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Secret Service Says It Has Yet To Recover Missing Texts; Texas Power Use Expected To Break Records Again This Week; 100 Plus Million Americans Under Heat Alerts Today; Voters Split On Party Preference For This Year's Midterms; Outrage After "Sesame Place" Character Accused Of Ignoring Black Girls. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired July 19, 2022 - 15:00   ET

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

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ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: It's the top of the hour on CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Alisyn Camerota.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: I'm Victor Blackwell. We're beginning with new developments just in on the January 6 investigation and the efforts to overturn the 2020 election. A district attorney in Georgia has just alerted nearly a dozen people that they are considered targets in a criminal probe into allegations of fake electors.

CAMEROTA: And we also have the latest in the ongoing search for those Secret Service texts from the time around the Capitol riot. The agency just revealed that it has not been able to recover them. Let's begin this hour with Whitney Wild. So Whitney, what is the secret service saying?

WHITNEY WILD, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CORRESPONDENT: Well, the Secret Service is saying that they are giving the January 6 Committee, a significant document production. But as you point out, sources telling us that this does not include any of these potentially missing text messages that would have been generated on January 5th and January 6th 2021.

A Secret Service official told CNN that that's because the agency has not been able to recover any of those records that were lost during a phone migration around that time. One of that - one of the things the sources did tell us was that any message that was not uploaded by the employee as a government record, again, would have been lost during this migration.

Before this phone migration, Secret Service employees were supposed to manually backup their text messages. So if any employees skipped that step or just forgot, this would have been permanently deleted when their phones were wiped during this, now we know, ill-times migration.

The Secret Service insists that it is still trying very hard to recover anything that might have been lost earlier Tuesday. The National Archives also said that they were looking into this. They join a list of federal agencies, congressional committees who are looking into this and the Secret Service of that inquiry says that they will also comply, they will answer any questions that the National Archives is asking.

But let's give you this statement directly from the Secret Service, so you can see for yourself exactly what they're saying. They are saying this: "We continue to scrutinize our records, databases and archives to ensure full compliance with the Committee's subpoena. We are taking all feasible steps to identify records responsive to the subpoena to include forensic examinations of agency phones and other investigative techniques."

But the reality, Victor and Alisyn, is that there's a very good chance that this stuff is gone. That's the information that we're getting from sources inside the Secret Service. However, at this point, they are exercising any avenue they can to get that information back.

BLACKWELL: All right. Whitney Wild for us, thank you very much. Let's go now to that fake electoral investigation in Georgia. Eleven people who call themselves alternate electors for Trump in 2020 have just been sent a letter by the Fulton County District Attorney. CNN's Sara Murray is following this for us. Sara, what do you know?

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. This is part of the criminal investigation into Donald Trump and his allies that's been going on in Georgia. And what we're learning from a new court filing is that the district attorney there, Fani Willis had sent a letter to 11 of these pro-Trump fake electors in Georgia, informing them that they are targets in her investigation. These are people who agreed to sort of sign on as fake electors even though Joe Biden had won the state.

Now, in this new court filing, attorneys for these fake electors say that the grand jury subpoenas that they received are unreasonable and oppressive. The district attorney, apparently in her letters to them telling them they were targets, said that her investigation has matured, new evidence has come to light and that's why she believes that they are now targets in this investigation.

We had previously reported along with my colleagues Zach Cohen and Jason Morris that these - some of these folks had been cooperating with the investigation there and were initially believed to be witnesses. But as you can see from these updated letters, now they are believed to be targets, which means they do risk being indicted as part of our investigation.

CAMEROTA: Okay.

BLACKWELL: All right. An import shift.

CAMEROTA: Yep. Sara Murray, thank you for that development.

BLACKWELL: One-third of the U.S. is under a heated advisory right now, scorching temperatures. Look at these numbers. They're expected in more than 20 states. President Biden is set to announce new executive actions to address the growing climate crisis tomorrow. CAMEROTA: So in Arizona, there was this concerning moment, if you

look at your screen when a UPS delivery man collapsed in the heat. This was caught on camera as you can see and you see the worker falling over as he sat down a package and then he says slumped on the porch before slowly being able to get up.

BLACKWELL: We promise he gets up at some point.

CAMEROTA: Does he? I'm not so convinced anymore.

BLACKWELL: Yes, he gets up.

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CAMEROTA: Okay. Temperatures in the area were at 108 degrees when this happened. UPS said the employee then called his supervisor and is doing fine, we're happy to report.

