way bigger story than it needed to be. So Senator Ossoff knew what he was doing by dangling Natalie's name out there in the speech that he gave. But the White House's decision to go full court press, pushing back, attacking anyone who criticizes, has just drawn more scrutiny to this otherwise, like relatively unknown staffer if you're not in D.C. covering the White House. So it made it a bigger story and it made people look a little deeper into who she is.

But aside from the more salacious innuendo that I think is floating around because of the way in which she writes these letters, what stands out to me is this is an individual with an incredible amount of influence and access to the president. She regularly texts lawmakers on his behalf. She's somebody who control her -- I should say has influence over what information he gets, what letters he's getting, what appointments he's taking, what press clippings he's reading. So she's not above scrutiny. She's absolutely deserves to be scrutinized. And I would remind folks she also has $150,000 a year government salary.

[17:15:13]

MATTINGLY: Yes, I'm not a big like go after staff type of person, never have been. But I think the degree to which she is an integral part of this White House and really is a gatekeeper like no other is essential to understanding how the president works, how this White House works. And it's also something that has rubbed some in the White House the wrong way or at least raised some eyebrows. CNN's Wolf Blitzer and Pamela Brown spoke to Maggie Haberman from the Times this morning. She and Jonathan Swan, of course, obtained these letters for the book "Regime Change," where they reported on Harp as well.

Here's what Maggie said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAGGIE HABERMAN, NYT WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: This is coming in part because of people around the president have been concerned, including the Secret Service during those four years out of office. But she does fill a role that he wants. She handles a lot of his social media. She is a channel by which outsiders can bypass existing systems to get to him and vice versa, where he can reach out to other people. That does include, in some cases, foreign leaders.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: As somebody who worked in the White House during your first term, what do you make of the level of access to the president that she apparently has? Is it like anything you've seen before with this team?

GRIFFIN: No, it's remarkable. I think the closest I could compare it to is Dan Scavino, who's been with him since the 2016 campaign. But this feels like a whole new level, you know, thinking about the contents of the letter and how much they seem to talk on more personal matters. But also like, just keep in mind for the audience at home, there's an entire office that exists in the White House, the office of the staff secretary that is supposed to vet any sort of documents that go to the president, whether it's speeches, whether it's policy, whether it's, you know, letters to members of Congress to make sure that there's a flow of information and a control around it.

And this chief of staff, Susie Wiles, has, has to her credit, really had a more controlled White House than any of the chiefs of staff I served under. But this character and Natalie Harp feels like quite a wild card. It feels like a way to bypass the protocols that are in place. And, you know, lawmakers are clearly aware of it. But it sounds like according to Maggie's reporting, even foreign heads of state could know that this is a person they should go through.

MATTINGLY: Real back -- real quick back to the point you were making about the response to the this, like the ferocity of it, but also like the bizarrely juvenile and petty nature of it has driven what I think was just kind of like a very online related community comment that was made in passing with intent from a Democratic senator to what it has become. How do you see this ending?

GRIFFIN: I think that it's just encouraging reporters to dig. And that's not what you want to do when you want to quiet a story down. Listen, I get the sense that -- I don't know this one, but I get the sense that the president has a deep affection for her, sees her as tremendously loyal and sees her as somebody who won't leave him. And something that President Trump has been vocal about is he feels like there's a lot of people who've served around him and then they leave to take higher paying jobs or to go work for other candidates. And he feels like she's somebody who will always be loyal to him.

So he's clearly being protective and putting the full weight of White House press behind defending her. But that oftentimes is actually the worst way to handle it. Stories tend to go away if you just let them die. So the level of pushback I think signaled to the press corps across America that there's more here and you should be digging deeper. And I just don't think that's what they wanted from this story.

MATTINGLY: Yes, it was like waving a red flag in front of a bull on some level. We'll see where this goes.

Alyssa Farah Griffin, always appreciate you, my friend. Thanks so much.

