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Scrutiny over Trump Aide; Rep. Rich McCormick (R-GA) is Interviewed about Iran; Storms Batter Mid-Atlantic; Clancy Trial Resumes; FBI Foils ISIS-Inspired Plot. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired August 21, 2026 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00]

JESSICA WILLIAMS, EMMY-NOMINATED ACTRESS, "SHRINKING": Career. It's sort of a pinch me moment where I just go, oh my gosh, this is like, I'm so lucky. I'm so lucky.

ELIZABETH WAGMEISTER, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: You can tell that he has fun with you.

WILLIAMS: Absolutely. I think he really likes working on the show. And I know it's like for me and the rest of the cast that's not Harrison Ford, that really means the world because he's acting with the rest of us, and that means he's having a good time with us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WAGMEISTER: Jessica Williams got her start on "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart." She was actually the youngest correspondent ever to be on that show. I spoke to her about what she learned from Jon Stewart when he was her boss, and she also spoke to me about the difficult times coming up in the comedy industry and why she didn't truly feel seen until now.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: You can watch this and other episodes of "Coming Up" on the CNN app with Elizabeth Wagmeister.

A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts now.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Full, private letters revealed. One of the president's closest aides writing to him, you are all that matters to me.

And an American who went from mourning September 11th to celebrating it. The Justice Department says a woman planned in an ISIS-inspired terror attack on New York's state capitol.

And images you almost never see near New York. That's a tornado not far, not really that far from where we are right now. Also, there are flash floods and just torrential rain as storms pummel the northeast.

I'm John Berman, with Kate Bolduan and Sara Sidner. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL. SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: We begin this hour with very personal

writings to President Trump from one of his closest aides being revealed in full for the first time. "The Daily Beast" obtained two letters written by Natalie Harp in 2023. In one of them, Harp reportedly writes to the president, quote, "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." And she closes with this, "to modify a classic, 'I could not have parted with you, to anyone less worthy' and I will add, it is I who is unworthy. Always. Natalie."

The White House released a statement earlier this week calling Harp one of Trump's, quote, "most loyal and hardest working aides," which seems to play out in these letters. CNN has not independently confirmed that Natalie Harp wrote or sent those letters to the president.

CNN's Alayna Treene, though, is live with us now from the White House.

Is there any sense that we're going to hear any more or a different kind of response from the White House on this?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: We'll see. I -- you know, from the conversations I've had, Sara, in recent days, I think the statement that you just shared, where you've seen from the White House spokespeople arguing that she is one of the most loyal and hard- working aides to the president, I think that's mostly what you're going to get, at least on the official side. And that's in part because, you know, this has obviously been a story that has really consumed the airwaves and attention all week, ever since Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff made some comments about her over the weekend. In the immediate aftermath of that, we saw many different people, allies of the president, people inside the White House come to Harp's defense and sometimes use very aggressive rhetoric and language to do so.

But from some of the conversations I've been having with officials, Sara, I know that they privately acknowledge that that actually had an adverse effect of really drawing even more attention to the relationship between Harp and the president. I do think what we're seeing today, particularly with these letters that were written by Harp back in 2023, published in full by "The Daily Beast," do give you, though, some more insight into just the very personal nature and relationship that these two people share.

I want to read you something Harp wrote as well in another letter to Donald Trump according to "The Daily Beast." She wrote, quote, "I never want to bring you anything but joy. 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." And she signs off with, "with all my heart, Natalie."

As I mentioned, very personal letters. And I think what's important to point out here, just for some context about their relationship, is that the connection between Harp and Trump runs deep. Harp credits the president with having saved her life. I'd remind our viewers that she has previously said that she suffered from bone cancer, and she argues that legislation signed by Trump back in 2018 allowed her to receive experimental treatments.

[09:05:01]

Now, I should note, you know, she's never said what those treatments are, but it's something she credits to looking at the president. Kind of helps understand, I think, her view of him.

She's also someone who is very omnipresent in Trump's orbit. She is someone who is often inside the Oval Office with him in his meetings throughout the day. She speaks with him late into the night about social media. So, there's a reliance that he has on her as well. I think that just gives you some more insight into some of what we're seeing come out in what she has written to the president, Sara.

SIDNER: Some of the interest, because she has the president's ear as well.

Alayna Treene, thank you so much for your reporting there for us.

John.

BERMAN: All right, so new this morning, a spokesperson for Beijing's foreign ministry said, quote, "sanctions and pressure tactics are not the solution." That's vis-a-vis Iran. This as President Trump declared what he called an economic d-day on Iran.