BLACKWELL: And still ring the bell before he left with the package there.

CAMEROTA: Wow. Let's go to CNN's Lucy Kafanov. Lucy, this heat is putting a strain on the Texas power grid which has had trouble in the past, so what's the situation now?

LUCY KAFANOV, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. I mean, it's already been a sweltering summer with record temperatures. But this week is poised to be the hottest yet, over a hundred million people under heat advisories that they could feel as high as 114 in parts of Oklahoma and Texas.

And let's talk about Texas. We know that the hot temperatures have been stressing the power grid, ERCOT, which operates the power grid there, telling CNN that they've experienced over 30 days of record demand since May. And, of course, the big question is could we see the power grid fail as it did in February of 2021 during the winter storm there.

CNN posed that question to the assistant emergency management coordinator for the city of Dallas which by the way saw temperatures of 109 degrees yesterday. Take a listen to what he said.

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TRAVIS HOUSTON, ASST. EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT COORDINATOR, CITY OF DALLAS OEM: I'm less concerned about a failure. There are a lot of differences between this event and winter storm Uri. After that event, we purchased a number of mobile HVAC systems, so if we do start losing power and we have folks that are using one of our cooling centers, we can get there quickly and start supplying them with cold air.

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KAFANOV: Now, the extreme heat has also been fueling fires in Texas. One west of Fort Worth has burned 500 acres and damaged some buildings. Another one just to the south, the Chalk mountain fire. It tripled in size overnight burning more than 4,000 acres. Now, of course, the entire Midwest is currently affected by these heat advisories, record breaking temperatures. But, of course, a lot of this is heading your way to the East Coast, Boston today announcing - declaring a heat emergency and Philadelphia and New York are expected to join Boston tomorrow with temperatures up to 90 degrees. And, of course, with that humidity it could feel like it's a hundred degrees for 10s of millions of people. Victor and Alisyn?

BLACKWELL: Lucy Kafanov for us there in Denver, thank you very much.

Let's go to Scotland and England now. They both recorded their hottest days ever. Temperatures in London 104 degrees. The heat is fueling a surge of wildfires across the country - the region there, the fires just feet away. Look at this from a major roadway. CNN's Nina dos Santos is in London. What do you know about that?

NINA DOS SANTOS, CNN EUROPE EDITOR: Yes. Thanks very much, Victor. Well, this is a fire that appears to have begun earlier on today as the mercury reached that record of 104.5 Fahrenheit across the United Kingdom, not far from where I am in the British capital.

And as you can see, we've seen this Blaze just continue. It's been declared a major incident. That means that the London fire brigade is doing its best to try and fight this. And they've also urged people to make sure that in these sports conditions, yes, it's tempting to go outside with a barbecue but don't, they want to see a ban on things like barbecues for the moment.

Now, I can tell you it has just started to rain, which will bring much needed relief to Londoners who've been contending with these high temperatures and also commuters who've been contending with no service out of some of the biggest railway stations in the U.K. I'm outside King's Cross Station, there'd be no trains here all day, because authorities were so concerned that the steel on the train lines might actually buckle. We also saw flight disruptions in London airports after one London airport saw its one runway began to melt at one point.

Now, authorities say that with the rain now finally here and things will start to cool, it'll come down by a number of degrees tomorrow. But this has been a shock for the U.K. and the idea is that they have to start to plan better from here on, surpassing 40 degrees Celsius, might have been the first time, but there was a warning several weeks ago that this could happen. It's happened sooner than expected. Victor? Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: All right. Just incredible, Nina. I mean, runways buckling, tracks melting, it's incredible. Thank you very much and we're glad it's raining.

Okay. Meteorologist Tom Sater is tracking all of this in the CNN Weather Center. So Tom, how long is this heat wave going to last?

TOM SATER, CNN METEOROLOGIST AND WEATHER ANCHOR: Well, I mean, we've got ours, it's going to last for quite some time. It looks like Europe as well is going to continue to have several days. In the United Kingdom, 34 locations broke their all time high temperature today. Half of China's been in a heat wave for over 30 days, 82 cities there. The entire northern hemisphere is just burning up.

Oklahoma City, look at this, 101 degrees. What we've got is a temperature very close to their all time high that they hit back L.A. in 2012, but they hit it back in 1936 during the Dust Bowl days. Notice the heat that we have in 1936 in the western U.S. But across the globe, you see more blue. It was mainly cooler than look at where we are now. The planet is on fire.