Well, up next, the big day and the trial of Lindsay Clancy, the Massachusetts mother accused of killing her kids not taking the stand. The big questions in this case ahead of closing arguments.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:23:13]

MATTINGLY: In our Law and Justice Lead, the Lindsay Clancy trial shifting into its final stages. The trial centers on whether the Massachusetts mother was suffering from postpartum psychosis when she strangled her three children to death in January 2023. After 10 witnesses were called to testify, the defense officially rested its case today, allowing the prosecution to launch its rebuttal.

I want to bring in CNN's Jean Casarez. She's been covering this case in depth on CNN All Access, leading all of our coverage of it.

Jean, today we heard strong testimony from a psychiatrist who met with Clancy this year. What did we learn?

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. Prosecution expert witness, Dr. Avram Mack, he met with Lindsay Clancy in April of 2026. So it's not that long ago, just a few months ago. He said that she was miserable and she was depressed in really four different areas. Number one, the events of January of 2023 when she killed her children. Number two, her separation, her estrangement from her husband.

Number three, not able to be out in the outside world. And number four, her physical injuries. But this doctor said that someone can be in psychosis, but they can still know right from wrong, go about and make very deliberate, intentional decisions. And he focused in on that day in January of 2023, down to the basement. And he testified about her actions as she strangled her children with multicolored exercise bands.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DR. AVRAM MACK, PSYCHIATRIST WHO MET WITH CLANCY THIS YEAR: As I understand, the deaths, they were done methodically, one by one, in a way that was organized. Similarly, her attempt at suicide was organized and thoughtful in a sense. My opinion is that she retained the capacities that were required for having criminal responsibility for these actions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[17:25:09]

CASAREZ: The final witness for the defense was Dr. Phillip Resnick. And he focused on the fact that she was frankly, psychotic, that there were commands, voices, that she became the puppet in all of that. And that she also thought that she had to commit suicide. She wanted to commit suicide and it wouldn't be right to leave her children alone so her children could float up to heaven with her and they would still then all be together. So what we've seen today truly is the battle of the experts.

And the jury will look at both of it. And next week the rebuttal case continues with the prosecution. But closing should be, I would say, most likely maybe Tuesday.

MATTINGLY: Walk -- there's so much attention on this case. There's so much public interest and where this actually goes, there will be closings. Walk people through what they should expect in this kind of final phase.

CASAREZ: Well, I think we'll finish the witnesses and then they will go into closing arguments. And I think that's a key. You've got to listen to the closing arguments because you will see how each side ties the facts and the evidence together to meet either that this was a deliberate, premeditated killing with extreme atrocity and cruelty, or she did not know right from wrong. She did not appreciate the criminality of her act.

MATTINGLY: Jean Casarez, there is nobody better. Thank you very much. Great reporting as always.

Well, up ahead, CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta on the agonizing battle for children with cancer and their families showing just how far one family will go. It is a must see CNN special report up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:31:06]

MATTINGLY: Recent months have seen breakthroughs in cancer treatment, but there are signs that the pipeline which made them possible is starting to crack. For the youngest patients, that means fewer options and less hope. CNN's Sanjay Gupta with a gripping look now at what this means for one 17-year-old patient and her family. A note, this story was reported in collaboration with the Global Health Reporting Center with support from the Pulitzer Center.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CROWD: Happy birthday to you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Make a wish.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Birthdays, boyfriends, and a beautiful voice.

(SINGING)

GUPTA (voice-over): Sabina McMahon is just 17 years old and in so many ways she has had a charmed life. Except for one big thing, she's been battling cancer for the past five years.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So it is day three of chemo and we have the core four. Hello Sabina.

SABINA MCMAHON, 17-YEAR-OLD CANCER PATIENT: Hello.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hello Charlie. Hello Daddy.

GUPTA (voice-over): This summer the family has set up camp at this Airbnb in Columbus, Ohio. It's a desperate attempt to try and save Sabina's life. It's a lot. It's halfway across the country from their home in Oregon. Sabina and her dad had to ride 2,000 miles by train because the cancer she has made her lungs too fragile to fly.

