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New January 6 Video of Nancy Pelosi Revealed; Trump Facing New Indictment; Trump Slams Mail-In Voting; Harris and Walz Kick Off Bus Tour in Georgia. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired August 28, 2024 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:49]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Back on the trail and headed straight for Georgia, Vice President Kamala Harris and Governor Tim Walz kicking off a bus tour through the Peach State, looking for votes in reliably Republican towns and preparing for their first sit-down interview with CNN's Dana Bash, as her opponent, Donald Trump, faces a new legal crisis.

And a behind-the-scenes look at how former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi handled January 6 and its aftermath as the insurrection was unfolding. And, afterward, she kept her focus on Trump, vowing that -- quote -- "He's got to pay a price for that."

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Plus: stressed out, lonely and facing money troubles. Being a parent in this day and age is tough. And the surgeon general is sounding the alarm. He's actually going to be joining us live, talking about what he feels needs to be done.

We're following these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

KEILAR: First stop, Georgia, Vice President Kamala Harris returning to the campaign trail and jump-starting a two-day bus tour in the critical battleground state.

Harris and Governor Tim Walz are about to come face-to-face with voters in reliably Republican counties and about 24 hours from now face-to-face with CNN's Dana Bash for the ticket's first major interview.

While Harris is focused on 2024, former President Trump is facing new legal fallout over his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

We're following both campaigns today.

We have CNN's Priscilla Alvarez live for us from Savannah, Georgia.

Priscilla, tell us how the Harris campaign is seeing her chances, especially there in South Georgia.

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's exactly right, Brianna. Where they are going today tells us a lot about how the campaign is strategizing in this critical battleground state and how they plan to close margins with Republicans. Now, this is a strategy from Senator Raphael Warnock's 2022 run-off, who, by the way, the person leading that campaign was Quentin Fulks, who is now the deputy campaign manager of the Harris campaign.

What he tells me is what they found to be successful was doing the best that they could in metro Atlanta and then peeling off voters from Republicans in South Georgia, essentially losing by less in those counties, which, if they look at a presidential election year, when they already anticipate higher turnout and they see the Harris/Walz ticket as appealing to a broader base of voters, then they feel like they could pull off what Warnock did in 2022.

So that is why they are hitting these counties on this bus tour. Now, what Democratic strategists also tell me is that there is the Tim Walz factor. Of course, he has a rural upbringing. He has his football and military roots.

So the other question here is how he resonates with voters in these areas and how he can help boost the ticket. Now, of course, coinciding with this swing is also a lot of money being poured into ads in the Savannah area media market. With that, we have a new ad today.

That's something we have been talking about quite a bit over the course of the week, the economy earlier this week, now Project 2025. That's that project that the campaign has tried to tie directly to former President Donald Trump as some of his former administration officials have worked on it.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NARRATOR: It's called Project 2025, a 922-page blueprint to make Donald Trump the most powerful president ever, overhauling the Department of Justice, giving Trump the unchecked power to seek vengeance, eliminating the Department of Education and defunding K-12 schools.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ALVAREZ: Now, you can imagine that that's going to be coming up over the course of the bus tour today, but also those kitchen table issues, especially in these rural counties.

And what the ultimate goal here is, Brianna, of course, is the campaign trying to do what President Biden did in 2020. He only won the state by less than 12,000 votes. So it is critical for them to peel off as many voters as they can from Republicans. And that is exactly the strategy they're trying to employ in South Georgia.

[13:05:05]

KEILAR: All right, Priscilla Alvarez live for us from Savannah, thank you for that.

And be sure to watch tomorrow a CNN exclusive interview, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz sitting down with our Dana Bash for the first time since launching their ticket. That's tomorrow at 9:00 p.m. Eastern -- Boris.

SANCHEZ: So, former President Donald Trump is making some wild claims during an interview with TV therapist Dr. Phil, even name-checking Jesus Christ, while pushing unproven election fraud conspiracies.

CNN national correspondent Kristen Holmes joins us now.

So, Kristen, what did Trump say during this interview?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it was a wide- ranging interview, and it was very much Donald Trump fashion.