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In 1960, the U.S. average to heat waves a year after 2010. It's now six and it's not just the U.S. Our heat is spreading to the east now. So when you look at the advisories that have been in place, it seems like for weeks, we're watching it now spread, Tennessee Valley, the Ohio Valley and now in and toward New England, some of the larger cities. This is where it gets dangerous.

When you look at the triple digits and there's no relief in sight here from Oklahoma City, Dallas, which has been breaking records in Austin, Denver, Salt Lake City had their highest temperature the other day. And again, it's the Desert Southwest, but it's becoming more global.

When we look at the next couple of days, in fact, the next week, well above average for much of the country. So this is when it affects the body, it's the silent killer. It's the number one killer of all natural disasters. Core temperature is 98.6 degrees. But if you get above 104, you've got nervous system problems and you've got some organ failures.

In Europe they're trying to combine - or look at - compared to 1976. But, again, notice all the blue in the map compared to where we are today. The heat that has been moving up from Africa has been making its way into the central areas of Europe and now it's spreading to the east along with the drought. The fires are out of control. Last year was bad in Greece. It's bad there now again, as well as Portugal, Spain, and France.

So here are the numbers. England breaking some records getting up - record was 102, they got up to 104 degrees, still 81 in London right now.

BLACKWELL: Tom, that map of Europe is unbelievable how many fires are burning right now.

SATER: Yes.

BLACKWELL: Tom Sater for us there, thank you so much.

We have new video just in of a fire at the Hoover Dam.

CAMEROTA: So visitors posted video on social media of flames and smoke seen billowing up from the bottom. Boulder City officials report that a transformer caught fire but that it was put out before firefighters arrived on the scene and there is no threat to the power grid. We're happy to report. The cause is under investigation. There are also no reports of injuries.

Okay. So new CNN polling out ahead of the midterms shows the Democrats got a recent boost but it may not be enough to keep control of Congress.

BLACKWELL: Also ahead, Sen. Joe Manchin is defending himself from Democratic attacks after again blocking the President's priorities.

CAMEROTA: And former President Trump angers 9/11 victims' families for hosting a Saudi backed golf event at one of his properties, while urging players to just take the money. We have the details.

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BLACKWELL: Brand new CNN polling is showing a very divided electorate and most Americans are dissatisfied with President Biden. Actually, they're dissatisfied with a lot of people. According to this poll just released, voters are evenly split on which party they support for Congress, both parties are currently getting 46 percent support.

The poll also continues to show that President Biden is struggling to gain traction with voters, just 38 percent of Americans approve of the job the President is doing.

With us now to discuss, Dana Bash, CNN Chief Political Correspondent, Ronald Brownstein, CNN Senior Political Analyst and a Senior Editor for The Atlantic. Welcome to you.

Dana, let me start with you, 46 all will bump up for the Democrats, but probably too soon to break out the confetti for them.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. And this is consistent with other polls that we have seen about where the so- called generic ballot is, at this point, going into the fall elections, which is interesting, because generally speaking, and Ron can certainly add to this because he's the guru on this and many other things, it's the generic ballot that is worse than the independent races. Meaning, I don't like Congress but I'd like my Congressmen or women. So the fact that that's where this number is, is quite telling.

When it comes to President Biden, you talked about the top line, his approval numbers. The one that I thought was potentially the most damaging and worrying for this White House and for Democrats more broadly is the fact that the public outlook on the state of the country is worse than it has been since 2009. We all remember what it was like in 2009. 2009 is when President Obama and Vice President Biden took over because there was a crash in the economy. I mean, it was the bottom fell out. So that is a very, very big alarm bell that's ringing.

CAMEROTA: So Ron, share your goodness with us, because ...

RONALD BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes.

CAMEROTA: ... so particularly, just let me show you this next one as well ...

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

CAMEROTA: ... because they don't like either candidates, so do you ...

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

CAMEROTA: ... who has the right priorities? Democratic candidates; only 31 percent of respondents say yes, 67 percent say no. Republican candidates; 33 percent say yes, 65 percent say no. A pocks (ph) on both their houses, right?

BROWNSTEIN: Yes. If I'm the guru, does that make Dana the - does that make you the guress (ph)? What - look, the big story in this poll, is the decoupling of attitudes about Biden and intention to vote in the midterm and whether that is sustainable to November. The general trend over the last 30 years has been the people's views about the president increasingly shapes how they vote in congressional elections.