This all started when Sabina was 12 years old. She was diagnosed with osteosarcoma. That's a type of bone cancer.

SABINA MCMAHON: I remember I went to a basketball camp and I -- my knee buckled. And --

GUPTA: How worried were you at that point?

SABINA MCMAHON: I didn't think anything of it. I totally thought it was growing pains and then obviously after it buckled I totally thought it was a basketball injury. Like, your first thought is never, oh my God, it's cancer.

GUPTA (voice-over): Her dad will never forget that first conversation he had with the cancer specialist.

SEAN MCMAHON, SABINA'S FATHER: And one of the things he said was like, well, unfortunately for osteosarcoma, the frontline defenses we use, treatments, are like 40 years old. And I was like, come again?

GUPTA (voice-over): For more than 40 years, the primary drug regimen to treat Sabina's cancer has not changed. They learned quickly that survival rates have improved dramatically for some types of pediatric cancer like leukemia. For many others though, progress has been stalled.

Now one hurdle is that individual types of childhood cancer are considered rare. And for drug makers, rare means fewer patients and less potential profit. Sabina's father also learned that it just doesn't seem to be a priority for federal research funding.

SEAN MCMAHON: So it's 4 percent of every dollar for cancer research funding at the federal level goes towards pediatric cancer. When you describe it that way, 22 percent of the population gets 4 percent of the money for cancer care. No one would look at that and be like, oh, that makes sense.

GUPTA: Does this make sense to you?

SABINA MCMAHON: I mean, this might sound harsh, but like if you're 75 years old with a certain type of cancer, you've lived a long life. If you're four years old with a certain type of cancer, that sounds more important.

GUPTA (voice-over): Sabina did undergo an operation at age 12 to remove cancerous bone in her leg and replace it with this prosthetic. She then went through chemo and radiation, and her cancer did disappear for more than a year. But this is the type of cancer that comes back, and her doctors weren't shocked when they found that it had spread to her lungs. Over the last three years, she has now had four relapses.

SEAN MCMAHON: So our doctors have been pretty honest with us. They're like, listen, she's facing some pretty long odds of, you know, still being here in a couple of years, you know, or even one year. She knows that. We don't like to talk about it all that much. It's pretty tough to talk about. But, you know, as long as there's a little glimmer of hope and you buy those chunks of six months for maybe a new drug or a new trial comes along, you know, like we tried to start a trial in Cleveland a month ago.

[17:35:07]

GUPTA (voice-over): For the past five years, the McMahons have been doing what just about any family would try and do. They've taken Sabina to doctors all over the country. And this summer, it was time for another cross-country train ride. A spot had opened up in a clinical trial at University Hospitals in Cleveland. This one was for a South Korean drug being tested in patients under 18 for the first time.

SABINA MCMAHON: I'm about to take my first dose of the trial drug, Vactosertib. I spilled water on myself.

GUPTA (voice-over): But they never got a chance to see if it worked, because less than a week later, a routine scan found her lung tumors were growing once again. It's relapse number five.

DR. RYAN ROBERTS, NATIONWIDE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL: When we saw those scans, it was really clear that if we didn't do something aggressive, that she probably just had a few weeks. It was moving very rapidly.

GUPTA (voice-over): Dr. Ryan Roberts is Sabina's oncologist at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus. The week we came, he was at a conference that connects the few leading experts on osteosarcoma with patients and their families. ROBERTS: Everything that we're doing at this point is just trying to buy a little more time.

GUPTA: Buying time for what?

ROBERTS: I've seen kids like Sabina who, you know, were able to graduate, were able to have their first girlfriend or boyfriend, were able to learn to drive. You know, what we want and what we try to do is to buy time where they can do the things they want to do, be with the people that they love, and create the memories that are going to linger.

GUPTA (voice-over): For these doctors and these patients, this is an important conference. Sabina was named to an advisory board that weighs in on research ideas.

SABINA MCMAHON: And so it's a whole bunch of kids my age. All of these kids are -- they had osteosarcoma or their lungs did.