And this is how Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that the economic activity would affect the military operation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCOTT BESSENT, TREASURY SECRETARY: If we are doing the maximum economic pressure, then that means that likely there will not be a large scale kinetic restart. But I would emphasize, that is for now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: With us now is Congressman Rich McCormick, a Republican from Georgia. He is a member of the Armed Services Committee.

Congressman, great to see you.

So, economic d-day, but the Treasury secretary there, did he just tell the Iranians that likely for now no more military strikes?

REP. RICH MCCORMICK (R-GA): It kind of sounds like that. I really don't know. I don't want to interpret what he's trying to say, but it didn't sound like he wanted to, although he doesn't make that decision. That's the secretary of war and the president directly. The commander in chief gets to make that decision, not him.

BERMAN: No, I get that. And you, of course, are a military pilot yourself, flew helicopters. And as we say, always thank you for your service there.

But it is their Treasury secretary there. And if you are among the Iranian leadership and you heard the Treasury secretary of the United States say, you know, it means likely no more kinetic actions as long as these maximum economic pressures are in place, how would you feel about behaving in the Strait of Hormuz?

MCCORMICK: Well, first of all, we haven't seen any good behavior from Iran anyways. They've been defiant the entire time. Whether they had the MOU or any other time. I've never had any rhetoric come out of them that showed me that they had -- that they had any intention of being good actors. They've done nothing but threaten us for years, for decades really, this entire regime. They've killed about 1,000 Americans, including three Georgians a couple years ago with the drone attack through proxies. They've attacked us about 40 times. This is before the war.

Since the war, they've been even more defiant. They've even talked about raining fire down from heaven. We are the great Satan to them. There is no real good solution except for regime change and unconditional surrender in my point. I don't think we're going to get to that by economic sanctions, but realize that things change very rapidly over there. And I think that even though he's talking about no kinetic actions right now, that can change literally within an hour.

BERMAN: So, the president, you say you do not think we will get there by economic actions, because that's the stage the United States appears to be in right now. He's talking about maximum economic activity there, economic d-day, full scale, like the world has never seen. But you don't think that will be enough.

MCCORMICK: I don't see any time where this country has shown anything but defiance. I think we should have put that on them from the very beginning. Of course, I'm also one of those people that thought we never should be at peace with these guys until they came to unconditional surrender, until they came to regime change, because this regime will threaten your children. They will threaten your grandchildren. They will be always trying to develop nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. They will destabilize the entire Middle East and the entire world geopolitical scheme as long as they're in existence.

This would be absolutely transformative to get rid of this regime, which is very evil. And by the way, don't forget, it wasn't that long ago that they killed 50,000 of their own people. That by the CIA analysts and the way you do analytics on what countries are the most dangerous, that is the most telling sign is a country that's willing to kill their own people.

BERMAN: So, you don't think the current strategy, though, is working?

MCCORMICK: So, remember, this is just a strategy that just began. So, it's hard to say if it's going to work or not. But I'm one of those people that believes you go all in. I -- but I've said this from the very beginning. I think the president's initial gut reaction, unconditional surrender, is absolutely the right reaction.

BERMAN: I want to ask you one more foreign policy question before we move on. And I'm going to read this specifically here. Are Taiwan and the South China Sea national security issues for the United States? And if so, why or how?

MCCORMICK: Realize about 70 percent of the world's wealth, trade wealth, goes through that corridor. Taiwan has been in dire straits with China for quite a long time.

[09:10:05]

They also have TSMC, which produces about 90 percent of the world's advanced chips. When you talk about A.I. and technologies and wealth, look no further than that area of the world when it comes to the effect it could have on the entire world economy. It's very important to us.

BERMAN: That was an answer that you just gave to the exact same question that was asked to now Senator Darline Graham in a debate in South Carolina. And this is how she answered it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. DARLINE GRAHAM (R-SC): I'm just going to be honest here. I'm, not on national security, that -- I'm not that informed on national security. So -- but I do support the military.

I'm not a polished politician up here. I'm -- national security is not my thing, not my area of expertise. But I do support the military.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: The president is headed to South Carolina to campaign for her later today. That answer that she gave to the same question I asked you, is it good enough for a U.S. senator?

MCCORMICK: There's a huge learning curve to this, especially if you haven't served in the military. There is a huge learning curve to being on that political level. I mean, a senator, you're right at the top of the political spectrum.

When I first started running for Congress, I hadn't been one political meeting in my life. I hadn't been to one fundraiser. I didn't know one politician. The amount of learning that you do in this job, if you do it right, is like a PhD course, really in everything you -- the broad spectrum of economics, technology, military, foreign policy, it's endless. But you get to learn from the experts. And as long as she has the intelligence, and I assume she does, she can learn. And there's a lot of people you can gotcha on anything. I promise you, if I -- if I get into the weeds with you, and you're really informed, I can stump you on a few things.