And in the exit polls in 2018, 90 percent of the people who disapproved of Trump voted Democratic for Congress. In the midterms before that: '14, '10, '06 and '94 with Obama, Bush and Clinton. Somewhere between '82 and '84 percent of people who disapprove to the president voted for the other party for Congress.

In this poll today, the single most striking number is that only 70 percent of people who disagree with Biden say they are going to vote Republican, 19 percent of the disapprovers say they are still going to vote Democrat.

By the way, The New York Times-Siena poll last week had the exact same number, 19 percent.

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And we're seeing in state polls, in states like Georgia and Pennsylvania somewhere around 20 percent of people who disapprove of Biden still saying they're going to vote for Democrats. Now, if that's sustainable to November, that would represent a change from what we have seen, as I've said over the last 20 years, especially, but it is the one pathway for Democrats to avoid the worst at a moment of the intense dissatisfaction with the direction of the country and it reflects the resistance to the Trump era GOP among key constituencies that are disappointed in Biden and so it is a new dynamic.

You saw in the poll also 50 - half of voters said they were less likely to vote for someone who they thought would support Donald Trump, so can this dynamic outweigh inflation and everything else? Not entirely, but it can change the trajectory overall of the campaign?

BLACKWELL: Dana, let's turn to Sen. Joe Manchin who is taking some pretty harsh criticism from fellow Democrats after he is at least not yet if not a no on the President's climate policies, some tax increases as well. Our Manu Raju caught up with him and here's what he said. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOE MANCHIN (D-WV): If they don't understand inflation is the number one critical factor that we have that's hurting every family and harming our economy right now, it's inflation. And I'm very much concerned - I have never changed my position. I'm not stringing anybody along. Oh, I said, can't we make sure that what we do does not add fuel to the fire? That's it.

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BLACKWELL: How intense is that anger? I don't know if there's anything else to call it on Capitol Hill and the White House's been optimistic in their tone, is that the same what's happening behind the scenes at the White House?

BASH: Not really. They're as perplexed as anybody else. And perplexed is obviously a very low key way to describe it. The way you described it angry, frustrated, there's actual rage that is going in the direction of Joe Manchin because he's the one. He is the only person who stood up because of the 50-50 Senate who - and said this is not right and you just heard what he said to Manu about his reasoning.

He effectively pulled the plug right after the monthly inflation report came out that showed inflation in the month of June was 9.1 percent, another 40 year high. So the question now is, when it comes to legislation, whether there is a third way, whether there is a path where the Democrats can convince Joe Manchin to agree to something with, let's say, a trigger. Meaning, if inflation goes down to a certain level, then the climate provisions can kick in.

And then the other path that the White House is taking that the President's economic adviser, Jared Bernstein, told me on Sunday and others have said since is focusing on executive - their executive power, whether it's a national emergency on climate, whether it is invoking the Defense Production Act in a more aggressive way. The problem with that, they understand very well, at the White House is that executive action is only as good as the amount of time that that current president is in. If somebody comes in afterwards, it can be changed really quickly, which is why legislation is the way to actually codify laws in the United States of America.

BLACKWELL: All right. Dana Bash, Ronald Brownstein, thank you.

BASH: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Thank you. So Sesame Place is apologizing for a character who appears to ignore two young black girls, though the character interacts with other guests.

BLACKWELL: We will speak with the mother and aunt of those two girls next.

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[15:28:48] BLACKWELL: There is growing outrage after a video appears to show a

costume character from the theme parks Sesame Place, ignoring two little black girls trying to reach out for high five.

CAMEROTA: The video also shows that same character interacting with other non-black children just moments before. Look at this - the confusion on these little girls' faces. CNN National Correspondent Brynn Gingras is here with more. Brynn, how does Sesame Place explain what we see there?

BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. They offer and say it's misunderstanding, I'll get to that in just a minute. But let's first discuss with the mother who actually recorded this video says happen. Now, she's the mother to one of those little girls, the aunt to the other.

She said they were at Sesame Place which is a theme park outside of Philadelphia over the weekend. And as you can see, we're at the parade when she says that you can clearly see that Rosita gives a high five to the person next to them who is white and then she says blatantly ignores the two little girls and alleges racism.

Now, she says she tried to get the park's attention, tried to talk to a supervisor, but that wasn't heard, so she posted this video along with her explanation on social media. Well, that was heard by hundreds of thousands of people. It went viral and the park did respond as you asked, Alisyn. Essentially the park said in part this:

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"Our brand, our park and our employees stand for inclusivity and equality in all forms.