GUPTA (voice-over): For Sabina, this would be a chance to connect with other people just like her and to have some fun along the way. But when you have osteosarcoma, nothing is easy. A call comes in from the hospital.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She needs to get platelets. I mean, that's what they said.

GUPTA (voice-over): Turns out that last stretch of chemotherapy, it left Sabina's white blood cell count low, dangerously low. A nurse has asked that she leave the conference immediately. It's a tough call.

ROBERTS: I think it's worth the risk.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The phone nurse said we needed to go in right now and get a bag of platelets. It would mean we'd have to miss the conference, meeting up with the junior advisory board members, missing the dance. But now, Dr. Roberts, being the rock star he is, said, well, just a minute. He really wants her to have this experience. We can just go in the morning. Such a relief. I'm so relieved. I was like --

GUPTA (voice-over): Everyone's relieved, especially Sabina. Cancer will never make stage fright disappear.

(SINGING)

GUPTA (voice-over): But it does put it in perspective. And for one night at least, a chance to feel like you're not so alone.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Columbus, Ohio.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MATTINGLY: Since Sanjay's visit, the family's summer has gone well. Chemotherapy shrunk Sabina's tumors by more than 90 percent. She's scheduled for another surgery next week. She was also healthy enough to go back in the studio to finish her first full album as a singer- songwriter. It's called "Forget Me Not," and it went on sale today. Go buy it.

Well, the Trump administration keeps pushing claims about voter fraud. What do the numbers actually show so far? That's next.

[17:38:52]

Plus, a live look in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. We're standing by for President Trump's arrival for a big campaign event. We're back in a moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MATTINGLY: We're back in the Politics Lead, and diving into the Trump administration plans to utilize claims of widespread election fraud to influence the midterm elections. In Nevada, Homeland Security officials are working to try to prove Secretary Markwayne Mullin's earlier claims that upwards of 15,000 non-citizens were registered to vote. But a CNN review of DHS e-mails and meetings revealed the numbers so far don't add up.

Joining me now, CNN's Gabe Cohen, CNN's Marshall Cohen. I'm going to front run the Twitter jokes. They are not the Cohen brothers. They are not related. And the CEO of the League of Women Voters, Celina Stewart. Gabe, I want to start with you. You're behind this great reporting on what's going on with this review in Nevada. Take us deeper into what you found.

GABE COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, so this ties back to that primetime address that you may remember the President made last month related to election security. And at that point, he and his administration announced these findings that they framed as this bombshell. That the Department of Homeland Security had reviewed public voter lists from four states and found 250,000 non-citizens registered to vote in just those four states.

One of those states, Nevada, they said the number was just shy of 16,000 non-citizens who were registered there. Again, it was framed as further evidence of that longstanding claim from the President that there is widespread voter fraud in this country. Well, since then, we have now recently obtained these e-mails and a recording of a meeting between Department of Homeland Security officials and Nevada state election leaders that really raise questions about just how solid those findings, those numbers actually are.

[17:45:01]

Because behind closed doors, what we found were those Homeland Security officials acknowledge that actually they've only confirmed out of all the findings those numbers actually are. Because behind closed doors, what we found were those Homeland Security officials acknowledge that actually they've only confirmed out of all those people that 185 of those people are non-citizens that they spotted on Nevada's voter rolls. They described 6,200 others as higher confidence matches, but they still have to be investigated. And that sort of jaw-dropping 16,000 figure, they described as, "preliminary." I want to take a listen to a bit of how one of those Homeland Security officials described it in that meeting.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHIEF DEPUTY C. MURPHY HEBERT, OFFICE OF THE NEVADA SECRETARY OF STATE: So what you're saying is the 15,000 number is, has not been vetted, basically.

KIMBERLEY VOGT, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY OFFICIAL: So I wouldn't, I probably wouldn't use the sentence it hasn't been vetted, because definitely we've done something with it to get down to 15,000. So I wouldn't say that. But it hasn't had a full manual review of each one. It is a lot of -- it's a lot of work to go one by one.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

G. COHEN: And so now the administration is asking states, as they have been for months, to help them investigate these cases, potential non- citizen voters. And to be clear, it is illegal for non-citizens not just to vote, but also to make false statements to register to vote. Sometimes they do get registered. Just look at that situation in New Jersey, that screw-up that was announced last month that both Marshall and I have reported on.