At one point, he railed against mail-in voting, saying it promoted fraud, that it should be outlawed. Just a reminder, yesterday, the RNC put out something saying that we should encourage mail-in voting and talked about how consistently Donald Trump has supported mail-in voting, which obviously we know not to be the case.

On top of that, he said that Biden and Kamala Harris were at fault, or at least such a certain extent, for the assassination attempt. And, as you said, he essentially said that if Jesus Christ were counting the votes he would win in California. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. PHIL MCGRAW, HOST, "DR. PHIL": Vote me in once because I...

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (R) AND CURRENT U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I went to California.

I gave a speech. I had so -- I had a crowd so big. I said there's no way I could lose California, but automatically they mark it down if you're a Republican as a loss, that you lose by five million votes. I said, five million votes?

I guarantee, if Jesus came down and was the vote counter, I would win California, OK?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: So he went on to say that essentially it would have to be the most honest person in the world and if they counted the votes he would win.

But, obviously, as we know, California goes blue because of those major cities, like San Francisco, like Los Angeles. Those are Democratic cubs. They are widely populated by Democrats.

Now, Donald Trump has spent time there. He's going to go back there. But, usually, when he goes, it's not for campaigning.

SANCHEZ: Fund-raising. HOLMES: It's for fund-raising, exactly.

So -- but this again was just Donald Trump talking like Donald Trump does.

SANCHEZ: Yes, notable, given what we saw yesterday about mail-in balloting from the Republican Party.

HOLMES: Exactly.

SANCHEZ: He says he wants Republicans to win so they could change those rules.

HOLMES: And that's something that he has said and been convinced by his team that that's why that they're promoting it. We hear this a lot.

It's the same thing that Donald Trump essentially says about abortion at some point. He says that we have to win the election and then we can change the rules. But in mail-in voting, his team and Republicans as a whole believe it's a detriment to the party to not support mail- in voting, to not support early voting, because they believe there's a large swathe of voters who can't get to the polls on Election Day.

And while it is true that Republicans in general are the ones who are going to show up and wait in line on Election Day, there are also Republicans who can't do that. And they think that it will take votes away from them. Donald Trump just hasn't really gotten that message.

SANCHEZ: Kristen Holmes, thanks so much for the reporting -- Brianna.

KEILAR: Former President Trump is facing a new superseding indictment.

The special counsel, Jack Smith, rewriting the original federal election case against Trump, has to take into account the Supreme Court ruling that gives Trump some immunity for official acts that he took as president. That distinction between official acts as president versus private acts is central to the new language in this court filing.

We have seen CNN senior crime and justice reporter Katelyn Polantz joining us live on this.

Tell us what is different in this superseding indictment.

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Well, Brianna, it's the same four criminal charges that Donald Trump has been facing for more than a year now in federal court in Washington related to the 2020 election.

But it is tightened language and less evidence than what the Justice Department originally wanted to show to a jury. That's because the Supreme Court has said that they're going to have to not use anything that Donald Trump was doing while he was officially in the presidency either as evidence or as the allegations that back up the charges in this case.

And so the Justice Department, in bringing this new version of the indictment through the grand jury, they have cut out a lot of what Donald Trump was talking to and hearing from and doing in the West Wing of the White House, talking to officials in his administration, telling them to do things, refocus him as a candidate who was giving direction to private attorneys and hearing from people on his campaign about this effort to bring ideas of fraud across the country in courts, et cetera.

The way that the Justice Department phrases this, Brianna, is that they write in this indictment where they see the line between presidential immunity and Donald Trump just a guy.

Here's how they phrase it: "The defendant had no official responsibilities related to the certification proceeding, but he did have a personal interest as a candidate in being named the winner of the election. All of the conversations between the defendant and vice president described below focused on the defendant maintaining power."

[13:10:06]

So that's how the language and the indictment looks now that wasn't there before, and it sets up what's very likely going to be months of court fights over what can stay in this indictment. Can this case even go to trial?

And can things like those discussions between Donald Trump and his vice president, Mike Pence, who was presiding over the Senate in the certification of the election, can that stay in the case? Or is that something that the courts want to have protected for the presidency as well, Brianna?

SANCHEZ: Katelyn Polantz, thank you so much for the update.