BERMAN: There's a ton of stuff you could stump me on, but I'm not a U.S. senator. And Taiwan, you know, if you're running to be senator from a state like South Carolina, which has a few military bases, it's an unusual answer not to have available at a debate. And I do think it's something we'll hear about in the campaign in the coming days and weeks.

Congressman Rich McCormick, great to see you this morning. Thank you very much.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Cleaning up and drying out this morning after a line of storms pounded the mid-Atlantic and parts of the northeast Thursday. On New York's Long Island, just take a look at what they were up against. Video showing a massive waterspout coming ashore. The storms brought flash flooding and at least two tornadoes to the region. In Delaware, video shows one of those tornadoes ripping the roof off a motel.

Let's get over to CNN's Allison Chinchar, who's been tracking this. She's got much more on what to keep an eye out for now.

Allison.

ALLISON CHINCHAR, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, that's right, it was -- it's been a very busy last 24 hours. You can see the video behind me here. This is a tornado that was in Pennsylvania. One of a few areas that had some severe weather reports yesterday. We had everything from hail, to flooding, to damaging winds, to, yes, even tornado reports.

Now, flooding was a bigger concern in some of the areas that got those really high amounts of rain. In Queens, a lot of that heavy rain flooding some of the streets, preventing some vehicles from being able to get where they needed to go last night.

We still have some heavy rain at the moment right now. But looking at the scope of this entire system, look at all of those severe weather reports. Again, it was pretty widespread when you look at the damage in a lot of those reports that came in.

The heavy rain, you had several areas of the northeast and the mid- Atlantic picking up about two to four inches of rain. That may not sound like much, but keep in mind, for a lot of these areas, it was within a very short period of time. So, that's the thing, the ground can't absorb it. It starts to pond and begin to puddle back up, and then we start to have some issues because of it.

Right now, the heaviest rain right here you can see is right along the cape, portions of eastern Massachusetts. You've still got some rain showers along Montauk, portions of Rhode Island and Connecticut, but that is going to eventually move back out over the open water. And then the heaviest rain really becomes focused across the southeast and the mid-Atlantic, especially -- or in the Midwest, I mean.

And here's the other key thing is it's really going to be the heaviest rain for portions of the Carolinas, especially late this afternoon and into the evening hours. Here you can see about 6:00 tonight, that long line of storms extending from southern Virginia, all the way down through about Augusta, Georgia. This will include Charlotte, North Carolina, unfortunately, right around that evening commute time tonight. That cluster continues to slide east. And now we make way for the next one.

This is the one that's going to impact areas of the Midwest and the southern plains as we head into Saturday. So, a lot of different areas are going to be impacted by these rounds of storms.

For today, the best chance of severe weather exists where you see the yellow color on the screen. So, you're talking portions of the Carolinas, including Charlotte and Columbia, but also areas of the Midwest, so portions of southern Wisconsin, areas of Illinois, Nebraska, Kansas. Those are the areas where we could be looking at damaging winds and even the potential for some large hail, perhaps maybe golf ball size or even larger.

Excessive rainfall. This is going to be the big spot. This is where we could end up seeing some of those rivers, creeks and streams begin to swell back up, water on roadways. Things that we saw in the northeast and mid-Atlantic last night, this is what we could be seeing in a similar situation to areas of Virginia, the Carolinas, and all the way down through Georgia.

[09:15:07]

BOLDUAN: Allison, thank you so much for that.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, thank you, Kate.

Disturbing new surveillance video of the moment a small plane crashed into a police helicopter on a runway. What investigators said led up to this deadly collision.

And this morning, court is back in session in the Lindsay Clancy trial after jurors heard more very emotional testimony on the stand yesterday. We'll take you there.

And a New York woman is accused of planning an ISIS-inspired terror attack on the state's capitol. How the FBI managed to uncover the plot.

Those stories and more, ahead.

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[09:20:16]

BOLDUAN: So, court is resuming in the murder trial of Lindsay Clancy, the Massachusetts woman who killed her three young children. Prosecutors continuing to try to make the case that the killings were deliberate. While Clancey's defense is trying to make the case, she should not be held criminally responsible because she was suffering from postpartum psychosis.

CNN's Brynn Gingras watching this day in and day out for us.

What are you expecting today?

BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, so, we're getting closer to the defense actually wrapping up its case.

BOLDUAN: That's right. I remember you mentioned yesterday it could be coming.

GINGRAS: Yes. So, right. Exactly. So, we might be having one more witness, possibly by a Zoom. Sounds like it's expert testimony. We were wondering if it was going to be Patrick or even Lindsey taking the stand. We don't see that quite yet, but it's -- obviously something can always change.