But I think one of the big points of concern here is, what is this evidence that is being used to push for dramatic election reforms that the administration wants to make, and potentially to sow doubt in the results of the midterms? And is it sound evidence?

MATTINGLY: It's an essential point, and it's great reporting. And Celina, I think what I would ask you is, like, contextualize what we just saw, what Gabe's reporting is. We were talking during the break that there are so many of these things. These guys are covering every single day. I catch up with, like, half of it because of how many different pieces of this are moving. What do you see when you see Gabe's reporting?

CELINA STEWART, CEO, LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS: So I think the administration has gotten caught with their hands down, right? And so what I mean by that is, even on the clip that you just saw, there was a question about whether or not things had been vetted. Vetting means that you don't use your first sample.

Any researcher worth their stuff, they're going to pull a sample. It's going to be overly inclusive. But you don't share that with the public until you feel pretty confident that that's a really good sample. And so I think that's what we're seeing here is that it wasn't a good sample. To go from 16,000 to 185 is a pretty large gap. That's a pretty big delta.

And so it's clear that there's some more vetting that needs to be done. I think everyone, all Americans want clean elections, right? We want to make sure that the right people are voting, people who are eligible to vote. But even in the situation in New Jersey, that was a DMV error.

That was the Department of Motor Vehicles that had a glitch in their system and registered people incorrectly, not people who were going, trying to vote. So we have to be really clear about what's going on here. And I think that there's this constant narrative to villainize voters or individuals, and that's just not what's happening. We haven't seen any evidence of that across the country. The league has sued multiple times on this issue, and there has been no evidence of voter fraud.

MATTINGLY: Marshall, I mentioned that there's very many different elements flying around on these stories at this point. Spotted this week in D.C., election denier, Tina Peters, former election clerk in Colorado, convicted in a scheme to breach election systems in an attempt to prove the 2020 election was fraudulent. It was not. She met with high-level administration officials, Harmeet Dhillon from the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and pitched plans that would assert unprecedented plans for the midterms. Explain where your reporting is here.

MARSHALL COHEN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: You know, you could call this an election conspiracy roadshow, Phil. Now that she's out of prison, Tina Peters has been traveling the country at conferences. She's been on a ton of right-wing podcasts, and this week she was here in Washington, D.C., for those high-level meetings. Harmeet Dhillon, that's no joke. She's the chief of the Civil Rights Division at DOJ, playing a key role in this administration's efforts to change election procedures.

Also, Howard Lutnick, you mentioned the Commerce Secretary. His department has been involved in some of this stuff, too, by promoting claims of noncitizen voting, like Gabe was talking about. What's she doing? These aren't just photo ops and meet-and-greets. She is pitching a plan. And I talked earlier this week to her attorney, Peter Ticktin, who said that she's on a mission. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETER TICKTIN, TINA PETERS' ATTORNEY: Well, she has a plan. And I don't know whether, you know, she'll get the support to make sure her plan gets implemented. But her plan differed from mine greatly. It's still going to need an emergency order in order to have it happen. The point is that somebody needs to take this bull by the horns and move it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

M. COHEN: She wants the President to sign an order invoking emergency powers to assert extreme federal control over the election. Trump has tried to do a lot about the election, but he hasn't gone that far yet. There are people to his right, like Tina Peters, still lobbying for more before November.

[17:50:08]

MATTINGLY: What would your take be on an effort to sign an emergency order? STEWART: So I think that it has to be done. One, I don't agree with that. You know, before we do things like that, we have to be very clear about what we're doing and what the purpose and what the goal and what we're trying to achieve there, and I just don't see enough leading to that. In terms of, you know, Ms. Peters, I think she has outsized influence in this situation, right? I think that certainly a governor has clemency authority. That is normal, but it does not erase the fact that a person was tried, convicted for a crime, right?