Joining us now to discuss all these headlines, we have Meghan Hays -- she was the director of message planning for the Biden White House -- and Republican strategist Matt Mowers. He was a Trump administration official, and now runs a strategy firm, Valcour.

Thank you both for being with us.

Matt, first to you on this superseding indictment, Trump calling it an act of desperation by Democrats. We have seen how he's used his legal issues in the past to benefit him, specifically with fund-raising. How do you anticipate he's going to utilize this to his advantage?

MATT MOWERS, FORMER TRUMP ADMINISTRATION AIDE: Well, look, if past is prologue, it's going to supercharge his base. It's going to unite his base. He's going to raise a lot of money as a result of this. And it is going to have an impact on the election because of those reasons.

I mean, if you ask anyone during the Republican presidential primary, what was the moment you knew Donald Trump was going to become the Republican nominee, he had an iron grip over the Republican Party. It was after that first round of indictments in the spring of last year. So this is just going to continue to do it. And it doubles down on the

message he's been telling his supporters as well, which is that it doesn't matter whether it's Biden or Harris, they're one and the same, and they have an entire government they oversee. And right now they're trying to keep me, and therefore voters like you away from it. And that's the message he's telling them.

KEILAR: I wonder, Meghan, because he had this new interview that I know you both watched that he had with Dr. Phil. And in it, Trump says mail-in voting should not be allowed. It's actually something he'd want to rectify if he were reelected.

And now you have the RNC chair, Michael Whatley, really trying to course-correct here. He said -- quote -- "As President Trump has consistently said, voting by mail, voting early and voting on Election Day are all good options."

That is not what he said in the interview. And just yesterday in Pennsylvania, the RNC actually rolled out a new Web site where voters can request mail-in ballots. They're banking on people voting mail-in. Oops.

MEGHAN HAYS, FORMER SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO PRESIDENT BIDEN: I mean, I wonder how long the RNC is still going to be the chair after he just corrected his boss, but we will see how that goes.

But I just think he's just trying to create more discontent and more chaos, so people -- when he loses, he can just say, oh, I told you the mail-in ballots weren't a good idea, or this is fraud, and this isn't -- now Jesus Christ needs to count the ballots. He's just trying to create a reason for why he's going to lose.

And it's just -- it's not -- it's falling flat and it's going to continue to fall flat.

MOWERS: You know, I will say this. You have seen Donald Trump in 2020 was very skeptical of mail-in ballots, told voters not to use them, and you saw the result of that.

He has since changed his tune largely. I understand his comments here, but what they have said is, there's been almost a nuanced type of messaging, including from Lara Trump from the RNC and others, which is you need to find any way to vote this year, and then we can change the rules.

HAYS: But that's not what I'm saying.

(CROSSTALK)

MOWERS: And so -- well, and I expect you will see him come out and do that now.

KEILAR: That's my point to you Matt, though, is, he really needs these mail-in votes.

Does he -- do you think he understands what he might be doing here? MOWERS: And if you look at some of the late primaries you're seeing

in some key states, Florida, you saw a similar in Pennsylvania, you have actually seen an uptick in Republican requests for absentee ballots as a result of the fact that some of his messaging has changed.

And so I don't think one comment or one interview changes that. Anyone who is still skeptical of mail-in voting is going to be skeptical, and is going to show up on Election Day anyway. The key thing is for him and the campaign mechanics to be able to get those ballots in the hands of people who may not show up and vote on Election Day.

SANCHEZ: It's fascinating because in this interview, and Brianna pointed this out to me earlier, he says that the U.S. should use France as an example, where they have this like only same-day voting system.

I don't think he knows that in France, they also vote by proxy. So I could ask Matt, for example, to go and vote for me. Nevertheless...

MOWERS: I would happily vote on by proxy.

(LAUGHTER)

SANCHEZ: Appreciate that. Thank you. Good to know.

In only French elections, though.

MOWERS: That's right.

SANCHEZ: Pivoting, though, Meghan, to Vice President Kamala Harris and her V.P. nominee, Tim Walz, giving this interview to CNN tomorrow. What do you think they most need to address in this interview? What impression do you think they should leave the American people?