So, what that means is once the defense wraps, of course, the prosecution has a chance for its rebuttal case, which we do expect to happen. A couple expert testimony. We -- people coming to the stand is what we're expecting. So, this could get wrapped up, Kate, as early as early next week, the closing arguments.

BOLDUAN: Wow.

GINGRAS: Yes. So, we are nearing the end. And that means a lot more people are starting to really talk about it. And a lot of people are talking about the witness that was on the stand yesterday. Just one witness. Court was actually very short yesterday. And this was a chaplain that saw Lindsay a week after the killings happened in the hospital, and then has continued to meet with her in a faith-based way for many times, more than 200 times since this all happened. And there was a moment that's very clear, the defense wanted this testimony from her. I want you to watch that exchange.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHEILA CAVANAUGH, HOSPITAL CHAPLAIN: She said to me, as I held her hand to comfort her, I am so glad my children are safe.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did she make any other statements to you?

CAVANAUGH: She did. She alluded to having heard a voice. And the voice, according to Lindsay, told her that if she did not follow the command, neither she nor her children would be safe.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GINGRAS: So, again, this is the crux of the defense's case. This is the second witness now that we have heard describing how Lindsay has described a voice. And that's something that the prosecution has continuing to just chip away at. They essentially asked her, well, if she said this, how come you never even wrote it down in any of the notes that you've made since meeting with Lindsay so many times? And she -- her answer to that was essentially, look, we meet in a theological sense. There's a, you know, privilege between us. So, I wouldn't be writing down exact quotes. So, we'll see how that landed with the jury.

But definitely getting closer to this case actually going to the jury.

BOLDUAN: Yes. But just hearing more and more about it, my goodness.

GINGRAS: I know.

BOLDUAN: The number of conversations that were had. GINGRAS: I know.

BOLDUAN: Brynn, it's good to see you. Thank you so much.

GINGRAS: All right.

BOLDUAN: John.

BERMAN: All right, this morning, federal officials say they foiled an ISIS-inspired terror attack after a woman allegedly met with FBI informants and told them that she wanted to blow up the New York state capitol. The Justice Department says she was targeting state senators, but also had hopes to perhaps go even further.

CNN's Whitney Wild joins us now with the details on this.

Whitney, what are you learning?

WHITNEY WILD, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, those details included fleeing the country, then coming back to the United States and eventually attacking the New York Times Square New Years Eve ball drop. She had also had plans to attack the White House and the president, but only after she carried out this bombing at the New York state capitol.

Here's what we know according to the FBI. She is alleged to have pledged allegiance to ISIS. She also surveilled the state capitol five times. During those surveillance operations, she took dozens of photos. And the plot started to really take shape over the summer. She became radicalized online. She began sharing these messages of hate against America, spreading, again, these messages of radicalization online. The FBI learned about her messages and an FBI informant began communicating with her. And it was in mid-July when she started to tell the FBI informant more about her plans.

The idea here was that she was going to put a bomb inside a food delivery bag. She was going to plant it at the state capitol, and her hope was to take down as much of the building as possible, kill state senators while they were meeting, and she hoped to kill half of the people inside. She took overt acts to carry out this attack, according to the FBI. She even purchased materials to make the bomb herself.

Here's more from the FBI, more on her communications with that FBI informant that helped unravel this entire case.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CRAIG TREMAROLI, FBI SPECIAL AGENT: She told the source that she went from a little girl waving an American flag after 9/11, to now having stickers of the fallen towers. Folks, let that sink in.

Again, Miss Bowie didn't just want to kill lawmakers, she wanted a complete disruption of our government.

[09:25:07] And after that, she planned to flee the country and one day come back to, quote, do more, such as New Years Eve in Times Square. Even stating she would come back to attack the White House and the president.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WILD: The FBI moved in swiftly once this case really came together. It was Wednesday that they initiated that arrest.

And here's how it went down, John. She was in the parking lot -- or was in a parking lot with a car. She paid an informant $150 for an inert firearm. When she exited the vehicle, that's when the FBI moved in, John. She is now in custody and faces up to 20 years in prison.

John.

BERMAN: A lot of pretty stunning details in all of that.

Whitney Wild, thank you so much for sharing your reporting on this.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, coming up, the close Trump ally turned foe turned Trump ally again? The shocking reunion between Michael Cohen and President Trump, all of it playing out on Cohen's new radio show. Why and how did this happen? Our guest can answer those questions with firsthand knowledge.

And meet these adorable baby spider monkeys who are now safe and sound this morning after being rescued from the illegal wildlife trade. Oh.

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