And so I think that when we're thinking about that and the type of crime that she committed and the fact she's meeting with DOJ, that's really, really important to vet that and be very clear about what role, because one individual cannot undermine election security or a voter's ability to have access to the midterms or the election generally.

M. COHEN: By the way, I spoke to the -- I asked the governor all about that, and he said he stands by the commutation and she has her free speech rights.

MATTINGLY: There is so much that we're going to get into in the months ahead on all of this. You guys are doing stellar reporting. I've read, like, half of your court cases. There are a lot of them right now. Appreciate you, all three of you, for coming in. Thanks so much.

Well, President Trump just minutes away from arriving right there in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. He'll hold a rally tonight for Republican Senator Darline Graham. Can he help deliver a win after recent candidates he endorsed didn't win? We're going to head to South Carolina next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:55:49]

MATTINGLY: A sampling there of music from Angelique Kidjo, working with Pharrell, Quavo, Charlie Wilson, just to name a few. Kidjo is from a small West African country of Benin. And now the newest artist with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Here's Jake Tapper with the five-time Grammy winner.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Thank you so much for joining us, Angelique. What is this recognition on the Hollywood Walk of Fame represent for you, considering this will be multiple firsts for the Walk of Fame.

ANGELIQUE KIDJO, GRAMMY-WINNING ARTIST: I think it represents that my continent is at the center of all culture. It's been recognized. It recognized me as a citizen from the world. And this continent of Africa has been producing music so much. There's so many new artists coming out today that this is a moment for them to reckon with the fact that they also can be at the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

TAPPER: Do you meet young African or even African-American artists who were inspired by you? They didn't see themselves represented in various ways, including on the walk before. And now they do. And that gave them the confidence to go forward.

KIDJO: Oh, yes. I mean, I can't give you a name. You have Bonobo, you have Rema, you have Ayra Starr. I mean, the name goes on and on. And the thing is, today is a moment where I'm seeing my continent being so awakened. Because they realize the momentum that is today and what it means to be on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

And all those people I named that grew up listening to my music. And the list is long. You cannot talk about all of them. And that's the power of music. That's what makes me humble. I stay humble because I write music and I hope it will touch people.

It tells people stories and we can share those stories together and move together. And that's what this Hollywood Walk of Fame means to this young generation that grew up with my music and keeping my feet on fire.

TAPPER: Your latest album, "Hope," was released in April. It includes collaborations with American artists. But it also featured African artists and showcased their work to an American audience. Talk about that, if you would.

KIDJO: I mean, this album, "Hope," is dedicated to my late mother. But the collaboration comes organically. And it comes with the value that my parents passed on to me that is expressed by people from all walks of life. African American, African, and even if you're not African, this music, this album, is for me to tell people. In this chaotic time that we live in, we need to take a step back and dig into our own hope. Hope is a very important and powerful tool that we have.

Because if you give away your hope, everything that is going on will crush you. And if you want to fight against darkness, about people's lies, and all these things that are going on, you wake up hopeful and say to yourself, what can I bring to the table that makes this chaos go away? And how can we create a world that is more inclusive, more peaceful, that we all can live in? I'm thinking about the youth of today, the youth in America, the youth in Africa, the youth around the world.

There's so much anxiety, Jake. And the thing is, we need to find a way to tell them through our music. Hold on a minute. There's something here that is called hope. Listen to it. You want a different world? Start building up on that hope and create that different world that you want now. And we can help. We need the media all around the world to forecast more and more youth on the program because the time is changing, and we need to listen to them. Their point of view count for us to find solutions.

TAPPER: All right, Angelique Kidjo, congratulations again, and thank you for joining us.

KIDJO: Thanks for having me, Jake.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[18:00:00] MATTINGLY: Welcome to The Lead. I'm Phil Mattingly in for Jake Tapper. This hour, President Trump just landed in South Carolina, and soon he'll take the stage for a rally aimed at ginning up support.