HAYS: Well, I think that they are running off a lot of momentum at their back right now, and I think that they need to start talking about policy.

And I think that's the one thing that's missing, and they need to start talking about issues, mostly the economy, and what they're going to do for people. But I do think that, because she hasn't done an interview, and there's been so much churn about it, the stakes are incredibly high for them, so they need to hit the mark here.

And they -- because any sort of mistake will be seen as a disaster, and so they really need to lay out policy, and they really just need to hit the mark, and then they can move on to the campaign for the next 70 days.

KEILAR: It seems like Republicans are getting ready already to hit Harris, no matter what happens in this interview. I'm sure they...

MOWERS: In a campaign? Never.

(LAUGHTER) (CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: It's so strange. It's so strange. But what do you think that this interview can do, that she can accomplish in this interview to try to silence some of the criticism?

MOWERS: I think it's overstated sometimes in circles in D.C. about how well-known people think she is right now by the American public. They may have a vague awareness of her.

[13:15:07]

They may have a vague feeling about her, but they don't have that type of deep connection to her that traditionally you need to get elected president. And she hasn't had the opportunity to do that. She's only been a candidate as a presidential candidate for 30-some odd days, so she hasn't been able to close that sale.

I think she's -- to Meghan's point, she's got to give them a reason to actually go and get voters to actually vote for other than vibes and feelings. I mean, vibes and feelings are not going to end the conflict that's happening in the Middle East or what's happening in Ukraine. It's not going to drive down the costs of goods and the price of gas.

And the American people know that, and I think it's actually been a little insulting from the Harris campaign to assume that voters are going to somehow suspend their concerns about what's happening on the world stage, what's happening at home, in order to go vote for someone based upon a feeling.

They're -- voters are savvy. The smart campaigns know how to respect voters. The losing campaigns underestimate their ability to use their own judgment on these things. She has to start giving them a reason to vote for her that's beyond vote for me because you may, may like me.

HAYS: On the feeling piece, though, I think that she's giving people feeling of hope and feeling of optimism for the future.

So I think she needs to lay out some policies so they -- that then syncs with those feelings. It's like, OK, great. I feel good about you. I feel hopeful about you and here is what you're going to do. So I think that they go hand in hand.

MOWERS: And I will say just one thing, is because the Harris campaign has refused to engage with the press and candidly with voters outside of scripted settings to this point, they have now raised the expectation so much for tomorrow night that any sort of misstep is going to be highlighted dramatically more so than if they were doing what J.D. Vance is doing right now, where he's saying, I will talk to anyone.

I will go and do any interview. I don't care if you're MSNBC. I don't care if you're CNN. I don't care if you're FOX News. I will sit down and I will talk to you. Donald Trump's doing the same thing right now.

Harris has raised the bar to a point that, if past is prologue, she may not clear.

SANCHEZ: Her team would argue that they have engaged with the press when she's boarding and deboarding planes and loading and unloading vans, but she has not said down for an interview.

And I'm curious, Meghan, how you think she addresses a question that -- we don't know. We haven't been privy to the questions that Dana is preparing, to be clear, but we can imagine she's going to be asked about some of the policy positions that she seems to have shifted. How should she respond to those questions?

HAYS: I think she should tell people why she shifted. I think when you are representing California and those are your constituents, your policies may be different than when you're -- when you are representing the entire country.

You have to evolve as your constituency base evolves and that's what's happening. But she just needs to say that. She needs to just be honest about it and say why they shifted or what her policies are that are different. And I just -- and I think the American people understand that people change and evolve all of the time.

MOWERS: I guess, in the case of Kamala Harris, you and change and evolve on every position you have had in a really short period of time, and that short period of time is when you're running for president again.

I would say the other thing she has to do is say whether she has changed her position. We know some campaign staff has leaked anonymously that she no longer supports a fracking ban because it likely hurts her with voters in Pennsylvania, or that she now believes it is maybe a crime to be in the country illegally because border security is ranked as one of the number one issues, or maybe she doesn't want to strip away quality private health insurance from middle-class Americans the way she advocated for just four years ago.

But she has acknowledge to -- likely tomorrow night whether she has changed her position those and, to Meghan's point, why, and, if it was why, why is it now and not just seen as some sort of political opportunism?

SANCHEZ: A lot more questions to get to. We will leave it for next time

Matt Mowers, Meghan Hays, appreciate you both. Thank you so much.

HAYS: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Still plenty more news to come on NEWS CENTRAL, a new behind-the-scenes look at the aftermath of January 6. CNN has obtained video of Nancy Pelosi's real-time reaction, blaming the former president and asking why the National Guard wasn't more prepared.

KEILAR: Plus, right now, the FBI is holding a briefing to give an update on the investigation into the attempted assassination of former President Trump. We're going to bring you any new details as soon as we have them.

And if you have kids, you already know being a parent can be stressful, but now parental stress is being declared a national public health issue.

We will have details on the new advisory by the surgeon general with the surgeon general -- just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:23:26]

KEILAR: Now to a perspective of the January 6 attack on the Capitol that's never before been seen publicly.

CNN has obtained video of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi during and in the immediate days after the insurrection. And the footage shows Pelosi evacuating from the Capitol to Fort McNair.

SANCHEZ: It also reveals her real-time reaction, blaming Donald Trump for the rioters stopping the certification temporarily of Joe Biden's victory that afternoon.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): There's a domestic enemy in the White House. And let's not mince words about this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: We have with us CNN Washington correspondent Sunlen Serfaty.

Sunlen, the video shows Pelosi angry with Trump, but you also see her putting some blame on herself.

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: She does.

And that's why this video is so revealing and why the Republican-led committee is releasing this. We see in this video this very real anger, this frustration coming from her. We see her over and over again lament that the National Guard wasn't called in earlier, also lament that security officials were not more prepared for this level of violence.

And she admits, though, that she is responsible in some way here. I want to play a clip of this newly released video where she's talking to her chief of staff in the car as they're leaving the Capitol on January 6 and admits that she bears some of the weight of the responsibility.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PELOSI: We have responsibility, Terri. We did not have any accountability for what was going on there. And we should have.

[13:25:04] This is ridiculous. Why weren't the National Guard there to begin with?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They thought that they had sufficient resources.

PELOSI: No, there's not a question about any -- they don't know. They clearly didn't know. And I take responsibility for not having them just prepare for more, because it's stupid that we should be a situation like this, because they thought they had what? They thought these people would act civilized? They thought these people gave a damn?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SERFATY: And she later went on in that clip to say: "Shame on us."

Now, one of the other moments worth talking about in this video is that she's very mindful of the messaging, even as all this chaos is unfolding around her. We see her very clearly try to direct the messaging back at President Trump.

On the morning of January 7, one day after the attack, she's sitting in her office talking to staff and they say, do you want to call it this upcoming press conference for the resignation of the police chief? And she says: No, no, no. I will if asked, but I'm not going to come out and say it. The focus here, she says, must remain on President Trump.

KEILAR: What is with the timing now, 2.5 years later?

SERFATY: Yes, it's a good question. This was all from a documentary that aired in 2022 that was shot by her daughter Alexandra Pelosi for HBO.

I want to say that HBO, of course, is owned by Time Warner -- excuse me -- Warner Media, which is our parent company to CNN.

And HBO had to turn over the unseen footage, unused footage from this documentary to the House Committee on Administration. They are trying to go in and investigate again and try to potentially discredit the work that the January 6 Committee did.

So, again, 50 hours nearly -- excuse me -- 50 minutes here, 50 minutes of unseen footage.

KEILAR: It's really fascinating, 3.5 years, right, 3.5 years?

SANCHEZ: Well, 2.5 since the documentary came out.

KEILAR: That's right, 3.5 years since the -- thanks, Boris.

(LAUGHTER)

SANCHEZ: You got it.

KEILAR: Sunlen, thank you so much. It really is an interesting look. And we appreciate it.

Coming up: the founder of a popular app appearing before a judge after being arrested for a slew of alleged crimes involving his platform. We're going to have an update on his status.

And then, happening right now, the FBI is giving an update on the investigation into the assassination attempt of former President Trump. We're watching that briefing for new details.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)